August 2nd: I'm going to be on vacation for 2 weeks... I'll let you in good hands! =)

What’s The Best Analytics Program for Newbie Bloggers to Use?

May 30th, 2008

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Photo by BinaryApe
Photo by BinaryApe

This question has been submitted by a reader through Skribit. I would like to thank the author to start up the process! As I said in a previous post, your questions may be submitted anonymously and very easily. Don’t hesitate to submit them; this helps me to treat about topics that are very targeted and relevant for you. There is no wrong or stupid question! I’ll always take some time to answer them.

Now let’s answer the question! :smile:

There is plenty of analytics system on the online market. Some are free, some cost money. Some give you real time data while others don’t. Some are scripts that you host on your server while others are hosted by a company. Which one should you choose as a new blogger? I personally think that the choice is quite simple and won’t surprise anyone: Google Analytics.

This choice is based on solid reasons. Here the list:

1. Feature rich.

Google Analytics has plenty of great features. There are many features you won’t use at the beginning of your experience. However, they will be available when you’ll need it. The default features are far enough for a new blogger.

2. Easy to setup.

Google Analytics is very simple to install. In fact, it is as simple as a copy/paste. You just need to insert the code in every page and that’s it! If you are using Wordpress as your blog CMS, you’ll just need to insert the code on the footer.php file.

3. Friendly interface.

Google Analytics has a very intuitive interface. Moreover, I personally like it because it is very clear and clean. The dashboard gives you a global image of your blog indicators. Then you can analyze some aspects more in details. Every page is very well organized!

4. Well documented.

Every service launch by Google is well documented. Google Analytics is not an exception. In fact, a very descriptive help center is available to answer any of your questions about the Analytics service. In addition, you will find plenty of excellent articles and forums that talk about Google Analytics. You won’t be out of resources! :smile:

5. May be combined with other Google services.

Just as an example, Google Analytics may be combined to Google Adwords to track your Adwords campaigns. This may be very useful to build an efficient marketing strategy.

You want to give Google Analytics a try? Here is the Google Analytics Installation Guide!

Now, for those of you whoare visual, here is an interesting video:




Of course, there is many other analytics systems. For example, I may have written about Sitemeter, which is also great. However, I think that Google Analytics is the best choice to begin. Finally, the best thing will always be to experiment! This is an absolute law. Reading helps you to learn while experimenting helps you to understand!


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20 Remarkable Lessons For Blogging Success (A StrongLifts.com Case Study)

May 28th, 2008

Photo by ericmcgregor
Photo by ericmcgregor

Last Friday, Darren Rowse from ProBlogger published a great interview with Mehdi, the author of StrongLifts.com. As Darren precise it in its interview, “StrongLifts.com is a good example of a blog that is focusing upon a niche topic and growing a readership quickly over the last 12 months”. I highly recommend reading this interview with all you attention, but for the benefits of this article I’ll just put you in context.

In short, Stronglifts.com is a blog about how to build muscle and lose fat through strength training. Thus, this blog is very focusing on a particular topic. The blog went online May 1st 2007. It reaches 1000 RSS in November 2007. 5000 in January 2008. 10 000 at the beginning of May 2008 and as of today it count more than 15 000 subscribers!

Since I really believe I can learn from other bloggers’ experiences, I read the interview several times to get the best of it and make a list of lessons I could learn from it. I would like to share this list with you; I already get benefits from it, I guess it could be the same for you!

1. Blog About What You Are Expert In.

If you want to successful and publish quality content, you must be aware of what you are blogging about. Blogging is all about sharing and creating relationship. If you write about something you are expert in, if you write about one of your passions, you’ll be and stay more motivated over time. Your blog must be an extension of who you are!

2. Determine Your Winning Social Media Network.

Every social media network won’t work well in every niche! Take the time to experiment which one deliver you more traffic. Make a list of networks were your articles rank well and focus on them.

3. Don’t Underestimate The Strength of Forums.

Forums are great places to interact with targeted audience. They are terrific to help you build your authority and to help other persons on the same niche as you. It’s also great places to build relationship and create some inbound links to your blog with a relevant signature.

4. Convert Your Traffic Into RSS Instead of Money.

Converting traffic into money is great, but it’s something that won’t last forever if you don’t base your business model on a strong foundation. Thus, you better convert your traffic into readership and build a strong relation with your audience. After, and only after, you should think about how you build your monetization model. Focus on something that will last!

5. Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

Mehdi said he tried almost every online tip on how to make your RSS count to increase. He said that none of these worked for StrongLifts.com but he continued to observe and experiment. One day, Mehdi found a relevant way to reach his goal. No matter what you want for you blog, experiment and find the best way to do it! Every niche has different audience. Consequently, you’ll need to find the way that best fit for you and your blog.

6. Track Your Visitors And Analyze the Results.

Tracking your blog for visitors and content is essential! If you want to be successful you have to know who you visitor are? Where they come from? What do they read? Where do they leave? These are only few questions you may answer with a tracking system. This information is critical if you want to build your strategies on a good base.

7. Precisely Determine Who Your Audience Is.

If you don’t know who you audience is, how could you know what will fill their needs? Building a wide and strong readership require to know who your audience is. It will help you to produce and distribute the proper content. It will help you to build an efficient marketing strategy and promote your blog where your audience is!

8. Offer Something For Free.

Mehdi offers a free eBook to every visitor. This eBook is a way for him to help people going further in their training goal and, thus, demonstrate his authority. Helping people by giving them free stuff will predictably attract new and more visitors. Mehdi offers an eBook , but you may want to offer something else like a useful tool or anything that could be valuable for your readers.

9. Focus On Gaining Experience, Authority And Readership.

If you want to build a popular and lasting blog, you’ll need to focus on gaining experience, building your authority and growing your readership. These 3 elements last in time. You’ll always keep the benefits with you as something highly valuable.

10. Always Learn Lessons From Your Mistakes.

Gaining experience is, most of all, learning from our mistakes. In fact, doing mistakes is inevitable. Whatever you will do and whatever the results are, the most essential is to learn from it. Doing mistakes is an incredible way to learn; and hopefully learn fast enough to avoid repeating the same thing! Build your attitude on positive thinking and continuous learning!

11. Sharpen Your Determination.

There is no success without determination! If you want to be successful you must be determine to reach your goal and your dream! Determination is a mindset and an attitude you must sharpen everyday! As I previously said, blogging is not easy. Being determine and persistent are essential ingredients to reach your ultimate goal of success!

12. Be An Example Of What Your Say.

Is there a better way to convince somebody to do something than doing it our self? I guess not. In fact, everybody starts with the premise that you will do the best for yourself. If you succeed to sell yourself as an example to follow, you’ll gain authority and respect from your readers. This will then add value to everything you will write or recommend.

13. Help Your Audience Generously.

Helping your audience will allow you to build strong relationships. Moreover, it will let you gain new experiences and better understanding of what your audience really need. Your generosity will always pay back. You don’t know when and how, but the natural law of return will always give you what you deserve!

14. Publish High Quality Content.

This is not a secret for anyone. Publishing high quality content is essential to attract visitors and convert them into loyal readers. The value and the creativity of your content will, among other things, determine your authority. Of course, this will be base on the perception and subjectivity of your visitors, but in general quality content is almost the same for people from the same niche.

15. Guest Post On Popular and Valuable Blogs.

Guest blogging is known as a very efficient way to increase visibility. In order to optimize the effect, Mehdi recommend to make a list of blogs with a high amount of readers and who often get on Digg / Del.icio.us / StumbleUpon front page.

16. Be Audacious: Don’t Ask For Permission to Guest Post.

Medhi also recommend being audacious and sending directly your article to the first blog on your list. If the blog owner accepts to publish it, you are on your way. However, if he refuses try to send it to the second blog, and so on. If you get 5 negative responses, you may question the relevance and/or the quality of your article.

17. Write a Relevant and Valuable eBook For Your Audience.

Writing an eBook for your audience is a great way to put together your best tips and tricks. The goal should be to gather together a bunch of essential information that will fill the main needs of your audience. Just to help you about the content, here are some questions: what are the most common problems for people on your niche? Are there known techniques or strategies to avoid them? What are the common mistakes or pitfalls? Write your eBook with your audience in mind. You won’t read your own eBook , your audience will!

18. Before Starting Your Blog, Observe And Read A Lot.

Mehdi recommend to everyone to observe blogs and bloggers and to read a lot before starting a blog. We often tend to underestimate the effort needed to maintain a blog. Thus, getting as much information as possible before starting is essential for the new blogger.

19. Believe In You and On Your Success.

As for the determination and the persistence, believing in yourself and on your success is critical to succeed. Some people may tell you that you won’t do it or that it’s too difficult. Whatever the reason behind those negative thoughts, stand tall and believe in you! You are unique. Where somebody failed, you may succeed! The strength of your beliefs will determine your success!

20. Don’t Blog For The Money.

If your only interest for blogging is the money, you will most likely be disappointed! Blogging is a lot of work and it requires a real passion to write about something month after month and year after year. Mehdi said: “if you are looking for an easy way out of your day job or if you’re looking for easy money: don’t do it, because you have the wrong mindset and will fail”. Again, blogging is all about sharing and building relationship. The money is the cherry on the sundae!


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Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!


5 Simple Tips to Make Your Idea Journal More Efficient

May 23rd, 2008

Photo by Paul Worthington
Photo by Paul Worthington

One of the most useful and valuable tools a blogger could own is an idea journal. Having a constant flow of ideas is essential to keep writing quality articles and maintain your blog readership. In fact, for probloggers post ideas are directly link with their income. For them, running out of ideas may be dramatic and significantly impact their living.

I wrote some time ago an article titled 12 Effective Ways to Find New Article Ideas. In this article, I listed some ways to get new source of ideas. These sources are quite simple and may help you to fill up your idea journal with great ideas. Now, concerning your journal, Steven Snell wrote an interesting article on DailyBlogTips to help people maintaining an effective idea journal. This article is titled Keys to an Effective Idea Journal. You may take some time to read it; it may help you to improve the way you use and maintain your own journal.

Those 2 articles will give your great resources to maintain an effective idea journal. However, I would like to go a little bit further by giving you 5 additional tips. Those tips are more related to your journal structure and may influence the way you write your idea in your journal. The tips are the following:

1. Create Categories.

Creating categories may help you to better organize your ideas and to relate them to a specific topic. Of course, this may change later in time, but at least you’ll have an initial base. Using categories may also help you to avoid duplicates. I also recommend using a generic category like “General”, “Uncategorized” or something like that. This category will be useful to insert general ideas. In fact, the key here is that you better use a general category than dropping your idea because it doesn’t fit anywhere. Note that your categories must fit with topics relevant to your niche.

2. Create a Special Section For Article Types.

Sometimes you may have some idea related to a special type of articles. For example, you may have several “Top 10″ ideas. In fact, because you already have some elements in mind, the type of your article is clear to you. Thus, having a “Top 10″ section may help you to properly categorize your articles. Don’t forget to write the elements you already have in mind. For example, you may have 2 or 3 elements of your “Top 10″ article; write them down! Other potential article types could be “Reviews” or “How to”. Note that article types are not related to you niche.

3. Sketch Your Article Structure.

If you have any idea of your preliminary article structure, just write it down. You may want to take a look at the 4 Simple Rules to Increase The Quality of Your Articles. In that article, you’ll find a way to properly structure your article. Of course, sketching your first article structure is not a necessity at this point (when writing in your journal). However, if you have something in mind, you have to write it down immediately. It may not be your finale structure, but it will be great beginning!

4. Add an “Article Ready” Score For Each Idea.

You may want to add some kind of a “article ready” score to each of your idea. In fact, what I called “article ready” score is a code to let you know at which level you feel each idea ready to be exploited in a concrete article. This score could be anything you want. For example, it could be as simple as “L”, “M” and “H” that stand respectively for low, medium and high. For those who better like numbers, you may want to use a 0 to 10 scale. Thus, ideas that are clear in your mind may have a score of 7 or 8. In opposition, an idea that was just drop without any context or clarification may have a score of 2 or 3. This score may help you when you want to pick up an idea for a new article. Depending of the time you have, you may want to develop an idea with a score of 2 or 3. However, if your time is limited, you would probably prefer to develop an idea with a score of 7 and above.

5. Leave Sufficient Spaces Between Each Idea.

This one is a very simple tip, but very worthy. We all tend to write ideas very fast and we generally don’t leave spaces in between. Please, don’t do this anymore! Give you a lot of spaces between each idea. Those spaces will allow you to insert additional elements in the future. If you don’t give you this possibility, you’ll sooner or later own an unusable and illegible journal. The chances are that you will try to write with so little characters and you won’t be able to recognize them anymore. This is bad and this is way out from what you are expecting from your journal. Don’t hesitate to leave you enough spaces. In that context, remember that too much is better than not enough!


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rssHugger: Give More Exposure To Your RSS Feed (and Increase Your Subscriber Count)

May 16th, 2008

rssHugger

One of the most popular ways to calculate the success of a blog is to look at the RSS subscriber count. Many bloggers try to find creative and innovative ways to increase this number, but this is always a challenging task. There are plenty of tips online related to that topic. In goes from the RSS button above the fold to the face to face contest.

In this article, I would like to present rssHugger. rssHugger is a website developed to help bloggers promote their blogs, and to help visitors discover new blogs. Collin LaHay, the owner of rssHugger, claims that the website is spam free and that it only hosted quality blogs. In fact, each blog is manually reviewed before being officially introduced in the system. I personally think this is an essential process for the success of this venture. In fact, it is probably one of the first values for any visitor.

Here is a screenshot when browsing in the Internet Marketing category:


Here is a preview of site in rssHugger. In the following screenshot, you’ll see the page of the popular blog Mashable.com:


The Goals and Benefits

Joining rssHugger is easy and may be free if you submit an honest review about the service. If you don’t want to do this review on your blog, the alternative is to pay 20$. No matter, what you choose, your membership will than be active for 10 years!

According to Collin, rssHugger gives you:

- a unique easy-to-use way to promote their blogs by sending them traffic;
- an opportunity for building backlinks for search engine optimization;
- an effective way for attracting new rss subscribers.

Both the blog owners and the blog readers may benefits from rssHugger. Still according to Collin, blog owners get the following:

- Raise awareness of your blog;
- Send tons of visitors to your blog;
- Share traffic with the community;
- Be part of a viral/buzz marketing campaign;
- Build deep-links for your blog posts to help with search engine optimization;
- Get new interested RSS subscribers who view your content on a regular basis.

Now the benefits for the readers are the following:

- Find blogs that interest you;
- Easily subscribe to many blogs;
- Skim over hundreds of blogs to find what suits you.

My opinion

rssHugger is yet another RSS directory, but I think it worth the try. As an indicative information, the following graph compare rssHugger.com with search4rss.com and rss-network.com in term of traffic:




We can see that rssHugger seems to be in a good shape when compared to those 2 competitors.

I would be more than happy if you could let me know about your own experience with rssHugger; this would be great for everyone here!

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!


Skribit: Benefits From Your Reader’s Topic Suggestions

May 14th, 2008

Skribit

Last month I wrote and article titled 12 Effective Ways to Find New Article Ideas. Among the different ways, the #6 was “Encourage your audience to suggest topic or ask questions.” I really think that working on this point may have many benefits for both the blogger and the readers.

In this article, I just want to go a little further with this point and present a tool that may simply your life. This tool is called Skribit. It is free and is really simple to integrate to your blog. If you want to see what it looks like, just take a look at my sidebar. Of course, I customized it for the colors, the font and the borders; and I highly recommend doing the same if you decided to integrate it. The registration process is very simple and the integration is done with 4 simple steps!

I decided to give this tool a try and I would ask you to help me by submitting some topic suggestions. What topic would you like to be covered? The interaction between the blogger and its readers is not always simple or easy to make and to manage. However, I think that tools like Skribit may help a little bit in that area.

I hope to get some feedback from you about your experiences with this tool or any similar tools. Again, don’t hesitate to drop me some suggestions. Don’t forget: there is no bad suggestion! And for those of you who are still a little bit shy, the tool allows you to submit your suggestion anonymously! Thank you for your support! :smile:


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10 Efficient Ways to Practice Audacious Blogging

May 12th, 2008

Photo by alexindigo
Photo by alexindigo

Being audacious is generally something we consider as positive. When we look at its definition we can find 3 main keywords: fearless, reckless and confidence. These are 3 keywords that I really like because they are based on actions! Being audacious generally requires demonstrating courage, persistence and action in opposition to fear that just paralyze and put you into a passive mode.

Audacious blogging is all about being dynamic and taking the proper actions to always move forward. It’s giving the best of you even when times are harder. Being audacious is taking the bull by the horns and walking tall and proud! Blogging is not something easy. You are not doing an easy thing, but you don’t want to do easy things! All you want is to be happy and successful; and you must be convinced that you will be! You can do it! :wink:

Skellie was, for me, the first blogger to really talk about audacious blogging. Her post Audacious Blogging was really inspiring to me. In this article, she said that audacity is not a quality but a practice. I really agree with her: a practice is based on concrete actions while quality is only based on potentials.

In her article, Skellie listed some action examples. In this article I decided to give you my thoughts about it and to list my own actions. Of course, you’ll probably find plenty of other ways to demonstrate your audacity and I would be interested to hear it. So don’t hesitate to comment!

1. Ask for guest posting on well established blogs.

Don’t hesitate to ask for a guest post on high traffic blogs. If you don’t ask for it, you’ll never get it! This is as simple as that. Of course, well established blogs often have tons of requests for guest post, but this is where audacity comes in. Take the time to write a clear and personal email and don’t hesitate to include some original writings. Be sure to have a valuable and attractive article ready to send. Be confident and persistent. You have nothing to loose; you can just win! Maybe it won’t be possible the first time, but try again later. Of course, being persistent doesn’t mean to be harassing; be careful about that!

2. Offers something valuable for free.

Offering something valuable for free also demonstrate your audacity. Let’s think about something like a review, an artwork like a logo, any professional services or an eBook. These are things that may be very valuable and useful for your visitors and your readers. Demonstrating generosity make everything possible! New relationship begins with pure act of generosity. Don’t ask anything in return. Let the natural law of return do its own job!

3. Don’t be afraid to give your own opinion on something.

Giving your own opinion require courage and confidence which are essential ingredients of audacity. Always remember that an opinion is personal. You may, however, make the difference between opinion and controversy. Giving your opinion is audacious, controversy may be dangerous! :smile: Of course, it’s a great way to get visibility and attention, but you’ll need to assume what you said and live with it! I personally think that giving your honest opinion with respect is a better plan! :wink: Remember that your opinion is unique. This is a great opportunity for you to demonstrate your knowledge and your experience. In summary, it’s a chance for you to show your authority.

4. Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

Depending on what you want to experiment, this may require lots of audacity. Experimenting is trying something without knowing the real outcomes. In fact, the more risk you take the more audacious you are! I think that the best thing with experiment is the fun we can have doing it! Being audacious and having fun altogether is the perfect mix! Put your fears aside and take the bull by the horns: experiment, experiment and experiment! You’ll gain experience and you’ll be able to bring creative writings and reports to the whole blogosphere.

5. Be a social media power user.

Social media network are very effective to build a loyal readership. In fact, this is true if you base your presence on building new relationships and altruism. I already talk about that on my article The Secret to Developing a Popular Blog. Everyone’s success relies on each other and this is true online and offline. Build a knowledgeable and efficient team around you and you’ll be in a good position to be successful! Being a social media power user means that you need to be active, visible and educated! Choose 2 or 3 social media network and be sure to properly understand how they work and the services you get from them. Then, be dynamic and use their services as often as possible! Of course, use them for you but also use it generously to help your friends getting more visibility!

6. Ask for links on well established blogs / websites.

As for guest post, asking for a link on well established sites may require you some courage. Some of you may not feel really comfortable with that, but this is what audacity is all about! Get out from your comfortable zone and try to go off-road! :wink: Audacity always reward its performer. It would be not be realist to expect every site to accept your request to add a link for you. However, it is realist to think that you’ll get some if you really are persistent! Don’t be afraid and write an original and confident email. You may be surprise about the results!

7. Keep an eye open on new things.

Audacious blogging also sounds to me like being proactive and few steps ahead. Thus, keeping an eye on the newest things is quite relevant. You may develop you own process based on strategic sites to get your preferred information. Depending on your niche, there may be more or less of them. However, don’t forget that the information itself doesn’t make you an authority. What makes you getting more and more authority is the way you’ll show up this information. You may have the best sources and the best relations, but if you don’t present the elements people are interested in, you’ll be out of the game! The audacious blogger works hard; keep an eye open on every opportunity and take the time to filter and structure the proper information.

8. Be an active forum member.

Forums are wonderful places to create contacts. It is also a great place to show up your knowledge and help people getting better in the area where you are an expert. Audacious blogging is based on actions. Forums give you the chances to create new opportunities. They give you the chances to present you as a reference and a knowledgeable blogger. The secret is to be active and visible. Take the time to welcome new members. Browse through subjects to give your opinion and share your experience in every area. Show your presence. People remember what they see on a constant basis.

9. Show your presence on offline workshop and conferences.

Workshops like SOBCon are great places to meet bloggers live! Personally, I really think that being present to offline events is quite audacious. However, it’s obviously a great place to meet famous bloggers and to make some excellent contacts! Having a live discussion with other serious bloggers and probloggers is an experience I’d like to have. I would encourage everyone to participate to one of these workshops at least once just to gain the experience! Experiences are the best ingredients to enrich yourself and to help you becoming a better person.

10. Take the initiative to create new and useful things.

Creating something requires audacity, because being the first always get the attention to everyone around! Do you feel uncomfortable with judgment? Is it one of your fears? Being judge negatively is something everyone dislikes. However, there will always be people that like what we do and people that don’t like what we do! That’s all. Again, push those fears away and move forward! You’ll build your self confidence and create true relationship with people who like what you do! Create new groups on social media networks or everywhere else. Create a new kind of article, create a new tool, or create a new way to do something. Daniel Scocco did something audacious when he claims May 1st as the RSS Awareness day. Daniel creates something that gets the attention of the whole blogosphere! For sure, he probably receives some bad emails, but he probably gets really great comments too! Being creative and innovative will give you the attention you deserve. The more audacious you are, the nearest you’ll be from success!


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Caththeposts.com - Few Site Redesign For Clarity and Usability!

May 9th, 2008

Caththeposts.com

As you probably notice, the whole blog was in maintenance mode several times this week. The main reason is because I had in mind to make some minor redesign to add some essential elements and remove some others.

Here is a list of the main changes with some comments.

The Header Sections.

This section introduces 2 new and essential elements: the most popular articles and how to get connected with me. As you probably notice, I tried to make some artwork for the section titles. :wink: In fact, I hope to have some comments on that since I would like them to get the attention of new visitors. If you have any feedback, don’t hesitate.

Most Popular Articles. This section is essential to demonstrate to new visitors what people before them appreciate from your blog. These articles give them a good idea about your writing style and your skills. Hopefully, these articles will convince them to give you their vote and subscribe to your blog.

Get Connect With Me. Blogging is all about relationship! Social Media networks are the most powerful tools to build relationship. In addition, they are the best platforms to efficiently distribute your content. Don’t hesitate to add me as your friend; and don’t hesitate to contact me. Note that I’m just beginning with Twitter so you’ll notice that I’m not as active as I should be! :smile: Time will help me in that area!

Full RSS Feed. This section already existed, but I think that this small redesign may help to make it more visible. By the way, I would really appreciate to get your vote and to count you as one of my subscriber. You may subscribe via my feed or get my post directly on your mailbox!

The Core Audience Corner.

Last month I published an article titled Be Part Of My Core Audience And Get A Place On The Top!. In this article, I said to my core audience that they will get the first place on my blog! I’ll let you read this article to get the details about how to get your place in that special section.

The Poll.

A new poll has been put in place. I would really appreciate if you can participate and let me know about your favorite social media network. In fact, participating doesn’t require anything special. It’s just a matter of 2 small clicks! Thanks in advance! :smile:

The Top Commentators.

This section already existed, but I want to bring your attention to the fact that it will be reset at the end of every month. Take a look at this article for more details.

BlogRush.

As you will notice, I remove my BlogRush widget. There is not that much to say on that. The results weren’t there so I just decided to uncluttered my sidebar!

Don’t hesitate to leave me your comments and your feedback. I’m really open to hear what you like and what you don’t like, and I would extend that to everything about this blog. Do you like the design? Do you like the content? Do you like the blogger? :wink: What would you like to see here? What type of content do you prefer?

I would like to hear it or at least to read it! :smile:


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The Strength of Targeted Pages (and How to Attract More Traffic and Backlinks From Them)

May 5th, 2008

Photo by …†∆†¡∆µ∆ 
Photo by …†∆†¡∆µ∆ 

As a blogger, you are continuously creating content and you distribute it through your most effective channels. Hopefully, those actions will results in high volume traffic and plenty of backlinks across the blogosphere.

In that post, I would like to introduce you another way to create traffic and backlinks with your existing material. The only requirement is to already have enough valuable content, so that you don’t have to write anything else to use this strategy.

Creating pages that target a very specific audience may be very powerful to generate new traffic and backlinks. In fact, the first thing you have to do is to select your targeted audience. Are you targeted beginners in your niche? Intermediates? Experts? Or, maybe you want totarget business with low budget? Non-profit organizations? There are countless ways to segment your audience. However, it is critical to define it clearly and carefully; this is the basement of your whole strategy.

Once you’ll have you targeted audience properly defined, you’ll need to select the content that best fit with that audience. What would be especially useful and valuable for them? What would be meaningful and attractive for them? Some of your content will easily be selected, but some may not be so obvious. In that case, the best things would be to experiment. Just try to insert it in your selection and do some popularity measurement. How many pageview do you have on each article you select? You may be quite surprise to see that some article that were obvious to you are not so popular in reality. You may also observe that the opposite is also true!

You may be interested to see an example. The following screenshot shows how Darren Rowse integrates something close to that strategy to probloggers.net.




I would expect more benefits to create a real new page for that specific information. For example, creating a new page will allow you to be rank in search engines. In fact, it may rank very well if your articles are properly selected. And this is especially true if your new page gets plenty of relevant backlinks. In addition, you may also consider optimizing it with specific keywords. However, this kind of action may be done very carefully, because doing so may lead you far away from your initial goal: create a targeted page with relevant and valuable targeted information.

As usual, you will then need to promote your new targeted content. Note that this new content may help you to promote your blog by opening some doors. In fact, you may find new communities precisely interested on your targeted information. The more your content is targeted, the better your market penetration will be. Take the time to make a list of communities related to your content and create a true relationship with them. Moreover, this may help you to increase your visibility and your branding; which may finally ends, as an extra, in loyal readers.


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Why Your Viral Content Isn’t Working

May 2nd, 2008

Photo by aussiegall
Photo by aussiegall

Create Viral Content

I’m planning to write 1 or 2 articles related to viral content in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I would like to share with you a great video from SEOmoz. This video is titled Whiteboard Friday - Why Your Viral Content Isn’t Working. It is well presented and quite relevant. I really recommend it!





Leave me your comments and maybe some aspects you may like to see on those articles.


If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!