Before I start, I would like to thank Steve Kamb for his incredibly insightful interview with us, where he talks about his website Nerd Fitness. It was his final section, on why he’s successful, and others may not be, that really struck me. Here’s what he wrote:

I think the biggest mistake people make in the online fitness industry is that they’re not unique.  There are millions of fitness blogs out there, so writing the same stuff that other people write is a surefire way to go unnoticed.  I actually wrote 5 articles a week for the first 9 months of my blog, and it resulted in 90 subscribers!  90!  Why?  Because I wrote what I thought other people wanted to read or what worked for other sites, rather than what I wanted to read.

After 9 months, I decided to make a change, and injected WAY more personality (and thus nerdiness) into Nerd Fitness, and almost overnight it took off.  Had I not made this change, I’m not quite sure where I’d be today.

So, if you’re trying to stand out in a crowded field (online income generation, finance, fitness), find a way to BE UNIQUE!  I’m certainly not a fitness expert, and I’m not the best fitness blogger out there, but you can sure as hell believe that I run the best fitness blog out there…dedicated to nerds.  Eventually you can cover more general topics, but in order to have an audience you need to find a way to get noticed in the first place.

As someone who write three times a week, but doesn’t quite see the sort of growth I’m looking for, it got me thinking about what I can be doing differently.

I’ve always said that when it comes to blogging, or anything in life really, if you want to succeed, you have to do the best that you can. There’s no point in providing the internet with more average content that it doesn’t need, because that doesn’t make you any better than the next person. That’s why I’ve always written the best content that I can, and it’s what I believe separates me from the competition. But there’s something else I can do; I can be different.

Now that I look back on it, I can see how some of my most popular content has helped to make my website more successful, and how some of that content differs to what I usually write. These posts were much more personal, where I would talk about my own opinion on something, and this would spark conversation. Conversation leads to sharing, and sharing leads to new fans, and so on.

Until recently, I’d never really looked at what some of my popular content had in common, I would simply say that, ‘those are top lists’, and ‘that one’s controversial’, or ‘that’s current and opinionated’, I had never said before what they all had in common, which was that they were all a matter of my opinion. I would say that I have a pretty strong opinion, and a writing style that helps people to understand what I’m saying, which certainly helps to get people on my side, and that has contributed to the growth of my website.

What should I write about?

Well, to know what’s the most popular, it’s always good to call on our old friend Google Analytics. When I go over the whole span over my website, and look at the most popular content, I can see quite clearly that 8/20 of the top 20 posts are based largely on my opinion, and three of these are top lists. Now, I’ve been through top lists in some detail before, so I’m not going to mention it again, as you should all be well aware of what they do. If not, click here.

The other five posts are as follows:

• Top 10 Photography Clichés You Should Avoid To Improve Your Photography
• 10 Embarrassing Mistakes I Made As A Beginner Photographer
• 10 Reasons Your Photos Suck
• The World’s Most Expensive Photo – What Makes It So Great?
• 10 Reasons Why Being A Photographer Sucks

Notice anything about them? Two things spring to mind when I see that list, firstly, all but one of them is in a ‘top 10′ list format, and secondly, they all seem to focus on the negative.

Leaving the forth post aside for a second, lets focus on the other four for now. It’s quite clear that people are interested in the negative aspects of a problem, which point out their mistakes (in a list in this case), rather than positive solutions. I should make a point here, that although there are posts such as 10 Tips For Sharper Photos in the top 2o, what makes these results so special is that they’re the only negatively focused titles I have, rather than a huge number of positive ‘top 10′ lists that I’ve written. Now, I’m no psychologist, and I’m not about to start writing about why this may be, but all I know is that this seems to be true.

But I don’t want to write negatively?

Good news, you don’t have to! None of these posts are negative posts, they merely highlight a problem, or a potential problem, and then I talk quite positively about how you can solve it. For whatever reason (again, I’m no psychologist), people are more interested in being pointed out where they’re going wrong, than where they can go right. The thought that they may be doing something wrong is what interests the reader, which is all about what those top three posts are about. It’s all about capturing the reader with an interesting title, then following it up with relevant content, coupled with a positive spin, and then you’re well on your way to writing more popular posts.

What about being personal?

Well all eight of the posts that I’ve mentioned (the five above, and the three top lists), all include a personal opinion on a subject, and that is what people seem to be interested in. It’s what makes you stand out from the crowd, and what makes people interested in you, and remember you. A different take on a common subject is going to separate you from the rest of the pack, and will help you to stand out to your readers, who will begin to really value your opinion… if you can support the points you’re making.

Don’t get me wrong, I get people disagree with me all of the time, but I carry on with what I’m doing, because these people are the minority, and the majority of people who comment will agree or at least provide their own take on a situation. When it comes to dealing with negativity on the internet, you really have to just pay no attention to it. Let it go over your head, and if anyone decided to leave a negative comment, that you don’t feel in contributing, then don’t accept it – it’s your website. If however they disagree, but provide their own thoughts on the subject, then accept and reply to them, and spark a conversation. All of this is good for Google, and creating interest in your posts – people read comments.

Writing an Opinion Piece

When I say opinion piece, I’m referring to a post that is largely based on your own personal thoughts, and not backed up by hard facts. So whereas Top 10 Photography Clichés You Should Avoid To Improve Your Photography may be considered a tutorial, The World’s Most Expensive Photo – What Makes It So Great? would not be, and that is what we’re going to be looking at here.

I wrote The World’s Most Expensive Photo – What Makes It So Great? on a whim really, I couldn’t think of anything good to write about, but I had recently learned about the sale of the world’s most expensive photo, which had sold for the princely sum of $4.3 million. I had done some reading about it online, purely out of interest, and the biggest problem that people seemed to have with it, was that it didn’t seem at all interesting. Have a look below, what do you think of it? Not really a lot going on is there? Well, that was a common thought, so I tackled it with what I thought was so good about it, and how I grew to love it.

This was greeted with a really positive response, which got people talking. Not only that, but I started to rank in Google for it too. Not a lot of results, but I was doing much worse with Google then, than I am now. The point is that I found a niche within my own niche to write about, using my opinion, and it became very popular.

Because it was my opinion, and an opinion that people seem to support for that matter, rather than some facts, people started to share it. That includes Google, as I previously mentioned. This contributes towards my authority status on the subject of photography, as I could point out what people couldn’t see for themselves. It may not seem like a lot to some people, but that was an incredible amount of traffic from Google for me at that point, and the same goes for Facebook. The bottom result is from a forum that I posted the link on (just in a comment reply), and it proved to be a hot topic. If you want a fast track to becoming an authority on a subject, then this is what you have to do.

How to Write an Opinion Piece

There are a few guidelines you’re going to want to follow.

Stay Current. Stay Relevant.

This is probably the most crucial element behind writing an opinion piece, because if I had written that same post now, rather than back in November, then it’s unlikely that it would have the same affect. People were interested at the time, because it was current and relevant, but if you asked them how much it sold for now, or who took it, or what it’s called, it’s unlikely that they would know. I recommend following forums, and RSS feeds for different websites, and see what’s becoming a hot topic, and then act quickly and write about it.

I wrote about Canon Vs. Nikon, which is a big debate with photographers, and even though I’m very happy with what I’ve written, it hasn’t really provided me with many visitors, because it’s not a current topic that a large group of people in my niche are interested in.

Set yourself boundaries.

Don’t start exploring other niches. Stay within the realms of your knowledge and try to write about what you know best. I’m very good at studying composition, so I could decode the photo above and tell people why I thought it was so good, which was met with a positive response. It was clear that I knew what I was talking about, and if people disagreed, then it was a matter of their opinion, but they would still respect mine. If you start writing about something that you know little to nothing about, then people are going to see right through it and stop listening to what you’re saying.

Research Research Research.

Whatever you’re going to be writing about, make sure you research it a lot, even if you’re only going to write a short post about it. Not only will you find other people’s opinions that may influence yours (I recommend looking through comments for this), but you’ll soon find the general consensus on what you’re writing about, and then you can choose to contrast or reinforce that viewpoint.

Disclaimer.

It’s an opinion piece, so make sure people know that. In mine, I said on more than one occasion something along the lines of ‘all art is subjective, and what I think is good, may be different for you, but here’s what I get from the photo…’ You want to keep your reputation, and all though some discussion is good, you don’t want people to outright disagree with you, so again, back up what you’re saying with some explanation, and make sure people know that it’s your opinion – they will start to value it.

Ask your readers what they think.

This is a great way to improve reader interaction, and the majority of people reading your post will have an opinion, it usually sparks a pretty decent discussion. Comments will appear in Google too, so you want as many as you can get really, so long as they’re relevant. It also means that if they’re willing to comment on a post, then they’re probably willing to share it too, as they will likely know someone else who may be interested.

Well there you have it, my favourite new tip to becoming an authority in your niche. If you’ve enjoyed the post, then do me a massive favour and click ‘Like’ below.

But the problem is that most bloggers don’t understand the fundamentals of a great blog post. They don’t understand how to craft an ADD-stopping introduction, how to write scan-then-stop-to-read subheads, or how to truly engage a reader with every word they write.

Before you can write that legendary blog post, you need to know how to write a good one.

Start with a Simple, Keyword-Relevant, Power-Word-Laden Headline

The headline is and always will be the first part of the post that people see:

• On Google, it’s the blue title tag.
• On Facebook, it’s the bolded text.
• On Twitter, it’s the default tweet.
• In email, it’s the subject line.
• In backlinks, it’s the anchor text.

No matter how people get to your post, they read the headline before they get to your site. Not to mention, the headline is the only reason they came to your site in the first place.

How do You Write an Epic Headline?

1. Start with the benefit: Learn How to Write a Good Blog Post
2. Edit down to the keyword: How to Write a Blog Post
3. Add power word(s): How to Write a Legendary Blog Post

Then Snag Their Attention with an Eye-Catching Image

The goal of the post image is to immediately grab their attention and redirect it to the headline. Here a few things I keep in mind when choosing an image:

• The color red does the best job of grabbing attention.
• The quality of the photo communicates the quality of the post.
• If you include people, animals, or arrows, choose photos where their eyes direct your attention to the headline.

How do You Choose an Amazing Image?

1. Go to compfight.com and filter your results to only include Creative commons.
   You can use these as long as you attribute them back to the artist.
2. Search for your headline’s power words.
   Instead of searching “blog,” “blog post,” or “writing,” I searched “legendary” and found an image of the Trojan horse.
3. Choose one of the first images that you see.
   If one photo grabs your attention amongst 40 other photos, it’ll grab attention on your blog.
4. If the license allows, you can resize and edit the image.
   The post images on IncomeDiary are 345×180 pixels. I’ve yet to find an image that fits that ratio. So I can only use Creative commons photos that also allow me to remix or adapt the work.
5. Attribute the image in the post.
   Link to the artist’s photostream on Flickr somewhere within the post or on the page that you use the image. I choose to attribute images in the bottom-right corner of the post.

Rope them in with an Artfully Crafted Introduction

Copyblogger taught me a lot about refining headlines, but they also taught me about the second most important element in copywriting: the first sentence.

As they put it, the point of the headline is to get them to read the first sentence. The point of the first sentence is to get them to read the second sentence. And so on and so forth.

Then, if they get through the intro, they’re likely to keep reading.

How do you Write an Introduction?

1. Hook
   Start with a quote, ask a question, reveal a stat, elicit imagery, and otherwise inspire curiosity. Oh yeah, and make it short.
2. Rapport
   Make yourself relatable. Empathize with they’re hopes, dreams, and struggles.
3. Problem
   Reveal a common problem and make sure they understand why it’s a problem that’s important to fix.
4. Promise
   Promise to solve that problem if they continue reading the post.

Maintain an Authentic Tone to Your Writing

The most important thing you can do as a blogger is maintain an authentic, conversational tone. This is much harder than it sounds.

I think one of the reasons Michael’s posts are so engaging (despite the dyslexia-induced grammatical errors) is because he hasn’t had any formal writing training. He simply writes what he thinks as he thinks it.

Meanwhile, the rest of us were taught to write with the goal of hitting a certain number of words.

How do you Write Well?

• Use small words.
  The point of writing is to communicate as effectively as possible. The best way to do that is with simple words.
• Write short sentences.
  It’s a lot easier to comprehend a short sentence than a long one.
• Use contractions.
  If you talk with contractions, use contractions.
• Include expletives.
  Use words like, “Oh yeah” and “You know.” If you say it when you talk, you should say it when you write.
• Edit it out loud.
  When you’re done writing, read it out loud. If you struggle to carry a natural tone, it’s bad writing.

Teach through Examples, Metaphors, and Stories

Once your introduction has them reading and your writing has them engaged, it’s time to solve that problem.

My favorite tools for teaching people are examples, metaphors, and stories. You can simply tell somebody about a concept or strategy, but it won’t stick unless you offer up an easy way for them to remember it.

How do you Include Examples, Metaphors, and Stories?

• Examples
  When I’m blogging about blogging, I like to use examples from the post I’m writing within the post (Inception-like). Follow up every concept with an example.
•  Metaphors
  Using a metaphor to explain a concept is like using counting sticks to teach math to a four-year-old.
• Stories
  Did you notice how many Super Bowl commercials used 1-minute or more to tell a story this year? Telling a story is the most powerful way to teach somebody something.

Summarize All Your Points through Subheads

When you’re writing for the web, understand that most readers start by scanning the subheads. If the subheads do a good job of capturing their curiosity, they’ll stop to read the rest of the content.

For instance, if you started “reading” this post by scanning through the subheads; let us know in the comments. This will also show that the subheads did a good enough job of making you stop to read.

How do you Write Subheads?

Similar to headlines:

1. Start with the section topic: Subheads
2. Make them actionable: Summarize through Subheads
3. Clarify: Summarize All Your Points through Subheads

When you’re reading a post, you should be able to scan the subheads and know exactly what that post was about.

Know that Principles are Merely the Foundation for Creativity

I understand that compiling a set of rules on how to write a legendary blog post is like telling a painter how to paint.

So I want to make sure that you walk away from this post understanding that these principles are simply common elements I’ve found in the best blog posts I’ve ever read.

If you want to truly be remarkable, you should be prepared to break the rules and reset the status quo. But you also need to recognize the basic elements of a masterpiece.

Image:  rubyblossom

They want a website. They want to get traffic. And they want their website to be a lead generator rather than a cost center.

Yet, they don’t want to put effort into blogging and they don’t want to pay for traffic. Well, it’s one or the other.

Let me explain.

How Blogging Leads to Traffic

Your website will not get substantial traffic without a blog.

Want proof?

Name one website that you visited today that wasn’t different from the last time you visited it.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and every news site on the planet gets tons of traffic because they’re constantly being updated with new content.

Content, after all, is the only reason somebody visits a website. I challenge you to think of any other.

Blogging and Search Engine Optimization

Let’s recap what we know about search engine optimization:

• Search engines like sites that are regularly updated.
• Search engines like sites that have quality content.
• Search engines like sites that have lots of content.
• Search engines like sites that have backlinks.
• Search engines like sites that have lots of social shares.

Now let’s see how blogging fits in:

• Blogging is the easiest way to regularly update your website.
• Blogging is the best way to showcase quality content.
• Blogging is the most practical way to post lots of content.
• Blogging is the most effective way to generate backlinks because people link to useful content.
• Blogging is the best way to accrue social shares because people share interesting content.

If you want free traffic from search engines, you need a blog.

Let’s look at two different websites.

One is your standard business website with the homepage, about page, contact page, services page, and maybe a few product pages.

The other has all of those pages plus 500 blog posts.

Which one do you think is going to get more search traffic?

Blogging and Social Media

Now, let’s take a look at the core of social media:

People post content to their walls and profiles that they believe their friends and followers will find interesting because they want to be perceived as interesting.

Blogging gives you a chance to be interesting.

Let’s look at those two examples again. Rarely will a stranger share a link that points back to a home page, about page, or product page. But, frequently, people share links with fascinating stories, creative videos, and interesting articles.

Once your blog starts getting search and social traffic, it’s time to start converting it.

How Blogging Leads to Lead Generation

By now you should be convinced that the most high-trafficked pages on your website will be blog posts. (If not, look at your Analytics.)

With that in mind, we need to work on converting those people. The conversion method of choice for most bloggers is an email opt-in.

Blogging and Email Marketing

Email opt-ins are often the goal because saying, “I want to receive emails from you” is the most engaged somebody could be prior to becoming a customer.

From a traditional marketing perspective, let’s look at why email works:

1. Email is permission-based. People are more likely to consume your marketing message if they’re expecting and looking forward to receiving it.
2. Email is targeted. The only people on your list will be people who have visited your website and liked it enough to sign-up for updates.
3. Email is seen. Unlike most advertising, people will at least see, usually open, and ideally read every email you send them.
4. Email is consistent. It follows the marketing principle that people need to see your marketing message seven times before they’ll purchase.
5. Email builds trust. The longer people keep you in their inbox, the more they’re going to trust you.

I know there are lots of strategies and philosophies behind email marketing. One of the more popular strategies is to email out your blog posts. This does three things:

1. Gives them free content so they’ll stay subscribed.
2. Keeps you top of mind as long as you regularly update your blog.
3. Provides a platform for your email subscribers to connect with you and other subscribers.

After all, the reason they signed up for your list is probably because they liked your blog. And if you don’t send them your blog posts, what are you going to send them? If they start getting too many pitches, they’re going to unsubscribe. So you need to send them valuable content. And if it’s valuable enough to put in an email, you might as well make it a blog post.

How Blogging Leads to Making Money

Since traffic generally starts on and subscribes through your blog, how does your blog lead to your business making money?

Let’s look at the big blogging picture:

• Blogging encourages Google to rank your site higher.
• Blogging enables people to spread the word about your company.
• Blogging persuades people to keep you in their inbox.
• Blogging helps you become a trusted authority.

The reason you opened the email or clicked the link that sent you here is because Michael has done a wonderful job of building this blog.

The alternative to getting traffic is buying ads that send people to boring sales pages where some will buy but most will leave, forever. It’s a lot less work, but a lot more expensive.

Even in Michael’s case. Let’s say he pays his authors $100 per blog post and the average IncomeDiary post is viewed 10,000 times over the life of the article. That may seem pricey, but to get the same amount of traffic through ads, he’d have to pay anywhere from $5,000-35,000. (The average cost-per-click with Google AdWords is between $0.50 and $3.50 depending on the keyword.)

You see? Blogging isn’t just part of your internet marketing strategy. It’s the core of it.

If your site is getting traffic and building trust, your business will make more money.

The only difference between Facebook/Twitter/YouTube and your blog is that they found a way to get people to update the content for them.

Have I convinced you?

I’m curious. If you’ve bought one of Michael’s products or purchased something he recommends as a result of finding his blog, let us know in the comments.

For me, I use Aweber because IncomeDiary originally introduced me to it.

Image by: cloud_nine

What I’ve Learned

1 – Writing a blog is an excellent way of drawing attention towards yourself and your other work.

I originally started my blog last April because I put together a photography portfolio which I wanted to share with as many people as I could, but I wasn’t exactly showing up in Google yet. I thought that writing a blog would be a great way of putting together lots of content that was going to be seen by many people, and I could plug my photography as much as I wanted. This has been very successful, and thousands of people see my photos everyday, but as it turns out, I’ve changed directions with my photography.

I now mostly focus on my website, and I’m not actively looking for photography jobs at all (even though I know that I could easily find and complete them), because I know that if I put in enough effort now, I can be making a solid passive income in a year from now. I’ve already come a very long way, it would just be great to be in a position where I can really choose what I want to do for work.

2 – Keywords are key.

They really are. When I created my website, it was originally under my name, and no one knew what it was about. When you choose a name like ExpertPhotography, people immediately know what you’re talking about. I use keywords in all of my post titles, and I tag all of my posts. My tags actually show up in Google, rather than the posts themselves, quite often. A pet peeve for me is when people use what they think are keywords, such as ‘synergy’ and ‘intelligence’, when they’re not actually doing anything in terms of helping the reader understand what they’re about.

Using the right keywords, especially when it comes to attracting people to your blog posts, is absolutely essential. I often see really ambiguous titles like ‘What your feet have to do with business’ or something equally ridiculous, and on the rare occasion I open up a post like this, I struggle to find what it’s about, and end up closing it. Think to yourself, would this title rank well in Google. If it doesn’t, then lose it.

3 – Having someone who you can pay to do stuff for you, will save you time, and allow you to focus on what’s really important.

What I like to think is ‘what is my time worth?’. Then when a task arises, you work out whether it would cost less for someone else to do it for you, so that you can focus on something more important, or whether it’s worth your while doing it yourself. I could have spent a couple days struggling to come up with a rather pants looking logo, or I could just find someone to do it for me.

I’ve looked around, and the best person that I can find who can write content on my website, is me, so that’s what I should be focusing on. For Michael it’s slightly different. Sure, he writes excellent content that people love to read, but he also has other writers who will produce content that’s just as good. It makes more sense for him to hire writer who will do the work for him, and then that leaves him time to work on the big picture stuff. He can work on new products, and get involved in new business ventures, like he’s done with my website.

4 – Take your time and effort to cover the basics of your niche – Content is King.

Content really is king, and if you don’t have killer content, then you may as well not bother. I wrote some of my most popular content 9 months ago, which covers the basics of my niche, and that’s my ‘bread and butter’ content, so to speak. If you do it properly once, then you don’t have to do it again, and beginners in your niche will see how good it is and start to stick around. Write this content first because it will take time to be picked up by Google on a new site, and that’s what is going to help sustain your website.

5 – It’s better to excel in one niche, than to do alright in a few.

This is so important, as I found out when I was trying to grow my website. Like most people, I had trouble coming up with interesting and relevant content in my niche, and I started to get distracted by other niches, within my niche. So I might start covering advanced lighting as part of photography, but by doing so, I start to lose some of my readership. Stick to one thing, and do it well, then when you have an established following, and a good archive, then you can start to cover different content, while people can easily browse for what they’re looking for.

6 – Building a strong following is the first step.

I really wish I knew what I know now when I first started my blog. The following is one of the most important things you can build on, because posting to 3,600 Facebook fans 9 months ago would have had a dramatic difference on my growth. I did stupid things like not including the official Facebook like box on my blog because I thought it was ugly, when really, it was the most powerful thing I could include. I would place links at the bottom asking people to like my fan page, follow my Twitter and submit a photo, but I was asking them to always leave the page. The official Facebook like box doesn’t require that you leave the page at all, all the reader has to do is click like, and they become a fan. A strong Facebook following is key for most niches.

7 – Writing top lists help to earn you recognition from new readers and Google.

Oh boy does it. If you read my recent post on the best thing I ever did for my website, then you’ll be fully aware of what I’m talking about here. Nothing has helped me to grow my website the same way as a top list, because over a couple of days you can have 10,000 new visitors and 500 new fans. Top lists will open you up to the fan bases of the people/products/websites featured in them as they’re likely to share their listing with their followers. And what’s more is that Google has really started to notice the importance of social influence, so when people are sharing your content like this, they give you much more credibility and start to rank you higher, and that’s when things start to really pay off.

8 – Google takes a lot of notice to spikes in traffic, as well as people sharing your links across the internet.

This is basically what I said earlier, where Google will recognise people sharing your links, and start to rank you higher, the more pople share your content. It’s hard to know exactly what they will like, and what will be shared, but so long as you’re writing regular top lists, and excellent content, then you’ll do well. One thing I have noticed from my latest top list is that there has been no real increase in Google traffic, and I don’t know if less people have shared it (even though it brought record traffic), or I’m just past the point that Google stop caring. Either way, getting people to share your content when you’re first starting out if a great way to get Google to notice you.

9 – Google takes time.

I was just itching to get traffic from Google when I first started my website, but there’s actually not a lot that you can do to encourage it. I’ve had my ups and downs, and with the exception of the spikes in traffic from top-lists, Google has been entirely unpredictable. To be honest, there two main factors that have helped my results increase in the past few months, and that’s time, and number of posts. I have written a lot of content for my site now, over 125 posts, and it’s been 9 months since I started. I also have a fairly regular following for the site, and these are all things that Google values and gives you credibility for. I have no reason to start slowing down either, I’m going to continue to grow my website and keep up my writing, and I think that a year from now, I will have come a very long way.

10 – Google Analytics is the single greatest tool at my disposal.

I always knew there was a way of tracking visitors on my website, but I never quite knew the extent of Google Analytics. There has been countless times where I’ve gone into my GA and discovered something new about my website, whether it’s a new referrer, an increase in earnings, visitor locations, or spike in traffic. I’ve even set up alert for statistics such as Facebook, so that when I get 50% more visitors than the day before from Facebook, then I know to go and check out what my traffic is doing, and find out where they’ve come from. GA is simply just one of the tools that I can’t do without.

11 – Always use a reliable hosting.

Oh boy is this one important. I’ve had my website go down a couple of times, when it really shouldn’t have, all because my website couldn’t handle the traffic. I reckon that this alone has set my website back a couple of months. I had Adobe Photoshop share my like to 400,000 people on Facebook, and my site immediately went down for 45 minutes due to the strain. I still received a record number of visitors (at the time), but it would have been much much higher if it wasn’t for the downtime. It’s been down a couple of other times, but nothing too siginificant, and it managed to survive my latest influx of traffic. I recommend talking to your hosting company and make sure that it’s set up properly, because that can make all the difference.

12 – Social Media is incredibly important.

Facebook and Twitter have done so much good for my website over the past nine months, and they work in different ways. I use Twitter to find people in my niche who are interested in learning photography, and I do this by using Tweet Adder and following the followers of similar users. Then when they follow, I send them to my fan page or website, where they will hopefully become a fan. It’s the best form of free promotion that you can do for your website, and it can largely be automated if you know what you’re doing, so that you don’t even have to do anything.

13 – Good writing provides you with strong, regular and often unexpected referrers.

As I mentioned in my previous point, I received the recognition of a huge company, with a massive following, all because they managed to find what I had written and liked what I saw. The same thing has happened with StumbleUpon where particular posts become incredibly popular, one in particular provided me with about 7,000 hits in just two days. It’s my strong content that has proved to provide me with unexpected visitors, time and time again. If there’s one thing I pride myself on, it’s writing the best content that I can, and this just goes to show that it pays off.

14 – Linking throughout your website improves the readers time on site, pages per visit and the amount of ads that they click on.

Writing about this is kind of bitter/sweet, because it involves my favourite plugin, which I no longer use. The plugin is called SEO Smart Links, and it will add a link to every keyword, on every page, so long as you input in into the backend. The problem though was that it was massively slowing down the page load speed on my site, so I’ve had to remove it. I’m going to try it again at some point soon, but not until it’s been updated. To be honest, any plugin that changes so much on a single page is always going to slow down my website, so I’m not really hoping for much.

Instead I now add links where I deem them to be the most important, instead of just flooding my page with different links. I always try to recommend at least one other page for the reader to visit.

15 – Forums are an excellent way to find a larger audience.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the nature of internet forums, and the way people like to talk and act when they’re hidden behind anonymity, and this is the very reason I never wanted to join a forum in my niche. It wasn’t until I started to view the top referrers for my Google AdSense, that I realised the website that was linking to me from their homepage was providing me with the most amount of money. I immediately emailed them thanking them for the link, and I joined the forum.

It’s important to not just join a forum and flood people with your links for no reason, this will never end well. There was some suspicion anyway when I went into the ‘Introduce Yourself’ section, but as I was there to help out, and contributed without links too, I was able to gain credibility. What’s more is that I’ve found more fans through this website, and they’ve even shared my links for me. I noticed one day that I’d earned a lot more from my AdSense than usual, so I went to check where it was coming from and found that one of my links had been shared. Turns out someone had shared my link to try and help a beginner, this became a popular post, and a few hundred people clicked on it.

Find a small forum that’s still growing and join it.

16 – Better content doesn’t mean a more successful site.

Sad, but true. I have no doubt by the way my site is growing, that in the long run, my site will prove to be very successful, but it’s not grown as fast as some competitors. I say competitors, but I don’t really seem them as competitors, because there’s plenty of room for all of us in our niche. We just do our own thing, and so long as we’re not ripping each other off, there’s no reason why we can’t share the same fans. Sometimes it comes down to luck, sometimes it comes down to writing style, content, or fan base, but some website just grow faster than others. You can have the best content in the world, but if you’re not helping your website to grow, and dedicating the time that you should be, then you will soon see other people overtake you.

You shouldn’t let this bother you though, because this is a common occurrence, and if you let it get you down, then you really have been beaten. Don’t let it beat you, keep up your hard word, and stick with it.

17 – There will always be negative people on the internet.

For some reason, unknown to me, people like to share their negativity if they don’t like something. Even if there’s no reason for them to not like it. If I don’t like something on the internet, I don’t get worked up about it, I just close the link and explore one of the other billions of pages instead. Some people though like to leave a negative comment, and put down your hard work, and when you’re just starting out, this can really bother you if you let it.

Whether this is on a site like Reddit, where you’re submitted a link, or a comment on your website, if you blog for long enough, someone will leave something negative. It’s a shame really, but there’s not much you can do about it, so you just need to not let it bother you. On this site, and ExpertPhotography, we have to approve every comment before it goes on the site, so that we can check for spam and this sort of thing. Remember that it’s your site, and what you say goes, so don’t accept rubbish comments like that, just delete them, they’re unnecessary and have no place being on your page.

18 – Blogging spawns new ideas.

The great thing about working for yourself, on something of your own, is that you spend the whole time focused on you. When you start a blog, or at least when I started mine, the goal quickly becomes to make money. With that in mind, new ideas start to pop up in your head all the time, one idea leading to the next like a brainstorm. I’m fortunate enough to work on this website, which allows me plenty of opportunities to work on my own website and study what’s going on, so my site is always in mind. I’ve got some big plans for this year, much bigger than anything I would have had from following my previous career.

19 – It’s not about the number of visitors, it’s about the quality of visitors.

I’m a big fan of tracking and improving my quality of visitors because they’re actually a little bit more important than the number of visitors you receive. Now, this might not sound like it makes much sense, because we all ultimately want lots of different visitors to our website, but when we’re trying to grow our site, it’s the people that come back that matter. People who visit more than one page, or stay for longer than 30 seconds are the type of people that will eventually become fans and will possibly buy something when we come to sell it. Learn more about tracking and improving your quality of visitor here.

20 – People prefer a personal touch.

This actually surprised me a little bit, because I was conflicted when I started my website, and although I wanted more people to see my photography, I didn’t want to make my blog a personal thing. I’ve always known that if I want to sell my website one day, I have to sell it as the website, and not me, and if I’m the main image for the website, that just won’t work. That’s why I stepped back from including my name. But you’ll notice on here that a lot of the comments have ‘Hey Josh, thanks…’, and that’s because people recognise the person, and appreciate the personal touch. I like to sign off my posts, and sometime statuses, with my name, or at the very least the about the author section, because it’s easier for people to identify with a person, than it is a site, and that’s part of the reason that they like to keep coming back.

So from me, Josh Dunlop, I hope you’ve enjoyed this post.

It’s a top list. Please don’t sigh if you’re read about them on here before, because my most recent one just got a whole load more awesome, and there’s plenty that YOU can learn from it. I’ve written in the past all about how to write an awesome top list which will get lots of people talking about your website, but until a couple weeks ago, it had been a long time since I’d written an effective one. With my IncomeDiary hat on, I produced a new top list, and tracked the progress that my website and fan page has made since the release. Here is what I’ve found…

Here’s a few statistics. It’s been 12 days since I published the post and since then it’s had over 20,000 pageviews, which is now the most popular article on my website. To put that into perspective, it currently accounts for 4.26% of all the pageviews on my website to date. There’s also been a change in my social media too, I’ve also had an increase of fans on Facebook too, which is now up by over 500 more than before I posted it.

How it Works

The only reason that top lists work is because people want to share the posts with other people, whether it’s the people featured who are doing so, or fans of theirs. You might not personally share something like this, but there are always people who will, and if you want to encourage this, I would suggest making sure that you have a plugin such as sharebar installed so that it makes it easier for them.

When you release your top list, which you should have made to be pretty awesome looking, you need to contact the people that you have mentioned. The majority of these people or sites will have a Facebook page, so you go into your own fan page, like their page, and then write on their wall telling them about it. I generally experience about a quarter of the people reply to this, thanking me, or telling me that they will share it. Telling them yourself does two main things to help: firstly, it informs them of their listing, and encourages them to share it, and secondly, they start to recognise you and your website as an authority.

In my latest list of 20 different people, around five of them shared them in one way or another, and this is actually a fairly good result. The idea of the post is to create viral content that massages the ego’s of the people listed, so that they will want to share it, but the fact of the matter is that not everyone wants to gloat about it, not everyone is actively using their fan page, even if they do have a large following, and not everyone is even that interested by being listed in the first place, especially if they’re down towards the bottom of the list.

Lets have a look at some of the reactions I got from people who shared and liked my post, which will reveal some details about why they shared it, and who was sharing it. Firstly, lets have a look at the response I got from posting on people’s walls. Brooke below was number 3 on my list, and although she relies, and posts very frequently to her Facebook, she never shared it.This leads us on nicely to other people what will share it for her, and other people like her. Even though I had posted on her wall about it, a few hours later someone else did the same. Not only did they do the same, but they god a few likes on it too. Have a look below to see what I mean. If enough people are sharing it for them, then it can be just as effective. In my experience, if enough people start to share the content on a person’s wall, that person will ultimately end up sharing it themselves. I experienced this with another post I wrote last year, and I reckon that this is because they start to deem it more acceptable to share content, if everyone else is already doing it.

The ultimate goal with a top list is to want the people who you’ve listed to share the post, because they will likely have a very large following. This may influence your order somewhat when you’re putting the list together, but I would suggest exercising caution. If you order people purely by the size of their following, then this is going to be very obvious to anyone following your post, and they no longer think that you really have any authority on the subject. It just so happened that the person I listed as number 1 on my list also had the largest following, and even thought it was coincidental (I was aware), I still received comments about it, so watch out for that. The person I listed at number 1 had around 100,000 fans, whereas the person listed at number 4, had just 1,000. Remember that not everyone bothers with social media.

A great way to keep track of the people that are sharing your website, is to make sure that you like them on your fan page, and then go in once and a while and check the news feed. You’ll start to see posts pop up similar to the one below. Before long, your posts are going out to thousands of people, and driving lots of traffic to your website. The two girls below have a combined 45,000 fans. 

Facebook is constantly updating their site, which most people hate at first, but then grow to love. One of my favourite updates that they’ve done recently had blurred the line between a fan page and a profile, and that has been the ability to subscribe to people. You may have noticed that you don’t receive updates from certain pages you like on Facebook and that’s because Facebook has recognised that you don’t interact with them anymore, so they’ve stopped showing you them. This also happens when the page hasn’t updated in a long time. Subscribing to someone’s page is like becoming their friend; unless you remove them from your news feed, you’re going to see what they’ve been sharing.

This top list was my first experience with someone sharing this way, and it was with the number 1 spot on my list. The man who had over 100,000 fans had shared my content, not through his fan page, but to his subscribers, of which there were 13,500 of them. This got a great deal more attention than if he had just shared it on his fan page, as you can see below.

Website Traffic

Lets have a look at how the traffic has changed on the website, since I posted the article. I was already having a pretty good week to begin with before I it, and I was averaging 1,081 visits each day, compared to 1,342 visits I’ve had each day since the popularity of the post has gone down significantly. The extra 500 fans has definitely helped this, and even though I’ve posted less tutorials than I usually would in this time, the website has done really well. These sorts of posts constantly attract people’s attention, and will continue to do so for months, if not years to come. When we had a look back at last year’s traffic, we notice that all but one of the top 20 posts were written in the years before. Time does a lot of favours to your content.

Statistics like time on site and pages per visit are important to tracking the quality of your visitors, but that’s now what the focus of a top list is about. It’s all about bringing more people to your website in the first place, and then converting them into fans who may want to revisit and learn from your site again. The good thing about the subject that I chose – young photographers – is that the majority of the fans aren’t potential clients, but similar young, aspiring photographers, who are looking to learn. The trick is to find a post that will work like this for your website.

Now we’re going to look at the amount of traffic that I received from the post, when it came to me, and where it came from. The day that I posted the article, I recieved 5,342 pageviews, from 5,820 different visitors. This post, on the first day of being released, managed to beat my personal record for number of visitors in a single day. Something that I’ve found to be quite common, is that the following day usually results in more traffic. This is likely down to the rate at which people browse website, and the fact that I’m in a different time zone. On the second day, that short lived record was broken once again, with 6,085 pageviews, from 6,235 visits. Different people shared this at different times, and that has helped to consistently send me traffic. As you can see from below, I was still receiving 2,600 and 4,000 visits the following two days. Bearing in mind my website is just 9 months old, this is very good.

Lets have a closer look at the days with over 2,000 visitors each, which is five days, from the 6th, to the 10th. My top 4 referrers are Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and a photography forum. The Twitter traffic died down by a huge amount by the second day, so it may not have provided me with the most traffic, but it is a direct market of people who are interested in what I’m saying. The same goes for the photography forum, but a lot of those click were on different posts, because it’s harder to promote content on there.

One thing people expect to see an increase in is AdSense earnings for traffic like this, but unfortunately its’ not that simple. If you really want to earn money with AdSense, then you need to be mostly appealing to your top referrers, and for my site, that’s just not Facebook. Obviously, I’m receiving more visitors, and that’s making me more money, but nothing substancial compared to a good day of traffic from my top referrer. I talk about this in more detail here if you’re interested.

Search Traffic

If you’ve read the summary of my website that I wrote 6 months ago, you’ll know that posting a top list can have a huge effect on your search engine traffic, because sites like Google start to recognise people sharing your content, which leads them to think that ever more people would be interested. Here’s the image that I provided when I wrote the post – notice the correlation between traffic and Google traffic.This is what a boost in traffic from a top list can do for your website, and it’s perhaps one of the biggest improvements that you can make, because of the long term implications. My Google traffic came into some problems shortly after this because of some spam that was hosted on the website without my knowledge, but we got back in, and it fluctuated after this. In the past 3 months, my search engine traffic has increased by over 10 times the amount it used to be, and it’s continued to grow even further since the success of this top list.

Tips for Writing a Top List

There are definitely certain steps that you should be taking to write a top list, and I’ve detailed them all here in this comprehensive guide. The majority of what you need to know is there, but there is one more thing that I would like to add/stress. Don’t chicken out and call it ’20 Best…’, you have to call it ‘Top 20 Best…’ and then order them 1-20, so that everyone has a rank. The reason that you do this is because people are going to disagree with you, and they’re going to be much more likely to comment and share it at the same time. It sounds a little bit twisted, but I assure you, it really does work. For every person that doesn’t agree with you, there’s going to be 10 others who are happy to just see the content.

Top List Ideas

Enough already with the excuse as to why you can’t, or haven’t written a top list, I’m going to help you come up with one.

Anything related to people and websites work best, so that could be anything from the top 20 bloggers/blogs, to the top 20 rap songs of 2011. So long as it’s niched, and lists people, then there’s a good chance that you’ll get a response, even if you’re a website that no one has ever heard of before.

You may think if you’re in the fitness niche, that writing about the top 20 fitness blogs would be a bad idea, but you’d be wrong. I wrote about the top 20 photography websites as my first post, and even though it sent people away from my website, it send even more people towards it. List your competition; it’s a good way to get noticed by them.

Product posts are good, because you can make money through Amazon Associates, but they’re typically not that popular with people, because there’s less of an incentive to share them. Write one by all means, it’s always good to have the links on your site because you’ll start earning a passive income, but you won’t start seeing real money until you have a strong following.

Make sure that you list the top 20, rather than the top 10, because the list will appear to be more comprehensive as you’ve gone through more people to reach the final 20.

Finally, prepare your website for an influx of visitors. Make sure it’s looking good, and that there’s lots of other links to content they might also like. Throw in a few adverts if you want to make some money, and don’t be afraid to mention yourself, or what your website has to offer inside the list.

Call to Action

In 7 days time, I want YOU to publish a top list. Tuesday is a great day to post them because people are into their weeks, and paying attention to their computers again. Have a brainstorm now about what you can write about, whether you know the subject matter or not. I’ll be honest with you, my three most popular top lists, I knew very little about. That’s photography websites, photography bloggers and young photographers. I had a handful of names that I wanted to include, and the rest just came from extensive research.

It just goes to show that you can write an awesome top list, with just some hard work, and a little bit of knowhow. So what’s stopping you? Remember to include images for each, a good description, and to number them 1-20. Good luck, and let me know how it goes – link me.

The post did well: 100+ Tweets, 50+ comments (half mine), and Michael even told me, “when I saw it, I was like, this is what I like.”

One reason that post did well was because I followed the advice in the post (with the exception of #5).

Another reason it did well is because I followed up with many of the 10 blog post marketing steps that I want to tell you about today.

1. Schedule Instead of Publish

I always schedule rather than publish because scheduling gives me one last chance to look over the post.

I also schedule my posts to be published at midnight for three reasons:

1. So the published on time is 00:00. I’m a little OCD about it.
2. So it has the maximum number of hours with the current date.
3. So it has a few “live-hours” before Feedburner/Aweber emails out between 7am-9am. This gives it a chance to have a few Tweets, Likes and comments before it gets emailed out.

2. Read it Again

Immediately after your post is published, read it again. You should’ve already looked it over for grammar. Now is the time to look for ways to improve the final post.

If you don’t enjoy spending a few minutes reading your post one last time, then you probably didn’t do a very good job of writing it.

It’s like fixing up an old car. Once it’s complete, if you don’t spend at least a few minutes admiring it, then you know you could’ve done better.

3. Tweet it Out

Simple enough, eh?

I don’t use any auto-tweeting tools because I like to adjust the tweet and I like to be able to say, “hey world… I just now finished this post. Come be one of the first to see it.”

4. Share on Facebook

Facebook, on the other hand, is a bit more strategic.

When you publish your blog posts on your personal profile, understand that those people are primarily your friends and family. They probably don’t care too much about the content of the post but they will be interested in the fact that you wrote it. So when you add the comment to the link, include something a bit more personal.

When you post your link on your Facebook page, know that these are people who have “Liked” your blog/brand/company. So here, add a comment mentioning the benefit of taking a few minutes to read the post.

It’s important to share the article on both your personal profile and Facebook page at the same time because people who follow both are more likely to see it. It’s the same reason you’re starting to see the links that multiple friends recommend.

5. Set Up Automatic Pinging

If you’re unfamiliar with pinging, there are a number of sites and platforms (including Google, Yahoo!, and Technorati) that allow you to automatically notify, or “ping,” them when your site is updated with new content.

If you’re using WordPress, it’s easy to set up.

From your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Writing and scroll down to Update Services.

In that box, copy and paste these URLs:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.twingly.com/

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.bloglines.com/ping

http://ping.feedburner.com/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://www.wasalive.com/ping/

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://bblog.com/ping.php

I’ve gathered this collection of pinging services over the last three years. Let me know if I’m missing any.

6. Email Broadcast

Assuming you’ve started to build your email list, email out your blog post to people who have signed up for your blog updates.

You can simply write up and send out an email with a short introduction and link to the post.

Or, depending on your email marketing service, you can automate this step.

I use Aweber’s Blog Broadcast function and integrate it with Feedburner. This way, every time I update my blog, my list automatically gets an email with the blog post between the hours of 7am-9am. I chose that time so it’s sitting at the top of their inbox when they start their computer in the morning.

If you’d like to know how to set up the Aweber Blog Broadcast function, let me know in the comments.

7. Link from Old Posts

Last week I talked about interlinking by adding links to old posts before you publish a new post. You can also do the opposite.

If you’re doing a good job of optimizing and writing evergreen content, then your old posts will continue to get traffic. An easy way to get traffic to a brand new post is to dig into your archives and link from a few relevant posts to the new post with the keyword as the anchor text.

It counts as a link and a trackback. If you’re struggling to get that first comment, consider doing this because the default settings in WordPress count trackbacks as comments. I’ve found that people are more likely to comment if they see other comments.

8. Link from Other Sites

About a year ago I was considering starting a new blog by taking an existing blog and putting it on a new domain. I asked Michael for his opinion and he told me that it’s nice to have two high-traffic sites (his being IncomeDiary.com and Retireat21.com).

One reason that it’s nice to have multiple sites is that you can link between them.

Whenever I publish a post on my new blog, I search the archives of my old blog for relevant articles until I find at least one chance to link to the new blog post.

This adds a trackback, adds a link, increases traffic, and strengthens the structure of my mini network of sites.

9. Submit it to Article Directories

If you’re serious about blogging and would like to boost your SEO, consider submitting your posts to article directories.

Here’s the process:

1. Rewrite your post so it’s new content.
2. Submit it to a few article directories (EzineArticles, ArticlesBase, GoArticles, and ArticleDashboard).
3. Include a link back to the original article or one of your article directory articles.

This process takes awhile so it doesn’t make sense to do it for every post. Once a post starts getting a fair amount of search traffic, consider going through this process to boost it even higher.

10. Reply to First Comment

The first comment is the hardest to get, unless you have a site like IncomeDiary. So you want to reward that commenter by replying to their comment as soon as you can. This does two things:

1. Rewards the first commenter.
2. Shows other commenters that you listen which encourages them to leave comments as well.

For me, I choose to reply to almost every comment simply because I like answering questions and interacting with smart people. It takes a fair amount of time, but I enjoy your comments.

If this post helped you at all or taught you something new, I’d like to know. Leave a comment below and you’ll likely see my reply within a day.

Image by: Stuck in Customs

That’s what this article is about, but first, a very serious question: How much did you love Legos as a kid?

Walk down memory lane with me for a moment.

Legos are a part of most people’s childhood. I know I had the giant bin growing up.

I’d build for hours on end, trying to make something as cool as it could possibly be.

My friends would buy Legos one box, one kit at a time. There was a picture on the outside, and a plan on the inside, giving detailed, piece-by-piece instructions on how to build the greatest pirate ship, battle cruiser, castle, or space station.

For me, the aim was just to build, with or without guidelines, finding what worked best to create the coolest thing possible.

Often times, I would start by building it their way, then modify the design and make it my way.

My way was always cooler.

But now you’re a grown up.

You have loftier goals in mind.

You have a real business (or at least a real plan for a real business) and to keep with the Lego metaphor, the picture on the box looks pretty sweet.

The castle is big, the ships have cannons, the islands have trees… pick your own lego set to describe your business plans, whatever they are. They’re detailed, they’re impressive, and this time around, they don’t have instructions.

You know you need to reach potential customers in order to grow.  You know you need to find your ideal target market. You have a limited budget for advertising, and frankly, the thought of a hail-Mary advertising campaign is just no way to make the most of your time and money.

What do Legos and marketing have in common?

It’s all in the details.

Just like you might sit at a huge tub of Legos and hope to build the best-ever pirate ship, you’re now sitting in front of a blank screen with a blinking cursor mocking you. Knowing the whole wide internet is out there, and praying that whatever you write will help you build the best client base for your business.

Doing this is just like sitting in front of a giant tub of legos and only having the picture on the box telling you how to build your business.

If you want to reach your clients, if you want to find them and learn about them, you have to do what you did as a kid and start at the beginning.

Step one: Gather your Legos.

The selection process for picking out the Legos for your pirate ship wouldn’t be a free-for-all where you dive in with both hands.

You consider color, shape, size, and available options before you ever begin to build.

You also eliminate the pieces you know you won’t need.  Some are too big. Some too small. Or the wrong color or shape.

Similarly, you need to gather intel on your target market to determine out how to reach them and build your customer base.

If your target market is 40-60 year old housewives, for example, you eliminate advertising targeted to men or children. But to reach your ideal target market, you have to dig deeper in the bin to find the exact pieces to build your masterpiece.

Put yourself into the shoes of your customer for awhile.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What’s their primary form of entertainment?
• Hobbies?
• Do they share a common interest?
• What do they watch on television?
• What kind of music do they like?
• Are they religious?
• Are generally up on current political events, or are they more focused on pop culture?

To know where to spend your time crafting killer content takes research.

“Gather your Legos” by getting into the mind of your customer.

Research blogs, magazines, and available entertainment directed to your target market to learn who exactly is out there.

This isn’t a quick five-minute exercise

So unless your product or service is intended to have broad appeal across various demographic groups, take some time.

Make some assumptions.

Only once you’ve learned too much about them can you decide what is and is not valuable.

When you’ve amassed enough information and are ready to start putting your money where your mouth is, move to…

Step two: Start Building

Once you’ve gathered all of the potentially useful legos and eliminated the ones that won’t work, it’s time to start building.

Pick out keywords that describe your target market, and craft content that mimics the style.

For Example: If you’ve determined your target market enjoy’s Steven King, add elements of intrigue, mystery and suspense to the content you create.

Everything from their preferred restaurants to the musicians they favor, tells you how create content specifically for them.

Doing this helps you to stand out in their minds, so you can ultimately they will spend money with you, without ever consciously realizing why.

If you really wanted to turbo charge your growth, using an ad platform like Facebook also allows you target individuals by their likes and interests, so you can use these keywords to reach a very specific group.

Step Three: Refine What You’ve Built

Because I only had a limited amount of Legos as a child, often times I would deconstruct my favorite creations in order to build new ones.

Your content isn’t much different than this. The only difference is you don’t always have to tear everything apart and start from scratch.

With an advertisement, landing page, or anything that uses the written word to communicate really, it’s often the most simple tweak of punctuation, or tense of a word that can make all the difference.

Split test your emails, tweak your headlines, strengthen your call to action to see what’s going to work the best.

Don’t have a high click through when you tweet out an article?

Wait a little while and test a different headline. If that gets more clicks, switch it.

Don’t get a lot of comments on your posts?

Try using a stronger closing on your next article.

Taking the time to plan ahead on who you’re communicating with is no different than picking your pieces wisely.

Word by word, line by line, you will build masterful content people will love interacting with, just like you built the coolest pirate ships and space stations as a child.

The only difference is, you won’t run out of pieces, and your creation will make you money.

Pretty sweet deal right?

Here’s a list of 11 things that make my site better than most:

1. Buy The Perfect Domain

A domain name is the first thing people see when they come to your website. Actually they see it before they even come to your site, that’s why it’s so important.

Earlier this year when I start ExpertPhotography.com with my brother, I knew we had to get a good domain. The photography niche is very competitive and has a lot of people in it. One thing you will notice with all the top sites is they have great brandable domains. I started just typing domain ideas I like into my web browser and seeing if they had a site. The majority had, however when I got to ExpertPhotography it had a landing page at BuyDomains instead. BuyDomains is basically a brokering company that work on behalf of the owner to sell the domain. I contacted them and after some negotiating I bought the domain.

Great domains are not just the ones people see as an authority but also ones that hold a great brand. One thing I like to do with my domains is to make them describe what the site is about. Let me show you how this works.

• ExpertPhotography.com – It’s about being an expert at photography.
• Retireat21.com – How to retire young.
• AwesomeWeb.com – How to build awesome websites.

Here’s an example from one I came up with for a friend. He wanted to blog about outsourcing and so I came up with SaveTimeOutsource.com – it describes what the site is about in the domain, yet is short and catchy.

2. My Blog Design Is Amazing

Most new bloggers will use a premium WordPress theme, such as one from Woothemes. This is something I recommend, we did it with ExpertPhotography. However, after a while, when you start making money from your site and you want to take it to the next level, that’s when you get creative and design a site.

I’m not a designer, neither are you probably, so I would recommend you hire someone instead of yourself attempting to do it. My top tip for for creating great sites is looking at all your competitors, find out what they all do really well and put all those things together to make one really well done site.

IncomeDiary will always be a work in progress, every time I have a new idea, I get it implemented. Every time I see something isn’t working out, I get it removed.

3. I Have Guest Writers

Before I started getting people to write for me on IncomeDiary, I was publishing a post perhaps once a week, in some months I’d struggle to write just one post!

If you want to dominate in your industry, get other people to write for you. Before you do this though, I highly recommend you set high standards and pay your writers to make sure you deliver the best to your readers. Since applying this approach, we have been able to publish content nearly every day and over the last 6 months, quadrupled our traffic.

4. I Have My Own Product

If you constantly put out great free content, they will always want more. Create and sell your own eBook or course and those who want more will come and buy. This is a must have! I love promoting affiliate products but the one draw back is, your always helping another person out and that person is most likely your competitor. Having your own product means you keep everything and you get to improve your brand.

5. I Have a Mailing List

If your still not building a email list, then your leaving money on the table and your not getting as much traffic as you could get. The great thing about mailing lists is that every time you publish a blog post, you can let all those people who subscribed via email know about that new post. This brings thousands of people to my site every time I publish a post!

Try Popup Domination if you want to play ‘catch up!’

6. I Diversify My Income

If you rely on just one income stream for your website, then your not making as much money as you should! On average, you can make three times more money if you monetize your site in three different ways instead of one. There are only so many people who will pay for an advert on your site and only so much room to display ads. When I went from monetizing Retireat21 with just banner ads to diversifying my income with multiple techniques, I drastically increased my earnings.

Check out these 14 ways you can make money from your website.

7. I Have Great Hosting

I have used over a dozen hosting company’s since I started online. Always read reviews and ask friends before you get a host. The worse thing for me as a website owner is having my site offline. If you have seen The Social Network film about Facebook, your remember the scene when they talk about their server and how it can’t go offline because the second it does, people will start looking else where. The same applies for your blog, if your site is offline, people will look else where.

A few recommendations when choosing a host:

• 24/7 Live Support! This way, if you have problems, you can always reach someone to help fix it.
• A wide range of hosting offered, so as you build your online business, you can increase your hosting with little to no downtime.
• 99.9999999 up time. If they have any track record of their servers going offline, I wouldn’t recommend you use them.
• Have been around for a few years. Don’t ever go for a new company’s, this may sound mean but this is your business and you need to be sure that who you host with, will be responsible and will be sticking around.

I personally use HostGator to host IncomeDiary, I use one of their VPS’s (a type of server). It also hosts ExpertPhotography. So far, I have had very little problems with them, on the rare occasion the server goes offline, it’s always been my fault and my brother has been able to go into the live support and just ask them to reboot it.

The other day, ExpertPhotography was running slow, my brother went on their live support and asked why. They told him two wordpress plugins were slowing down the site. He removed the plugins and it went back to full speed. They help you. Personally, they are worth more to me, than I pay them.

Check out HostGator now.

8. I Have Popular Posts

This may sound like a small thing but it’s really important. When you visit a blog and you like what they have to say, the next thing you look for is a collection of all their best posts. You do this because you want more! Popular post widgets make it easy to display those posts.

On IncomeDiary, my popular posts section is custom coded and is not a plugin. On my other site, I use Woothemes and a widget they offer with their themes, allows you to display popular posts. I love that feature! Yet again, another company, going the distance with what they offer their customers.

9. I Have a Great Combination of WordPress Plugins

It’s amazing the difference a bunch of WordPress plugins can do. You can see 20 WordPress Plugins I recommend, by click here.

10. My Site Is Optimized For Search Engines

Traffic is everything, without it, what we do would be pointless. Thanks to my buddy David, we have been able to implement all of his search engine optimization tips to get my site to rank highly in Google, which has meant a 200% increase in search engine traffic, that means I get over a thousand more visitors a day.

Click here to see the blueprint we followed to get my site to rank well.

11. I Publish Great Content

Everyone when they start, they are more concerned about how their site looks. The first thing you need to think about is CONTENT! That’s why people are going to visit your website. Focus all your time on great content, that will bring traffic and then once your sites getting a decent amount of traffic, focus on making money from those visitors.

Don’t make the mistake most people make, don’t focus on monetization at the beginning. People who do that seem to only ever focus on the money and that really comes across in their content. Blog for the love of the subject, that first. The money comes naturally.

Hope you enjoy this article. Let me know what things you think you can implement after reading this post!

Read This

As someone who has been blogging for nine months, I’ve learned a huge amount along the way (oooh there’s a potential blog post ‘What I’ve Learned from 9 Months Blogging’), and I’ve written 125 different posts, each one of them different to the rest. IncomeDiary has over 260 posts published now, with that number going up by five every week. We still manage to keep our content fresh though, and give the readers what they want to read, and what they need to learn, and that’s because we come up with good ideas.

The absolute first thing that any of you need to do is to take notes. No matter what, wherever you are, when you get an idea, write it down. I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of idea that I’ve had that have been lost because I didn’t write them down straight away. You should keep a notebook just for this purpose, as well as notes on your phone, and notes on your computer. On my Mac, I have loads of these stickies on my dashboard where I can write down all the ideas that I get, so I never lose one.This is part of the problem that we all have; we think we can do it in our heads. How often do you start writing a post without putting some notes on paper first? If this is all you ever do, then I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when your start taking notes first. It’s so much easier to have everything down in one place, getting all your ideas out of your head and onto paper, before they disappear. The same goes for coming up with blog posts. You can’t just sit down and expect the ideas to arrive, you have to invite and encourage them out of the depths of your brain.

Brainstorming is an obvious choice for coming up with content ideas, and that’s because it works. The good thing about brainstorming is that there are no bad ideas. I mean obviously there are bad ideas, but they’re not bad in the sense that they can often spurn new and improved ideas, which you may not have though of if you hadn’t put that idea down onto paper.

Back of the Mind – Not as Simple as it may Seem

I credit my improvement as a photographer over the past year to the carrying of my camera everywhere. Everywhere I am, I’m carrying my camera, so I’m always looking for potential photos to take. If you can work out a way to walk around with your blog in your mind, then that’s half the battle; the ideas will just come to you.

One of my post popular posts, my beginner’s guide to photography, came about when I didn’t have any good ideas for my website, and it was a Sunday and I had to get something written. I went out for a roast dinner with some friends, but I always had it in the back of my mind. When it came towards the end of my meal, it struck me, and instead of sticking around for another pint, I headed home and got to work. I didn’t really want to work that day, which is what made this post ideal, because I was mostly collating parts of different tutorials and sticking them all together in one place. It was my lazy state of mind, and constant thought in the back of my mind, which made me come up with one of my most popular posts yet, which has led me onto creating a product that I can sell about it. If you keep your blogging hat on, then there’s no reason why you can’t come up with new ideas everyday, which will be different all the time, depending on how you’re feeling.

Search your Competitors

This is one of the best techniques that I can recommend, and it involves using your competitors as inspiration. There are certain things that everyone in your niche is going to write about, that you simply might not have covered yet, so it would be a good idea to see what people more successful than you are doing. If it’s something basic, like exposure would be for photography, you simple copy the subject matter, write your own content, and give it a better name.

This is also a really good way of coming up with potentially better titles than they have, and something that I have done in the past. I saw a post called ‘how to take great photos with a pop up flash’ or something similar, and I came up with my own post on the back of that, which was very successful, called ‘When you SHOULD and SHOULD NOT use a Flash’. Just by browsing what other people are writing, you can see what’s been popular, and come up with something original for yourself.

Clever, Creative Brainstorming

You’re probably in need of brainstorming because you haven’t come up with enough decent ideas yet for your blog, and you’ve hit a wall. This happens all the time, don’t worry. The first thing I would suggest would be to look at your most popular style of posts on your website, and for me, that’s my tutorials on the basics. Now, I know you’re not stupid, you know how to brainstorm, but there’s more to it than that.

Here are some tips for generating new ideas, inspired by another post that you’ve already written. I’m going to use my beginner’s guide to photography post as an example.

1. Write something positive about it like ‘Why being a photographer is Great’, and then write the opposite, ‘Why being a photographer Sucks’. – You’ll find the negative side gets a lot more attention.
2. Collect people/links to inspire your readers ‘Top 20 Young Photographers’.
3. Interview someone on their experience with the subject – how they got started as a photographer.
4. Talk about your personal experience with the subject – ’10 Embarrassing Mistakes I Made as a Beginner Photographer’.
5. Talk about what they can do with the information – ’10 Steps to Taking Better Photos’.
6. How they can improve they can make money with this information – ’10 Quick and Easy ways to Make Money as a Photographer’
7. Talk about aspects related inside the post, and extend them further. For example, I talk about composition in the post, so I could then talk about the beginner’s guide to composition, or composition tools to improve your photography.
8. Lastly, follow it up with a sequel, people love sequels.

There’s a good chance that if you’re reading this post, you’ve exhausted your brain from coming up with blog posts, and that means that working with what you’ve already Written. Lets take one of my posts on ExpertPhotography as an example and see what we can do with it to come up with new ideas. I think you’ll probably be surprised with what we can do. Do the same with your website, but make sure you pick a fairly popular post. I’m choosing 4 Steps To Understanding ISO, which is my fifth most popular post of all time.

Here’s a quick background to the post. It covers one of the most fundamental parts of photography, which is exposure, and the reason for the popularity was because it was shared by the people at Adobe Lightroom on their Facebook and Twitter.

Let’s have a look at what I came up with from just 10 minutes of brainstorming, using the tips listed above:

So you see, you might think that there’s nothing more that you could write on a subject, but there’s still plenty, which can be largely written without overlapping. From my results, I would probably select three of them, so that I don’t bore my readers with the same subject matter.

Making them Killer

Ok, so you’ve come up with a load of ideas by now, but this isn’t your average ‘how to brainstorm’ post, I’m here to help you make them killer. To do this, you need to take a good idea and make it better. The first thing you’re going to have to do is use Google to find out what your competition is. Search what you’re writing about, and see what has been written before you, and then see what you can do to make yours even better. Don’t expect that just because your content is better, you’ll be higher up in the search results than your competitors, because that sort of thing takes time.

In a crowded market, you need to separate yourself by the competition, and the best way to do that is to be unique, and to be better. Do one or the other, or even better, both.

I’ve always said that when it comes to writing content, coming up with what I was going to write about was half the battle, and I really do believe that. When you’ve come up with a decent post title that will attract readers enough to click on the link (something that Michael is very good at), then you’ve done what you set out to do really, it’s up to them if they want to read it or not.

Lets take one of my brainstorming ideas from above, and see how we can come up with a killer title that will encourage people to click on my link, and spend time on my site. You need to start off with your keyword, so for photography, I might use the word ‘composition’. Then I like to include a verb, and because of the nature of the keyword, I would probably use ‘improve’, and then I like to add an eye-catching phrase that will encourage people to click on my link. Put all this together, and you may want to add a number as well, if you like writing in a list format. Lets break this down into chunks:

Keyword:

Composition Tools

Keyword with verb:

Composition Tools to Improve your Photography

Keyword, verb, and eye-catcher:

Composition Tools to Improve your Photography and Change the way you Shoot Forever

Number, keyword, verb, and eye-catcher:

10 Composition Tools to Improve your Photography and Change the way you Shoot Forever

Now tell me, which one are you most likely to click on?

Call to Action

Take 10 minutes now with some pen and paper, and come up with as many new ideas that you can; don’t put it off or you’ll just use it as an excuse to put off writing. Leave a comment below letting me know how many you can come up with. If you want to keep up to date with IncomeDiary, please come and like us on Facebook.

This March 1st, Yanik Silver will once again be hosting his famous Underground Online Seminar (Number Eight) in Washington DC. Every year Yanik invites over a dozen top internet marketers from around the world to speak about what makes them successful and how you can apply it to your own business. Only “catch” is, Yanik invites super successful ‘under the radar’ marketers that you most likely won’t have heard of, so the content is always fresh, unlike the majority of other events.

For the third year running, Yanik is giving 10 young internet entrepreneurs the opportunity to come for free, saving you the $2,000+ price tag. Scholarship winners also receive free bonuses and get plenty of opportunities to talk 1 on 1 with mega internet marketing stars.

I’ve been to 7 undergrounds, 6 in the US and I also went to the one he hosted in London UK. Instead of going to university, I have gone to the Underground Online Seminar every year since 2006. (UG2)

And boy, was that the right choice. At my first event, I had just turned 17 and was running a graphic design forum. My dad bought me a ticket so that I could go with him. This opened me up to a land of opportunities and ideas that I wouldn’t have got from going to school / college / university.

If I never went to the Underground Online Seminar each year, I doubt I’d be doing what I’m doing today. Literally, all my greatest ideas have come from this event. It could be a speaker telling the audience about how he monetizes his website, or it could be just from a conversation I had in a coffee shop with an attendee. (That was a BIG one!)

Last night I was thinking to myself, about just how unique and amazing this Young Entrepreneur scholarship opportunity is. I published a post a few weeks ago about the Scholarship Opportunity and already we have had some amazing applications but I want to get the word out even more – I know there are STARS that I have not even reached yet and it is those who I want applying for Scholarship Places.

Underground Young Entrepreneurs

To give you some examples of previous Star Scholarship winners, one of last years winners has actually been invited back by Yanik to speak at this years event — and another previous winner went on to do a Million Dollar Launch after attending Underground.

Do you think you could join them? – or do you know anyone who could? – then tell them to visit the Young Entrepreneurs Scholarship Online Application Page ASAP (applications close 25th January)

Look, for me, buying a Ticket to Underground has got to be just about one of my best business investment ever (Yanik wasn’t offering scholarships back in 2006) — so imagine the return for a Young Entrepreneur who wins a Scholarship.

If your 23 years or under, click here to submit an application for a scholarship! You have until 25th January

If your older than 24, Click Here To Secure Your Place! This is not an affiliate link, I could use one but honestly, I felt it more important to show how genuine I am about the importance of you coming to underground. If you go ahead and buy a ticket because of this post, shoot me an email and I’ll even take you out for a  steak when you are at Underground.

Frankly I could probably compile a list of a 100 Positive Things that have come out of me attending the Underground Online Seminar – but for expedience and because this is so darn important if you are serious about building a super online business, I am only going to list my three BIGGEST OUTCOMES as a result of attending The Underground Online Seminar.

(Actually as I write this I am almost scared to think how different my life would be if I had not gone to Yanik Silvers Underground Seminar)

3 World Famous Websites that the Underground Online Seminar inspired me to create:

1. Retireat21.com

Retireat21.com  was one of my first big sites. I came up with it when I was at Underground UK. I was networking (one thing that the Underground Online Seminar is amazing for) and I was talking to this guy and he says “there really isn’t much out there for young people like you to learn about how to build a business”.

Light bulb moment!

By the end of the event I had wrote a full plan for launching a website targeted at young entrepreneurs. I came up with the name Retiredat21.com when I was at Underground. In the car, I was telling my dad about it, I remember our conversation like it was yesterday. He seemed genuinely impressed by the idea but made one suggestion. Instead of Retired, make it Retire.

As the story goes, I hire a 13 year old programmer I met on a forum and the site was born months later. This site has gone on to get millions of visitors and given me a platform to launch other blogs.

2. IncomeDiary.com

This very site would perhaps not exist if it wasn’t for Underground. Back at Underground 5 (2009), Yanik did his first scholarship for young entrepreneurs. I wasn’t really involved that year but being the same ages as the winners, we hanged out. I was sitting with Alex Maroko, David Leggett and Marshall Haas. David and I were helping Alex set up his first blog.

David turns to me and says, give me your affiliate link for Hostgator, Aweber and GoDaddy. I made over $100 from doing nothing, just being at the right place at the right time.

David and I were talking about it and we came to the conclusion, that $100 was stupidly easy to make. I had recently bought the domain IncomeDiary.com off someone and felt it was the perfect opportunity to launch my own free course, helping people just like Alex, start their first blog. Everytime someone did it, I earned big.

The very first month, IncomeDiary made over $5,000. Paying for my Underground ticket, travel and expenses.

3. PopupDomination.com

Popup Domination exists because of the Underground Online Seminar. That is insane! Just think, the only thing between me creating such an awesome profitable product was me going to a seminar or not. If I had not gone, I don’t see how I would have created Popup Domination.

My friend was having a a conversation with someone who used popups on their website. He told him that they convert big time. I decided to add one to my site and after seeing the results for myself, decided to develop the product. 18 months on, it’s made well over $500,000 and is likely going to make it’s first million by the end of the year.

A million bucks because of an idea I got from listening to smart people talk at a seminar. Heck, I should listen more when people talk to me.

See you at Underground Online Seminar 8 in March!