As I get set up and prepared to start podcasting professionally, which will include video podcasts in addition to audio, a brand new free report just happened to cross my screen. The title: Rapid Video Blogging
by Gideon Shalwick. Perfect timing!

I should tell you now that Gideon is giving away 3 iPads – because there is only ONE left. When you download the free guide you’ll find 3 free videos on the next page. Two of the iPads have already been given away, and the 2nd one went to our very own Lain Ehmann of 30minutemartha.com (she’s an Elite Member of my Private Brainstorming Group). Congrats Lain!!

The 3rd iPad is still up for grabs (or still was at the time this post was published). All you have to do is download your guide and comment on the 3rd video post for a chance to win that last iPad.

First: Who is Gideon Shalwick?

Besides the guy giving away iPads (this week) and the author of Rapid Video Blogging, who is this Gideon Shalwick anyway?? Personally, hearing about this report is the first I’ve heard of Gideon himself. But the more digging I do, the more I realize he’s been around for awhile now. And that he is very well-liked and trusted among people in the industry that I know and respect.

His report is free, and it does go into detail about his history online and in video marketing, and you’ll also hear from some of his peers. But to give you a sneak peek: he runs a 6-figure business online doing niche video blogging. His guide is a detailed look at the exact formula he’s using to achieve that success.

Gideon is from New Zealand, but now lives in Australia. Oh – and he’s been using/refining this video marketing + blogging strategy for 4 years now…

Rapid Video Blogging Review

I sat down today and read all 92 pages of Rapid Video Blogging. I read the Table of Contents. The Foreword by Darren Rowse (aka Problogger). The testimonials by professional bloggers such as Yaro Starak, Maria Andros, Paul Colligan, Chris Garrett & many more. All the way through to the 7-step Action Plan at the end.

It’s good. Really good. The “Rapid Video Blogging” system is simple, yet brilliant. It’s very well presented, Gideon has a great writing style – and it’s a fun read. You’ll enjoy it, for sure. He started out like most of us: learning through trial & error with a variety of ideas and methods. And then he landed on one that really worked, and tweaked it until it was a working formula.

There are 7 steps. First he tells you what they are, then he goes into the how-to detail for each step, and he wraps it up with a checklist and Action Plan.

“Inside this report I want to show you the exact same system I developed over the last 4 years. A video marketing system that you can easily implement to help you drive insane amounts of traffic to your site, help grow your email list at a phenomenal rate, and turn your video views into cold hard cash!” Page 19

And guess where it starts? With choosing the right niche (or topic) – so this is even a great guide for beginners. But by Step 2 he appeals to ALL of us by getting into the meat of it.

There are 2 potential negatives. The first is that the Step 2 section is lacking some detail. Not a major deal because it does give you a resource for more information, but I finished that section feeling like it was missing something. The second is that his experience with this strategy comes from two major projects. One a JV with a major player, where he refined his formula. The other in an obscure niche where they were unknown – which is the interesting part (to me, at least).

I said obscure. I meant a niche outside of Internet Marketing or “make money online”. It’s actually a very popular topic.

That 2nd project has resulted in almost 2 million video views, and 100 new newsletter sign-ups every day - so far! Pretty impressive. Enough so to keep me reading.

I was impressed by the amount of detail Gideon shared in the report. I actually learned quite a bit from it. There was a connection he made about video marketing and list building that really hit home with me. A no brainer, but not something I’ve personally implemented. (make that a big fat: YET -lol)

He gave detailed Video Optimization strategies to help your videos rank better in both YouTube AND Google. He teaches how to get natural backlinks to your YouTube channel. He talks about YouTube Joint Ventures. Why you should embed your website address IN your video. He gives a working example on YouTube of his Viral Competition Method. And of course, in Step 7 he goes into how to monetize.

It’s all very simple and straightforward, and something that anyone can do – which is what I loved about it. But it’s not something I *have* been doing, or would have even thought to try necessarily. It was definitely worth the quick read.

Grab a copy if you haven’t already: Download Rapid Video Blogging (Free). Be prepared to jot down some notes, and print out the Action Plan at the end…

Enjoy!

Best,

p.s. Gideon is launching a product on Wednesday, so I’m not sure how long this Free Report will be available. Hopefully he will continue to offer it. But just in case, make sure you go ahead and get your copy today.

So, you’ve heard my take on why guest blogging is important. Over the years, you’ve probably seen other popular bloggers talking about it too.

But maybe you can’t help thinking … how does it help you build a popular blog of your own?

If you’ve been wondering, head over to GuestBlogging.com, because over the next 10 days, I’m going to show you. We’ll talk about:

• How to get your first 1000 blog subscribers, even if none of the leaders in your niche know who you are yet
• How to stop getting ignored by popular bloggers and get the links you deserve
• How to build a following on twitter to help you promote your blog posts
• How to get your blog a first page ranking on Google, without knowing all of the technical details of SEO

Didn’t know guest blogging could help you do all of that?

I didn’t either, when I first started. Over the years though, I’ve gotten to see some pretty powerful examples, and so I decided to make some videos for you and share them with you on Guestblogging.com.

Here’s how it’ll work:

Every few days, I’ll release a new video that walks you through real-world examples and strategies for how you can use guest blogging to build a popular blog. Right now, only the first video is available, but opt in, and I’ll e-mail you as I post new ones.

As of right now, there’s nothing for sale. The videos are 100% content, no sales or marketing messages at all.

When we’re done with them, I will tell you about a new training program I’m creating specifically for bloggers who are serious about increasing their traffic.

But that’s at least a week or so away. For now, enjoy the free videos, and learn about all of the cool ways guest blogging can help you.

Click here to get started.

See you there!

About the Author: Jon Morrow is the Associate Editor of Copyblogger and the Founder of GuestBlogging.com. Get more from him on twitter.

Today we’ll look at the biz side of podcasting, and specifically: how to make money doing a podcast.

When I flew to Portland to spend the day with Paul Colligan to learn how to create a podcast, this was one of my top questions.

I was very direct about it. I asked Paul, “What is the point of podcasting? (He took it very well -LOL) I went on to ask, “Is it all vanity – wanting to broadcast your voice out to the world – or is there an actual business model with profit potential to podcasting?”

He assured me that there were plenty of broke podcasters out there, but also that there was indeed a model – and multiple ways to make money with a podcast…

Obviously, your revenue model begins with your business model and how you plan to incorporate podcasting into your business. In other words, you need an objective – not just starting a podcast for the sake of podcasting.

Podcasting can also be a profitable business model on it’s own. There are several ways you can monetize a podcast, whether it’s integrated into your current business model, or a stand-alone business.

Either way, you need a plan going in. A specific strategy. This is the #1 thing that I took away from my day of learning about podcasts. You need to identify your target market, what they want to hear, and what they should do next.

From that perspective, I found it very much like blogging- in a different format.

How To Make Money Doing A Podcast

Paul explained how to make money doing a podcast by giving me 18 specific strategies, and also taught me about Top of Funnel Strategies and Off Casting Actionizers. He then gave me a blank monetization map to brainstorm my overall monetization & marketing strategy.

For now I’ll condense it into 6 ways to make money with a podcast…

• Sponsorships & Paid Advertising
• Affiliate Sales
• Selling Your Own Products/Services
• Paid Podcast Model, or Premium Content Offer
• Repurposing Content for Physical Product Sales
• Related, Revenue Producing Website

Of course, Paul goes into great detail about these methods (and the others) in his podcasting course, which I believe will be available again in the near future. And the video from our live training session in Portland should be ready soon as well.

That’s where you’ll be able to watch my entire day with Paul Colligan as if you were sitting right there in the studio with us.

In the Podcasting Report that I promised you, I’ll go into detail on these 6 revenue-generating models. Including creative ideas and resources that will spark ideas for any podcast on any topic. You might be surprised at just how easy it is to monetize a podcast, and just how profitable it can really be. I know I was!

Next we’ll look at the software & hardware needed to create your own podcast, and the technical side of podcasting. Fortunately it wasn’t nearly as technical or difficult as I originally thought… *whew* lol

Best,

p.s. Subscribe for email notification below so you don’t miss a single post in this Podcasting series – which is also where I’ll send you the free report on how to create a podcast. That report won’t be available for free any other way so be sure you are subscribed now if you want to get a copy!

I flew to Portland, OR and met up with Paul Colligan in the Expert Studio to learn how to create a podcast.

I only had one day in the studio with Paul, and walked in completely clueless on how to get started podcasting – or why I would even want to.

I know that may shock some of you, considering I’ve been a co-host on the IMTW Podcast for 45 episodes & well over a year now…

Surely I know something about the biz & tech of podcasting then, right? Wrong. All that really means is that I know how to use Skype. Every week the 4 of us meet online at a set time, Paul or Ed initiate a group call, and I simply join in on the conversation. What happened on their end before, during and after the recording – was always a mystery me. Until now.

Of course I understand that it’s a model, just like blogging or email marketing. It’s a means of communicating a specific message to a specific market, with a specific objective. I had just never figured out the tech behind creating and delivering a podcast, or the best ways to monetize it.

This is a good time to confess that I don’t subscribe to any podcasts. I have listened to them, and I do have an iTunes account (an empty one), but I hadn’t figured out that end of it yet either.

So that’s where I started (clueless!) when I flew to Portland to meet up with Paul Colligan. On my flight over, I jotted down 11 questions about how to create a podcast that I wanted to make sure got answered.

I got detailed answers to all 11 questions, and learned A LOT more!

In fact, I came home ready to start my new podcast.

There were video cameras running the entire time, along with audio and screen capture. Everything Paul and I did was documented and recorded. The editors are busily getting that ready for us to share – but in the meantime, I’ll share tips with you from my personal notes.

My Podcasting Questions:

• What is a Podcast, exactly?
• What is the point of Podcasting?
• How do you monetize a Podcast?
• What software/hardware do I need to create a Podcast?
• How do I edit audio/media files?
• How do you add intro music to a Podcast?
• Do I need a “theme song”?
• How do I get my Podcast into iTunes?
• Are there Podcast stats? Where are they, and what should I track?
• Where are Podcasts actually hosted?
• How do I market my podcast, or get listeners?

We’ll start there, and you can also see the questions posted by others when I blogged from my mobile on the trip. Feel free to add yours as well.

I’ll be sharing answers to the questions in blog posts throughout the week, and compile it all neatly into a sweet little Free Report you can download as well.

Best,

p.s. I’ll update this post with links to each new post as soon as they’re published. You can subscribe for email updates below so you don’t miss out – which is also where I’ll send the download link for the free report on how to create a podcast:

I recently put out the word that I wanted to interview small business owners for an upcoming project, the Empire Building Kit.

These were the criteria: you had to net at least $50,000 a year with two or fewer employees, you had to be willing to talk about money in specific terms, you had to share your biggest mistakes as well as your greatest successes, and you couldn’t be a professional blogger.

(Obviously there’s nothing wrong with professional blogging — I just figure that bloggers get enough attention already. Besides, if you want to create a business, there are much easier models.)

I heard back from 300 people with all kinds of different backgrounds, but Lisa’s email stood out from the rest.

I have a dog-walking business in Minnesota. Can I contribute my story?

I’ll be honest: I didn’t think much of it at first. A dog-walker? Shouldn’t we be talking about affiliate marketing, information products, and Facebook ads?

Walking dogs around the park for cash isn’t really my thing, so I assumed I’d say no.

But then Lisa told me how much money she makes: $88,342 in 2009, and now on track for $105,000 in 2010.

That got my attention. She makes six figures as a dog-walker? Wow. Now that’s a story.

And in marketing, of course, story is everything. If you can build a real business around something you’re passionate about — in this case, Lisa loves dogs — I think that’s worth some attention.

Follow your passion? Yes . . . sort of

The thing about following your passion to the bank isn’t so much overrated as it is incomplete.

Finding a way to get paid for doing what you love is both feasible and sustainable. The trick is to construct a lifestyle business around something you’re passionate about that other people are willing to spend money on.

The difference is crucial: I can be passionate about eating pizza and playing video games, but so far I haven’t found anyone willing to pay me for it. Therefore, I have to orient my business not only around my own interests, but also around what other people are willing to pay for.

I built the rest of the Empire Building Kit around conversations and insights from people like Lisa. The photographer, the triathlon coach, the translator, the guy who makes baseball art, the murder mystery host, and so on.

You’ve probably never heard of most of them, but they’re doing very well doing something they love.

Last month I released the product on board a 44-hour Empire Builder train from Chicago to Portland. It was a huge success, with rave reviews from our inaugural group of emperors — and a freaked out merchant account that wanted to know why so many sales were rolling in.

Long story short, today I’m doing it again. It’s for 24-hours only, before I get on a plane and head overseas as part of my quest to visit every country in the world. If you’re interested in joining the inaugural group of new emperors, I’d love to have you on board.

All the details

The goal of the Empire Building Kit is to help people build a business in one year by doing one thing every day.

To that end, I’ve compiled a truckload of resources and hand-holding to make sure that happens. The Kit includes:

15+ Case Studies. From 300 initial respondents, I narrowed it down to more than 15 thriving emperors from at least as many different backgrounds. I asked for their stories, their secrets, what they wish they had known before they started.

The case studies come in a variety of formats: video interviews, MP3 files, PDFs, with complete transcripts. So you can get the most out of them no matter what your learning style.

365-step Email Series. You get one mini-lesson today, one tomorrow, and 363 more over the rest of the next year.

According to the folks at Aweber, it’s officially the longest follow-up series in their history. The key is: if you do one thing a day, it will be much easier than trying to do everything at once. But you also have to make sure you’re doing the right things, so we help with that too.

A 52-step Product Launch checklist. Even if you’re not launching from the “bloggers’ lounge” onboard an Amtrak train, something always goes wrong with a product launch.

Use this checklist to avoid big mistakes, and dramatically increase revenue. One step produces an average revenue increase of 30% every launch, no matter the price of the product. Another step ensures you can sleep at night by not screwing up the confirmation emails. And so on.

“Show Me the Money” module. All the details from behind the scenes of my own Unconventional Guides business. You’ll learn how much money each product brings in, where I’ve screwed up, where I hit it big, and so on.

Ok, so I could go on about all of that for a while. But what you really get is insight and context from people who have successfully cracked the code of following your passion. They all talk about money, they are all extremely candid, and they’re all real people doing fun things while getting paid.

Care to join Lisa and the rest of us? You can find out all about it right here, but it’s only available for 24 hours, ending Wednesday morning at 9am Pacific Time.

And if it’s not a good fit for you, of course, that’s fine too. Most importantly, I hope your business is as enjoyable as Lisa’s — and as enjoyable as mine.

About the Author: Chris Guillebeau travels the world and writes for a small army of remarkable people at chrisguillebeau.com. Follow his live updates from every country in the world at twitter.com/chrisguillebeau.

Bloggers have a distinct disadvantage.

When someone hires an expert in — oh, let’s say marketing — that expert can dispense the same information she did for the last client.

And the client before that one. And the one before that.

Not bloggers. Blogging is about breaking down everything you know into bite-sized chunks so that people can learn it all over a period of time. If they look back through the archives, they can often see the entire breadth of your knowledge.

Then one day, your well runs dry.

This is a scary moment for any blogger. It’s not like running out of inspiration or having writer’s block. This is when you’ve said it all. Your blog contains absolutely everything you know.

And let’s be fair — it’s a lot of knowledge. But you simply don’t have anything new to say.

What do you do?

Go get yourself some new knowledge

I’m always amazed by how few people continue to educate themselves on their topic after they’ve become an acknowledged expert in it.

Hey, everyone knows me as the number one guy on naked mole rats! Clearly, I know everything there is to know!

But as an old coach of mine used to say, you’ll never know everything there is to know in your field of expertise, and there’s always something new to learn. People make new discoveries and innovations every day. You have opinions about those innovations. You agree or disagree with them. You try them or manage to take them a step further.

Of course, if you don’t find out what those discoveries and innovations are, you don’t have anything to say about it. No wonder you’re stuck for posts.

Actively pursuing new knowledge about your area of expertise has a side benefit: it provides more value for your clients. You may find the inspiration for a new ebook or web course to help newcomers understand and benefit.

New knowledge could be the next big thing for your business — if you go out and find it.

Doctors are one of the few professions actually required to update their knowledge of their field of expertise continually. If a doctor doesn’t know the latest innovation in surgery, his next patient might die from the lack of that knowledge. That’s a huge incentive for the doctor to always be learning and for the patient — and the medical board — to insist on that continual education.

No one is going to force you to attend conferences or read books or take courses, but you’ll be much more respected as an expert if you continually update your knowledge. Your client’s life may not be on the line, but their business, their financial goals, and their happiness probably is — at least, their happiness with your products and services.

Where can you find new knowledge?

Well, you may not have heard about this gizmo called the internet, but it’s pretty handy for that sort of thing. It seems silly to mention using the internet to upgrade your knowledge on an online blog, but shocking numbers of people don’t use it for this particular purpose — even those who practically live online.

Libraries are an awesome (and free) resource for new knowledge too, and so is your local bookstore. Go pick up some new literature and get someone else’s perspective on what you do.

Magazines and trade journals, of course, are terrific for more recent innovations and information. Find ones that focus on your area of expertise and stay on the lookout for new ideas that sound interesting or innovative. Once an article grabs your attention, go do some independent research on that topic and find new resources to pursue.

Actively pursuing new knowledge won’t just make you a better businessperson — though that’s reason enough right there. It’ll also pretty much guarantee that you’ll never run out of blog topics ever again.

About the Author: For new knowledge that makes you a better businessperson — and that helps you hit the bullseye of success for your freelancing career, check out Men with Pens — or better yet, grab the RSS feed here.

How I used a blog to attract thousands of subscribers my first week.

Why I make six figures and you don’t.

How I quit my day job and now I work all day in my robe and slippers while my wife brings me lattes.

Ever seen headlines like these before? Find them at least a little compelling?

Like every good headline, they exist to attract attention and convince you to keep reading. They’re trying to get you thinking about how to use a tool like blogging to make lots of cash.

But there’s something in those big promises that misses the mark.

Now that I have some experience under my belt as a blogger making an online income, I’d like to talk about the missing ingredient of those pitches.

It’s not about your blog

Lance Armstrong has a great book out called It’s Not about the Bike.

In his case it’s about one of his testicles. To be more specific, the one he no longer has.

The book is about how his bike became a vehicle in a bigger race than the Tour de France or his Nike deal, how his bike is a metaphor for life.

Lance and his tragic disease wouldn’t be famous without his bike. And as an online entrepreneur, you won’t be famous, either, without your blog.

That said, it’s still not about the blog. Not at all. The day you realize that fact is the day you’ll turn an essential corner toward reaching your goal of making a living online.

So what is it about, if not the blog?

It’s about your business.

Your blog and your business are different, yet related, things. The former is a sub-set of the latter. The difference is sometimes subtle, but it’s a critical one.

Your blog is a strategy, a branding and marketing vehicle, a means toward an end.

Your business is the money-making model. A product or service for sale.

Your blog isn’t for sale. It may be of service, but it’s a service you’re giving away for free.

Which means, if giving out free content is all you’re doing, or if your blogging has become the core deliverable of what you believe to be a business, your strategy is upside-down.

There’s nothing magic about a blog

When I started out, blogging not only seemed like a good idea — especially with all the voices that suggested you could get rich doing it — it was also incredibly rewarding right out of the gate.

Not monetarily. It was rewarding because of how it felt.

Connecting with people. Helping them. Sucking up all that nice feedback. Participating in a community, being part of a meaningful dialogue.

Those are, and should remain, part of the reasons you blog.

But if they aren’t your real objective, your end game — if making a living is an element you want to add to that mix — it’s time to take stock. Because it’s so easy to get lost in all that community stuff, the warm and fuzzy elbow rubbing, the sense of doing something helpful and worthwhile.

Which doesn’t pay you a dime until you actually sell something.

There will come a day when it hits you

You’ve been getting up in the middle of the night to perfect a post that will go out via Feedburner at dawn. You’ve sweated the syntax of your opening line and polished those nouns and verbs until you found yourself dreaming of your old high school English teacher.

You really care. You’ve become your blog. Just possibly, at the expense of your business plan.

It hit me recently in a post from David Risley, who is one of those “pro bloggers” who, if you don’t read him closely enough, or if you only hear what you want to hear, could lead you to believe that blogging will be the source of your new income, and sometime soon.

But on this day I did read closely, and what I saw there rocked my blogging world.

David, in essence, said this: blogs don’t make money. Businesses make money.

(You’ve seen that message here on Copyblogger as well.)

Your blog is the face of your business, the voice of your brand, the bait that attracts a following.

And yes, you give away as much as you can with it, selflessly and abundantly.

But until you have a product or service to sell, and until the blog connects to that enterprise in a way that actually begins to generate actual revenue in addition to pumping up your online reputation and ego, your blog is nothing other than you expelling positive energy into the universe.

Or, to put it another way, just so much hot air.

Looking for a free online resource that will teach you to think like a businessperson, not just another struggling blogger? Check out Internet Marketing for Smart People, the Copyblogger email newsletter.

About the Author: Larry Brooks is the creator of Storyfix.com, an instructional resource for novelists and screenwriters. His book, The Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling, will be published by Writers Digest Books in early 2011.

If I asked you to define what an A-list blogger actually is, what would you say?

I’m sure the usual thoughts like “thousands of subscribers,” “lots of comments,” and “large influence” come to mind.

While these may be things that many of us agree on, they aren’t really about the blogger, they’re about the blog.

Yet it’s the writers behind the blog that position it at the top of an industry and gain so-called “A-list” status.

Now, of course, if you’re sitting on a feed count of 400 subscribers today, there’s no magic bullet that’s going to get you 4,000 subscribers tomorrow. But the key to building those numbers is to be the kind of blogger who attracts plenty of subscribers and links.

Today I want to offer the suggestion that instead of focusing on all the factors that define an A-list blog, let’s look at the factors that define an A-list blogger. The characteristics behind the men and women who build massively popular websites.

While I don’t personally think of myself as anything special, I have managed to build two blogs to a combined audience of 10,000 subscribers, and I call a few A-list bloggers my friends. Four years of blogging and interacting with thousands of people have helped me to see what it is about the “big guys” that makes them successful.

Now I’m going to share those findings so that you really can have the qualities of an A-list blogger, today.

Make content your # 1 focus

When it comes to blogging, there are plenty of important factors. Having a unique and professional design, a viable topic, a brandable logo, and clear options for subscribing are all important.

But without one factor, none of the rest of them matter.

All A-list bloggers recognize content as the biggest factor to their growth. As a quick scenario, let’s imagine that Brian Clark owned your website. Do you think if he wrote the high-quality content he did for Copyblogger and applied the same marketing strategies, that blog would go nowhere? Of course not. Copyblogger’s excellent content would do well on any relevant website and is what has kept people coming back here for more than four years.

I’m someone who gets obsessed with designing and tweaking sites for maximum conversion, so it took me a while to really implement this. In fact, I would say that I was blogging for almost two years without giving writing the focus it deserved.

It was only after I eventually took my head out of stats programs like Crazy Egg and BLVD Status (which are both fantastic, by the way) and put my effort into writing that I managed to build a 4,000-subscriber blog in 12 months.

Content is your main way to shine in an increasingly competitive field. Make sure that it’s getting your full attention.

Stick to your own guidelines

I believe that most bloggers reading this could eliminate all blog reading from their lives and still do well online.

Sure, it’s great to read the stories of people doing well and gain nuggets of knowledge that will help to improve your current offering.

But this knowledge-seeking becomes a problem when you allow your search for great information to change how you operate.

In the social media space, I am always changing, because it’s my job to be active on the latest service and see how it can best be used to connect with others in my niche.

My blogging strategy, though, rarely changes.

If you look carefully around your niche, different bloggers write very differently. You’ll find variations in things like:

• Posting frequency
• Writing style, tone, and voice
• Article length
• Use of images

In the internet marketing niche, the common length for most blog posts tends to be around 500-800 words. If you look at my own articles though, you will see that I regularly surpass 2,000 words. This is completely different from anyone else in the niche, but because I provide a lot of value in one place, it’s working well for me.

Just like you’ll probably never see Brian start publishing two or three posts every day, I’ll rarely write less than 1,000 words on my own website. You lose your winning difference the moment you do something because someone else is doing it.

Set your own guidelines and you’ll build an audience that will not only love what you have to say, but stick around because they expect more great things from you in the future.

Recognize your own influence

Everyone has some influence online, even if some have more than others. Growing that influence involves a lot of effort and a lot of time, but losing it can happen overnight.

Even if you only have 10 twitter followers and your blog hasn’t yet received its first comment, you still have influence. And that means you have a responsibility to give people the best advice and value that you can.

If you care about your audience and put value first, your influence will grow more quickly than you might think.

Look at “who,” not “what”

Looking at who is behind a blog and trying to model how they achieved what they did, rather than focusing on the end result as we usually do, has been a big game-changer for me.

I hope I’ve helped you see that most of you are A-list bloggers already — you just need to leverage that talent. Focus on your content, stick to your own guidelines, and use the influence you have today to help your audience.

Those thousands of subscribers are waiting for you. You’ve just got to be ready for them.

About the Author: Glen Allsopp is a 20-year-old who travels the world and makes his living online. If you like what he has to say, check out more of his work at ViperChill.

William Shakespeare is the shorthand we use when we want to describe a great writer. He stands for the pinnacle of writing ability.

One reason is that he mastered the art of writing for completely different audiences. He appealed to the ultra elite, to regular theater-goers who never missed a performance, and to the illiterate mobs in the cheap seats. And he managed to satisfy each audience magnificently.

I’ve written a blog series around the web about how to write for each of three different audiences: new readers, regular readers, and experts. Now it’s time for us to try the Shakespearean feat of pulling these three audiences together.

Before we move on, I want to be clear that writing for each of your audiences is not the same thing as trying to write for everybody. Writing for your different audiences isn’t the same thing as writing for Wikipedia.

Write different posts for the different groups

Not every post has to work for every reader. Sometimes, instead of trying to write one post that works for everybody, pick one of your audiences and write for them.

If your blog gives marketing tips, you might give tips for new readers on Monday, regular readers on Wednesday, and experts on Friday. To be clear about who each post is for, you could call them Marketing 101, Marketing 201, and Marketing 401.

This approach pleases all three audiences more than you’d think. New readers learn a lot all at once, regular readers get refreshers and expert knowledge, and experts appreciate the reminders and will probably send people your way, too.

Embrace the series

Series are a great way to tackle the Eternal September problem, which is one of the main challenges of blogging.

Because readers come in at different phases of the conversation, we tend to either have to constantly remind people where we are, or write each post so that someone just joining in can grasp what’s going on.

Not only that, but most blog readers are used to reading short posts, and sometimes it’s hard to complete a complex thought in 800 words. Eternal September combined with short attention spans tends to lead to posts that lack substance and offer little more than constant primers.

With a series, though, you can start everyone on the same page. Series also give you enough room to develop your thought in a little more depth.

Writing a series gives you another opportunity to please all three audiences. New readers get the advantage of being caught up all at once, and they get a great introduction to your blog and your voice. Regular readers can appreciate the longer coverage of an idea, especially since you can use the room to give detailed stories and explanations. Experts respect a good series because you can show your knowledge of the field and you have the chance to say and explain something novel.

For some concrete examples of how it’s done, take a look at the Resources section to the left of this post, with series like Copywriting 101, Content Marketing 101, or SEO Copywriting.

Don’t write a series just to write a series, as it’s easy to tell the difference between a post that’s just way too long and an idea that needed several posts to cover well. A series is not a substitute for good, concise writing.

Focus on new and regular readers

Given that they make up at least 95% of your blog readers, your writing should always deliver the maximum value to new and regular readers.

This is where we tend to go wrong, by trying to write too often for experts (for example, other bloggers in our topic). In writing for experts, we run the real risk of losing everybody else.

Think about your blog post in layers. One layer of your writing should help new readers. After you have them covered, the next layer should be for your regular readers. Lastly, if you can work it in, the final layer should be for the experts.

Write as an expert, not like one

Just because you’re an expert doesn’t mean you have to write in a way that’s hard to read and understand.

Good writers know that the real challenge is writing about difficult topics in a simple, clear, and approachable way. As Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

If you’re able to write about difficult topics in a way that non-experts understand, you’ll do what many experts can’t. There’s no better way to establish your authority with all three groups, experts included.

The wheel has come full circle

Blogging is a new medium, sure, but it’s a medium by which we express, educate, entertain, and engage people. And people haven’t changed that much. That’s why we can learn from the past; their challenges are our challenges.

As blogging evolves, what will discriminate the remarkable and memorable from the bland and forgotten?

It’s not how well you can create spikes of traffic, but how much art you bring to the craft of blogging. It’s great to have a killer blog, but even better to have one with a touch of poetry.

There were dozens of playwrights in Shakespeare’s day who knew how to fill seats, but there’s only one Shakespeare. Which do you want to be?

This is the fourth and final part of the How To Blog Like Shakespeare Series from Charlie Gilkey. Check out the other posts in the series:

1. How to Write For New Readers
2. How to Write For Regular Readers
3. How to Write For Expert Readers

About the Author: Charlie Gilkey writes about meaningful action, creativity, and entrepreneurship at Productive Flourishing. Follow him on Twitter to see how he does at the whole brevity thing.

Feedback is the cornerstone of community-oriented, kumbaya-style blogging. Like a beautifully polished mirror, we take our best ideas from the wants, needs, and desires of our readers.

So as we all know, the smartest thing content creators can do is to solicit feedback. If our readers unsubscribe, cancel, or stomp off in a huff, we want to know why so we can make our content better.

Right?

Actually, I don’t think so.

I recently found out that the famously cranky marketing writer Dan Kennedy doesn’t give out those “tell me how I can improve” cards when he gives a talk. He’s interested in one thing and one thing only: how much did he sell. (Kennedy long made his living by selling information products on the speaking circuit.)

I find myself agreeing with Kennedy with disturbing frequency these days. Although this bit of behavior goes against what 98% of people will advise you to do, I’m finding that his approach is actually followed by most of the successful business owners I know, especially online.

You tend to move toward what you focus on

I don’t believe in the “Law of Attraction,” but I do believe in a basic tenet of good driving. If you put your focus on a certain point in the road, you tend to steer the car there, consciously or not.

Focus on the wall and you will tend to hit the wall.

Focus on the center of the lane just ahead of that tight little curve and you’re much more likely to nail it gracefully.

When you focus on complaints from people who don’t like you, your natural tendency is to steer your blog (and your business) in a direction that will make it more appealing to them.

Why would you want to do that?

The red velvet rope

Before I started a blog or knew any bloggers, I was a fan of a business writer named Michael Port and his book Book Yourself Solid. Port teaches solopreneurs how to market their businesses without wanting to shoot themselves. I found his ideas very helpful when I was getting started.

In chapter one, Port asks readers to put together a “red velvet rope policy.” In other words, a well-defined understanding of who you want to work with, and just as important, who you don’t want to work with.

Would I rather spend my days working with incredibly amazing, exciting, supercool, awesome people who are both clients and friends, or spend one more agonizing, excruciating minute working with barely tolerable clients who suck the life out of me?

Seems kind of simple when he puts it that way, doesn’t it?

He doesn’t say, “Don’t work with evil people.” It’s not about dividing the world into the Good and the Bad.

It’s more like dividing the world into “good fit for me” and “bad fit for me.” Your repulsive toad may be someone else’s Prince Charming.

So a client I may find “high maintenance” and on the No list could be, in your eyes, “results-oriented with great attention to detail” and be a resounding Yes.

The right kind of feedback

It’s not that I don’t believe that feedback can be helpful. But most people who criticize you aren’t ever going to be a good fit for what you have to offer.

They may not be in the market, at all, for what you’re selling. They may be looking for a very different personality or style. They may love text, when your best medium is audio. They may love audio, when your best medium is text.

If your product is the Blue Man Group of your industry, and you’re talking with a Siegfried and Roy customer, you’re not likely to ever make them happy.

So you might want to ignore their parting feedback about how your site would be a lot better with more glitter, white sequins, and dangerous carnivorous animals.

The very best kind of feedback is along the lines of “I wish you offered this so I could buy it from you.” Also good is “I am so frustrated trying to find a resource meeting this description, do you know where I could find one?” and you realize you’d be the perfect person to build it.

And of course, negative comments from people who are otherwise a great fit are also often very useful. It’s called “constructive criticism.” Just be sure it’s not actually passive aggression in disguise.

“Is this person my customer?”

This is one of the most important questions to ask yourself when you get a negative remark.

If someone’s angry with you for having the audacity to offer a product for sale, it’s productive (and sanity-preserving) to ask yourself, “Is this person my customer?”

If someone quits your email newsletter with a 47-point diatribe on how lame you are, it’s productive to ask yourself, “Is this person my customer?”

If someone leaves a comment about all the reasons they wanted your blog post to be on a different topic entirely, it’s productive to ask yourself, “Is this person my customer?”

There’s a good chance everyone would be happier if they just went back to Siegfried and Roy.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.