February 2011

Appetite For Traffic? The Secret Is in the Source

by Alex Whalley on February 28, 2011 · 38 comments

blog commening traffic sourceWe all want traffic - that much is a no brainer, but where we get it from and the methods we employ to actually get it can make or break the growth of your blog.

Like a good pasta sauce, a slight tweaking of the ingredients can make a huge difference to the resulting flavor, so let’s examine some of those ingredients and see if we can help you to spice up the traffic coming to your blog.

How to Cook the Perfect Bloghetti

If you were to cook up a pasta sauce, would you just go and throw every ingredient in the cupboard into the frying pan and hope for the best or would you meticulously add a pinch of this and a spoonful of that, slowly testing each time until you had the balance of flavors just right?

(Note from Ana: are we talking about hurrying up with dinner while the kids are bawling and the husband/wife are nagging or a gourmet meal here?)

I won’t even wait for an answer; the question was a rhetorical one anyway and because it’s quite obvious what you would do.

You would order Pizza, who makes their own pasta sauce anyway? I mean really?!

So why then, when you are building backlinks and backchat to your blog, do you just open the Browser and throw everything at it?!

Ingredients have a history, a reason for being added in the first place and and if you start assessing every backlink in the same light you begin to see the bigger picture, which will help you get noticed - a lot sooner.

Let’s examine the best and worst ingredients out there.

Without doubt, the best ingredient will always be the blog comment.

A blog comment takes about the same time to complete as manually social bookmarking your latest post on a site like Digg or StumbleUpon for example, but the difference in taste is huge.

When you Blog Comment, you need to look at the bigger picture as to why you are commenting there in the first place.

  • Who is this blogger?
  • Who are their readers?
  • What are they trying to achieve?
  • What drives their readers?
  • How can I help them?

Big Fish

Big name bloggers are great to build relationships with because they open the doors to so much more.

Engaging on a bigger blog can get you exposure that social media, for example could never achieve and not only are you building backlinks to your site and a relationship with the blogger, you are boosting your online credibility (assuming the comments you leave are worth their salt).

Little Fish

Everyone else basically.

Limiting your engagement to the bigger blogs is a bad idea, and will ultimately limit the flavour of your blog.

Just like ingredients, the seemingly insignificant ones can add the most incredible tastes to your sauce - and until you experiment with them all, you can never know what works.

Smaller blogs are run by motivated bloggers who are still in their prime. They are also usually looking to engage just like you are - so take advantage of this!

Is it better than a Guest Post?

Most definitely!

If I comment regularly here at Traffic Generation Cafe for example and then submit a guest post, then it work wonders (Crosses fingers and waits for residual traffic from Ana :) )
This is only because I have already built some basic relationship with Ana and the readers (hi, I’m Alex in case we have not been formally introduced), so when I guest post, it simply cements this.

If I were to have submitted a guest post here without ever visiting or commenting before (assuming it was accepted and published), then I highly doubt my post or my name would be remembered all that well.

I don’t care how awesome the post. In fact, write an awesome post and give it to a blog where you have no relationship and chances are your post will be forever remembered as THEIRS!

There is nothing Del.icio.us about it

What about Social Bookmarking?

Surely you must do that right? I mean everyone does that.

There is nothing wrong with social bookmarking, in fact I have to go on record now and say that I recommend it, but to what end?

It realistically takes about the same amount of time to bookmark your page on a few sites as it does to leave an insightful comment on a blog, so which ingredient do you prefer?

Social Bookmarking, especially on the bigger sites like Digg and SU would be like adding tennis balls to the meal, or overcooking the fish perhaps.

Why? Because the only thing these sites are going to bring you is an increased bounce rate.

Social Bookmarking traffic is far from targeted, and although it is a numbers game in the end, is it really worth your time?

I tested out using StumbleUpon heavily for a month and received over 1200 visitors from there alone. That month my bounce rate went from 40 to around 65%.

(Note from Ana: interesting statistics, Alex - I’ve been thinking of learning more about StumbleUpon; I guess what’ the rush? :)

Marketing (Eat In or) Take Away

Building relationships through blog commenting is without doubt the most powerful way of building both the backlinks and the credibility of your blog.

Like a good ingredient, a blog has a history and a unique story, and each one that you engage with and bring into your own circle increases the tastiness of your own blog and spices up the possibilities to no end.

Stop worrying about Social Bookmarking and Directory Submissions and all the other links you build simply because it seems like the right thing to do and concentrate on what will actually make your own blog delicious!

I’m not saying to only limit your backlinks to blog commenting; far from it.

I am simply suggesting that if you look at each link and each comment, and each relationship as an ingredient, you might start to see the blogosphere and where you best fit, in a whole new light.

Will this ultimately be better for your own growth? Without a doubt!
Will you finally find your own flavor?

Only Thyme will tell…

  • Have you found Blog Commenting to be the most effective way of getting your voice heard?
  • What other “Ingredients” do you use or recommend?

Marketing TakeOut from Ana

I was entirely blown away when Alex submitted this guest post.

Of course, mostly because Alex is such a smart cookie and I LOVE reading his posts, but there is another reason…

You see, Lisa from TheFriendlyBlogger.com and I (well, most Lisa really - she did all the work :) ) were working on an experiment/research on whether blog commenting REALLY does bring traffic. Stay tuned for the results - coming later this week!

Image source: sweetwheat.com

{ 38 comments }

Sunday Coffee with Ana: DoFollow, NoFollow and More

by Ana on February 27, 2011 · 36 comments

sunday coffee dofollow topic imageBasically, there are two main free traffic generation strategies: SEO and networking. That’s it.

By networking, I mean blog commenting, guest posting, social media networking, etc.

Today, I want to focus more on SEO; however, we’ll also talk a bit about blog commenting as it applies to SEO.

Posts Mentioned in the Broadcast

Questions:

1. Meta Keywords

There used to be the time when you were able to stuff your meta keywords all you wanted and get a pat on the back from Google for it.

Now this practice is not only obsolete, but frowned upon, to say the least.

I generally leave it empty or mention only the most generic ones like “Traffic Generation“.

Another reason for it: your competitors can easily look your keywords up and see what you are trying to optimize for. It’s best to leave them guessing…

2. Deserves Notice and Woot

Linda from TalkTherapybiz.com and I have recently had a discussion in the comment section about the overall look of her blog and I noticed that you ebook cover doesn’t look enticing enough.

Lo and behold, another commentator steps in and helps her with it!

Obviously, a great way to network and to get noticed - Ben and Josh from http://www.profitblog.com: thank you for helping Linda with her eBook image - you rock!

3. My New Sidebar Banners

I’ve been getting a lot of questions as to who designed them for me and I am happy to spill the beans.

One of my blog commentators!

It all comes down to networking and that can do wonders for you, your brand, blog, business.

His name is Ian Belanger of Ian-Belanger.com - he is currently working on a new site devoted to web design, but for now, that’s a good place to reach him.

Question: do you think the banners are just a touch too big right now or just right? Let me know in comments.

4. My Comment Structure

Alex Whalley from AlexWhalley.com asked what’s going on with my comments, why I send my commentators’ link to internal pages and what’s the point of using KeywordLuv on my blog?

You really know how to ask a simple question, Alex! :)

Your question actually cost me a couple of hours of my time, since I decided to spell out my strategy with my commenting section, how and why I keep it Dofollow, etc.

Considering that Alex went NoFollow due to the recent PR downgrade on his blog, I think this might help him see the issue differently.

See, it pays to have PR0 sometimes - no need to worry about downgrading! :)

Oh, yes, the DoFollow blog post is in queue for this week.

5. Why should you ping your comments?

Brad Harmon from BigFeetMarketing.com (LOVE the brand name, by the way!) was reading my 202 Bite-Sized Tips To Insanely Increase Your Blog Traffic post (and actually got all the way to the bottom of it - bless his heart!).

His question was on tip #175. Ping the comments you leave on other blogs.

What does pinging your comment do?

Just because you leave a comment (hoping for the link, of course), it doesn’t mean search engines will ever or at least for a while discover that link. Pinging your comment URL forces the SE spiders to check it out and index it.

Here’s how it works:

Right after you submit your comment, you’ll see a URL similar to this: https://trafficgenerationcafe.online/list-building-feedback/#comment-22578

Copy that URL and go to any pinging services. I use two: Pingomatic.com and Pingler.net - I use them simply because they are simple and easy to use.

Now just follow their instructions and your comments will be crawled by search engines in no time!

6. Facebook Sidebar Widget

“You think FB widget causes clutter? I do want to have it there for social proof and because I want people to be connected with me there as well. I might move it all the way down.” ~ Jane

Besides that fact that I don’t believe it clutters anything, there’s a good reason behind having a Facebook fan page widget.

1. It provides social proof - if you have enough fans of course.

2. It’s always good to give your email subscribers specifically an option to become a fan of your page as well as subscribe to your list. That way, if they unsubscribe from your list - oh, no!, you can still stay in touch with them via Facebook.

Traffic Generation Cafe Weekly Lineup

First, bad news.

I will have to postpone our much-anticipated list building week. I am still waiting for guest posts from some “big shot” bloggers. Hope they deliver; otherwise, you are stuck with my advice on the topic. :)

But don’t fret, I’ll have a lot of juicy stuff for you this week.

Monday: Appetite For Traffic? The Secret Is in the Source

This one comes from the one and only Alex Whalley. He’ll talk about how to make the best pizza sauce as well as discuss why blog commenting is better than guest posting. Among other things, of course.

Tuesday: Dofollow vs Nofollow: Is There a Happy Medium?

Make sure you have more than just a couple of minutes for this one. I’ll let you take a look at the way I run things here, at TGC, and what makes me remain a DoFollow blog - while many other bloggers are escaping the sinking ship.

Wednesday: Nicholas Cardot vs Ana Hoffman Twitter Faceoff: Which Side Are You On?

Yes, the much-anticipated sparring match between yours truly and the king of Twitter Nicholas Cardot, the founder of SiteSketch101.com. The topic: let’s settle once and for all, which Twitter strategy works and which needs to be forgotten. Little problem though: last week, Nick was in Kuwait with the US Army, which he is a proud member of, and he hasn’t been able to confirm the date.

Thursday: Blog Comment Traffic Research: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered

Work in progress. With a little luck, it’ll kick Alex Whalley’s Monday post in the rear, because this one is an experiment that Lisa from TheFriendlyBlogger.com and I conducted - with set parameters, Google Analytics, and the whole nine yards just to see if blog commenting can REALLY bring you any traffic.

Friday: Still thinking about it - how’s that for a title?

Marketing Takeaway

Remain DoFollow, control your links, read the posts I have scheduled for the week and… have fun with it! Don’t take SEO seriously… :)

“I’ll praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I’ll sing of You among the peoples. For great is Your love reaching to the heavens…” ~ Psalm 57:9,10

{ 36 comments }

List Building: When I Want Your Opinion, I’ll Ask for It… Asking Now

by Ana on February 25, 2011 · 34 comments

how to build a list image

This is one of those times...

Sooo… List Building.

No, I am not going to talk about it today. It’s not the time yet.

As a matter of fact, next week won’t be list building week either. :(

You know why?

Because I am lining up some great bloggers who ‘ve been there, ‘ve done that, and they need another week to write down all the wisdom and all the secrets they know about list building.

Meanwhile, I want to talk to you about something very intriguing - to me, anyway: the results of the list building poll we all took about a week ago.

Let’s take a look at it again:


According to the results, I divided my readers into

3 List Building Groups

Group 1. 34% of you, poor unfortunate souls without a list, will be happy to know that we’ll take care of you and teach you anything you ever need to know about list building.

I will also include the 18% that do have an opt-in form, but going nowhere with it, and 4% with unresponsive list.

Group 2. Most of you (36%) do have a list, doing something right here, since it is growing, but really need some advice on how to supercharge it.

Group 3. Amazing webmasters who have not problems with their lists whatsoever, meaning they are growing by leaps and bounds and are very responsive: 6%.

Now that I pointed out the obvious (after all, anyone can see the results by clicking… well, “View Results”), I am getting to the meat of the post.

What Do YOU Know That We Don’t?

That’s right.

We all have little tricks up out sleeves - even those of you who are not too happy with list building at the moment.

But especially YOU, the elite 6% - we want to know what makes it so easy for you to build a great list!

As you know, I am huge on readers’ participation and this is one of those times you can get your face - or your link, I should say, in front of thousands of my readers by spilling your beans on the topic.

Do it in the comments below.

I will put together a post based on your tips and tricks - of course, only quality ones will be included. The post will be published during my List Building week.

Remember, we are NOT looking for the basics here, like:

  • put an opt-in form
  • give away free stuff
  • use popup form
  • etc

We want the REALLY good stuff!

Marketing Takeaway

List building floor is yours!

Leave us a comment, if you think you’ve got something good to say or don’t if you have nothing to add - just read and learn.

Or yes: discussions are not only allowed, but encouraged. You have a voice!

ana hoffman list building

{ 34 comments }

Anyone Should Blog? 3 Types of Blogs and 3 Ways to Handle Them

by Ana on February 24, 2011 · 32 comments

seo blog brand blog imageLet me start with a tale of YourNetBiz Attraction Marketing Cafe blog.

Don’t try to look it up though; it doesn’t exist any longer. (of course, due to human nature, I decided not to follow my own advice and Googled it as soon as I said “don’t do it”… Now you are going to do it too, aren’t ya?)

This was the first blog I ever started. Why? Because I was told that every business needed one. Why? THAT nobody could really explain to me.

Since I have a tendency of doing first and thinking later, I did start YourNetBiz Attraction Marketing Cafe. Without clear direction of why I was doing what I was doing though, I ended up wasting about a year writing a bit about this and that, getting some untargeted traffic, seeing no results.

This might actually sound familiar to some of you.

Fast forward to about a month ago, when Randy Pickard of InternetMarketingRemarks.com asked me if I ever considered writing a post about how blogging can have different commercial purposes. (by the way, that’s the link to Randy’s post on the topic where you’ll find his great analysis of the different blog purposes - highly recommend you read that one as well.)

Specifically, there could be

3 very distinct reasons to establish a blog:

  1. Give your primary website/business an SEO boost.
  2. Establish your brand.
  3. Make money blogging.

That’s right: your reason for starting a blog can make a HUGE difference on how often you publish content, what kind of content, how much traffic you need to generate, etc.

If only I knew about this 2 years ago!

But now that I do know, I think Randy is right: we need to talk about this so that YOU can determine why the heck you need a blog and how to run it the most efficient way to achieve your goals.

Disclaimer: the more I though about this, the more I felt like this post had a great potential to turn into a rant of sorts, telling some of you to give up blogging altogether. That’s right. Read on and you’ll know why.

Blogging Reason 1: Blogging for SEO

Let’s say you have a static page that you want to rank better for certain keywords. Usually, that means that you simply need more backlinks to push it up the Google ladder.

Of course, there are the usual suspects: blog commenting, guest posting, article writing, etc.

However, you can achieve this much easier if you just create your own blog where you entirely control the content, the links, and the anchor text.

If that’s why you need/want to create a blog, here are some pointers you might want to take into consideration:

  1. Picking a theme is very easy - it should be the same as your main site.
  2. Your main purpose is not to rank the blog itself for anything, although it would be nice if that happens, so you don’t have to work on the blog SEO as much.
  3. Posting frequency: that’s the best part - once or twice per week is plenty enough.
  4. You are mostly writing for search engines (although it never means writing gibberish and keyword stuffing!), not for human visitors.
  5. In every article you write, you can and should link to your static website with naturally varying anchor text.
  6. BUT never make it ALL about your static site - link occasionally to sites you don’t own or to different online properties that you do, like social media profiles, YouTube videos, HubPages, etc.
  7. As quality is not imperative, you can easily outsource the writing part - as long as you supply the keywords and the general topic.

In my personal very much theoretical opinion, I’d use a platform like Blogger.com for this type of blog - it’s Google-owned, easy to set up, and I’ve heard (unresearched) rumors that it might be easier to rank your blog since well… it’s owned by Google. Make what you want out of this.

Blogging Reason 2: Establish Your Business Brand

These types of blogs should be build by people who have a primary business: MLM company, top-tier company, ebay store, etc.

Let’s first discuss what the purpose of this type of blog is - make your business known to those who are looking for it or a business and establish that you are the one and only mentor who are a logical choice for your prospects.

The biggest advice I can give you here is to NOT focus on the secondary stuff, like your company, your product, great training, etc.

Determine the BIGGEST frustration your target market has and go after it - that’s what your blog should be all about.

What that biggest problem could be? MONEY. Solve that problem and that alone.

Show them HOW they’ll make money and you’ll win them over, no question about it.

Show them that YOU are their opportunity and not the company or product.

Blog about failures and HOW to avoid them. Blog about successes and HOW to achieve them. Give your prospects a step-by-step plan on how they’ll make money with you leading them. Create a marketing guide every new member will receive and talk about it. Invite your team members to write posts, contribute, create forum-type environment.

Here’s are some pointers on developing this kind of blog:

  1. The content ANGLE is the key.
  2. You don’t have to publish too often, but at least once a week.
  3. Quality of posts matters - that’s how your prospects will decide whether you are worth the salt.
  4. You still want to pay attention to SEO, since some of your posts could potentially rank for company-related keywords.
  5. Your main goal for the blog is to convert visitors into BUSINESS PROSPECTS.
  6. Don’t offer RSS subscription (or don’t push it on them, I should say).
  7. Don’t try to sell them on products (this one is really going against the grain as far as what a lot of “gurus” would teach you). No affiliate banners, ads, definitely no AdSense.

The only one who matters is YOUR prospect. Made them feel that way and your recruitment numbers will shoot through the roof.

Blogging Reason #3: Make Money Blogging

I don’t remember exact statistics, but I don’t think I’d be too far off if I said that the new mean green blogging money making machines are popping up daily like mushrooms after a spring rain.

And here lies the problem I talked about in my Sunday Coffee with Ana video.

It’s not easy to make money online period, whether you offer services, products, building an MLM downline, or just building recognition for your offline brand.

Making money blogging however is one of the hardest online business models. Yet it’s the easiest to start and the cheapest to run.

If you are reading this thinking of starting a blog and becoming the next Problogger, listen up: prepared to work like a dog. Not that it can’t be done, but without originality, a great niche, good writing ability, and willingness to put in the hours, you might as well just get a job.

Let me just give you a few number to give you an idea of your competition - keyword results from Google:

  • “how to blog” - 554M results
  • “blogging tips” - 13.5M results
  • “make money blogging” - 10M results

Traffic Generation Cafe has been fairly successful over the last few months, but I have a confession to make: there were plenty of days when I thought “what the heck am I doing? why all the sleepless nights? time away from the family?”

Trust me you’d better know why you are doing this; otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of time and possibly end up walking away in defeat.

Just a little blogger to blogger talk.

Now here’s what I think you’ll have to do to succeed with this blogging model:

  1. Choose the right niche.
  2. Find your voice.
  3. Write about things nobody else writes about.
  4. Prepared to blog at least 3 times a week. The most successful bloggers publish daily.
  5. You need to have strong SEO skills - or hire someone if you don’t want to/don’t have time to learn. SEO traffic is imperative.
  6. Don’t go for the easy buck. Promote the best products you know of/have tried.
  7. Constantly work on your conversions.
  8. CREATE your own PRODUCT!
  9. Offer services!

No one says it’s impossible. But realistically speaking the odds are against you.

Marketing Takeaway

Some of you who are blogging for SEO or to establish your own brand, should feel relief right about now.

Yes, you do need a blog, but you don’t have to kill yourself running it.

Also take a look at this:

However, if you are in the last category, you’ve got a lot to think about. The biggest question is IS IT WORTH IT? The second biggest question is HOW you are going to get there.

Love it or hate it? Really want to hear your thoughts on this one.

ana hoffman blogging

{ 32 comments }

How KeywordLuv Can Get You on the First Page of Google

by Ana on February 23, 2011 · 72 comments

kewordluv plugin imageStill not using KeywordLuv plugin on your blog?

You should. For more than one reason.

But later on that; let me start with telling you a bit about the plugin - judging by the fact that many of my commentators have no idea how to use it, plus I got one too many questions about it.

Since I am too lazy to write what others have written before me so well, I’ll take some excerpts from KeywordLuv download page:

Description

Reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their website, giving them improved anchor text.

In other words, you are letting your commentators to use both their name - to make the comments more personal and less spammy, and the keywords that will link to the URL they chose to use in the “website” section.

Example

If they enter “Steve@the best bank” in the Name field, their comment will have:

how to use keywordluv image

In the first example, they entered @ symbol between their keywords and their name and only their keywords became the anchor text.

In the second example, that’s what your anchor text would look like on a site without KeywordLuv.

For a live example, see the comment section below (and leave me a comment to test it out!).

KeywordLuv & Search Engine Ranking

So here comes the cool part. :)

It was brought to my attention by the fabulous Lisa Drubec of TheFriendlyBlogger.com.

Check out what she saw when she checked out her search engine ranking for the term “Blog Building Basics“:

keywordluv search engine ranking

Yes, that’s her blog in spot #3 for the term and yes, it’s MY BLOG for the same term in spot #4.

All thanks to KeywordLuv and Lisa using that term as the keyword in the comment section.

Marketing Takeaway

There’s a whole lot more to KeywordLuv then simply giving your readers an opportunity to advance their blogs (what’s the fun in that, huh?) through providing great comments on your blog and building quality links for themselves at the same time.

As you saw in the example above, it can also place your blog on the Google map.

Search engine ranking - here we come!

Image credit: UpNextInSports.com

Love it or hate it? Comment to show me that you’re alive!

ana hoffman keywordluv

{ 72 comments }

Search Engine Ranking Tip: How to Search Google Incognito

by Ana on February 22, 2011 · 73 comments

search engine ranking incognito imageWe all know that Google personalizes the heck out of our search results, down to the kind of toilet paper I like best.

Sure, it makes sense for finding the best restaurant in your area or checking out what one of your blogger buddies had to say on a subject.

However, when it comes down to finding the accurate search engine ranking of your site for any given keyword, you’ve got to turn that personalized search off.

That way the search engine ranking results won’t be skewed by your previous searches.

Your want to see the results in all their purity and not the ones Google serves you thinking it knows best as far as what your are looking for.

Before I tell you how to actually do it, you need to know that simply logging off your Google account won’t do the trick; Google will still customize your search based on your cookies.

Here are two quick tips on how to disable personalized search and see the true search engine ranking:

1. You’ll need to add &pws=0 to your Google search URL.

Took me a while to figure it out (I am not a techie after all :) ), but here is how it works in practice.

  • As an example, I will use “traffic generation” as a search term
  • Normal Google search URL for that keyword would look like this: http://www.google.com/search?q=traffic+generation
  • Now to “de-personalize” this, all I need to do is add &pws=0 at the end of if - no spaces. Now my search URL would look like this: http://www.google.com/search?q=traffic+generation&pws=0
  • Note: if you keyword consists of more that one word, add a plus sign between each.

2. This way is WAY too cool - talking about “incognito”.

Turns out that when you use Chrome browser, which I do on occasion, you have the ability of opening a new incognito window (yes, it’s actually called “incognito“).

How to open incognito window: for PC - Ctrl + Shift + N; for Mac - Apple + Shift + N.

Once you do that, here’s what you see:

How cool is that?

Now you can search to your heart’s content and REALLY learn how you are doing with search engine ranking.

By the way, you can always get rid of personalized search for good.

Personal opinion: seems like a drastic step; personalized search does have its benefits as far as I am concerned.

Marketing Takeaway

Don’t even think of checking your search engine ranking without taking one of the steps above - you won’t be able to trust the results, trust me.

Got it? Good. Now comment to show me that you’re alive!

ana hoffman search engine ranking

{ 73 comments }

How Two Days Without Internet Made Me Stumble Upon a Great Idea

by Ana on February 21, 2011 · 60 comments

how to stand out with commenting imageAs most of you know, I was out of town on a skiing vacation with my family.

My husband and my daughter surely had lots of fun…

Me?

This little vacation made me realize that running your own business is a 24/7 deal and if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done.

Don’t get me wrong though: it doesn’t have to be that way.

Take a look at this post:

I absolutely 100% agree with Todd: online business shouldn’t take over our lives, rather give us the freedom that you are all after. But that’s a story for another blog post, isn’t it?

To get back to my point: the first 2 days of our vacation I couldn’t get the internet to work.

I spent countless hours either talking on the phone trying to get someone to come out and fix my problem or waiting for that person to come out. Needless to say, I wasn’t a happy camper.

When I finally was online, my jaw dropped.

I have over 100 emails to respond to (those are real emails from real people, no spam), 120 blog comments to get back to, Skype messages, not to mention Twitter and Facebook…

Ouch!

Thanks for feeling bad for me. :) However, I do have a point besides just celebrating a pity party and hoping to score some “Poor Ana!” points with you.

As I was going through the comments, I was amazed to notice something: some of you, my dear readers, stepped in and answered some of the comments!

At first, I was simply grateful to see that the world and Traffic Generation Cafe were still functioning even during my involuntary absence.

However, as I had some time to think about it, I realized that you just discovered a brilliant NEW way to do an OLD thing.

I won’t name names - simply because I am bound to forget some of you and I would hate to do it, but this is what you did:

You HIGH-JACKED my blog readership!

Some time ago I wrote a post on how to high jack A-list bloggers’ readership via guest posting, but this is way easier. :)

That’s right. All you did was answer some of the questions my commentators posed, but in doing so you networked, established yourselves as experts and someone ready to help, AND got my readers’ attention.

All I can say is BRILLIANT!

And so a new commenting technique is born.

Let’s sum it up and use Traffic Generation Cafe as an example.

As I mentioned before, I get dozens if not hundreds of comment per day. Take a look at this:

183 posts. Over 10K comments. 7 months.

Granted, close to half of those comments are my responses to you, but even if you cut 10K comments in half, that means that on average I get over 30 comments per post. Seems manageable when you post 2-3 times per week. But when you post daily? You get my point.

So, let’s say you take an initiative and answer a comment or two or three on my blog when you see that someone needs help or has a question.

You think those people will check you out? You bet.

What if you do it regularly? What if you start a discussion in the comment section? Would you get even more traffic from that? No question.

You are right, you have to be careful and find the right balance between helping people and overtaking my blog :) , but some of you have already been successfully doing it for a while now.

So here’s a plan of action:

1. Read a post on TGC; let me know what you think about it (network with me).

2. Browse through the other comments on the post; see if anyone is asking for help. If you have the expertise to help them, by all means answer the question! (network with my readers)

3. Get actual traffic to your site from commenting and a huge THANK YOU from me for not letting my readers hang in there, if I couldn’t get to them in time. (network with my readers and me)

By The Way…

As hard as I am trying to catch up on the comments, I am drowning in them.

I LOVE it, but I can’t swim - really!

So I might have to cut down a bit here and there on getting back with you, guys, particularly when you just want to tell me how awesome I am and build a quick link back to your site. :)

Hope you forgive me, but I still want to see my family and plus producing great content that will keep you learning as way more important. :)

Marketing Takeaway

Who needs forums anyway: you cant’ get much traffic or good links from them any longer.

However, turn my comment section into a forum-type environment and now you’ve got something!

Plus, I could really use help here. Not that I won’t personally respond to every comment like I normally would, but at least I’ll know that my readers are in good hands - YOUR hands until I get there.

Love it or hate it? Comment to show me that you’re alive!… and don’t forget to check out other readers’ comments, naturally.

ana hoffman commenting

{ 60 comments }

Sunday Coffee with Ana: Quit Blogging Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

by Ana on February 20, 2011 · 52 comments

coffee traffic generationThis morning we are starting a 12-hour drive back to sunshine from the cold, but beautiful Colorado.

12 hours in the car with a 4-year-old… that should be fun. :)

However, I didn’t want to leave you without an assignment for today - as if you have nothing better to do than to hang out with me this Sunday, huh?

This one will be a bit different: a lot of food for thought, not many/any solutions, but has the potential to change your business for the better.

Do let me know what you think in the comments.

This is what you wanted to know in the past week:

Questions

1. Feedburner and CommentLuv Links

When Katie Goode from Living Anxiety Free made a comment on one of my latest posts, Rick LaPoint from Internet Marketing responded to her comment:

Hi Katie,

Do you intentional have your link going through feed burner?

Rick

I don’t know if Katie had a clue what Rick was talking about, but I did.

You see, unless you changed your default Feedburner setting, all your CommentLuv links point to Google. If what I just said doesn’t make any sense, take a look at the screen shot below:

commentluv feedburner problemI’ve known of this problem for a while and definitely fixed my settings, but never bothered to let my readers know that they needed to do the same. :( I saw so many post on the subject, I didn’t want to talk about it on TGC.

However, now that I see that some of my readers could use that knowledge, I’ll send you to where you can find the answers - where I originally found them.

One last thing: how do you know you have this problem? When you post a comment with your CommentLuv link, hover over that link and see if you see that funny feedproxy-blah-blah link instead of yours.

If you do, go over to Brian Rogel’s post and it’ll take you just a couple of minutes to fix it, if that.

2. Trackbacks the RIGHT way.

As I was working on linking the “parties involved in the previous question” (I am sure you’ve noticed that I always try to give a link to the person asking question, I noticed something on Rick’s blog that I wanted to bring your attention to.

You see, when I link to anyone’s blog, I ALWAYS link to a post, never to the home page (unless there’s a special reason for it).

The reason for that is trackbacks. If you have no idea what trackbacks or pingbacks for that matter are, read these posts:

So I was looking for a blog post on Rick’s blog to link to and I found one of his latest:

Popular blogs? What’s up with that? - I immediately thought. Is Rick snubbing and not including me in the list of “popular blogs”?

So I scroll down - with baited breath, I am sure - to see if I am included and here it is! My pretty, if I may say so myself, face with a brief description of my blog.

Why didn’t I know about it?

Because Rick link to my HOME PAGE and home pages can’t receive trackbacks. So my blog was never notified that it was mentioned on a different blog, making Rick wonder if I, in turn, snubbed him. :)

Here’s the advice I give in one of the posts I refer you to above:

I noticed that many bloggers use trackbacks incorrectly.

Many of you mention other blogs and bloggers on your sites, but when you link to them, you link to THEIR HOME PAGE.

BIG mistake!

Home page doesn’t have comments, so those trackbacks have no way of showing up in their comment queue. That basically means they will most likely never know you linked to them.

Solution: ALWAYS link to a post. Any post.

Always. :)

3. Do comments REALLY bring traffic?

Truthfully, I have no idea.

BUT… I am going to find out.

Lisa Drubec of TheFriendlyBlogger.com is actually doing all the work; I am just the voice behind the throne.

You see I wasn’t happy to just assume that we are getting some traffic from commenting; I wanted PROOF.

So we set up an experiment with Google Analytics tracking and all to see what results we’ll actually get.

Why am I telling you that now?

Only because I am very excited about it. I’ll let you know when the post will be ready to be published.

4. Less better than more?

“I have 2 sites but now thinking about about merging my fine art and illustration/graphic and use WordPress. Do you this this is good or not?”

I would ALWAYS recommend to scale down. It’s hard enough to maintain one blog well; I can’t imagine how some of you have 2-3 blogs at a time.

The only way it makes sense as if you have small niche sites - in that case, the more the better is the name of the game.

5. Category Listings

“In wordpress, it’s good to have category or no category in our post, i mean on niche website..regarding to good SEO.” ~ Kyro

category listing in posts

Good question and the answer goes against what I am doing on my own blog. :) (I will have to change it).

For SEO, it’s best not to display categories in your posts unless you want your category pages to rank for category keywords.

Speaking of which, I just read a great post on the subject; here’s the link and you should definitely check it out:

I am planning on fixing up a few things around TGC based on that! :)

6. Podcasting

I am sure Hector Cuevas intrigued all of us with his guest post on podcasting and how we can use it for your businesses. If you have no idea what I am talking about, just take a look at this post:

Well, the smart dude that he is, he is taking it waaaay further than a bunch of guest posts and what he is doing with it goes to the very heart of the video you just watched (you did watch it, didn’t you?)

So after you are finished commenting on this post, head over to http://www.podcastingforbloggers.com/ and check out how Hector decided to take his business a step further than most of us ever will.

By the way, this is not an affiliate link and there’s nothing to buy there.

Traffic Generation Cafe Lineup

Here’s what’s coming up this week on TGC:

Monday: How Two Days Without Internet Made Me Stumble Upon a Great Idea

Self-explanatory title (gotta love those); read it and you’ll know what I am talking about. Hint: it has to do with a brilliant way to comment on other blogs.

Tuesday: Search Engine Ranking Tip: How to Search Google Incognito

When it comes down to finding out accurate search engine rankings of your site for any given keyword, you’ve got to turn to learn how to turn off Google infamous personalized search. I’ll show you how.

Wednesday: How KeywordLuv Can Get You on the First Page of Google

Not another KewordLuv post, although I do talk just a bit about what the plugin can do for your blog. There’s something very cool you’ll see in this post - free effortless search engine rankings.

Thursday: 3 Types of Blogs and 3 Ways to Handle Them

The post title sucks and I am still working on the draft, but the main idea will be to analyze the 3 main reasons to create a blog and help you decide what’s important and what isn’t base on your goals. That’s right: your reason for starting a blog can make a HUGE difference on how often you publish content, what kind of content, how much traffic you need to generate, etc.

Friday: No good post title yet :)

Remember that post I wrote last week about Why All Your Make Money Blogging Efforts Will Fail Without This? Well, in that post I asked you to fill out a short poll to determine where you stand with list building and what you need to lean to improve your stats. Some of the final numbers were very surprising, but what intrigued me was the fact that over 6% of you said that you list was growing by leaps and bounds. Also, about 37% said that the list is not growing as fast as you’d like to, BUT it’s growing.

Sooo… This is the time when you cough up the best list building secrets you have in the comments and I will compile a post based on that (with links to the original sources - you - of course).

Sunday: Sunday Coffee with Ana

I am hoping to resume the live broadcasts, so you’d better rally up the troops. Either way, I’ll see you at TGC!

List Building Week…

is coming after this one.

I already have some great list building experts sharing their wealth of knowledge on the topic. If you have anyone in mind who is great at list building and would love to see him/her on my blog, let me know.

Also, if you have anything incredible to contribute on the topic, I am all ears!

Marketing Takeaway

Have an incredibly great week, everyone, and please pray for our safe trip back - it looks like we might have to drive though some snow storms.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonjazz/4777779656/

ana hoffman traffic generation

{ 52 comments }

Blog Audit Friday: Lend a Helping Hand to Traffic Generation Cafe

by Ana on February 18, 2011 · 100 comments

Prelude: As I was trying to come up with a good title for this post, the words like “revenge”, “massacre”, “mercy”, “masochism”, “pack of hungry wolves” kept popping in my head. However, I decided to leave those thoughts for when I audit your blogs and stick with something friendlier for this special occasion. Go easy on me, in other words! :)

traffic generation cafe help audit

It's nice to have an extra pair of hands...

You’ve read and loved my Blog Audit Fridays for a while now.

Moreover, many of you took advantage of the very frank advice I so freely dispense and used it to improve your blogs - I am privileged to know that I played a part in that and love hearing about the incredible growth that can only come from taking action.

Since I am so good at bashing other people’s blogs, you would think that my own blog would be just about perfect.

Of course, nothing is further from the truth.

Writing daily posts for TGC, as well as guest blogging, attending to several social media accounts, responding to hundreds of comment and emails per day, don’t leave a whole lot of time to actually tweak my blog and make sure I stay on top of my own advice.

However, I am the one who walks the walk, and that’s exactly why I decided to ask for your help and give me a push in the rear that I desperately need to move Traffic Generation Cafe forward.

So… without further ado - my blog and this mad Russian are at your mercy.

Let’s start with some general stats about my blog:

TrafficGenerationCafe.com

Title: Traffic Generation Cafe | Generate Targeted Website Blog Traffic

Description: Traffic Generation Cafe: Plain, simple, cutting-edge knowledge and insider tips you can use to generate traffic to YOUR website, right now – today!

Google PageRank: PR0 (from your comments: I can’t believe I am still PR0 either!

Alexa Rank: 14,280

Indexed pages in Google: 2,150

Domain Age: 7 months

**********

Here are some points that I’d like for you to hit when auditing my blog.

Mind you you don’t need to be an expert of any kind.

If you have SEO expertise, hit me with it - let me know what you see I need to change.

If you are web designer, let me know what design changes would improve my blog and increase conversions.

If you are a copywriter, give me some pointers on tho to write better.

If you are a techie, let me know what flaws you see and what improvements could be made.

If you’d rather leave all of the above to people who know what they are talking about, just tell me your overall impressions of TGC: things you like, things that bother you, and what you would do differently.

Remember though:

When auditing someone else’ work, it’s always good to not just point out the problems, but also provide solutions. I am not a big fan of “I don’t really like it, but don’t know why“.

First Impression

Pretty self-explanatory - just try to see my blog as if it’s your first time.

1. What I liked about your blog

From your comments:

- overall pleasing style and colors;

- easy to read writing style;

- nice header picture, and yes, it’s me (funny - or not - story on that in Linda‘s comment)

- lots of other good stuff, in other words.

Now it’s much more fun to see what you said below:

2. Design changes to consider

1. Navigation Tabs Font: Heather Hill says that the font in my navigation tabs and sidebar widget headings is too small and a bit hard to read. Agreed.

2. Social Media Buttons: Katherine Salt said that would expect to see social links nearer the top of the page.

My goal is always to bring followers from social media networks to my blog and keep them here; not the other way around. That’s why the buttons are on my blog, but not too prominent.

3. Sidebar on the left: Adam Paudyal asks “Is there any particular reason(s) why you put the sidebar on the left and not on the right side. I was just wondering if it makes a difference if the sidebar was on the right and the content on the left?”

When you look at a webpage, where do your eyes go to? To the left top. Since that’s where my optin form is (and temporary out of order ), that’s where I want the eyes to be. However, still need to split test it.

Also, an interesting post on that from Lisa Drubec How You Lost 20% Of Your Conversions - by the way, you’ll notice her sidebar is on the left as well.

4. Header: Sandy from Composting reviews says “I love the header but it does take a large amount of space above the fold”. I agree, it’s too big. Problem is if I changed the width, I would have to change the length… and then what? Dilemma…

5. Background color: Connie McKnight says that my background color could be a bit lighter, like the light color blue at the bottom of my header.

I’ve tried it before, but didn’t like the color combo. I think I should stopping guessing and do some split testing. :) Thanks, Connie!

6. No picture in the header: Maky says “I am not a huge fan of personal photos in the header (kind of screams MLM marketing to me), I believe the one in the footer, your gravatar and in the “Article by …” box is enough for me to know who owns the blog. You use the same photo everywhere which is good.”

DON’T agree with that. My face is a part of my brand. Plus, I am not even in MLM. :)

Respectfully disagreed.

3. Navigation

1. RSS Button: Lisa thinks that the feed option should be more prominent towards the top of the page. The one in the header is small.

Here’s my answer: RSS feed – I am thinking of getting rid of it in my navigation bar altogether. Two reasons: the first one is too long to explain and it has to do with how many people statistically read RSS feeds; second one has to do with the fact that I am displaying yet another link on every page leaking my PR that I don’t have .

I think I will make a post on RSS feed – it’s quite interesting.

2. Sidebar widgets: Donace says I need to reduce the number of links that repeat each other on each page, like “Home” link or all the widgets in the sidebar. Point taken.

Content/Niche Analysis

In case you haven’t noticed, I am in traffic generation niche.

I talked about anything and everything that can bring traffic to your site, and I mostly focus on free methods.

However, am I missing something? Is there something you think a blog like mine should cover, but doesn’t?

SEO Analysis

1. Keyword Density: Max says “I had a look at your keyword density of the page with SEO for Firefox. H1, h2, and h3 tags are fine, but none of your keywords get anywhere near the recommended density of 2-5%.”

Answer: keywords density hasn’t mattered in a long time. Tried to Google “does keyword density matter” and there will be an abundance of opinions supporting that.

Link Structure

Same as above; give it your best shot to learn all you want or can about my link building and identify my blind spots.

Marketing Takeaway

I am absolutely looking forward to your feedback.

As I read through your comments below, I’ll be looking for valid points that can improve my blog and my readers blogs, and fill in the blanks above - with DoFollow links to your blogs. Great opportunity to network with me, and made yourself known to my readers.

Take advantage of this!

ana hoffman traffic generation

{ 100 comments }

How to Track and Manage Your Traffic Generation Efforts

by Val Danylchuk on February 17, 2011 · 37 comments

how to track traffic generation

...and I don't have any problem walking.

This post is a follow-up to Ana’s great piece on diversified traffic generation strategies.

As you read that article, you may get overwhelmed with the suggested number of techniques and amount of work. You may wonder, how can you even keep all of that in your head?

My answer is you don’t have to.

I suggest that you plan it once, set some goals, implement minimal performance tracking, and then just follow your checklist. This may take half an hour to set up, but this will save you days you could lose to disorganized thoughts and procrastination.

I tried a similar structured approach with my link building guest post at Search Engine Journal, and that worked great for me. So I will take the table template from there, and adapt it to this new task.

tracking traffic generatin image

Click the image to enlarge

You can see several methods of generating traffic (3 in this case, you have to start somewhere). For each method, you can see 3 weekly figures:

  • Ideas. This is how many new actions you can find in a week. These may be article ideas, potential link partners, scheduled events, or something else depending on the method.
  • Actions. This is the number of actions that you actually manage to perform in a week, given limited time and resources.
  • Visitors. This is the resulting number of visitors, as tracked with Google Analytics or other tools.

I also added two columns for weekly total visitors and conversions. These will keep you informed of your overall progress.

You can also notice one more method labeled “Something new”. I believe it is essential to try some new ways of building traffic on a regular basis. Then, when you discover something effective, you can add it as a new column to your regular plan.

Having to update this table once a week will give you some motivation to stick to your plan. It will also give you some data to review and analyze.

You’ll be able to easily identify where you are lagging behind, and where you are especially productive. Depending on the reasons, you may want to catch up with some lagging techniques, or get rid of them.

What traffic generation techniques you can start with?

The ones presented in the picture above are good to start.

Also, have a look at my Top 10 Link Building Techniques – you are generating traffic with every link you build, some as direct clicks, and some as a long-term SEO effect.

Rebuttal from Ana: Sorry, Val, but I have to step in here and offer a different opinion on link building and what works and what doesn’t.

I’d highly suggest to my readers to read both your post linked above and my post titled Link Building: What’s Naughty, What’s Nice? and let us know what you think in comments.

Just remember, there are many approaches to link building and Val’s approach will work best for niche site or static sites with little competition. My approach is best for blogs like mine. Either way, let us know what you think.

However, traffic generation is not limited to link building.

For example, Twitter and Facebook are more valuable for traffic generation than for link building.

Also, you can use multiple offline, word-of-mouth and viral promotion methods that may not produce traceable links, but may give you a lot of traffic. Here are just a few ideas:

  • publishing free e-books
  • attending industry conferences
  • handing out souvenirs
  • appearing in press
  • speaking on local radio
  • launching an affiliate program
  • becoming a columnist

Be creative and try to track each traffic source.

For example, use unique URLs in your free e-books. Maybe even register a separate domain name for print ads. Master the methods which work well for you, and get rid of the rest.

Marketing Takeaway from Ana

Val definitely has a valid point (no pun intended :) ).

If you don’t know what results a particular traffic method brings, then what’s the point of working your you-know-what working on it?

If tracking of any kind scares the heck out of you, then a simple table as Val suggested above is perfect for you. Minimum time investment with maximum returns - how can you go wrong with that?

{ 37 comments }

How To Write Titles With Teeth

by JamestheJust on February 16, 2011 · 57 comments

how to write great titles image

Problem - Solution

Say what? What’s this business about “titles with teeth” and how to write them?

Exactly. Admit it. You want to know what on Earth I’m talking about.

Trust me - you want titles that bite, that leave an impression. If you don’t, you’re lying. :)

Titles matter. Titles form the hooks that bait us to click along the CommentLuv bunny trails that populate the web and suck our time because they fascinate…
Titles that have teeth leave bite marks and hang onto your memory.

I know from experience because this is how I first met Ana myself.

There I was, moseying along and wouldn’t ya know? Her title bit me.

It was one of her guest posts at TechnShare.com. The rest is history. You know what they say, “Grandma, what big teeth you have…”

Hm. Bad analogy, let me re-phrase:

Love at first bite. What gives a title teeth?

Titles that tantalize, command respect and get traffic.

There are two rules I’ve written to ensure you don’t write titles made of protoplasm:

Rule Number One:

There are no “rules.” Well, except the ONE rule…but you’ll have to wait for that until the end.

This is writing - even bending the rules of grammar has its place (unless you’re promoting a grammar website). Be creative, be yourself, and be interesting.

Besides that, here are my main ideas to craft titles that bite and generate some interest:

Know who you’re talking to, and your context

Market research. Know your audience - you’re not talking to an algorithm, but the people in your market. If you don’t know them, you can’t write to them - it all begins there.

Here is a simple equation to remember when you write killer titles:

Demand = Needs = Excellent Titles

Let’s back that up a bit and give this conversation a backdrop. We’re talking internet marketing here. The context is primarily search engine traffic - one rhyming with “Spoogle”…

This means SEO comes into play (quit rolling your eyes! I saw that.).

Online, “demand” should make you think of “keywords” at least. Check Google’s keyword tool or Market Samurai (one of my top choices) to check your market’s keywords to see if there’s a demand to start with.

You may have a general idea of “needs” your market has - but the way people connect with your content which addresses their needs (hint hint!) would be by searching.

They search using keywords. That means:

Keywords = Demand, and Demand = Needs

Say your target market is entrepreneurial mothers. You might think about their need to balance work and family life, and how to organize their time well.

A title might be something like, “How to Balance Kids and Clients Without Losing Either” - it strikes the heart of the mother who owns a business and feels overwhelmed with responsibility. It also hints at a hopeful solution.

Then you check Market Samurai (or whatever you use to estimate traffic - Market Samurai uses Google’s estimates and it rocks like the Beatles).

Whoops! You notice that “How To Balance Kids” is a horrible choice because the traffic estimates stink.

You’ll get better traffic with “How To Balance Work and Family” and change the title to “How To Balance Work And Family For Today’s Supermom“.

Knowing your market, you know their needs. But you need to know if there’s demand for the words in your title, and that backs up to the context of your market: search engine traffic.

A little SEO goes a long way.

Titles are first chapters in a book

Everyone loves narrative - no, we may not agree on the delivery of the narrative -learn this in your market research - but people in general love a good story.

The title is the first chapter - if they click through to read more, they just turned the page.

Go back to the example.

“How to Balance Work And Family For Today’s Supermom”

Already I know my audience (characters, if you will). I know one of their needs (to succeed in business and family roles). The page-turner element would be, “So, how DO you balance family and business?”

You’ll find roughly 100 examples of great page-turners at: 100 Greatest Headlines Ever Written

Another way to create a page-turning title is to preserve mystery, stir the curiosity, and tap into the best questions your market is asking. They’ll click to learn the answer (if you know your market).

Blog post titles are about THEM, not YOU…

Assuming you’re writing for business - let your visitors know you’re writing to and for them.

We’re all a bit narcissistic: a bit self-absorbed. Write titles where you’re potential visitors somehow take center stage.

No matter your newsletter or blog - you benefit more if you think about your visitors first.

What benefit do they have in reading your post? Benefits make great titles.

Your audience is a hungry dinner guest.

You invite them to the meal (which is your content) and your title is the invite - are you serving what they want to eat?

Can you imagine Copyblogger or Problogger posts entitled, “Buy My Junk Now” in a million years? Uh…

Lemme think about that…

No.

Titles should tell your potential traffic what is in it for them. Write for them as center stage.

Marketing 101

There are plenty of books and blogs on sales tactics and writing great copy - especially books on closing a sale. What do they have to do with writing titles with teeth?

On commercial blogs especially - titles are like closing a sale.

The more you know about closing a sale and getting someone to take action, the more you will actually appreciate the fine art of a moving, pirhanna-like, toothy title.

Closing a sale is not pushing someone something they don’t need - it’s getting your prospect to take action they want to take, in the very least.

Sometimes they don’t realize they want to take the action, so you build up suspense, appeal on emotional and intellectual levels - it’s all a fine art of knowing your audience (market research).

Titles are meant to get a click-through as the “sale,” so learn marketing practices, especially copywriting. Finding the needs of your market and answering problems (or pointing one out) are all solid ideas for marketing.

Want another?

Urgency. Set it. “Limited Time Offer” or “Black Friday” are classic examples.

(If you don’t live in or market to America, we go NUTS the day after Thanksgiving and buy all kinds of stuff to help digest the turkey…”Cyber Monday” follows it, and these two days are the biggest shopping days of the entire year.)

Fear of loss. It’s huge. It can also set urgency (like the “limited time offer” example) and result in traffic - just be real about it, nobody wants to be on the used car lot being pitched to.

Want some serious marketing-minded headlines? Try the resources at this post, from Blogussion on writing better blog titles.

Be the Press

Report and weigh in on something that’s hot and happening. How do you find that?

Mind Google’s Insights for search and Trends, as well as Twitter searches (http://search.twitter.com) to find what’s hot off the presses.

Subscribe to important news aggregators or blogs in your niche. Grab their RSS feeds and check headlines.

Use “Google News” in the sidebar in Google searches (or Bing or Yahoo!) and find out recent discussions. What are people talking about in your keywords? What forums or groups can you find in the sidebar of Google, etc. - that can provide you with a current conversation?

What does that have to do with writing better headlines?

Simple: find some juicy tidbit of news, develop an educated opinion (should be easy if you know your market) and then share your opinion and/or solution to the problem with a post or article.

Write your opinion (or hint at it) in your title. “Google Plagiarizing Product Reviews - Why I’m Sick of Internet Marketing” is one example.

Blog With Vertebrae

Put your SPINE in “OPINION.” (It looks like this: O-S-P-I-N-E-I-O-N) Another way to say it is to not shy away from controversy - look it in the eye and spit.

You can’t please everybody - don’t be afraid to pick sides and apologize later if need be (or not). Titles around election time are classic examples - and they get scores of traffic and inspire fierce, traffic-sucking debates. :)

Let your readers know you’re no jellyfish - you’re armed with a spine and you’re not afraid to use it.

Numbers

There’s a reason people love numbered lists. (Don’t ask me for the reason, I just know they do!)

“3 Easy Ways to Lose Belly Fat Eating Pizza” or “Top 10 Locations For A Frugal Family To Live” - they promise bite-sized tidbits of an issue you might want to chew on.

Try this:

“How I Made $1,113.87 Per Hour With One Website”

I’ll tell you about that some other time, but a basic rule of numbers is that they tend to be trusted implicitly.

Whenever talking statistics or dollar amounts - they tend to be catchy and taken as proof in themselves (I don’t recommend lying about your numbers unless we’re talking waist size, in which case I’m a 24.

Fear factor

One of the best (if not single-handedly THE best) motivating factors in marketing is the fear of loss - people don’t want to lose something, miss an opportunity, or otherwise be out of the loop.

Unless of course you’re weird.

Assuming your audience isn’t weird, find out what your market is afraid of. In internet marketing, an audience I’m a part of: there is a constant fear of SEO losing it’s effectiveness.

Is Google going to slap your sites? When something like that happens in my “empire” of sites, I report it and try to figure what went wrong.

Recently I wrote, “Welcome To The Google Mosh Pit.”

My readers know what that means - and I’m sure they read the title with a bit of, “Oh, no - what now?” I didn’t game the fear, it’s really there behind curtain number 2 - I just tapped into it.

Be interesting

Do yourself a favor, save the boring stuff for cereal box nutrition labels - on your blog or newsletter, unless you’re pitching mattresses - you do NOT want to put your market to sleep.

I wrote, “Welcome To The Google Mosh Pit” because it’s more interesting to me than, “Losing My Ranking And Why” although both would have seen traffic (because both address the fear of loss in my market).

You tell me - when you see a post that sounds boring to tears and another that sounds enticing…which do you visit?

The ONE Rule of Writing Headlines

Stand and Deliver!

I don’t care if the Mayan calendar was right and 2012 is the year the world ends - listen up:

Titles Promise, Content Delivers

End of story.

You write a title that hooks everyone and drags in server-crashing traffic - but you fall flat on your biscuits when it came time to deliver. What happens next?

Your visitors leave your site without signing up to your newsletter and lie down for a nap because you bored them to death. Maybe you weren’t boring - but your title was a “10″ and your content was a “2.”

No…

…No…

…No!

Another way to mess this up (besides being boring) is to over-promise and under-deliver.

If your title promises “7 Ways To 6-Pack Abs” but your content doesn’t deliver, you do need to move to Neverland and live with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys forever. You just committed bloggercide.

You killed your blog and may have associated your content with bile. Both leave a foul aftertaste.

Can you imagine watching George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” only without the “Wonderful” part? Clarence doesn’t get his wings…say it ain’t so!

Don’t do it, unless you intend to punish your traffic and destroy the fabric of space-time itself. (Guess who’s watched entirely too much Star Trek?)

The technical name for this is “sucking eggs,” or so my dad would say.

Between you and me, if Ana hadn’t followed up her title with promise-fulfilling content that satisfied the curiosity she engendered - I would have had no choice but to hold a life-long grudge and spam the web with rumors that she is, in fact, spiking her Sunday Vodka with coffee…

(But we’re good, Ana.)

Ignore this to your peril: match a great title with content that delivers, or hire, you know…someone. Who writes good. :D

This is marketing. Titles with teeth generate traffic. Lame titles add 27 pounds of belly fat, make your hairline recede and give you incredibly bad breath.

Note from Ana

Don’t you love the way James writes. Don’t put your hand into his mouth, that’s for sure…

By the way, have you noticed those special Twitter links in the post? They are here for your tweeting convenience - just click on them and share some social media love! :) And let me know what you think of them, while you are at it.

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Got Traffic? So What?

by Ana on February 15, 2011 · 39 comments

traffic conversion subscribers magnetIf I were to dump a truckload of premium hot-selling vitamins on your lawn today, but you had no idea how to move them, what good would those vitamins be?

The same way, I can send you thousands of visitors to your blog today (theoretically speaking, of course), but Click to Tweetyou have no effective means to convert that traffic into subscribers, why would you want that traffic?

Learning to turn your visitors into subscribers is the single most important thing you can do today to monetize your online business, and you know the best part? It’s entirely UNDER your CONTROL.

Which brings me to this video:

Arrow curved click here

Click this link after watching the video

ana hoffman maxblogpress subscribers magnet

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Why All Your Make Money Blogging Efforts Will Fail Without This

by Ana on February 14, 2011 · 52 comments

no list building no money making image

Yes, blogging is a business for most of us.

However, only a few will succeed. In making money blogging that is.

I truly believe that there is one cornerstone principle that will make or break your aspiration of becoming a professional blogger.

Some of you are making the effort to do it, but don’t really know how to.

Some of you haven’t even started because it just sounds scary.

VERY few of you know what you are doing.

And ALL of us need a lesson or two in how to REALLY do it the right way.

Side note: this was my practice run at “building anticipation”. How did I do?

LIST BUILDING

Of course, there are tons of ways to make money blogging, almost as many as there are posts written on the subject.

Here are just a couple of them:

And here’s a teaser to show you what’s possible:

But the only TRUE way to TRULY make money online is to build a responsive list of subscribers who:

  1. trust you,
  2. want to hear from you, and
  3. are prepared to follow your recommendation to buy,

How You & I Can Help Each Other

I am planning on doing one GIANT market research to see how you and I can build better lists.

You see, by ourselves we are just a spec. Yes, I might have a bit more traffic than you do and you might have a bit more influence than I do, but the strength of this kind of market research is in NUMBERS.

So let’s combine our efforts!

Let’s join out forces: email our lists, tweet, share, digg – let’s do whatever it takes to get as many people as possible to take the following survey and use the results to better ALL of our business.

For List Builders

This survey is designed for those of us who are thinking about or doing some list building.

Why should you take it?

  1. Because I am asking you to do it and you own me that much.
  2. Because it’ll take you about 10 seconds to do it.
  3. Because I will use the results to tailor my future posts to what you need to know about list building the most.
  4. Because the results will help me determine if I need to scout for list building experts and have them right some guest posts to help us all build better lists quicker.
  5. Because if you took your time to read this post, you can certainly take your time to do this.
  6. Because you’ll get the satisfaction of accomplishing at least one this today, granted it wasn’t on your to-do list?

I think I just ran out of reason…

Bottom line: Just click the button, would ya?


For List Buildees

Yes, for those (unfortunate?) souls who get on our list - excluding my list, of course, since I do provide some killer tips to my subscribers and almost never promote anything, right?

I promise I’ll take care of you in a future post. I will want to know anything and everything that will helps us, online marketers, serve your needs better.

This is kind of funny if you think about it, since we are really talking about the same group of people, aren’t we?

We, online marketers, are the ones who build lists and we, online marketers, are the ones who get on the lists of other marketers. Yet our expectations are entirely different depending on which side we represent at the moment…

Anyway, your survey is coming!

List Building Marketing Takeaway

Since building a responsive list quickly is the cornerstone of a successful business, we might as well give it out best to learn to how to do it.

What are your 2 cents on the subject? Comment to show me that you’re alive!

ana hoffman list building

So let’s do it!

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