The times, they are a changin’. Although it hasn’t officially happened yet, there have been whispers in quite a few places for a while now that things are changing in the world of article marketing, specifically in the article directories and very specifically, with Ezine Articles. And in my personal opinion, it’s a change for the better.

Here’s what’s rumored to be happening: submission standards are about to get a whole lot higher. To put it in a nutshell, the minimum standard for articles to get approved (which, historically, has been pretty darn low) is going to be longer and better. No longer will you be able to throw together a crappy 250 word article full of spelling and grammatical errors and call it a day. Soon, that kind of sloppy work won’t get approved any more.

And what’s more…

The changes are reportedly retroactive!

Meaning if you’ve got crappy articles approved in the past, unless you update them and make them acceptable, they’ll disappear.

What do I have to say about this?

Well, I say it’s about damn time. I’ve said many times, on this blog and on the other sites I own, that putting quality content out there is the real key to succeeding in online business. And I use article marketing to promote my products, but when I mention that I’m an article marketer, people lump me in with those other bozos littering the article directories with crap content and giving the rest of us a bad name.

For my own article marketing, I’ve long held a stipulation that all the articles I use be at least 400 words long, always be completely original, and have really useful information for the reader. Keyword density should be between 2-5%, but is usually around 2.5-3.5%. Because I’ve been doing things this way for a long time, I know that, when the changes do come, I don’t have to worry about any of my old articles being taken down.

HOT TIP –> The MOST IMPORTANT thing i do however, is write the content first and then go back and keyword optimize it. If you write for a keyword the content will suck… create a title first, write a worthwhile piece of content and then go back and keyword optimize it. Your content will get both published and read!

So that’s my advice for anybody using article marketing right now – if you’re not already, make the change and start writing quality articles NOW, before the new rules come into play. Do this for two reasons; one, because quality is always better than crappy (in terms of your reputation and your bottom line), and you should have been doing it this way all this time anyway; and secondly, so that when these changes do come you’ll be ahead of the game and not one of the people left in the lurch when all of their articles get dumped.

NEW Update: Just saw a new update to the ezinearticles guidelines as we speak…

Expert Authors can now earn the ability to link-up 4-word and 5-word phrases* by submitting lengthier (over 400 words) high-quality articles.

BOTTOM LINE:

• If your article is shorter than 400 words, each text link may only contain a maximum of 3 words*
• If your article is longer than 400 words, each text link may only contain a maximum of 5 words*

* Important Note: Any common words, including to, is, in, on, it, and, at, by, a, an and others will now be excluded from the word count.

PS – If you are wondering why i am focusing on EzineArticles here… cause they are the grand daddy of all article directories and you NEED to be using them (IMHO).

So what’s your thoughts?

Top Three Mini Commitment Errors You Are Making Right Now!

Does your content actually get read? When you are creating your blog posts, sales copy or emails, do you focus on what you want or what the reader wants?

I have a friend that I am helping with a new blog and it is in a niche he is extremely passionate about. The expertise and knowledge that he has about this topic (natural health) is incredible but his presentation sucks.

Not that he is not passionate about the topic and helping people… but the challenge he faces is he focuses the delivery of his content on assumptions and we all know that assumptions make an ass of u and me (ass u me).

Now I am not saying he is making an ass of himself at all… if anything that is farthest from the truth but if he did not have my help I could guarantee that he eventually would.

Over the past 2 years especially, I am seeing a huge amount of proof that as content providers, we NEED to focus on not getting our readers to make one big commitment but instead a bunch of mini commitments.

These small commitments are 1 to 2 second decisions that we all make and are what you want to focus on so that your reader will actually read your content.

Below are the 3 biggest assumption that I see being made everyday that cause your readers to NOT read your content.

1. Its Not How You Say it But What You Say

This is such a big stumbling block for so many people. We get stuck in our head that the content will do all the selling and we never pay attention to how we structure and present our content.

The internet has made us an ADD ( no disrespect to anyone diagnosed with ADD) audience and as youtube and twitter have proven to us… people want the content given to them with as little effort as possible and in a small of segments as possible.

Do not make people have to do a full page scroll more then 2 or 3 times MAX when reading your content and break your paragraphs up into no more then 3 to 4 sentences.

This PROVES to help people not feel overwhelmed by your content.

2.  People Want to Read What You Have to Say!

Sorry but 9 times out of 10 your biggest fan is usually yourself and the biggest mistake most people make when starting out is they think that people will want to read everything.

In the real world however, what usually happens is you end up talking way over your audiences head or you talk to them from more an encyclopedia stand point than actually relating to them from a personal perspective.

You need to relate to your reader and talk with them, NOT AT THEM. The micro commitment here is that they feel you relate to them right away and as a result they want to continue reading.

3. Your Title

I see so many posts on blogs that simply are two to three words that do nothing to get the readers attention.

The most effective thing you can do here is create a targeted headline (title) that is 5 to 9 words and gets your audiences attention and then immediately have a good sub headline that answers any questions the headline/title poses.

For example…

Headline –> LOSE 15 POUNDS IN 2 WEEKS!

Sub Headline –> New Diet Helps Increase Your Metabolism and Reduce Your Appetite With No Side Effects and Amazing Results!

This is just an example but you can see the headline gets thier attention and then the sub headline answers the question of how.

These are just three simple examples but the point here is remember… focus on talking to your reader, engage them, relate to them and do not overwhelm them with too many words.

What are your thoughts and comments?

Announcing the winners of the…

WIN a Brand New Kindle DX PLUS a Huge Link Building Blast to Your Website of Choice Contest!

I guess I did not make my self clear on some of the instructions or people just did not read them fully… a lot of people did not get the amount of points that they thought because of things like not commenting a post on your facebook wall. That was a two part job, you had to add me as a friend PLUS post on your wall.

Here are the winners…

First Place (Gets to select which of the two prizes he wants) is…

Runner Up (gets what ever Todd Temaat does not select) is…

Please use the contact us form with the best email to contact you with. Todd you will need to let me know asap which prize you want and Jen I will notify you asap with which prize you get. More instructions will follow once Todd makes up his mind.

This could be one of the shortest posts I have ever written you.

My good friend just released this new content-getting software 2 days ago called…

Article Assistant

The feedback has been amazing so far.

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Why a Trusted Expert?

Because people want to do business with people they trust.  It’s as simple as that. And unless you’ve got millions of dollars lying around, you don’t have the money to put into an advertising campaign to gain recognition for yourself and to build trust with your target audience like the major corporations do.  And really, does anyone trust anything that’s said in advertising anymore?

Instead, you need to start looking at your communications in a different way.  You need to come up with a strategy that will help you reach people, and build a level of trust with them that will cause them to seek you out when they need your product.  And all for little to no money spent on your part.  Just time, effort, and some authenticity are all that is required.

You just need to make other people start seeing you as a Trusted Expert.  People want to do business with people they trust, and there’s not a whole lot of trust in online business.  By being authentic and genuinely helpful (and don’t worry, I’ll explain how to do that if it seems like a foreign concept for business) you will position yourself as an authority in your niche or category.

By putting information first and sales second, it will actually make people want to buy from you more.  It sounds counter-intuitive to everything you’ve read (trick them into buying stuff, hypnotize them so they don’t know what’s going on!) but it works, and even better, it establishes a long-term relationship that can provide you with sustained revenue down the road.

It may seem daunting (and a tad egotistical) to brand yourself as a Trusted Expert…

But there ain’t no room in business for humble, and you’ve got to blow your own horn because no one else is going to do it for you!

But to become a Trusted Expert, you first have to know more about your audience.  In order to provide them with the information they want, you have to know what they need and why they need it.

So whats your thoughts on this post?

In my last post, I talked about the importance of talking to your customers directly to get the most out of everything the internet has to offer you and your business.  In this post, we’ll talk a little bit about how that can be done.

How do you do this?

We’ll get more into that in the practical parts later, but you’re going to need to customize your site and all of your other communications so that you are exactly what the potential customer is looking for. At its most basic level, you’re going to need to build many different microsites or landing pages with purpose-built content aimed at each of the targets that you’ve identified.

That gets us on the topic of how the design of those pages is another integral part of your communications strategy, but I’m getting ahead of myself again.

With regards to PR, while media coverage is still important, and can be very beneficial to some businesses, there are now better ways to get media coverage than simply by sending out a press release.

What if a reporter already has a full plate when you send your release out? What if there’s no interest in the subject just then? But two weeks later, something related to your subject hits the news, and he goes looking for more information to give his story a new angle, but he can’t find anything about you (And he forgot about the press release you sent out).

Instead, you could tell your story directly to interested people.  They will then talk about you, leading the media to pick up on the story and cover it.

The crucial difference in PR campaigns, is that, for the first time in a very long time, public relations is actually public.  Anyone can launch and run a successful PR campaign by knowing who to talk to, and how to go about it.  Blogs, online news releases, and other kinds of web content will make it easy for your potential customers to find information about you, and opens up a dialogue for your buyers to communicate directly with you.

With a direct PR campaign, you should cultivate as many small relationships within your niche that you can.  While these bloggers and media people may seem like small potatoes compared to some of the biggies out there, they are highly influential within your niche, which is where your customers are.

You need to remember that a large number of small marketing efforts can bring in just as much business as one big coup can.

You also can’t look at your PR campaign as something that exists separately from your marketing efforts.  Online, the two are inextricably linked.  PR and advertising are all different aspects of the same communications strategy, and there are a lot of communication efforts that will possess aspects of both.  Again, throw out everything you thought you knew about how advertising and marketing campaign are planned.  You’ll get lost in the details.  Get the big picture down first, and then move methodically through the other steps.

In later posts we’ll go over what the new strategies and theories you need to look at when formulating your communications strategy, and in then I’ll show you how to do it yourself, through step-by-step instructions.  Then I’ll tell you how to keep your site in tip-top shape once you’ve gone through all the trouble of setting it up properly.  That includes testing, as well as the importance of fresh content and keeping your site relevant in fast-changing times.

And at the end of the process, you can start calling yourself a Trusted Expert.

(Continued from the previous post: How We Tried to Make a Square Peg Fit Into a Round Hole With Early Online Media)

It’s all About Communication!

If traditional advertising was a speech, then online advertising is a conversation.

Your content, in all of its forms, is the single most important part of your communications strategy.  Your content needs to be authentic and provide useful information; in today’s jaded advertising atmosphere, people can see a sales pitch coming from a mile away.

So don’t pitch to them!

Instead, use your content to position yourself as an authority within your niche.  You can get more accomplished with some genuine information and by being helpful than you could with a swanky advertising campaign.  Make education one of your foremost communication goals.

Building an authentic communication strategy for the web may seem time-consuming, but it is a simple, cost-effective plan that can do amazing things for your company.

Today’s consumer is looking for the right product or service to satisfy a particular need or want – they are already further down the buying cycle than the targets of traditional advertising where you had to interrupt and introduce the idea.  They are actively seeking out information on a service or product; you need to position yourself as an authority on that product or service, and gain their trust in order to convert them into a customer.  And you do this with your communication strategy.

The web gives you and your business the unique ability to highlight your expertise to potential customers, by using the web-based media that’s available, as well as by interacting and participating in conversations with your existing clients as well as users that you want to turn into clients.

The internet started out primarily as a communication device, and that’s where its strength lies.  You need to learn how to harness this power and use it to your greatest advantage.  You have to ignore the old way that things were done in traditional advertising, and even in early advertising online.  Those rules don’t apply.  In fact, the transient nature of the web itself resists rules, as things are always changing.  There are, however, guidelines that you can use to guide you through your communication strategy.

The most important thing to remember about your communications strategy is that fact that you can now tell your business’s story directly to your audience via the web; you can reach millions of people without having to buy advertising or run an expensive PR campaign.

People seek out information that they are interested in; you need to make sure that you are up front and center when they are looking for you.

You know how, when you’re aware of something, it loses it’s affect on you?  Like subliminal advertising, the sales pitch loses its affect when you’re aware of it happening.  We’ve become so jaded and hyper-aware, that we can smell a sales pitch coming a mile away, and it automatically makes us unreceptive to the information.

Let’s give a bricks-and-mortar example of this:  If you get a salesperson who comes on too hard, saying anything and everything to get you to buy, you get put-off and are unlikely to buy from him, because you know he just wants to make a sale.  In fact, you probably can’t get away from him fast enough, and you don’t believe a single thing he says.

But what if we’re having a genuine conversation with someone that may or may not have anything to do with the products available? He seems genuinely interested in having the conversation, but not that he’s pushing a sale. He’s informative, and will gladly give you as much information as possible about the products.

Who are you more likely to buy from?  Even if you don’t buy that day, but think a bout it for while and then go back, wouldn’t you make a point of going back to the one you’ve developed a relationship with?

This is the crux of being authentic in your sales.

I mean, c’mon, everyone knows you want to sell products.  No one is doing this for their health.  You’re out to make a sale.  But coming on with a hard sale and telling people about how it’s the best thing ever and that their puppy will die if they don’t buy it is not going to cut it.

People’s natural skepticism is at an all-time high.  So instead of an insincere sales pitch, provide information.  Tell them that you think this is a great product, and why.  Give them as much information as you possibly can, testimonials, detailed product info, everything you can think of, but don’t try to convince them to buy.  Just give them all the information they need to make the decision for themselves.

Make sure that it comes across that you genuinely believe in the product or service you’re promoting. It also ties in to establishing yourself as an authority.  Does an authority on something try to shill products?  No, but they could certainly have them available if someone was interested….

I found a couple other great pieces of content on this as well…

• http://www.webmarketingtherapy.com
• http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com

So, now you need to tell me… do you believe this to be true or am i blowing smoke up your you-know-what?

Blog writers face the same kinds of struggles and challenges that other writers do. It’s not easy, day after day, to come up with new ideas for your blog. Yet, if you only go through the motions and throw something up just so you’ve got a post for that day, it weakens your site and your credibility. So, what do you do when you have blog writer’s block?

I don’t have all the answers, but there are a few tips that have worked for me:

• Read other blogs: One thing that makes the blogosphere different from the rest of the Web is the dialogue that takes place, not just in the comments section, but across blogs in a given niche. Problogger may write something one day, and the next day you’ll see something by Copyblogger that expands on the idea. Don’t steal someone else’s idea, but find your own way to apply what’s out there.
• Take a break: Get out from in front of the computer. Go for a walk, breathe some fresh air or get some sunlight. If you want a real change in perspective, take your laptop to the mall or a Starbucks. You’ll be surprised what odd places your muse might be hiding.
• Rework an old idea: Peer back through your archives, maybe even back to your earliest posts. There’s a good chance most of your readers haven’t read those early posts. Take one of them and update it. Add some new information or insight you’ve gained since you first wrote the post.
• Outsource: Hiring someone to write your blog doesn’t have to be a long-term thing. Jump on one of the bidding sites and hire someone to give you a few weeks off while you regroup. Use that time to queue up some new posts, too.
• Stop whining and write: Sometimes, you’ve just got to look past your current situation and force yourself to type something – anything – to get started. Write a post or article. If it’s crap, don’t publish it. Instead, rework it two or even three times, whatever it takes to turn that post into gold.

None of these ideas guarantees you’ll come up with the next big thing in your niche, but they can’t hurt, either.

Next to Make Money Online blogs, food and recipe blogs are probably the most prolific type of blog you’ll find. It seems like every bachelor, chef, mom and teen wants to share with the world their ideas on food and cooking.

Yet, if you’ve spent any time reading food blogs, you’ll quickly realize something: the vast majority of them consist of little more than a single recipe and one or two lines like “I made this for dinner and it was good” or “This was too spicy. I won’t make it again.”

(On a side note, why give a recipe for a recipe you didn’t like? Isn’t that a lot like putting up a review of a product, saying “buy this, I hated it?”)

At any rate, after closely looking at those food blogs you’ll realize something else, too. Most of those food blogs have less than a dozen subscribers, and most of the subscribers are probably friends and family.

There are a handful of food blogs that make it, that really stand out. These big-time food bloggers get featured in Bon Appetit and Good Housekeeping or on the Today Show.

So, what does it take to make it as a food blogger?

Well, in a lot of ways, it takes the same thing it takes in any other niche: it takes purposeful content.

Take a look at some of the most successful food blogs. They don’t just give a recipe and a couple of poorly-shot pictures. They give a story, detailed cooking instructions for the novice and often studio-quality pictures. They give content that’s useful. They provide something their readers can utilize right then and there, and they do it in a way that’s pleasing to both the eye and the ear.

That’s how your blog writing has to be, too. When you write, can your reader taste what you’re talking about? Can she hear it, and picture it in her mind’s eye? Are you telling a compelling story, using only the best in media? Do you spell things out for the novice, but do it in a way that’s not condescending?

The sooner you master these techniques, the sooner you’ll be successful as a blogger.

No, you’re not a professional writer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the same tricks and techniques professional writers use. One of the dirty little secrets effective writers don’t tell you is that they aren’t good writers because of innate talent; they’re good writers because they practice writing rituals.

Writing rituals are nothing more than personal habits. They might have to do with how long you write, where you write or when you write. In some cases, there are behavior-based writing rituals that use a repeated action – such as sipping a drink or sharpening a pencil – that you do before, during or after writing.

Many rituals don’t have any practical impact on your writing, per se. Instead, they have a practical impact on you, which then impacts your writing on more levels than you can imagine.

Here is what writing rituals do for you:

• They decrease your stress: The stress of writing quality content day in and day out can lead to procrastination. By using writing rituals, you put yourself in a familiar situation that reduces procrastination and peels away some of your stress.
• They boost your confidence: It’s easy to feel like a slave to your blog, having to publish updates on a daily basis. Using writing rituals gives you the ability to regain a sense of your own self control.
• They make the writing process easier: Nothing will cut through a little writer’s block like using your writing rituals. They make it easier to start writing and power you through the writing process.

Now, just because most writing rituals don’t have a practical impact on your writing doesn’t mean that they can’t. For example, here are some rituals that writers use in order to get their juices flowing every time they sit down to write:

• Outline before you write: If you jot down just three or four main points that you want to get across in your blog post, you’ll be surprised how fast the writing goes from there.
• Close your other applications: When you’re 500 words into a blog post and an email comes in, you’ll be tempted to read it. If and when you get back to the blog post, you are essentially starting over. Close everything out during the writing process.
• Set parameters: Know how long you’re going to write for or, better yet, know how many words or blog posts you want to write. Don’t stop or even get up until you’re done.

So, what about you? Do you have any blog post writing rituals you’d like to share?

Whether you use your blog to sell something, interact with others in your niche or just get out a message, writing with clarity is essential. Clear writing is convincing, more likely to connect with your reader and get a response. Most of all, clear writing is more likely to produce the results you want, such as a sale.

If your reader doesn’t understand what you’re saying, he isn’t going to spend the time to figure it out. Like most web surfers, blog readers have short attention spans. When they hit a roadblock like unclear writing, the look for the nearest link and they escape as quickly as possible.

So, how do you improve the clarity of your writing in your blog? I can think of a few steps you can take:

• Organize your writing: Outline your post before you write it, and make sure your post has a logical flow to it.
• Edit your writing: Don’t put up your post immediately. Sit on it for a day, and look at it again. When you do, ask the question “Does this convey the message I’m trying to convey?”
• Learn to write with precision: Get rid of unnecessary words and phrases. Watch out for redundancy. Never use eight words to say something when it could be said in three words.
• Open your writing up to constructive criticism: Ask someone to proofread your posts before they go live. Once they’ve read it, ask them: “What is the message this post conveys?” If it doesn’t match up with what you intended, go back to the drawing board.
• Keep your writing simple: While you don’t have to stick to small words, the more simply you write your blog posts, the more readers that will be able to understand.
• Finally, you need to review your posts after they’ve been up: Look at the comments. Are there questions in there about your meanings? If so, figure out where your weakness was and fix it for next time.

With a little dedication and attention, you can turn your muddied blog posts into laser-sharp attention-getting posts.

One of my favorite bloggers “Brian Clark” of copyblogger, just published a post of mine called…

“Are You Blogging With Purpose?“

And if you love the COW, check it out and do me a favor and stumble the post for me

Click Here to read the post now!

Everyone who runs a successful blog seems to have advice about how to write your blog posts. More often than not, the advice of one blogger will directly counteract the advice of another.

How do you know who is right?

The bottom line is this: whatever writing style works for your blog is the right style for you. It’s the ultimate test of practicality. If it works, do it some more. If it doesn’t work, stop doing it.

How do you find your writing style, though?

How will you know which one is working for you? I suggest that you try out a variety of different writing styles on your blog, and see how your readers respond and what kinds of backlinks each generates.

Here are three types of blog writing styles to get you started:

Personal Writing: This is the kind of blog writing where you talk directly to your reader in a conversational style. You use lots of personal anecdotes. You use informal language at times. You write as if you were writing a letter to your best friend.

The upside to a personal writing style is that you’re likely to create quite a loyal community of readers. The downside is that it’s awfully hard to outsource your blog writing down the road when you want to let your blog run on autopilot for a while.

Expert Writing: This sort of blog writing is much more didactic. You write as though you are an authority in your field addressing neonates. Expert writing is instructive, offers lots of little bits of advice and tips, and gives readers concrete activities to engage in.

Expert blogs are great because they tend to have high conversion rates. On the flip side, expert blogs can become mired in controversy when someone challenges their authority.

Sales Writing: Some blogs exist for one person: to get you to buy a product. This type of blog includes a lot of product reviews or may promote its own products.

Sales blogs can be very profitable – if they’re done well. However, a sales blog will rarely generate any kind of a loyal following, and you’ll probably be forgotten once they’ve bought their product.

Are there other types of writing styles that you think should be mentioned?

One of the “dirty” little secrets among professional bloggers is that many of them don’t actually write all their own material…. instead they outsource either some, if not all, their writing.

WHAT… NO…. It Can NOT be???

Yup! Sure, they might edit blog posts in order to put them in their own unique voice. They might add a little bit of personal information so as to more closely associate the blog post with their identity. But very often, their words are not their own.

This is a completely valid business model, too. If you’re trying to make money blogging, hiring someone to write your blog posts should be one of the first things you consider.

There are two compelling reasons why you should consider outsourcing some of your writing.

First of all, to really make money at your blog, you need to be able to write well. You don’t have to be Shakespeare or Stephen King to write a blog. Blogs, by their very nature, are a much more casual form of writing. They’re designed so that the average person with average writing skills can connect with her readers.

If you’re serious about making money on your blog, you have to be able to write in such a way that your blog posts are convincing. Whether you’re hawking your own wares or whether you’re promoting affiliate programs, you have to be able to convince someone, through your writing, that the product is worth buying or at least worth checking out.

The second reason to consider outsourcing your writing is this: you probably don’t want to have to work at your blog as if it were a full-time job. You need to be able to delegate certain tasks out to other people. The potential for Tim Ferris’ four-hour workweek is out there, and you can do it by blogging, but you can’t do it if you spend four hours a day writing blog posts.

Let me add just two bits of advice to the mix, as well.

When it is time to hire a writer, make sure you vet the writer properly. Know what they’re capable of. Look at writing samples. If they have a blog, subscribe for a few weeks to really get a feel for their style. In addition, remember that you get what you pay for, when it comes to hiring writers. If you pay bargain basement prices, you’re going to get bargain basement quality.

What is your thoughts of outsourcing some of your writing?

This is going to be one short post but with the amount of times this topic seems to resurface I thought I would do my due diligence and share it with you. The gist of it all is that they are indicating that there is no real penalty BUT (and a big one) there can be problems.

Check out the post at…

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

When starting a blog, it can be so frustrating trying to pin point exactly which niche to start in. Something that you would think would be easy… can be a huge burden.

The challenge lies in the intimidation of…

“Will this Niche be Profitable?”

The simple fact is that there is absolutely no way to know for certain until you just do it. There are no research tools, no software and no magic formulas that will tell you for certain if a niche will be profitable or not. These tools are nothing more then suggestions as to what looks “potentially” good but the true answer comes when you actually move forward and build and promote the blog.

One of the absolute best strategies for helping with this “challenge” is what I call the…

“3 to 1 Blog Domination”

This is not by any means a ground breaking strategy but one that so many people just do not do. What it entails is creating at least 3 blogs initially, instead of one (more if you have the time). Then you build and promote all three of these blogs for a period of time (3 to 6 months) and then select the winner. The winner is the blog that has shown to be the most profitable of the three and is the one you will now move forward with and focus all your efforts on.

The issue now remains however, what to do with the other two blog?

There are basically three options…

• 1. Let it Die: This is a huge mistake and sadly is the usual practice of people. They have blogs that are long forgotten and they simply let them die… getting no value from them and simply accepting them as a loss.
• 2. Sell It: This is a viable strategy and using places like sitepoint.com or digitalpoint.com, you can often sell your blog for 10 times its monthly gross revenue. The problem is, if you are only making a few bucks a month you will be lucky to get $100 bucks.
• 3. Keep It Alive: This is in my opinion the best choice but you need to do this right. By keeping the blog you have a revenue stream (even if it is small) that can cost you nothing. There are different options for doing this, you can use one of the available WordPress plugins that use RSS feeds, but the problem with that is you do not have permission to use the content. You can also write the content yourself… but that is not something you want to do.. you want to focus that energy on your profitable blog.

This is why we have created SyndicateKahuna, to automatically find and post fresh, laser-targeted, highly-unique, good-quality content to all your blogs. This does not scrape content from article directories or tie into one of those article directory submission services that blast out the exact same content to thousands of blogs and directories.

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You hear a lot of talk about having “good content” on a blog. You hear about how having good content increases your credibility with your reader, and how it helps your blog be successful. However, we don’t often talk about what exactly good content is. That’s exactly what I want to look at today.

Good blog content is purposeful

Every post you put up on your blog had better have a reason behind it. If you want people to take you seriously, you can’t just throw out a bunch of fluff and hope that some of it sticks. No, each and every post you write needs to have a purpose. That purpose might be to educate, inspire, assist, entertain, or inform, but you need to know the purpose going in.

Good content is well-written

Poor grammar and incorrect spellings detract from your overall message. A good blog post follows the rules of the language, and is easy to read because of it.

Good blog content is relevant

A good blog post meets a felt need. If you can’t provide something your readers can relate to, no one will want to read it. Make sure every post has something to say to your target audience about your chosen topic.

Good blog content is timely

While there certainly is value in covering the big picture and talking about general principles, fresh information is always better than stale information. Even when you’re blogging about a timeless topic, you can find ways to make it new and exciting.

Good blog content encourages thought and discussion

While you don’t want a post to lead to an all-out flame war in the comments section, you do want your readers to engage your topic. A provocative title or a controversial theory every now and again can really push your readers, and in the end they will thank you for it.

It’s no secret in the blogging world: hitting high in the search engines alone isn’t enough to make it big online anymore. You need something else. You need a way to convert readers and visitors into buyers.

With the increasing popularity of blogs, competition is fierce. There are a handful of things that will make your site stand out among the vast sea that is the blogosphere. One of them is authority content.

You see, you need more than visitors to have a successful and profitable website; you have to establish yourself as an authority. Your website content and blog posts have to pack a punch. They have to engender trust. They have to demonstrate that you truly know what you’re talking about. When you say “get this product,” they won’t do it unless they believe in you.

But how do you do that? How do you write in such a way that your readers believe in you, and trust that you’re telling them the truth?

Here are three basic principles that will help your content drip with authority:

• Write well. Grammatical and spelling errors cost you more sales than you think. Be diligent with your editing, and work hard to hone your writing skills. Know the rules of the language, and develop your own style and feel.
• Keep it personal. You don’t have to reveal a single detail about your personal life to make people feel like they know you. Personal anecdotes that are light on identifying information and heavy on message are extremely powerful.
• Believe in the products and services you recommend. The best salespeople in the world know that you have to believe in what you’re selling. A transaction benefits both the seller and the buyer. If the products or services you’re recommending are crap, your readers won’t come back.

So what comments do you have… any other tips???

PS –> For those of you waiting for the continuation of the “An Audlife dot Com” case study, I apologize for the delay in this. I have had a tool in the works (free and no opt in required) to help with this and I had hoped it would have been ready by now. We should be all set for getting back into it this coming Monday.

As we hope we have been able to get across, one of the greatest things about using different “Web 2.0″ sites is the ability to own more then one result in the top 10 of Google with your content.

The problem is with Google’s “duplicate content filters” and if you are using only one variation of the content that you submit to the different sites you are pretty limited on how effective you can be. Of course you are already aware of this but it is just so much damn work… you create a great piece of content and then having to rewrite it over and over again… it is sooooo painful.

Here are two very simple “FREE” tricks that may.. and we stress “may” help you rewrite your content in a fraction of the time. These do not work in all situations and are not good for everyone but some of you will love them. With both of these methods, sometimes the resulting content can be very confusing and is almost easier just to rewrite the content from scratch but do test these out for yourself and see what you think.

Tip #1 Auto Summarize

With some of the sites you submit to you do not have to add the entire article, you can instead submit a 200 word summary of the content. We use this on sites like clipmarks.com and tumblr.com

To create a summary, simply use the Microsoft Word “Auto Summarize” feature. To use this feature click on the “Tools” menu inside MS Word and then click “AutoSummarize. . .”, then select the “Create a new document and put it there” and select 50% in the drop down menu (or less if you want).

Here is a helpful link to info about how to find and use it within MS Word. . .

http://www.microsoft.com/education/autosummarize.mspx

IMPORTANT –> Make sure to copy, paste and save the final document into a NotePad document (.txt) with the reason for this being MS Word will add extra hidden formatting characters that get copied into your posts and become formatting nightmares. By saving the document as a notepad .txt you remove all those extra characters. We wish MS Word would come out with the ability to copy clean text with no formatting… but no such luck yet.

If you do not own MS Word then there are some online tools for this and one of them is located at. . .

http://www.pertinence.net/ps/main.jsp?ui.lang=en

Tip #2 Google Translate

Step 1: Go to http://translate.google.com/ and enter your original content in the text box.

Step 2: Select to translate from “English” to “Spanish” and then click “Translate”

Step 3: On the right hand side of the screen, highlight and copy the spanish version and now paste it back into the text box.

Step 4: Select to translate from “Spanish” to “English” and click translate and voila you have a rewritten article. You will of course need to edit it so it reads well

If you need more then one variation, repeat this with the different languages.

Just a couple little tips on a summer weekend that we hope you find useful. If you have any tips you want to add, leave a comment below and I will add them to this post with a link to your site.