The Art of the Blog Giveaway (Part One): Why give stuff away on your blog?

I know a lot of bloggers who give stuff away just to give stuff away.

And if your purpose is to simply give stuff away that’s great.

But if you are trying to build an audience, a giveaway is a great tool and you really should learn how to use it effectively. Hence, the next little series on our journey.

This is one I think I’m particularly adept to speak on because: 

1. I’ve had many successful giveaways
2. I’ve had many unsuccessful giveaways

I’m a big believer in failure. It teaches you how to change for the better. Plus, it gives a person(like me) the opportunity to share said failures with you so that you don’t fail at the same things.

So let’s begin at the beginning. Why give away stuff at all?

• Because people like getting free stuff
• Because people will like YOU for giving them free stuff
• Because contests make people happy, even though they know statistically it’s unlikely that they will win
• Because people tend to want to share “deals” (or giveaways) with other people
• Because giveaways can be beneficial for you, your readers and the company whose products you’re giving away

Wait…beneficial for me? How?

In my last series I talked about how bloggers make money. And they make money partly by doing reviews/hosting giveaways. I’m not going to speak much more about that except to say that for the average beginning blogger you’re probably going to do your first giveaway with absolutely NO payment to you involved.

And that’s ok! Sometimes your benefit is to make connections that will later garner income. Simply put: sometimes you have to scratch backs.

But if you structure your giveaway in a strategic way, you stand to also gain visibility, Facebook likes, Twitter follows, Google Adsense income. It really is up to you.

So in this series we’re going to talk about how to run an effective giveaway. But first I should go over the basic principles (in my view) that govern giveaways. I will put the caveat out there right now that most of my giveaways violate these basic principles but I’ll explain why (and how that works to my benefit) as we go along.

1. People are inherently lazy, especially on the internet.
2. People don’t read. That means they probably won’t read the rules of your contest.
3. The requirements for contest entry should be commensurate to the prize given and people expect that (translation: for bigger prizes, people expect to have to jump through more hoops.)
4. People generally don’t respond to giveaways they don’t think they have at least a reasonable shot at winning (even if it is by random drawing)

 So, how does all this apply to you, the blogger who is trying to build an audience? Stay tuned to find out!

How Bloggers Make Money: Google AdSense

(Shout out to my friend, Devin, who reminded me that...I'm sorry WordPress people, but you can't do AdSense. Don't blame me! Blame Wordpress!) But do feel free to look at my other "How Bloggers Make Money" posts, k?)

This post is going to be short because I mostly know THAT you can make money with AdSense but the rest of it kind of confounds me. I have learned, however, that there are a few basic principles that can help you out.

Let me tell you a story.

I installed AdSense in early 2012. I didn’t really get what it was but I figured if it was a source of income, I’d take it! Mind you I was making…nothing…from my blog at this point.

And I watched with disappointment as I made next to nothing on AdSense. Until about six-ish months ago when things started to change. How? Read to the end of the post to find out!

So what is it?

Google AdSense is, of course, a Google application wherein you allow Google to place ads on your website and you get money whenever anyone clicks those ads. Sounds like a great deal, right?

Well as with any income stream there are rules and strategies.

The Rules

I’ll break this down into two categories: rules, as in logic and then rules, as in guidelines to which you must adhere.

Rules/Logic

AdSense is governed by the principles of search engine optimization (SEO). When you set up your AdSense account you can tell Google what kinds of ads you absolutely do NOT want on your site (no porn, no pharmaceuticals, etc.). But from there Google uses two basic pieces of information to determine which ads will go best on your site:

• The content on your blog (as referenced by your post titles and the keywords your posts contain)
• The search history of your readers

So here’s how this plays out.

Say Jane comes to your blog post about how to sew a handbag. But she just recently did an extensive search to find a better rate on her mortgage. She’s likely to see ads about sewing supplies, home mortgage loans or a combination of both (if you place more than one ad on your site).

In this environment I learned very quickly something I wish I did not know. Double entendre seems to work to the benefit of the AdSense user!

This is especially easy to do with a food blog and our talk of “food porn” and one of my favorite recipes on my blog “protein balls” (I shiver to think what a person who enjoys online adult entertainment sees on my site when they arrive at that post!).

My advice there: Be authentic! (I say that a lot, don’t I?) Don’t use double entendre needlessly, but just recognize that if it does make sense, it can also make cents!

Rules/Guidelines

AdSense seems to be shrouded in mystery. You aren’t allowed to say much about it. Namely:

• You are not allowed to tell your audience to click on AdSense ads.
• You are not allowed to publicly discuss your AdSense earnings.
• You are not allowed to click your own ads. (Why does that sound dirty?)

Doing any of those things (and trust me, Google would eventually catch you) will get you permanently expelled from AdSense. Which would be a shame because it’s a low-risk, low-effort way to make money from your blog.

That being said.

How can you have any control over your earnings?

Good question!

To the best of my knowledge the best way to increase AdSense earnings is to increase your overall traffic. And increasing your traffic means consistently creating and promoting good content.

Use the basic principles of writing good content and Google will know what ads to place on your site. They are geniuses, people. They have this down to a science. So help them to help you! Just in case you don’t want to go back and review my thoughts on content it can be summarized in these few points:

• Speak the lingo of your people: keywords are important. They help Google know what you are writing about and to match people interested in what you’re writing about to your blog through their search engine. It also helps them to place ads that people are likely to click.
• Keep it readable: No chunky paragraphs. Use bullet points. Summarize, tell, then summarize. Yadda, yadda.
• Write about the things your readers want to know about: Use Google Trends to discover what folks are searching for in the subject matter your blog covers and then write about that stuff!

Also, attention to your times of highest traffic, both on your blog and on social media (as a vehicle to promote blog posts). Things got much better for me with AdSense when I realized that I have a strong West Coast readership and that if I scheduled Facebook posts/Tweets late at night for me, it’s early in the evening for them and they will visit the site. Pay attention to your numbers!!! (We’ll do numbers soon. I promise!)

Lastly, know the basic rules. For instance, Google will only pay you for three ads on any given page of your site. So don’t place 10 ads! That’s giving Google free ad space on your blog and, as I’ve said ad nauseum, every scrap of space on that blog is worth something!

You might also consider your Google ads against ads you can sell. You’re likely to make more on a direct ad sell then on Google ads (at least at first). So don’t occupy your prime ad space if you think you can sell an ad there. Be strategic!

So, that’s what I know. It isn’t much but it’s a start. If you know more, post about it! Let’s learn from one another.

How Bloggers Make Money: Sponsored Posts & Product Reviews

This is a realm I’m just delving into so I don’t have much expert advise but I can tell you how it works and what I personally have done so far.

Sponsored posts and product reviews are often spoken of together but they are different things. Especially to the Federal Trade Commission (ack, the Feds!).  So let’s get some terminology straight.

A product review is something YOU do independent of any input from the company whose product you are reviewing. It should be unbiased and reflect how YOU feel about a product – good, bad or otherwise (there are different schools of thought on whether one should post a negative review but we must each decide that for ourselves!). While the company can provide the product for free, the distinction is that you are writing the review yourself based solely upon your experience with the product. The FTC does, however, require that when a product has been provided for you, that you disclose that on your blog.

A sponsored post reflects the company's voice, opinions and messaging. Basically you are giving them yours space to say what they want to say – either as themselves or as you. It’s sort of like in a magazine where they have those articles with the words “ADVERTISEMENT” in the top corner. Sponsored posts, by nature, are NOT unbiased because they are written by the company who has a vested interest in the wording.

Both of these kind of posts have implications on how you must communicate them to comply with FTC regulations, which you can find here.

Now, having said that, you can make money either way. I personally only recently started charging for product reviews and it’s simply because before about a year ago I didn’t know I could/should (hence this blog!).

I will say I was a bit ambivalent about the pay-per-review/sponsored post thing (I’ve still yet to sell a sponsored post on Bariatric Foodie). Why did it feel like I was doing something wrong? I don’t know, but here’s the reality:

•  By virtue of the fact that you’ve built an audience you are now a communication “channel” through which companies can promote their products or services.
•  Like any channel, there is an inherent value in your endorsement, whether it is explicitly stated (in a product review) or implied (by virtue of the fact that you allowed a company to sponsor a post on your blog).
• Both of the above being the case, there is no reason you shouldn’t be compensated for promoting products on your blog!

Having said that there are a few caveats:  

• Anything you promote should be in the best interest of your audience. This goes without saying. For instance, I’m never going to review a Doritos product on Bariatric Foodie because to do so would not be in the best interest of my audience.
• You should seek to preserve your authentic voice in any review you do. If a company or brand starts to try to dictate what you say, that is a sponsored post and you must treat it as such by adhering to the FTC rules about sponsored posts. The companies and brands you work with know what that means: they want to go through you because you have “street cred” with your audience. If you are forced to label the post so that it’s explicit that the words are not yours they lose that! But in short never EVER let a company write a post or review for you without following the FTC guidelines! It’s not legal or ethical or fair to your audience.
• Like I said above, you must decide for yourself if you’ll publish negative reviews. This can be tricky. To determine this, it might be helpful if you wrote an overall review policy. Here’s the one for Bariatric Foodie. You’ll see in mine I tell companies right off the bat that if you send me product, I’m going to publish a review. I do this because I feel there’s as much value in knowing what I hate as what I love (for my audience).
•  But here’s the kicker: YES you still have to pay me for that review! This is the risk that companies take in doing a review with me. In turn, I adhere to some pretty strict guidelines in how I review products (I review objectively using non-slanderous terminology). Thus far I’ve never been paid to review a product I categorically hated (I’ll tell you why in a moment).

So that is to say in all things “be you.” Do you. Whatever.

Now I just said I have never had to put out a negative review. How is this possible? Well it’s mainly for two reasons.

First, I vet companies pretty thoroughly before agreeing to work with them in any fashion. I poke around their website. I Google them. Since I deal mainly with food I check out the nutritional data on the product they want me to review. If there’s any red flags, I ask questions. Lots and lots of questions. This alone is enough to help me be reasonably sure it’s an ok product, even if I don’t personally like the flavors, etc. I usually only outright reject a review if it doesn’t meet my audience’s nutritional needs.

This is especially important with sponsored posts. While you SHOULD have final approval authority on all sponsored posts, you need to be reasonably sure the company is not going to say anything that violates the values or ideology of your blog. In my experience, payment for sponsored posts comes AFTER language is agreed upon because once the company pays you, simply put, you have to publish it (or return the payment). 

The second is that I’m a pretty open-minded person. Even if I personally don’t like something, I can see the merit it may have in others. This is why my reviews rely so heavily on objective language. What do I mean by that? Say I’m reviewing a protein shake I did not like.

Objective = “The shake was bitter and left a strong aftertaste that I did not find appealing.”

Not Objective = “This shake tasted like monkey’s ass!”

See the difference? This way my readers who like bitter flavors and who aren’t sensitive to aftertastes may (or may not) check out the product.

Moving right along.

So how much should you be paid for a  review or sponsored post?

That’s the million dollar question and I don’t have a definitive answer! But I will tell you it’s probably best to standardize everything onto what is called a “rate sheet.”

And a rate sheet is just what it sounds like. It’s a sheet that goes over all the things for which you require payment from a company (ads, sponsored posts, endorsements, etc.) and the cost for them.

I can tell you that I used a formula that took me through the following steps: 

1. Calculating how much time an average review takes (be sure to factor in not only the trying of the product but also photographing the product, writing the post, promoting any accompanying giveaway, promoting the post via social media and being available to answer any questions your readers might have).
2. Then my base level for the review was the minimum wage in my state.
3. To that I started considering value added stuff. Am I producing tweets and mentioning you? Am I developing special recipes? Am I being photographed in your t-shirt? And what rights do you have to those things? Can you republish my recipe? Is the photo of me in your t-shirt yours? All of that has monetary value.
4. You should also consider how much traffic you have. I assigned a monetary value to each potential person a company might reach through me based on my Facebook Likes, Twitter followers and the number of unique visitors to my blog (we’ll get to analytics another time).
5. All of this should give you a pretty good idea of what you should charge. Ideally you should run comparables with other blogs that are similar to yours, but good luck getting them to share their rates! We’re not gas stations. We’re bloggers. And our ability to sell ourselves is important!

So I’ll stop here because this was just supposed to be a beginning primer in how bloggers make money from reviews and sponsored posts. But there’s so much we will talk about in the future. Like how to recruit reviews, how to handle negotiations, etc.

Look forward to that!

How Bloggers Make Money: Affiliate Accounts

(Click here to read part one of this series - How Bloggers Make Money: Advertising)

If you’ve never heard about affiliate accounts, this is the blog post for you because I’m going to keep it all very elementary. I am NOT going to be discussing strategy around affiliate accounts (mostly because I’m not yet that good at it so I’d be a hypocrite advising you!).

So what is an affiliate account?

Let’s say you have a blog about sewing. And you write a blog post about a bag you made. And you happened to mention that you used a particular kind of sewing machine or other piece of equipment to make it. There is value in those words on your blog.

An affiliate network allows you to create a link to that sewing machine or equipment on a website like, say, Amazon that your reader can click and be taken straight to where they can buy that sewing machine. And when they do, YOU will receive a percentage of the purchase price. And not only that but many affiliate networks will give you the purchase price of anything that person purchases during that site visit.

Now before you get too excited and go off to join every affiliate network known to man, a few caveats:

• We’re not talking a huge percentage most of the time. Through Amazon Associates I typically get about 6 - 7% of the purchase price. Which is cool if you’re selling big ticket stuff BUT on smaller purchases it can sometimes be pennies.
• Which brings us to an ethical issue and one that I face a lot. When talking about products you use, do you automatically link your readers to the most expensive offering so that you get the highest return or do you link them to the most affordable to show them that you care? You gotta think about stuff like this!
•   Having a bunch of affiliate networks can get a bit confusing especially if they all work on different pay mechanisms and schedules. Coordination is good!

Having said that, how exactly does one get paid for this? Well, most affiliate networks will offer you several payment options. You’ll be able to receive a check (and many times you have to reach a payment threshold – for example, $100 — to get a check). Some places offer you store credit (Amazon does this). And most places will allow you to be paid by electronic funds transfer, again with a minimum earning threshold.

But like I said above, having a bunch of these accounts can be something of a logistical nightmare. Many pay on different dates and based on different pay periods. For example, my Netrition affiliate account (which does NOT perform well for many reasons, some of which are not my fault!) pays you when you reach $50 in a month. My Quest account through Commission Junction (I’ll explain in a minute) pays you every month a portion of what you’ve earned (and I’m still trying to figure out their logic). Amazon has a staggered schedule so in July I’ll get paid out for my May earnings.

See how this can get wonky? I personally keep an earnings spreadsheet to try to project my monthly income and it’s not easy!

Now remember I mentioned Commission Junction? They are an affiliate network provider. This means many companies use them to attract bloggers and website owners to their affiliate networks. In turn, Commission Junction manages all those affiliate accounts in one place. This means one very important thing to you, dear blogger: all your money is coming from one place at one time every month. This is a good thing!

If you decide to go the affiliate route I highly suggest you do it through these types of services just to make management of your money easier.

But how do I get paid?

Now…let’s talk about how you get those sales. There are several ways to get your readers to buy things through your affiliate accounts.

Ads

Most affiliate networks will offer ads that your readers can click to purchase something and have the credit come back to you.

THE PRO’S: It’s a relatively low intensity way of doing affiliate sales as you just place the ad and direct people to it. The coding is in the image so people don’t have to do anything special for you to get credit for the purchase!

THE CON’S: Remember I said that every scrap of space on your blog has monetary value? Well I’d suggest you only use affiliate ads if you are selling something that can essentially “sell itself.” And when I mean sell itself, the threshold is that it should be able to make you as much or preferably MORE than your monthly charge for ad space. Otherwise you’re losing money. Also, ads are finite. There’s only so many of them you can put on your blog and, moreover, only so many you can put at first pageview.

Links

These are the more common way to do affiliate sales. You can place a link (with your affiliate code built-in) in your blog posts OR you can post them in other places, like on your Facebook Page or other websites.

THE PRO’S: Links are portable. You can Tweet them, Facebook them or post them on other sites. They are especially good because you can respond in a conversation about the product with a link to the product. For instance, I often get asked what protein powder I like. I often respond with a link to the protein powder I like to my affiliate account.

THE CON’S: Some affiliate networks are more tech advanced than others. One of my networks has me actually manually writing the links myself to get my affiliate code in there (for what it’s worth, this is a sign that maybe I want to drop this affiliate account!). Otherwise, links are a good option.

In Summary

Here’s what I want you to remember about affiliate accounts:

•  Use them organically! Don’t talk about things for the sake of selling them. But if you genuinely do use a product or service and would mention it in a blog post, by all means link it to any affiliate account you may have.
• Don’t think you are limited to marketplaces like Amazon. Many services like domain hosting companies, newsletter hosting sites (like Survey Monkey) and print-on-demand publishing sites. Heck, even my affiliate network has an affiliate network. You can get credit when other people join! Do a Google search. You’d be surprised!
• Consider using an affiliate network provider, like Commission Junction, wherever possible. They offer accounts for many brands that people know and love and you get the added benefit of getting paid out from one source at one time.
• Be advised, though, that many affiliate accounts are by application only and the company does NOT have to accept you. Some companies require a certain level of traffic or Google Page Ranking (we’ll go into that later
• Like many other forms of passive blog income, your level of earnings has to do with two things: traffic and your marketing skills. For affiliate accounts to work you have to constantly remind people (without reminding them per se) to click on the link or ad. You must decide if that’s something you want to do. And even then the return may or may not be worth it!
• Finally, just because you join an affiliate network does not mean you HAVE to use it. But be advised that companies are free to drop you if they see no activity from your account.

How Bloggers Make Money: Advertising

“How do you make money off of your blog?”

I get asked this question fairly often. And by bloggers fairly often. And I feel sort of weird answering. I mean I’m not rolling in the income here, folks. I’m very much a beginner at this whole thing. I’ve set reasonable goals (my main goal is to have my blog make an amount commensurate with a part-time job and that’s quickly coming to fruition) but I’m not rich off my blog by any means.

Still, I KNOW how it’s done. I just don’t always do it. For various reasons which I’ll not get into right now. But over the next week or so we’ll go over the various means of making money from a blog. I’ll do some reading up on the pro’s opinions of them  and I’ll ask you to weigh in.

Let’s start with the most simple to understand method. Advertising.

So you have this blog. And you have this audience. And your audience (no matter the size) respects your opinion and looks forward to your posts. These are the most basic requirements of your blog to seek out advertising revenue.

And advertising revenue is just what it sounds like. You are seeking out companies to place ads on your site for a price. What price? Good question. There are many schools of thought on how to price out advertisement. We can get into all that later. For now it’s just important that you know that there are methods.

Ok, so how does this all work?

Look at your blog. Look at your entire computer screen open to your blog. Every piece of space on your blog has potential monetary value. Some of it you can sell and some you can’t. Obviously you want to reserve space for YOUR blog posts and photos. That is, after all, what people come to you for. The rest is up for grabs.

Obviously anything in the first screen view (the view of your blog without having to scroll) is going to be the most valuable. The less people have to look for things, the more likely they are to look at things.  Bigger ads are more valuable (both because they are more noticeable and because they take up more of a finite amount of space) than smaller ads.

The pro’s of ad space

The con’s/reservations about ad space

I guess technically ad revenue is active income. You have to seek them out to get them. But they are sort of a passive form of active income. Once an ad space is sold, it’s sold. You cannot sell it again. And since there’s only so much space on your blog, there are only so many ads you can sell.

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

This is an important question to ask yourself. And the answer will in part dictate what you do (or won’t do) with your blog.

From what I've seen, bloggers seeking to build an audience fall into one of a few types. There are:

• Those blogs support a company, product or personality that they own. The blog is used as a promotional vehicle for that company, product or personality and without that company, product or personality that blog could not exist.
• Then there’s the ones who blog in hopes of gaining notoriety. The Perez Hilton’s of the world, I call them. And the reasons are endless. Maybe you want to be on Entertainment Tonight or maybe you want to meet a celeb. Maybe you want to party with them or get swag to look like them. Whichever.
• This blog is mainly for the type of blogger that blogs about what they are interested in and wonder if they might be able to make some money in the process. You are the ones who would probably blog even if you didn’t make a cent. But since you’re doing it anyway, why not get some kickback?

If anyone felt any shame or guilt about that last bullet point, stop it. Just stop. I know how you feel, though. I felt terribly guilty about monetizing my blog. I mean, I was “keeping it real” with my readers. Wouldn’t making money make me a “sell out?”

Most certainly not! Especially if you are providing something to your readership that is valuable and putting time and effort into doing so. Besides, very rarely do bloggers ask their readers for money. So you are providing something valuable FOR FREE to the people you want to serve.

So how do bloggers make money anyway?

That’s what we’re going to discuss next. I can speak on the methods but not necessarily the strategy behind the methods. I’m not perfect at any of them but, as always, I’m gonna tell what I know.

Until then, keep bloggin’!

How Blogging is Like Going to McDonald's

Okay so back to content for a minute.

I did a good bit of blog hopping over the weekend and I wanted to clarify one thing. Different blogs have different purposes and as such different blogs will have different kinds of content. But for every blog that builds a following (and builds income if that’s your desire), there is a product being offered.

For many of you,  But for every blog that builds a following (and builds income if that’s your desire), there is a product being offered. Think of content as the way you deliver that product to people. 

For many of you, YOU are the product. Especially in fitness and inspirational blogs, your experience is your product. People follow you because they can relate to you. They watch you as you do whatever it is you are doing and they root you on, give you advice, follow your advice and so on.

For others, perhaps your schtick is your product. Such is the case for me. Bariatric Foodie is about playing with your food. I would like to liken my blog as being the Alton Brown of the weight-loss surgery world. I made the choice in the beginning that I didn’t want to be the product (mostly because I am far too fallible to be anybody’s hero!).

So let’s talk about how content differs for these two approaches to blogging. Remember I said content is the good stuff people cometo your blog for. And I also said that blog posts contain content but aren’t (necessarily) content in and of themselves.

“What the heck does that mean?”

You ever been to the drive-through at McDonald’s (don’t lie). Maybe you like Big Macs. But maybe you also like the extra value meal because then you get a Big Mac and some other stuff conveniently packaged for one low price (stop chuckling).

Well blog posts are the extra value meal. Content is the Big Mac. Get it?

So for those of you who are the product of your blog, your experiences are what you are packaging. If you’re a running blogger, for instance, the first time you ran a 5k, half marathon, full marathon, did an Iron Man/Woman. Those posts contain content that you’ll likely refer to again and again. Those are your Big Macs!

For those of us whose products are our schticks, content can look the same or different. My Big Macs are posts like my tutorial on how tomake a triple thick protein shake and the most popular recipe on my blog.

“Why is this distinction even important?”

Because blog posts come and go. Blogs are set up to keep things moving. And even on sites like Wordpress, good posts can get lost in the darkness! But content rarely does. Why? Because you keep referring back to it! I link people to that tutorial and that recipe at least a few times a week.

Content also can take on a life of its own. In my case with the recipe, folks shared it and shared it and other folks made variations of it. When this happens, you know you are writing more than just good blog posts but good content.

Once we get more into monetization (I’m getting there but I am so NOT the ultimate expert so I am fact checking to make sure I give you all good info!) good content becomes the platform upon which you can build good, steady income on your blog.

But for now wrap your head around the concept of content and figure this out: what’s your Big Mac?

How to Write a Blog Post People Will Read (Part Three)

So you've figured out what "your people" want to know and you've written up a really good post about it that is both concise and well formatted.

Now what?

From what I see in my Facebook feed you bomb every possible outlet you can with your post link. And while that is one method of getting yourself out there, there are more effective ways.

First, do you have a Facebook Page? A Twitter Handle? If you do, then that's the FIRST place you should promote your post. If you and your blog are the same thing (and you're ok with YOUR personal social media profile being shared and re-shared as one would hope when trying to build an audience) then go ahead and share via your personal profile. But even if you and your blog are one and the same I highly advocate for a separate Page or Twitter account.

Once you have a Facebook Page or Twitter handle exactly how do you promote your post? Well at first you're not going to have very many followers. This makes the marketing of posts key. Here are a few things I've found that work well.

• Don't just use your blog post name and a link to your blog post! Think of when you see that. Do YOU feel automatically compelled to click it? Maybe if it's highly relevant to your day-to-day life yes, but otherwise probably not.
• Instead "create" a problem that you're solving for your reader. This may sound deceptive but it's not if you think about it. Sometimes you didn't know you needed something until somebody told you ;) In the last post's analogy about a "Top 5 blog post about running apps" you might say "Need an easy, portable way to track your mileage? Here are my top 5 picks!"
• Use a real photo Yes, Facebook will generate a photo from the blog link you provide but it will be tiny. Studies show people pause for pics! Upload a relevant picture and use your blog post call-out as a caption in the picture. Photo + compelling caption + link = click-through!

If you hang out in other spaces where "your people" are, promote there as well. So long as you're allowed to do so through the websites Terms of Service. You don't want to be getting kicked out of anyplace. Usually, though, so long as you're not selling anything you're good. 

Leave blog post comments on similar, well-trafficked, blogs as your blog. Not as YOU. Unless you and your blog are the same! (What the heck does she mean by that? She keeps saying it??? For example, I am Nikki. My blog is Bariatric Foodie. I post as Bariatric Foodie on other people's blogs, not as Nikki. Get it?) Be sure there's a hyperlink to your blog in there somewhere. You don't necessarily need to pimp a particular post unless it's relevant to the discussion.

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet! You can set up automatic Tweets when post on your blog through Networked Blogs, but I also highly suggest you do your own call-out (using similar language as on Facebook) with a shortened URL. Remember, don't just use the blog post name (which is what Networked Blogs will do). Tell folks WHY they NEED to read your blog post!

See? That wasn't very much to ingest, now was it? Simple things you can do to effectively promote your blog posts when you are ready to do so.

When is that point? I advised at the outset of this blog that you build up some content first. When you are ready to take your blog public, make sure you have links in the body of your blog posts to past posts. That will get people clicking around to see what else you have to offer. I'll go over the subtle art of hyperlinking another time.

Until now, let me ask you this. What effective ways have YOU found to promote your blog posts?

How to Write a Blog Post People Will Read (Part Two)

One thing that’s really hard for me to accept as a person who writes for a living is this: as technology and social media increase, word counts decrease.

Not only that, but well-performing websites and blog posts have figured out how to “package” information for maximum views.

Frankly, this hurts my heart. I mean I did read William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” and, yes, he did advise that writers should only use as many words as necessary to clearly articulate their point, but in a 140-character, 15 second video world, even that is saying too much.

All this is to say that the #1 sin I see committed on blogs in general (but especially blogs that are seeking to build an audience) is that you use too damn many words!

So here’s three solid suggestions for how to structure blog posts that are not wordy and that people are more likely to read.

People like “top” posts.

Top 5, Top 10, whatever. For some reason, ranking things (even if it isn’t a true rank, but a “in no particular order” list), really motivates people. So if you write a blog about running, you could do a “Top 5 Running Apps” or “Top 10 Things You Should Do to Prepare for a Marathon). If you read my post on getting your blog off to the right start, you also know, then, that said post should be called “Top 5 Running Apps” or “Top 10 Things You Should Do to Prepare for a Marathon”).

If your paragraph goes beyond four lines, bullet point it.

Yep. Chunky paragraphs are the bain of web reading. People see them and they run the other way! It’s crazy because studies show it’s not the content but the actual paragraph length. Some studies have had the text in a chunky paragraph and then broken up and readership went through the roof on the latter. So don’t do the chunk. If you absolutely MUST have all that information in there, break it up into bullet points. And make the bullet points short!

Use the “ABC” Method of writing.

When I was in college my professor shared a life-changing quote with me. It seems overly simple but stay with me on this one. In good writing you “Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em, then you tell ‘em, then you tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”

In the writing world we call this the “ABC” (Abstract/Body/Conclusion) method of writing. When we’re writing, being reiterative seems ridiculous but think about when you are reading a good article. It usually repeats the point several times throughout and you leave not annoyed but…with a good sense of what the author was trying to convey!

Especially in longer posts, I tend to do an intro, then the body and my conclusion summarizes the body in bullet points, to make it even easier. Plus, this gets your point across to those notorious “scanners.” They’ll zoom straight down to the bullet points.

Which brings me to a bonus item. If you summarize in bullets, put your calls to action in those bullets! If you’re selling something, make it a bullet point. If you’re linking to an affiliate account (if you don’t know what that is, we’ll go over it later this month), put that. If you want people to sign up for something, ask there. People are more likely to read that call to action in a bullet point than in your text!

So those are just a few tips on setting your blog posts up so that people actually READ them. My next post will tell you how this set up can help you SHARE your posts – and make sure others do too!

Blogs All Serious Bloggers Must Read: CopyBlogger

This is going to be a running list. I am on the mailing list of a lot of blogs about blogging. Many of them are run by people who make GOOD income from their blogs, so I tend to believe their advice!

Copyblogger (www.copyblogger.com) is a blog you should ALL subscribe to. It gives lots of great advice on how to draft content so that it gets read, about search engine optimization (SEO) and posts like this latest one on how to keep a list of fresh content ideas.

If building an audience is a craft, Copyblogger is a great tool that helps you get good at it. Go, subscribe!

How to Write a Blog Post That People Will Read (Part One)

I see them all the time in my Facebook feed. You do too. People's blog posts. And you mean to click them, you really do. But first you have to read this other thing. And somehow you never get back around to your friend's blog post. So when they ask what you thought about it, you shamefully ignore them.

This scenario plays itself out over and over again every day on the internet. So how can YOUR blog avoid this fate? Let's discuss.

If you've been reading this blog so far you know that by now you should have:

• Decided whether you want to blog just for yourself OR to build an audience
• Determined WHAT you want to blog about

You've all done these things right? (Slow nods)

If you've done the second thing especially, you have a few pieces of information at your disposal, especially if you've (smartly) picked something you can naturally talk about and are interested in. You know:

• The language of your "thing"
• The things that make people happy about your "thing"
• The things that frustrate people about your "thing"

Using these pieces of information you can write a blog post that is highly relevant and, more importantly share-able.

Step One: Find out what people are talking about

How do you do that? Consult the great and powerful Google, of course! Use Google Trends and run a few of the keywords you know are associated with your "thing" into it. If your "thing" is gardening, for instance, you might run a search on the words "soil," "planting," or "fertilizer." The articles that come up are trending topics for those keywords.

Google Trends is fairly easy to use. You go there, search the keyword you want to know about (let's go with "garden soil." At the top a line graph will appear with various points marked off by letter. Hover over those letters and you'll see the articles and other media trending on this topic.

 So now you know what people are searching for/reading on your topic of choice. 

Step Two: What do YOU know about what people are talking about?

This is where the last two things come in. Let's go with the analogy about gardening. If you garden you have personal experience with it. Say you see that an article is trending lately on a particular kind of potting soil and you've used it. Perhaps that warrants a review of that soil. Or perhaps it warrants your top five choices for potting soil. Or perhaps a post on picking the right potting soil that mentions the trending potting soil. The possibilities are endless but I think you can see where I'm going with this, right?

Step Three: Craft a blog post that's easy to read and share

How do you do that? Ah...we'll go over THAT in part two of this series. But until then, get to searching and remember that if you have any questions, leave them in the comments! I know somebody is reading this blog!