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As a blogger, your blog may be seen as the product you want to sell. As an example, it could be seen as an online magazine you are creating and offering for free. Unfortunately, most of blogs like yours are offering contents for free, which means that this is not something that may differentiate your product from others. Differentiating your product is critical to gain visibility and brand your name. No matter your niche or what your blog is about, adding-value is the best tactic to build an efficient marketing strategy.

Traditional marketing defined 5 added-value levels related to a product: the central advantage, the generic product, the expected product, the augmented product and the potential product. What I suggest is to take a look at these when we apply those different levels to your own product: your blog.

Let’s move on…

1. Central Advantage.

The central advantage level is the core of your blog. In fact, it is precisely related to your niche and your targeted topic. What are the needs you want to fill? This is the first thing you shall define. Of course, choosing to start your blog on a very crowded niche will reduce your central advantage because it will be quite harder to really add value at the starting point. However, my own opinion is that you always should blog about something for which you really have developed a passion. The most essential is to understand that the needs you may choose to fill defines your audience and the level of difficulty to add value. Thus, your first goal should be to properly identify your audience to create the proper content.

2. Generic Product.

This level may be seen as the central advantage supportive level. In other words, this level is your basic product. In fact, it represented your blog with nothing more than the content, the blogging platform – WordPress for example – and the brand, which includes the domain name. It only contains the essential elements to satisfy your readers’ needs.

3. Expected Product.

Your readers inevitably have some expectations about your blog. In fact, being aware of what readers expect within your niche is essential. For example, they may expect quality content, basic blog functionalities like comments and search, original and regular posts, answers to requested questions or related to comments, etc. These are generic expectations, but your niche may have some specific ones. This may seem very obvious, but understanding your audience’s expectations shall be the basement and the core of your marketing strategy. This added-value level is critical, because it demonstrate your understanding of your audience and of your overall niche. If you properly answer to your audience’s expectations, you are in a good way to develop a loyal audience and to increase your readership.

4. Augmented Product.

This level initiates your blog differentiation. How do your blog stand out from the crowd? Once your readers got answers to their expectations, they may want to look at your differentiators. What makes your blog so different than any other blogs on your niche? This level defines every supplementary advantages and added-value you may include to your blog. As an example, you may offer some free services, consultation or mentoring. Of course, the more creative, the better it is. This level is, to my own opinion, the most challenging one. It shall definitively be part of any strategies. You may want to be very careful about what any other blogs on your niche is offering. What makes them different from other blogs? Being aware on how other blogs on your niche differentiate themselves is fundamental. This information is require to build an efficient marketing tactic.

5. Potential Product.

What is the innovation potential of your blog? Thinking about the evolution of your blog is crucial. Any growth must be manageable and, thus it must be properly planned. Are you aware of the evolution of the web? The age of Web 2.0 is currently ongoing. It bring us tremendous platforms to build communities and work through intuitive front ends like blogs and social media sites. But what’s next? Semantic web? Of course, this may not happen before few years from now; it is something to consider in a long-term view. However, it is my opinion that it worth to stay tune on any web innovations. On a short-term view, the innovation of your product shall be something to keep in mind very seriously. What could you do to be one or two steps ahead on your niche? Innovations and creative actions may give you the keys to reach new markets on your niche. Always remember that the world is built by audacious and creative minds!

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Friendship is the foundation of social relationship. In fact, everybody is linked to someone else through friends or contacts. This concept is the basement of every social media network sites. The goal behind those sites is simple: build social networks/communities to communicate, collaborate or entertain.

We are all part of one or several social media sites. Depending of our goals, we may be developing some type of networks more than others. To do so, we have to add friends or followers. The simple action to add a new friend on your list may be done very mechanically. However, it is essential to understand that social development isn’t something that shall be done mechanically or without any valuable reason. In fact, there are several effets resulting from this action. Being conscious of these seems to me like the starting point of a successful social media network development. Here is a list of these effects:

1. Accessibility to suggested contents.

Depending of the social media site, the suggested contents may vary from posts and articles to pictures and videos. It may even be some kind of live content just like Twitter. Most commonly, friendship is based on sharing experiences, thoughts and recommendations. Content distribution is one of the biggest benefits resulting from social media activity. It is also essential to understand that adding friends is all about creating your own community. Thus, adding friends essentially means to share the interests of every individuals. You community will then be defined as the aggregation of every piece of content.

2. Greater communication facilities.

In several social media sites, befriending someone means to open up the door to more communication facilities. Let’s talk about Twitter with the “Direct Messages” channel or StumbleUpon with the “Send to” functionality. Of course, more communication channels sounds like something positive – and it is – but again it depends of your goals. More channels mean more time and more management.

3. Accessibility to extra data.

Befriending someone also means to open up a door for others to access to some extra data. It could be more data about your profile or any other data like your “Shouts” in Digg. Many social media sites allow configuring your profile to manage your preferred level of privacy, but most of the time befriending means more visibility on who you are, what you do and how to reach you.

4. Expansion of your social network.

Of course, this is precisely the goal for adding friends and this is what you want. However, I think it is interesting to look further than just looking at the first level. This first level is the specifically the friend you want to add. In fact, you may additionally want to look at the second level, which refers to the friends of this particular potential friend (Got it? :grin:). You may understand here that adding someone is, indirectly, adding another social network. Is that network corresponds to what you want? Will it properly serve your goals? Depending of your goals and your strategy, you may take into account this type of information.

5. Potential to increase your blog readership.

Every Internet user is a potential loyal reader, right? Befriending someone seems to me like a great opportunity to introduce your blog or your website. This first contact may be very positive if you don’t just mechanically adding friends. Relationships may be initiated by this type of action. Of course, this will require personalizing each and every addition. However, the benefits may be significant. Remember that true relationships are priceless.

In summary, social network development needs to be well understood and strategically plan to properly serve your goals. Moreover, it is also essential to understand that friendship significance differ from a social media site to another. Thus, your social development strategy may also differ accordingly!

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Blog comments are known to be an efficient way to build targeted backlinks. In fact, commenting on a popular blog may lead to hundreds of people reading your comment in a single day. This may represent significant traffic for any new blogger. Moreover, the good news is that your comments won’t disappear; they will live as long as the commented blog will be online. In other words, comments are permanent! In that context, this means that you will get the benefits today, tomorrow, next week and hopefully next year.

Comments leave a trace wherever you drop it. How do you want people to perceive you when they read your comments? This should bring you to reconsider their importance and their impacts on your strategies. Personally, I really think that it would be in the best interest of every blogger to review this perception about comments. If commenting sounds to you like link dropping, I think you should consider changing your mindset!

Every comment you drop on a blog may be read by both the blog owner and the audience. Here are my personal thoughts about how you should take advantage of commenting when considering these 2 types of readers.

Build a Strong and a Long Term Relationship with Bloggers

Every blogger appreciate to receive new comments. Actually, this is a great way for them to interact with their audience and get a feedback about what people like and what they don’t. Also, this is a privileged way to share thoughts and a good place to argue about a specific topic.

In fact, I think that commenting should be seen as a great opportunity to build a strong and a long term relationship with the blog owner. Always keep in mind that blogging is all about relationship! Don’t hesitate to share your idea and your thoughts with the blog owner. Ask questions and demonstrate your interest for the subjects.

As for any kind of relationship, being constant and present is essential. Obviously, a single comment is not enough. Building a relationship require time and investment. In fact, the more present you are, the more attention you will get.

Commenting is a remarkable opportunity to get in touch with bloggers. This said, you are the only responsible of what you want to do with this opportunity. Link dropping? Relationship and network building? This is up to you!

Build Your Brand and Your Authority with the Audience

Commenting is a remarkable opportunity to build relationship but it is also a great opportunity to demonstrate your authority and to build your brand. Many blog readers don’t stop reading at the end the article; they continue reading and they take into consideration the comments. What do people think about this article? Do they agree? Do they disagree? What is my personal position? In fact, comments get a lot of exposure and this is precisely what you want to benefit of. The question now is: what content do you want to demonstrate?

I personally think that comments should be written the same way as you write your posts. In other words, there is no reason to consider your comments less important than your posts. The quality and the relevance are essential to leave a valuable trace on your favorite blogs. Don’t forget that this is a permanent trace; if you create an original and valuable comment, you’ll get the benefits on a long term view. And if you find a way to make them stand out of the crowd, you’ll get even more from it!

Commenting gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your authority and your personality. Don’t miss it! If your content is well structured and very relevant, you will most likely get some traffic from it and, hopefully, you’ll convert these new visitors into loyal readers.

Changing your mindset about blog comments may help you to create a more efficient branding strategy. Moreover, it may improve your content distribution by creating new relationships and expanding your contact network. Commenting is an opportunity available for everyone, but you are the only responsible on how you will exploit it. If you think long term, you’ll increase the quality of your comments and you’ll most likely harvest some priceless benefits like authority, branding and distribution network.

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As a blogger, one of your main goals is to increase your visibility to build a powerful branding and to constantly increase your amount of traffic. To reach this goal you may focus your marketing strategy on publicity which means that you will center your attention on purchasing ad space on other blogs or by creating PPC ads campaigns.

Another strategy may be to focus on promotion which is more oriented on trying the product. In the blogging context, the promotion means to demonstrate your strength and your authority by presenting your articles and your knowledge to a wide range of readers. In fact, both strategies – the publicity and the promotion – will help you to reach your goal in a different way. In fact, the best tactic would probably be a particular mix of both strategies.

In this article I want to focus on one of the most popular and efficient way to promote your blog: the guest blogging strategy. As for any marketing strategy, the success of guest blogging relies on the application of several golden rules.

1. Find The Most Relevant and Major Blogs on Your Niche.

You may already know what are the 4 or 5 more major blogs on your niche. However, if you don’t, you’ll need to find them to properly understand your external environment and to create your guest blogging blog list. In fact, they should be findable pretty easily by typing your keywords on Google. When you’ll have them, I would recommend to prioritize them using the following criteria:

The most targeted blog first. The more targeted the more impact! If you don’t choose to guest blog on blogs that specifically target the same audience than you, you’ll be doing entertainment, not marketing!

The blog that receive the higher amount of traffic. Obviously, the more traffic, the better exposure! Guest blogging is a marketing strategy to promote your blog. Don’t be afraid to target the most popular blogs on your niche. Be audacious and persistent!

The blog that perform better on social media. As social media are fabulous places to brand your name and maximize your exposure, choosing blogs that perform well on social media increase your chance to reach your promotion goal.

2. Determine who Your Audience is And Find the Right Topic.

Of course, the audience should be relatively the same as yours if you selected the right blogs. However, they may have other concerns or other questions. If you want to have a big impact, you need to fill a need! The best way to find the right topic for your guest post is to analyze the following elements on the targeted blog:

Observe the most popular posts. The most popular posts is a great way to determine the topics that really concern the audience. Take the time to read these articles carefully. Also, bring your attention to the posts type; is it news posts? Is it in the list form? If you don’t find any popular posts section, just browse through the articles and find the most commented ones or those who received the higher number of social media votes.

Find the readers’ questions. In many major blogs, there are a post, a section or a widget (like Skribit) that aim to receive the readers’ questions. This kind of information is very useful to choose a relevant topic for your guest post. In fact, you couldn’t find anything better since it comes directly from the readers themselves!

Read the comments. Comments are also a good indicator to determine what is important to the targeted audience. Take the time to read a lot of comments from different articles on the blog. The chance is that you’ll need to read between the lines to find the readers’ concerns, but it really worth the time investment. Never hesitate to create a new comment to start a relevant discussion thread; it may help you a lot!

3. Write a Remarkable Article on a Relevant Topic.

If you really want to have the best exposure possible, you need to create a very valuable article. In fact, the more quality you’ll put in, the better distribution you will have and the best results you’ll get! This is as simple as that! Here are some other simple elements to follow if you want to maximize the impact:

Include 1 or 2 links that point to relevant articles on your blog. Including 1 or 2 links to relevant articles on your own blogs gives you 1 or 2 valuable backlinks. Moreover, it will give you the chance to demonstrate the readers what you publish on your own blog. In fact, it just throws the invitation to visit your site and to subscribe to your blog if they like what they read. Don’t insert more than 1 or 2 backlinks; more than that may work against you when you’ll contact the targeted blog owner.

Take the time to create an attractive headline. As usual, the headline is very important. The more creative and attractive, the more you’ll create a movement to read your article. Also, a very original headline has better chances to perform well on social media networks. So take the time to brainstorm and to choose the best one!

Include a credit line with a link to your blog. Even if most blogs insert a credit line themselves while posting a guest post, you better think about an original way to introduce yourself and to insert a link to your blog. The most important is to give the chance to each reader to know who you are and where they could reach you.

4. Ask With Respect and Confidence.

Doing guest blogging means that you’ll publish your own article on somebody else blog. And, most likely, this blog is actually well established which means that the owner invests lots of effort until now. Being accepted by a blogger to publish our article is a privilege! In fact, we always should consider this as a generous opportunity to gain more exposure. Now here are some simple rules to help you creating a good contact with a blog owner:

Demonstrate your respect. I don’t think I have to say much about this one. Hopefully, you are asking to publish your article on a blog you highly appreciate. Demonstrating your respect for the blog and the blogger seems to me like something natural. Of course, it doesn’t mean to write an whole page on how the blog is fabulous and wonderful (even if you really mean it); few lines to express how the blog is valuable to you is just great.

Include your complete article in attachment. Including your article in the first message will give you more chance to be accepted. Even if the blogger doesn’t have the habit to publish guest posts on a regular basis, it could be very difficult to refuse a remarkable and relevant article.

Ask the blogger to confirm the publication of your article. Some bloggers may accept to publish your article and some may not. The essential is to be aware about this decision. Ask the blogger to let you know about it. This way, you’ll be able to make the proposal to the next blog on your list if the previous blogger refuse it. Of course, if all bloggers refuse to publish your article, you may question it seriously; Is it relevant? Is it quality content? Try to find the true reasons behind this situation.

5. Respond to Every Comment.

Guest blogging is not a marketing strategy we throw away and wait. Guest blogging gives you the chance to demonstrate your authority and to interact with a new audience. As you already demonstrate your respect to the blog owner, I consider that the community of this blog worth the same respect from you. In fact, it’s one of the best opportunities to get in direct contact with a large amount of targeted people. Now if these people take the time to give you their feedback about your article, I think that getting back to them is just something obvious! Here are some points to remember while getting back to the commentators:

Demonstrate your gratitude. No matter how you express it, just make sure you do it! Only a very small ratio of readers leaves comments and feedbacks about the article they read. So when those people give you the opportunity to get in contact with them, take the time to show them your gratitude and respond to their comments.

Take the opportunity to show your authority. Getting back to comments is a terrific chance to show your authority. Take the time to create an original and valuable answer to every commentator. The article you publish is static, but your answers are alive because it is very personal and targeted for every commentator. Just ask yourself the following question for every commentator: is there a concrete action I could do to help him/her?

Focus on relationship. I said it, I say it and I’ll always repeat it: blogging is all about relationship! The commentator is not just a commentator. You must change your mind about that. Every commentator is a potential friend, a potential partner! Getting a comment about an article you write is a precious gift. In fact, you may see that as the first step of a potential communication that may lead to a great and valuable relationship. Never forget that loyal readers may be win one by one.

Don’t hesitate to give me your feedback about this article. Tell me about your personal experiences, your successes and even your failures. What works for you? What doesn’t works? As well, don’t hesitate to ask me questions or any additional information! I’ll always be pleased to help you.

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You know for sure - it’s not a secret for anyone - that social bookmarking sites are one of the most powerful tools for content distribution. The first plan or major players like Digg, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon are distributing tons of new content each day. Those giants are gathering millions of members like you and me but also professional journalists and full time news writers. Thus, the competition for the front page story is hard. Let’s say only 500 000 members submit their content on Digg in a single day, what is the position of your article? In fact, 2 major factors work against you:

1. The big numbers.
2. The time available to spend on an article.

Of course, there are many other factors that may influence your position. For example: your niche, your headlines, your topics, your friends, etc. Nevertheless, let’s put that aside and let’s call a cat a cat: reaching the front page of Digg is an accomplishment in itself! Just as an example, only 2 articles from Skellie hit the front page of Digg. You probably know that Skellie is a blogger that I really like and respect for the quality of what she does. In fact, I personally think that she deserves more than 2 hits, but the only thing I have under my control is my right to vote for her and to ask all my friends to do the same!

While giants like Digg and Del.icio.us get tons and tons of submission, second tier sites like Furl and Ma.gnolia get significantly less than that. In fact, this is precisely where their strength is; your chance to hit their front page is notably better! The keyword here is positioning. Being well positioned on Digg is a challenge in itself. However, getting a good position on Furl or Ma.gnolia is relatively easier. Standing out of the crowd is a matter of quality but it is also a matter of number. The bigger the number, the harder it is!

There are several factors that may help you to succeed and be well positioned on second tier sites:

1. The quality of your content.

In fact, wherever you plan to promote, quality content is essential to succeed. Focusing on quality will positively influence your content distribution as well as links creation.

2. Your choice of second tier sites.

Some second tier sites are targeting particular niches. For example, Sphinn works well for SEO. Make your own observation and experimentation. Try to find the second tier site that gives you the best results.

3. Your understanding of second tier sites.

As soon as you chose your preferred second tier sites, be sure to well understand their mechanism. The more you master them, the more success you may have.

4. Your relationship.

Obviously, the more your develop relationships into these sites, the wider your content distribution may be. Blogging is all about relationship; be generous with the other bloggers and you’ll most likely be on their friend list!

5. Your presence and your activity.

The more you are active, the more you are visible! Presence and visibility are essential to build your branding. The other bloggers will recognize you as part of the community if you demonstrate your presence!

6. The awareness of your readers for second tier sites.

There is an educational part in that strategy. In fact, if your readers don’t know about the bookmarking sites you are using, they won’t vote for your articles even if they like it. The best would be to create an article that explains the bookmarking sites you are using and the benefits they can get from them.

7. The ease to submit your content.

The easier it will be to share your article, the better chances you have to distribute your content widely. To do so, just integrate easy links at the end of each article to share it.

Getting more and more traffic from second tier sites is excellent but the potential around them can be multiply by 2, 3 or even 10. In fact, second tier sites may be the starting point of a domino effect in term of traffic. Let me explain. Most of the time, people are users of many social media sites. For example, one may be an active member on Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit at the same time. Thus the chances are that this member will distribute his preferred content to all 3 networks. The same case is also possible for a member of Ma.gnolia or Sphinn. Let’s say, for instance, that a power user of Sphinn is aso a power user of Digg whom is friend with a power user of Del.icio.us; here comes the domino effect! Submitting your content to Sphinn may start the whole process and create a wave of content distribution which will lead to a very large amount of traffic.

In summary, never underestimate the potential of second tier sites. They may be your best source of traffic. Being active on Digg or Del.icio.us is desirable, but choosing 1 or 2 second tier sites is a must. Take the time to search and analyze the bookmarking sites related to your niche. This will help you to make the most judicious choice and to invest your time and effort on networks that will give you real and concrete benefits.

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My article of April 4th was related to the Guest Blogging Contest of the Search Engine Journal (SEJ). In that posts, I was saying that you cannot loose by participating; you may only be a winner!

The contest is now started and I guess you may want to read the article I submitted. As a bonus, you’ll see my picture! The URL is the following: The Secret to Developing a Popular Blog

Of course, I would highly appreciate your support. The best way to support me is to read the article and to distribute it everywhere you can. It can be by sending it to a friend, twitting, commenting, make a post on it, send it to social media like Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, reddit, etc. Also, as usually, I will highly appreciate your feedback!

Thanks in advance to all of you!

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Social Media are essential in term of content distribution. In fact, this is one of the most efficient ways to get visibility. Obviously, the more visibility you get the more chance you have to build a popular blog.

In term of visibility, the most effective spot is clearly the Digg Front Page. Many bloggers tried to break the Digg code by doing some experimentation. Late last week, Invesp.com published an article titled: Secrets Revealed: Breaking the Digg Code. This sounds quite audacious for me, but I think it worth the reading. The secret isn’t reveal in the blog article but in a 20 page PDF report. In fact, Invesp.com claims that they were able to get 63% of their submission to the first page of Digg in 2007. Note that the report is exclusively available for their feed subscribers. So, if you are not currently one of them, you’ll need to subscribe to get your own copy. The report outlines a 4 weeks step-by-step instructional program. It is clean and well done.

Keep in mind that this report is the result of an experimentation. Note also that I really don’t support social bookmarking games. Social Bookmark sites are founded on quality values which make them exceptional platforms for any kind of valuable content. Reading this report to satisfy your curiosity seems to be fair for me, but then, you’ll be the only judge about what you will be doing with it.

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There are several ways of making money online. One of them is by joining affiliate programs. Independently of the program you choose, this one will provide you an affiliate link. The goal behind this link is to properly identify its owner. This is required to credit the product sales to the right person. Obviously, as an affiliate marketer, your goal is to motivate people to follow your link; this will allow you to convert your visitors into sales. However, the reality is that most people won’t be tempted to click on such a link. Why? I guess this is because it looks a little scary. Here is an example of an affiliate link:

http://www.affiliateprogram.com?ref=id

The good news is that there are many ways to transform that kind of link into something more conventional! You may, however, read carefully the TOS of each affiliate program you joined because some may strictly forbid to hide your affiliate link.

The HTML Redirect Method

This method is one of the simplest methods. Here are the steps to follow:
1. Create your affiliate root folder.
For example: ../redirect/

2. Create a subfolder for each of your affiliate.
For example: ../redirect/Affiliate1/

3. Create a file named index.htm that include the following HTML code:

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Title page</TITLE>
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0; url=http://www.affiliateprogram.com?ref=id”>
</HEAD><BODY>
You are being redirect to the correct page!
</BODY></HTML>

4. Customize the file by changing the title and the affiliate link.

5. Place the index.htm file into its corresponding affiliate subfolder.

Then when you are linking to ../redirect/Affiliate1/ you are linking to your affiliate link. This is as simple as that.

The PHP Method

If you have PHP installed on your server, you may use the following method. This is the easiest way to hide your affiliate link with PHP. There are several other techniques possible, but this one do the job very easily:

1. Create your affiliate root folder.
For example: ../redirect/

2. Create a subfolder for each of your affiliate.
For example: ../redirect/Affiliate1/

3. Create a file named index.php that include the following PHP code:

<?php
header(”Location: http://www.affiliateprogram.com?ref=id ”);
?>

4. Customize the file by changing the affiliate link.

5. Place the index.php file into its corresponding affiliate subfolder.

Now, just as the HTML Redirect method linking to ../redirect/Affiliate1/ is the same as linking to your affiliate link!

The .htaccess Method

If you are hosted by a Linux machine, you may be interested by the file named .htaccess. This file could be used for multiple purposes. Note that you may need to ask your host provider how to enable the usage of this file. For the benefit of this article, let me explains how you can use it to hide your affiliate link:

1. Find the .htaccess file on the proper folder.

2. Open it or create it if it doesn’t exist.

3. Go at the end of the file and insert the following code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule^affiliate1.php$ http://www.affiliateprogram.com?ref=id [R]

4.Customize the .htaccess file by changing the target file and the affiliate link.

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Entrecard is a relatively new service based on the concept of online business card exchange. The business cards are 125×125 buttons. Now, let me explain how the whole system works and what the benefits are.

How it Works

First, you need to signup with Entrecard. The subscription is free. In fact, all you need is 5 minutes of your time and a 125×125 button that will well symbolize your blog. This will be your personal online business card.

You will then need to integrate the widget (piece of code) on your blog. There are 3 widget formats: the 127×148 slim widget, the 200×127 medium widget and the 250×127 wide widget. I would say that the last one is my preferred one and this is the widget I use in my sidebar. If you wonder which one you should choose, I would answer that it depends of your blog design. In my case, I have a large sidebar that allows me to use the wide format. Try to use the widget that will best fill your sidebar. Personally, I don’t like the medium one, so I would choose either the slim widget or the wide widget, but this is my personal opinion!

This widget allows you visitors to drop their business card. You earn 1 Entrecard credit each time someone drop its business card on your widget. You can earn additional credit by dropping your card on other blogs and when people buy advertisement on your Entrecard widget. Note that the price for buying advertisement is expressed in term of Entrecard credits. The price to advertise on your widget is determined by how many drop you did on other blogs and how many drop you get from others. For example, it cost actually 82 Entrecard credits to advertise on Catchtheposts.com.

Every request for advertisement on your blog passes by a moderation process. You have full control on the ads that will appear on your blog. The requests are first queued and you will be notified by email that someone waits for your approval. You may approve the ads or decline it. A reason for declining may be because the business card doesn’t match your quality standard or because the content of the blog is not relevant or may be offending.

You will notice that there is a queue and a waiting concept to advertise on some blogs. This means that even if you pay the appropriate credit number, you may need to wait your turn to show up your advertisement. For example, you see that the spot is full on Catchtheposts.com – which means that there is no place available – and the waiting time is 9 days.

The Benefits

There are 2 main benefits to use the Entrecard service. The first one is traffic generation. Of course, we are not talking about millions of hits, but this is a good traffic source for blogs startup. Wherever you drop your business card, many bloggers will drop back their business card on your blog. Don’t forget that any new visitor is a potential reader. The conversion is on your hands! If you have an attractive blog design and if your content is original and valuable, you may found some new readers with Entrecard. You will notice that your control panel informs you about who dropped their business card on your widget. It will allow you to visit their blog back and give traffic in return. This is just a matter of exchanging traffic and learning about other blogs. Maybe you’ll find great partners there!

The second benefit is the brand exposure. Entrecard gives you the opportunity to expose your brand by exchanging your business card with other blogs. Please, don’t miss that opportunity! I see day after day business card with simple text and few colors. How do you want the other blogs to see you? Do you want to be associated to professionalism and quality? Do you want to seriously build your brand? Don’t miss the opportunity to make a good first impression: create a great business card with your own blog signature! You don’t have to pay for a professional 125×125 button. You just have to take some days to sketch it and create it with Photoshop or Gimp, which is a free graphical software. And if you don’t figure out how you could do it, just contact me and we’ll find a way to build you something nice!

For more information on Entrecard, take a look at the official online guide.

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Photo by tanakawho

The sales & marketing is probably one of the most active department of your organization. This is a fact because the road to monetize your blog inevitably passes by traffic generation. No traffic means no money! This said, we could write an entire thesis on traffic generation, but this is not the goal of this post. I would rather say that the goal is more to shortly explain the importance of the sales & marketing department and determine the most significant activities related to it.

The sales and the marketing are generally in the same department because they have to work in synergy. Marketing is preparing the soil and sow the seeds while sales is taking care of it with sun and water, and finally harvest the fruits! Of course, the metaphor is quite simplistic, but I guess it gives a good idea of how their synergy is strategic. As a blogger, you’ll need to sow the seeds by promoting your sites in different way and using different services. Then you’ll need to close the sale and finally harvest the fruits!

If we pose the hypothesis that your product is your blog, you’ll need to sale your content. Hopefully, your content will be valuable and original. Then, the overall activity with your audience and the entire community will determine how much your blog worth. This means that the more your blog is perceived as an authority by your audience, the more your blog will be profitable. The perception has been discuss by Skellie in her posts The 5 Barriers to Success Series - Part 4: Perception is Everything. Among the aspects that influence the perception, there are 2 elements that could be qualified as objective: the subscriber count and the comments count. These elements are facts and unarguable. There is no interpretation possible; they are numbers. In terms of measurement, these elements are the best indicators. How is your sales & marketing performance?

I won’t go too far in this post, because it won’t serve the proper goal. So, let’s determine the main activities that will be under your sales & marketing responsibility.

1. Determine the targeted audience. This is an important activity because it gives an image of your audience. It will determine your overall strategy from your content to your marketing channels. Writing content for a vast audience won’t be efficient. If you narrow properly, you will increase you chances of success. Note that a great tool to help you to narrow is to use poll. If you choose your question strategically, you’ll get more information about you audience.

2. Determine and analyze the competition. You will need to know your competitors to create an efficient strategy. You will agree with me that knowing your competitors is very valuable. The idea behind this information is to create innovative and original strategy. The real questions are: how could I stand out from the crowd? What is my distinctive competence?

3. Create the brand. This activity includes both the cosmetic image with the logo design, the colors, the letters, the name, the tagline and the rational image like the reputation and the authority. Branding takes times; the rational image cannot be established instantly.

4. Create the promotional materials. For example, you will probably need some 125×125 banners to advertise on other blogs or to participate to the Entrecard service. The promotional material will influence the branding activities and the results. What kind of image do you want to project? Poor? Professional? Something in between? Of course this will be influence by the marketing budget.

5. Analyze your niche development. How is your niche? Well developed? Inexistent? This kind of information will definitively influence your marketing strategy. Take few minutes to read this article from Skellie. It will help you to understand the difference from a rich soil and no soil at all!

6. Find the best channels to reach the targeted audience. We already discussed about who is the targeted audience. This activity will determine where to concentrate your promotional activity. Among the well known channel we count the social media, the well established blogs in your niche, the alternative communities like forums and discussion groups.

7. Create marketing campaigns. The magic word here is campaigns. I focus on that term because there is an important concept behind it. A campaign could be seen as a specific promotional initiative that could be identify easily. Why is it so important? Because it gives the opportunity to measure the efficiency of your promotional activities. If you know that your AdSense campaign wasn’t efficient, you’ll probably take the decision to try something else. But at least you need to know how efficient it was!

8. Create the link building strategy. Link building is very important because it gives a measurement of your authority. For example, each link could be seen as a vote for your blog. However, you should be too anxious about that, because at the end, good content always get the attention it deserves. However, creating a strategy around link building shouldn’t be under estimate especially if your blog is recent.

9. Maintain a good relationship with your audience. Good relationships sometimes results in business partners, fans and even friends. I won’t say too much how important it is! Building relationships based on trust and respect is a must!

10. Keep your audience inform. Keeping your audience inform about your plans is giving them back the trust they gave you. It’s calling them partners instead of readers!

In summary, the sales & marketing department has a critical role for the success of your organization. The principle is simple: no traffic, no profitability! The sales & marketing has plenty of potential activity and this is a world in itself. Link building, social media, brand exposure are marketing concepts that should be evaluate in the marketing strategy. The actual consumer is looking for product review, product comparison, product rating and market communities to get valuable information from real users. He wants to be in the good position to take the best buying decision. Maybe you can take that into account in your marketing strategy.

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