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.

In less than 2 weeks, SocialFresh is coming to Nashville TN for their first event in 2010.

It is a one-day event on January 11th with a a pre-party the night before the event, and an after party the night of the event.

I am attending the event, and will be at both of the before & after get-togethers. From what I hear, there are still seats available – and I found a coupon code for you if you’re interested in going.

The list of speakers includes Jason Falls and Lisa Hoffman, among many others, and topics include: The Future of Connectivity, Real Twitter Results, Word of Mouth Marketing, Corporate Blogging and more.

You can get all the details at: SocialFresh Nashville

And try this coupon code: video44 – it worked for me!

Best,

p.s. If you are planning to attend SocialFresh Nashville, leave me a note below. I’d love to meet up with you at the event!

Dislosure: I purchased a ticket at full price (minus discount from the code) and became an affiliate for SocialFresh as well.

One of my favorite posts from around the web last week came from our own Associate Editor Jon Morrow. He recorded a 20-minute video post for Problogger about how he works with speech recognition software to do all of his blogging.

I do an awful lot of writing every week, and I’ve been thinking about trying speech recognition out in order to speed up the process. But like most people, I was afraid it was going to be more trouble than it was worth to get it working.

Jon’s video made me realize how simple (and inexpensive) it will be for me to make it happen.

Because it was a pretty content-rich video, a lot of folks took a quick look and bookmarked it, thinking to come back to it when they had a little more time. So what better way to spend the Friday-after-a-holiday than eating leftover turkey sandwiches and watching a great how-to post?

(If you’re not in the States, you can re-create the effect by overeating wildly today or tonight, drinking just a little too much, pounding down four desserts, having three arguments with your extended family, and then watching the video tomorrow.)

The highlights of the video for me were:

• The quick-to-install (and cheap) piece of hardware that lets the software actually understand what you’re saying.
• Jon on video! Jon and I have spent a lot of time on the phone, so I’ve gotten to know him fairly well. Getting to hang out with him for a few minutes via video was great, he’s a fascinating guy with a lot to say. (The guy can say more with his eyebrows than most people can with a 100-item list post.)
• The one-stop resource to find the right mic and hardware for your setup.
• The live demo showing exactly how Jon uses the software to manage his business and blogs.
• The comical notion that penny-pinching Jon will ever buy a Mac.

I recommend you check it out, I found it tremendously useful:

Speech Recognition for Bloggers: The Ultimate Guide

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

With all this talk I’ve been doing about guest blogging & blog interviews, and one way link opportunities…
I completely forgot that my dear friend (and brilliant marketer) – Nicole Dean – recently published a complete guide on that very topic!

It’s called the Blog World Tour Planner and it comes with a 38 page detailed guide, an idea generator, research worksheet, sample email for contacting bloggers, and a “blog tour” planning spreadsheet.

The price? Only $17!

Not mentioning this earlier was a major oversight on my part. I’ve been a bit out of the loop lately after that spell of my daughter being ill, and in a mad catch-up phase ever since. At any rate – my apologies. This is definitely something you’ll want to hear about, so I sat down last night to give it a proper Lynn-style review…

Nicole Dean’s Summer Blog Tour

You may recall that Nicole was a guest blogger here at ClickNewz for an entire week over the summer. My blog was just one of her many stops in what she called her Blog World Tour where she made appearances as a guest blogger across popular blogs all over the web, week after week.

It was a huge success in many respects – from high-quality inbound links to tons of exposure & traffic, and even setting up long-term passive streams of income.

Nicole is brilliant like that, coming up with creative new ideas and documenting every detail. Not only do I like and respect her as a friend, but as a marketer – I pick her brain every chance I get!

The Blog World Tour Guide for Guest Blogging

As I mentioned, this package comes with a detailed guide and a number of super-helpful bonuses to help you take immediate action and get started with your own guest blogging venture.

Sure you can go it alone, and figure everything out as you go – or you can take all the guesswork out of it and just get started for only 17 bucks. That’s kind of a no-brainer, if you ask me.

The guide starts out giving you some insight into how people think, and how Nicole’s idea was born. If you’re smart, you’ll read those couple of pages carefully and consider other ways you can apply that to your business. It’s a simple but brilliant thought process – just one of the things I love about Nicole.

Even though I was part of her summer blog tour, I never knew exactly what all went into it – or that she ultimately wrote 75 blog posts across 15 different blogs (not including her own). Wow!

Obviously you don’t have to go to that extreme – or you could set out to out-blog Nicole Dean if you like – but either way just ONE of those blog posts is worth way more than 17 dollars. Consider that just one post on one blog equals a permanent high quality one-way inbound link.

Or let’s say you have a product of your own that you sell, and your guest post ranks high for a specific keyword phrase. That one blog post could result in ongoing product sales for months – or even years…

Nicole discusses the benefits of guest blogging, or doing a “blog tour” as she calls it, and she also discusses the benefits to the bloggers – why they would agree to let you guest blog, and how to make the offer even more enticing to them.

Having been involved in her blog tour personally, I can tell you that what she did was a HUGE benefit to me. I’d let her come back and guest blog here anytime! And my personal experience from that side of her guide gets me even more excited about using her methods myself…

By the way – she details out tips for you in the guide that make blog owners LOVE having you as a guest, and BEG you to come back and write for them again. Obviously those tips worked on me, so I paid special attention there!

The guide is laid out in steps, starting with choosing your commitment and your objective. You might need inbound links, or you might use this as part of a pre-launch buzz campaign for your product, or you may be recruiting affiliates.

There are a number of reasons to consider guest blogging, and a variety of ways to use it for major leverage and advantage.

Nicole goes through the process of finding the right blogs in great detail, as well as which blogs to avoid (and why). She also gives you a spreadsheet to keep track of each blog and their details, with screenshots of how she used it herself.

Organization & scheduling is covered as well – such as creating an editorial calendar you can share with an assistant, if you choose to outsource some of the groundwork. Even if you’re doing this on a small scale and managing the details yourself, this part is very helpful. Nothing like dropping the ball on a promise made…

By the way, Page 18 shares 3 resources I had NO idea even existed. Be sure to check those out

The Bonus Planning Tools

The guide itself is incredibly rich in ideas and step-by-step instructions, but the tools included is where this product really overdelivers. The “idea generator” that I mentioned earlier is a brainstorming resource for coming up with topics to blog about. Very helpful for those that struggle with writing but really want to make this work for them.

Also included is a guest blogging planner – particularly helpful if you’re going to be doing a full-on blog tour like Nicole, but also a very handy spreadsheet to use as an editorial planner for your own blog plus your guest blogging opps.

To recap the bonus tools included, you get the 38-page guide plus:

• Content Idea Generator
• Blog Research Spreadsheet
• Same Email To Bloggers
• Editorial Calendar Spreadsheet

All that, for only $17. Click here to get started!

Best,

p.s. I was hanging out with Nicole over the summer, during her vacation here in TN and at an event where we roomed together in early August. She was right in the middle of her now famous Blog Tour both of those times, so I got to see her in action firsthand.

That’s in addition to seeing how it all worked when she made her stop here at my blog – and experiencing the sales & traffic that she brought to ClickNewz. Nothing short of amazing. But what was most amazing about it was that, while Nicole IS brilliant in her creative marketing ideas, she simply rolled up her sleeves and did it.

And that my friends is what sets Nicole Dean, and other successful online marketers, apart from the rest- apart from the hopefuls and wannabe’s.

You can sit around and need inbound links, want to sell more product, or wish you could recruit more affiliates- or you can download these tools and take action.

I’m off to quit talking about it, and get started setting up these awesome tools…

In my recent post on One Way Link Building, I mentioned interviews and guest blogging as 2 of the 7 ways to get one way links. I included specific examples of each to give you an idea of how it’s done, and what it looks like.

I’ve often joked about being a “lazy affiliate” – but the truth is, I do prefer to do things the easy way if at all possible. That’s the reason that blog interviews and guest blogging are my two favorite methods for easily getting high quality inbound links. And no – you don’t need a blog of your own to make this work for you…

Nervous? Don’t be!

If you’re nervous about pitching a guest blog post to bloggers in your niche, or pitching an interview idea – don’t be! Sure you need that solid inbound link, and it almost feels like begging. Or at best, that you’re asking for a favor.

But the reality is that bloggers have needs to: they need constant, relevant, interesting content for their readers. You are actually doing them the favor!

Finding The Right Bloggers

Your first step is to find the bloggers in your niche that are reaching your target market. Search Google.com, Google Blog Search and also Technorati.com for your topic or your keywords. Use a Feed Reader and add these niche blogs to your reader so you can keep up with them.

And no, I can’t possibly keep up with dozens of blogs every day, but I do scan through them once or twice a week

If you’re on Twitter (and you should be!), use the Twitter search feature to find bloggers in your niche. Follow them and get involved in conversations with them. Twitter is one place where I find the majority of my guest blogging opportunities.

You can also ask for recommendations on your favorite discussion forum, and ask them which XYZ blogs they read and like the most – and why.

This should give you some great starting points…

Pitching Your Content

Start by switching your mindset like we talked about above, keeping in mind that you have something of value to offer them: unique content.

Your first step is to figure out your angle, and how you want to frame the offer when you contact the blogger. This is all going to depend on who you are, what you do, and how you can work that into their blog.

Here’s a bad example – which would get ignored & deleted:

Hi Clicknews,
I really need links to my web site. Can I guest blog for you??

-Jack

Three major problems with that message: 1) they didn’t address me by name, 2) I don’t care what you need, 3) I have no idea who you are or what you do or whether I even want to find out.

Here’s a good example – which would get my consideration:

Hi Lynn,
Love your blog! I’m really enjoying your series on link-building. I have a software product that automates guest blogging – I’d be happy to let you test the program if you’re interested in reviewing it.

I also thought it might be fun to do a Q&A post for you on automated vs manual. If you’re interested just send me your top 3, 5 or even 10 questions about it and I’ll reply back with the answers so you can publish it on your blog.

Best,
Jack Black
JacksDomainName.com

Another good example:

Hi Lynn,
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now – nice work! I noticed you haven’t written any posts for your Google Adsense category lately. I have several reports on the topic, and would be happy to write a few guest posts for you in exchange for a link back to one of my free reports.

Let me know if you’re interested!

Jack Black

p.s. Here’s the link to one of my free reports if you want to check it out: linktoreport.com

See? Simple enough.

The key is to be personable with the blogger. Address them by name, and let them know you are familiar with their work – and have something of value to offer them that fits in line with their current goals or needs.

As a blogger myself, I have been doing blog interviews (or blog conversations) and guest blogging both ways – publishing them here on my blog, and getting published on other people’s blogs. It’s a great way to create unique content, and to get high quality one way inbound links.

Give it a try!

I’ve actually been doing so many interviews lately that my daughter decided to mock me with a video interview on our way into the city yesterday:

If a 13 year old can do it…

Best,

One way link building is an important part of your overall SEO strategy. The major search engines view these as high quality inbound links – when done right.

In this post I’ll give you 7 simple one way link building strategies that give your Link Reputation a nice little boost, and also bring in highly targeted traffic all on their own.

One Way Links are valuable because they are viewed as truer votes towards your web page. The exception is sponsored links, or one way links that are obviously purchased. There are a number of ways that Google can tell this, which is one of the reasons that a permanent inbound link tends to gain more weight over time.

Easy One Way Link Building Strategies

The goal is to get permanent one way links pointing to your web pages, whether that be the main page of your site or internal pages or blog posts on your domain. You need a good number of quality deep links to those internal pages to boost your overall Link Reputation. Following are 7 very easy ways to achieve that…

1. Interviews

Interviews come in all shapes and sizes, and you can really get creative with this one. A traditional audio interview on a webinar, podcast or online radio show will usually get you a link on the host’s site and also a mention to their mailing list (even better if those newsletters are archived online).

I prefer text interviews on relevant blogs, as they give you a high quality contextual link from a relevant content page. This can be done by answering a series of questions via email that are then published on the blog.

Another option is Q&A style, which is fun and easy.

Examples:
Advantage & Disadvantage of Outsourcing Q&A Style
Lynn Terry of ClickNewz an interview Text Interview
Life Change: Interview with Lynn Terry Text Interview
On Becoming a Market Leader Audio Interview
Lynn Terry Affiliate Marketing Success BlogTalkRadio Interview

2. Guest Blogging

Interviews are great, but guest blogging is even better for one way link building. Why? Because as the author of the content on the page that is linking to your page, you have full control over that link.

You can choose the keyword phrase to optimize the blog post, choose the page you want to link to that is relevant to that topic, and use your preferred anchor text in that backlink. And if that wasn’t reason enough to start guest blogging, you’re also putting yourself in front of an established readership in your niche!

Examples:
My Guest Post on Problogger
Guest Post on ClickNewz by Danny Cutts

3. Private Paid Link

One thing you really want to stay away from is programs or schemes designed to create your one way links, or text link brokers that sell you one way links.

These programs and brokers are really frowned upon by the major search engines and could hurt your Link Reputation rather than improving it.

This being the case, I still purchase text links from time to time – I just do it smarter. And I never purchase a temporary link, but rather a permanent contextual inbound link on a relevant content page or blog post.

How do I manage to do that? Simple: I offer bloggers a one-time payment to blog about a specific link on my site. Most of the “pay per post” brokers pay their bloggers $5-$15 for blog posts, so that price range is suitable – particularly for B-list or C-list bloggers. I usually use Job Boards on forums to make the offer.

I do not specify anchor text, give them more than one page or blog post to choose from, and just request that they blog about the topic and link back to the page/post. I do this because I want link variation, and because I’m buying “advertising” or “buzz” – rather than specifically buying text links.

Never use a broker. Do it yourself, or hire a virtual assistant to manage it. Period.

4. Article Marketing

Submitting articles to article directories is similar to guest blogging in that you have complete control over the content and the link. This is a great method that people have been using successfully for years.

In addition to getting indirect rankings when your submitted article ranks well, and then funnels traffic into your site, your article can also get republished all over the web – resulting in numerous quality one way links.

Sidenote: A lot of us – newbies and experienced marketers alike – are taking Jeff Herrings new article marketing e-course. It’s cheap and it’s awesome – super great investment to really nail this strategy.

Examples:
My latest article on EzineArticles.com
Quick Start To Setting Up Your First Blog Article at EzineArticles
Republished here, here and here (to name a few).

5. Testimonials

Most merchants won’t publish a live outbound link to your site from their sales page, but if you get creative you might just be able to get a link from their blog or an internal page on their website pointing to your review or case study of their product.

I’m actually seeing an example of this in the SERPs now with a page I’m trying to beat out for their #3 listing. By analyzing their backlinks, I discovered the merchant was linking to their review.

Look for merchants that link out to reviews, give live links in testimonials, or that have blogs. If they have a blog you can offer a detailed case study or success story as a guest post, which includes the link to your review of their product.

6. DMOZ Directory

Meh. Good luck. But if you can manage to get a one way link by submitting and getting an approved listing in the DMOZ directory – go you!

Here’s the link: http://www.dmoz.org/help/submit.html

7. Social Bookmarking

Ideally you should include social bookmarking buttons on your blog posts or web pages to encourage your readers to bookmark your content. This is the best and most natural way to get one way links from this source.

You can also set up your own social bookmarking accounts, but my advice is that for every link of your own that you bookmark… you should bookmark 5 or 10 other links on domains or properties you do not own. This keeps it natural, and resourceful.

See: Top DoFollow Social Bookmarking Sites by PageRank & Alexa Rank

Also download and read Social Media Daily by Michelle MacPhearson

8. Bonus One Way Link Building Tip!

This bonus tip is actually one of my favorite one way link building strategies. It’s so slick you’ll be shocked at how simple and effective it is. And it’s easy too – you don’t even have to request a single backlink for this one…

Write content so great that you get unsolicited one-way links to your page from all over the web. That’s it. This post serves as a good example.

Best,

Also See: How Many Backlinks Do I Need?