It seems that more readers are asking this question than I previously thought.

In a recent poll here on ProBlogger I asked readers whether they’d done any affiliate marketing on their blogs. The results revealed that:

• 29% of readers regularly do it
• 24% occasionally do it
• 27% have never done affiliate marketing on their blogs
• 6% used to do it but don’t any more
• 14% don’t know what affiliate marketing is

There’s some interesting results there but it was the last category (of bloggers not knowing what affiliate marketing is) that I wanted to write this post for with the hope of answering the question. It’s pretty basic and quite beginner focused but for the 14% of you who don’t know what affiliate marketing is - here’s a brief introduction.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Perhaps the simplest way to explain affiliate marketing is that it is a way of making money online whereby you as a publisher are rewarded for helping a business by promoting their product, service or site.

There are a number of forms of these types of promotions but in most cases they involve you as a publisher earning a commission when someone follows a link on your blog to another site where they then buy something.

Other variations on this are where you earn an amount for referring a visitor who takes some kind of action - for example when they sign up for something and give an email address, where they complete a survey, where they leave a name and address etc.

Commissions are often a percentage of a sale but can also be a fixed amount per conversion.

Conversions are generally tracked when the publisher (you) uses a link with a code only being used by you embedded into it that enables the advertiser to track where conversions come from (usually by cookies). Other times an advertiser might give a publisher a ‘coupon code’ for their readers to use that helps to track conversions.

For example:  when I recently released my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook I also give people an opportunity to promote the workbook with an affiliate program whereby they could earn a 40% commission for each sale. When you sign up to become an affiliate you are given a special code unique to you that enables you to promote the workbook and make $7.98 per sale. The top affiliates earned over $2000 in the first few weeks after launch through these commissions.

• Advertisers often prefer affiliate marketing as a way to promote their products because they know they’ll only need to pay for the advertising when there’s a conversion. I knew when I started this affiliate program that while I’d earn less for each sale that having a network of affiliates promoting it would almost certainly increase overall sales levels.
• Publishers often prefer affiliate marketing because if they find a product that is relevant to their niche that earnings can go well in excess of any cost per click or cost per impression advertising campaign.

Why Affiliate Marketing Can Work Well on Blogs

Affiliate marketing isn’t the only way to make money from blogs and it won’t suit every blog/blogger (more on this below) but there are a few reasons why it can be profitable in our medium. Perhaps the biggest of these reasons is that affiliate marketing seems to work best when there’s a relationship with trust between the publisher and their readership.

I’ve found that as this trust deepens that readers are more likely to follow the recommendations that a blogger makes.

Of course this can also be a negative with affiliate marketing - promote the wrong product and trust can be broken (more on this below).

Affiliate Marketing - Easy Money?

While affiliate marketing can be incredibly lucrative it is important to know that affiliate marketing is not easy money. Most people who try it make very little as it relies upon numerous factors including:

• traffic (high traffic helps a lot)
• finding relevant products
• finding quality products
• building trust with your readers
• having a readership who is in a ‘buying mood’
• you being able to write good sales copy (and more)

There’s also some risk associated with affiliate marketing in that if you push too hard or promote products of a low quality you can actually burn readers and hurt your reputation and brand.

It’s also worth noting that affiliate marketing doesn’t work on all blogs. Some blogs are on topics where it is hard to find products to promote - other blogs attract audiences who are not in a buying frame of mind and for other blogs it just doesn’t fit with the blogger’s style or approach.

Tomorrow I want to continue the focus upon affiliate marketing with another post - this one on how to find affiliate products to promote.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

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n

If you’ve got more than one blog - choose the one you consider to be your main blog. Tell us more in comments below!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Who Designed Your Blog?

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Tim’s used his blog very successfully to promote his book and has a lot of wisdom to share - we spent some time together before Tim launched his book and it’s been great to watch him rise to the success he has now.

It’s not a short video so make sure you have 50 minutes to watch it (or at least listen while you do something else).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Build a Successful Blog

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Over the last week or so I’ve had the opportunity to see inside the MyAds from MySpace.

MyAds have been an advertiser here on ProBlogger for a month or two now (consider that a disclaimer) so I wanted to see for myself how it worked. What I found was a very easy to use and pretty affordable way to advertise a product, service or even your blog.

In short - MyAds is a pay per click banner advertising system where you can advertise on MySpace and get your message in front of potentially millions upon millions of MySpace users.

You can use it with an advertising budget of as little as $5 a day and have a pretty good looking ad set up to run within just a few minutes using their ad building tool (or you can upload your own using an uploader).

Worth noting before we go any further is that to run a campaign you need a US address and credit card. As someone without either of these I could only go as far as designing an ad and testing out the targeting features. I did however talk to a number of MyAds advertisers to get their feedback (see below).

Setting up an ad is easy. Even me as a design challenged guy got one set up in a few minutes. I put a mock ad together for my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook. Here’s a screenshot of the page where you set up the ads (click to enlarge):

As you’ll see there are three ad size options and it’s as simple as typing in your ad copy, adding an image, choosing a background color and adding in a destination URL.

You can then preview your and move on to working out who you want to see it as well as setting a budget.

On the following screenshot you’ll see the section to choose your target audience:

As you make your choices about who you want to see the ad the grey area the bottom of the screen changes. It shows you how many users on MySpace will potentially see your ad as well as giving you a suggested bid price for how much the ad might cost per click to run.

The targeting options look pretty good - not only can you target by demographics (gender, age, education, relationships, parental status and location within the US) but you can also choose categories of interests and occupations of the type of person you want to reach with your ad. I tried a number of options and got the target number of people to reach quite focused and the suggested cost per click quite a bit lower than what you see in the above screenshot.

This enables you to increase the chances of conversion with your ad quite considerably.

All in all from where I stand MyAds seems like something that I’d like to use if I were running an ad campaign for a product, service or even to launch a new blog. I’ve previously used similar ad systems on other social networks with some success and the easy of use of MyAds plus what looks like great targeting make it an attractive option.

How Does it Perform? Testimony from a Heavy User of MyAds

As I was unable to go much further in the process (as a non US resident) I approached a number of people to get their feedback on the ads. One of those I talked with was Joe Frevola from Globalizer who uses MyAds quite extensively. I asked Joe a number of questions to get his insight on the why and how of MyAds:

How have you used MyAds and How has it performed?

Globalizer uses Myspace MyAds to buy media for our GlobalizerNetwork advertisers. We have had tremendous success with several campaigns on MySpace and have been impressed with its powerful targeting tools, which we have utilized to target the demographics and interests of our audience.

In comparison with Facebook, it’s hard to pick a clear cut winner and both should be a part of your media buy in most cases. Each has advantages and disadvantages and the best choice of the two will vary based on the type of campaign you are running.

While MySpace’s targeting tool is more organized and allows you to select keywords sorted by categories and sub categories, Facebook’s keyword search tool allows you to access a more robust database of target interest. MySpace does have useful demographic targeting that you can’t get with Facebook, such as the ability to specifically target mothers or recently married individuals.

Both MySpace and Facebook have solid targeting tools that should allow you to push positive ROI. While the Facebook ad platform is global, you can only target US users on MySpace currently, however word is MySpace is adding new countries later in the year. I would highly recommend the use of both ad networks to just about any advertiser.

Do you have any tips for using MyAds to share with ProBlogger readers?

There are some tricks to getting the most out of MySpace MyAds. Globalizer runs a lot of lead generation campaigns that drive a very high response, but don’t pay high bounties per conversion and therefore don’t allow us to pay very high CPC’s.

Often, when you start a campaign with a very low CPC, the ads delivers very little or no volume at all. We find that in order to kick start this sort of campaign, we overpay on CPC in the beginning and fully expect to take a short term loss as MySpace’s optimization system values the quality of our offers.

In the end, the system just wants to back into the highest eCPM, so the fact that our ads are driving very high click through rates more than compensates for the lower CPC. Once the campaign starts getting significant delivery, we are able to adjust our rate down to a profitable number and continue to experience a great a volume of traffic.

Also, when you first start running a new campaign on MySpace, definitely go with your gut and select targets that you feel will have the best chance of success with your offer. However, don’t neglect to test various demographics that you might not think would typically perform with your ads. You will often be surprised at the demos that respond to your offers.

Get $50 Credit with This Code

If you’d like to test MyAds for yourself (IF you’re in the US) they’ve given me a coupon code for ProBlogger readers to try it out and get $50 credit to use in doing so. You need to be new to MyAds to redeem it (ie if you’ve already used MyAds it’s not redeemable).

To use it - just design an ad and at the end of the process use the coupon code of Pro50. Of course this is only for those who are residents of the US and have US address and credit card details.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

MyAds: Promote Your Blog, Product or Service on MySpace

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It seems that they’ve been hard at work on that very feature.

Today I logged into my Feedburner account and noticed this in the ‘Email Branding’ area.

Yep - it’s the feature we’ve been waiting for! All you need to do now is add the tag ${latestItemTitle} into the subject line and it looks like you’re set to have new subject lines on each email sent.

There’s no official word on this new feature yet from Feedburner.

Ironically it was only a few hours ago that I emailed a few questions to Feedburner who have agreed to an interview here on ProBlogger. Expect to hear more from Feedburner in the coming few days - hopefully this is a sign of things to come as they take Feedburner to the next level!

Thanks for listening Feedburner.

A hat tip to Carrie who emailed me about this new feature - nice pick up!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Feedburner Add Customizable Subject Lines to Email Subscriptions

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Today’s ProBlogger Deal is simply - follow @ProBloggerDeals on Twitter and you’ll automatically go into the running to win the ultimate blogger’s chair - the Omni Bean Bag Chair from SumoLounge.

You’ve got 48 hours to enter!

Valued at $149 USD the Omni Bean Bag Chair comes in a range of 10 great colors, measures 4.5’ X 5.5, is made from rip-proof and easy to clean nylon and is filled with high quality beads which will stay fluffy for ages!

Can’t you just picture yourself lazing around with your laptop on your knee in this baby?

To win the Omni chair - simply head to our @ProBloggerDeals twitter page and hit ‘follow’. On that account we promote discounts for bloggers, competitions and special offers exclusive to ProBlogger Deals followers (there are already a few up in the last few tweets on the account).

I’ll draw the winner of the Omni chair 48 hours after I first announce this on Twitter and will update this page and @ProBloggerDeals with the winner’s Twitter handle once I do.

PS: check out the reviews of SumoLounge products. They’ve certainly impressed some pretty cool bloggers over the last year or two!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Win an Omni Bean Bag Worth $149 in the Next 48 Hours at @ProBloggerDeals

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Much has been written on the topic of search engine optimization for bloggers - but let me give you a few basic first steps:

1. Content is King

The quality of the posts you write is the single most important factor when it comes to Search Optimization on a Blog. I suspect others will argue differently but as I look at my own blogs success in the search engines I’d say that this has been the number one factor.

Quality content that helps people will quite often draw a reader to want to share what they’ve written - of course they do this by passing on the link to your post and often they’ll do it in a way that helps your search rankings (on their own blog for example).

2. Anticipate What People Will be Searching For

Every time you write a post you should be automatically be considering what words people might be putting into search engines to find that type of information. Once you know what kinds of words they’re using you’re in a great position to position yourself for that search.

3. Titles Titles Titles

There are a number of things to keep in mind when it comes to titles. Google pays particular attention to titles - so make sure you get them right:

• first make sure that the way you set your blog up puts the title of your post in the ‘title tags’ on the back end of your blog. This is really important.
• if you’re just looking from an SEO perspective don’t include your blog name in the title tags of single posts. This dilutes your keywords. Of course if you’re looking more at branding including your blog’s name in the title tags might be worth doing.
• next - include the keywords that you identified in point #2 in your post title
• also, keep in mind that the words you use at the start of a title tend to carry more weight than words you use later in your title

4. Keywords in other parts of your post

Use the keywords you identified in point #2 within your post also. If you want Google to rank you for a term or phrase you need to use that term or phrase. Use it in sub headings in your post (use h tags where you can), use it in the content itself, use the words in the alt tags of images etc. Don’t go over the topic but do use the words where you can naturally in the post.

5. Link to Your Own Posts

Don’t over do this one but while links from other sites are a great way to increase your blog’s rankings so are links from your blog. Interlink your posts to share where readers can find more information on your topic (where relevant) but also consider linking to key posts on your blog from other places on the blog (sidebar, front page etc).

6. Links from Outside Your Blog

Links from other sites to yours are key in SEO but they can be hard to get. Start to linking to your blog from other sites that you have or are active on. Some (like on Twitter) won’t count for anything much as they have no-follow tags but they are all potential ways for people to access your site and some will help with SEO.

Don’t become obsessed with getting links - rather become obsessed about writing great content and the links will generally come in time. However if you’ve written a great post that you think will be relevant to another blog don’t be afraid to let that blogger or website owner know about it - they could just link up.

Also - take note of the type of posts that you write that do well at getting other sites to link to you. You can learn a lot about generating linkable content by doing so and might just develop a technique that will work again and again.

7. Plugins

I don’t tend to do much to the back end of my blog to alter things like meta tags - but there are some good plugins around if you’re using WordPress that can help with some of this and that may give you a small edge. Check out 9 SEO plugins that every WordPress Blog Should have for some suggestions on this.

8. Readers Begat Readers

This isn’t an SEO technique as such but it plays a part. The more readers you have the more likely your blog is to be found by other readers. There’s a certain ’snowballing’ thing that happens on a site over time - as you get readers quite often momentum grows as those readers pass on your site to others in their network. They link to you, they bookmark you, they tweet about you, they email friends about you, they blog about you, they suggest your site in recommendation engines….

Not all of this counts with SEO but some does and the accumulation of it over time all certainly helps to grow both organic and search traffic. I guess what I’m saying is to get readers any way you can - don’t just focus upon ‘SEO’ as such. It all counts.

My Hunch with SEO

Before I share my hunch…. let me say that I’m not an SEO and this could be completely wrong…. but it’s a hunch that I’ve had for a while now.

I’ve been doing this blogging thing for almost 7 years now and from what I can see the tweaks that many bloggers do on their blogs to optimize it seem to be having less and less impact on the rankings of blogs. Don’t get me wrong - I stand by the above tips completely and would do them as a common sense bare minimum - but from where I sit Google seem to be in the business of finding the best information that they can for their users. They don’t always get it right but I think they do a pretty good job.

As a blogger your job should be to provide the best information that you can.

It strikes me that Google have an ever increasing way of working out if your information is good. It’s not just about what keywords you have or how many links that you get - but these days they own Feedburner (know how many people subscribe to your blog and what links people are clicking on), they own Google Reader (again giving them all kinds of great data), they own Gmail, Google Analytics, YouTube etc…..

Now they may or may not use all the data in their ranking of sites but they certainly could know a lot about your blog and the posts you write. There’s also been increasing talk over the last 6 months or so about how easy it’d be for search engines to start generating data on what content is being shared in social networks and bookmarking sites.

My hunch is that many traditional SEO methods are less important (NOT irrelevant though) and that other factors are increasingly going to come into play. I’m sure that some will work out ways to manipulate this (SEO 2.0?) but increasingly the way to get ranked high in Google will be that you just need to keep producing great content and making sure that it’s sneezed out to your network.

Help this process along by giving your readers way to share your content (and seed it to social networks) as well as to become subscribers.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

8 First Step SEO Tips for Bloggers

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“Should I quit my blog and start Lifestreaming, Videocasting, Social Messaging/Networking etc?”

There’s been another round of ‘blogging is dead’ posts doing the rounds of late and as a result I’ve had a number of emails hitting my inbox over the last week from bloggers asking if they should stop blogging.

Here’s some of the advice I’ve been sharing:

• Blogging is not dead - it’s evolving.
• You should be evolving too (read Blogs are Out of Beta, But Bloggers Should always be in Beta)
• Keep being useful, keep solving problems and keep meeting needs - whatever the medium this is key.
• Keep producing content - people continue to search the web for content in huge numbers. It’s not all about networking and bookmarking - whether it be text, video or audio - keep producing content.
• Experiment with different mediums - to the best of your ability keep abreast of the ‘new’ mediums that are emerging.
• Build a ‘Home Base’ - many people flit from one medium to another and end up with nothing of their own (read more on the Home Bases and Outposts that I use).
• Build a Brand - the mediums are tools. They’ll come and go in time - the key is to build something that lasts beyond them.
• Don’t be Precious about your ‘Blog’ and be open to change - there’s no one ‘right’ way to blog. Blogs can have comments or not have comments, have full RSS feeds or partial ones, look like a traditional blog or act and look more like a lifestream or portal. The key is to know what you want to achieve and let that shape what you do with your blog.
• Don’t abandon your blog too quickly - your primary efforts may move into a different medium but blogs can be an important part of the mix of what you do online. Don’t abandon your blog - build upon it, let it evolve, leverage what you’ve already built and use it where appropriate in the mix of what you do.

My last piece of advice is particularly for those with limited time or capacity to fully engage with all of the mediums and tools that are currently at our fingertips.

I get the sense from a lot of bloggers that they feel that they’re being left behind - that all this new stuff that is emerging is beyond them - that it’s hopeless to keep on blogging. My message to you if you’re feeling this way is to keep at it. Even as a full time blogger/web entrepreneur I don’t have time to fully engage with all of the new technologies that are currently emerging. I too feel some of those ‘overwhelming’ feelings.

I think the key is to engage with the new technologies to the point that you’re able but to know when to stop and focus upon what you already have in front of you.

The problem as I see it is that whether it be a blog, a Twitter presence, a podcast or some other kind of website or presence - it takes time to build these things up to successful levels. If you only give a medium a short time before moving to the next one you’ll just end up with a trail of abandoned accounts and sites behind you.

I see a lot of people running from one thing to the next and not really achieving anything. They live in a constant state of distraction and experimentation. There’s nothing wrong with new things and testing them out - but unless you’re fortunate enough to have a lot of spare time or an amazing capacity not to sleep there comes a time where you need to choose a handful of things to do (or even just one) and to do it to the best of your ability.

For me - this means focusing mainly upon building blogs. My blogs are evolving and looking less and less like blogs as I experiment with different ways of presenting the information on them and play with different technologies on them - but I try to keep my focus steady upon the long term goals that I have. As a result I’ve managed to build them into profitable properties.

Yes I’ll continue to experiment with other technologies but for me they are only about adding value to my primary web properties.

What do you think? How are you approaching what you do in this ever changing web?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Should I Quit Blogging?

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Common wisdom suggests that academics are always chief in importance. Students, at least those here in the United States, are told time and time again that extra-curricular activities, whether it is a sports team or clubs, always come after academics. Student entrepreneurs and bloggers have a tendency not to follow this rule of thought.

Throughout my high school and college experiences, I have always been more dedicated to and more passionate about my business and my blogs than I have my schoolwork. I was recently going through my Algebra notebook from 11th grade and noticed that for every page of Math notes were three pages of business ideas, future blog posts, marketing strategies, etc. Still, while I always placed more emphasis on my business, I was always able to balance my work with my academics, allowing me to excel in both.

For those of you who are not students, the information in this post is still applicable for balancing a blog/work balance of you blog part-time and work at another job or a blog/life balance if you are a full time blogger.

The key to managing my business work and my school work is time management and planning ahead. It is absolutely vital that you do not procrastinate, because all procrastination does is lead to a great increase in personal stress and a great decrease in work output quality.

Throughout the course of my high school education and now in college, I maintain two separate calendars, one for school work and one for business. In my school work calendar I plot out all assignments that have been assigned and when they are due. Typically, I have as much as three weeks lead time for major papers and projects and know of testing dates at the beginning of the semester. Once I have established my calendar, I plan out my time so that I have a final product completed, whether it is an edited version of my essay or completely developed and analyzed study guide for a midterm, one week in advance. This way, I can ensure that all assignments will be completed in time and that I will not be scrambling at the last minute to get everything done. There are no surprises. It also leaves me a week to take my paper to my professor for additional editing or time to review for a test instead of cramming, allowing me to ensure that I excel in my academic work.

Sticking to this schedule is by no means easy. It requires hard work and dedication amidst all the distractions there are in the life of a student, especially in college dorm life. Yet sticking to this schedule is definitely possible and you will find that it frees up more of your time for recreation. Instead of sleeping in until noon or wasting time pointlessly surfing the web, take control of your time and get some work done. This way, you miss out on nothing, have your work completed, and can still relax or go out at night and during the weekends.

Once you have an academic calendar finalized, it comes to creating a work/blogging calendar and matching it with your academic calendar. You will tend to notice that despite even a rigorous course load, there is still plenty of time for business if you manage your time efficiently. I do the same thing for my business calendar that I do for my academic calendar; make a list of what all I need to get done and when. For example, as a blogger I need to write posts and market my blog so I create an editorial calendar to plan out which pieces I’m going to post when and a marketing plan to schedule when I am going to execute certain elements of my marketing strategy.

I schedule this work into time I have not dedicated as “academic time”. You will see that you begin to develop a routine as with blogging and school the same tasks have to be completed over and over again, whether it be writing posts or studying for weekly quizzes. Over time and with practice it becomes easier.

However, you must take into consideration the fact that there are certain times when you need to spend more time focusing on school and more time focused on business and you need to plan ahead for these times. For example, during finals week I need to be 100% focused to studying for my exams, yet I can’t just let my blog or business sit idle. In these cases, get help from the outside, getting guest posters, paid writers, or pre-scheduling posts. Remember, planning is very important.

While a blog/school balance is definitely doable, you have to be careful how many things you are involved in. There are only 24 hours in the day and you need to rest and take time to enjoy life, so make sure to not overextend yourself getting involved in too many different activities at one time. I have gone both routes, doing a little bit of everything and a doing lot of fewer things and have found that when I focus on fewer activities, I can fully dedicate myself to them and actually accomplish something meaningful. Prioritization is also very important. You have to do some research and soul searching to find what is MOST important to you. Personally, I recommend focusing on academics until your business or blog begins to take off and earn revenues. Even once you find professional success, I strongly recommend staying focused academically and achieving to the best of your ability because I am finding that academic effort and success and constantly opening new doors for me in my personal and professional lives.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Manage a School/Blog Balance

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It’s cheaper than ever before

If you’re a new blogger wondering how to get your blog started and moving towards reaching it’s potential - it can be a daunting prospect.

Become a Blogger is a step-by-step video based guide to walk you through the process in plain and easy to understand language.

The Guys Behind Become a Blogger

The two guys behind Become a Blogger are two people I have a lot of time for - Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick. Both live here in Australia and I regularly interact with both. They both have a gift in being able to explain complicated things clearly, they both know what they’re doing (you can get a taste for that in this free report that they’ve released) and have been successful in their own fields and they are both genuinely nice guys who I have real respect for.

I have no hesitation in recommending them to you as trainers and mentors in your blogging.

The resource is broken down into 8 Modules over 6 months - with a number of other bonuses. Here’s what is covered:

Module 1: Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And FREE

Module 2: How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance

Module 3: How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail

Module 4: How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd

Module 5: How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio

Module 6: How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video

Module 7: How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog

Module 8: How To Make Money From Your Blog

PLUS (Spread Throughout The Course): How To Use The “X-Factor” Strategies To Put Your Blog Into Super Drive!

PLUS: a range of other bonuses including a 10 part audio series on ‘master the mindset’ - access to the Become a Blogger Forums and special members only Teleconferences.

Previously Become a Blogger was $77 a month. It sold out at that rate and they closed the doors so as to deliver value to those who signed up.

Cheaper for a Limited Time Only

This time it’s $47 a month but you only have 5 days to become a part of it.

You can either sign up on a month by month basis or invest in it up front for the 6 months get a discount.

Of course as usual with these guys - there’s a money back guarantee. If you’re not satisfied you can simply ask for your money back - I trust these guys to honor that commitment.

Signup for Become a Blogger here.

Update: I’ve just been chatting with Gideon and he tells me that they’re adding another bonus - a free call next week for new members of Become a Blogger - the call will cover the topic of niche/topic selection for bloggers - a topic many bloggers struggle with.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Become a Blogger Reopens for 5 Days Only - Now Cheaper Than Ever

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In my Problogger post about how to land big interviews when your blog is small, I mentioned that I had a mentor. A lot of commenters asked me about that process and if I could write more about it. Send your thanks to Darren if you enjoy the post.

How to find a mentor is the easy part. First we need to talk about why.

Ask yourself this question:

Do I need a mentor?

The answer is yes—ta da!

Sorry, wrong question. If you didn’t think you needed a mentor, you wouldn’t be reading Problogger. No offense to Darren, but Problogger is a how-to, nuts and bolts blog—written by a mentor and businessman.

If you’re here for pleasure reading or entertainment, you’re really not here to be mentored and could probably use some other outlets.

Here are some useful questions behind the question:

• Do I already know everything?
• Am I teachable?
• What teaching methods do I respond to best?
• What are my goals?
• Can a mentor realistically help me reach these goals?
• How quickly do I want (or need) to reach my goals?
• Am I just lonely? (This happens more than you might think)
• Am I looking for a coach, or am I just hoping that this will be less work for me?

Take some time to answer these questions. Don’t waste anyone’s time by approaching him or her before you’ve done some thinking.

Two types of mentors: which would you prefer?

Kill Bill

There’s what I think of as the Kill Bill style mentor: the master martial artist who strokes his beard and laughs while beating you into submission. A drill sergeant who teaches through “tough love” and cruel tutelage and says things like, “Before me, your strength is that of the earthworm compared to the eagle, yes?”

There’s nothing wrong with this approach: but be honest—is that what you will respond to? Are you a person who wants to learn with a foot on your neck and a militant “Or else” teaching style?

Problogger Style

How often does Darren Rowse step on your neck or make you scream in pain? It hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m safe in the United States. Darren encourages, coaches, and gently pulls us along, but you may choose to fail if you wish.

He answers questions, presents information, and how we use it is on us. The vast majority of Darren’s writing is backed up by empirical evidence, case studies, et cetera…in other words, it makes sense to do what he says, but he doesn’t have the time or the kung fu grip to force us. (I think).

Know your own skills

Here are some things I could mentor you on

• Exercising with kettlebells
• Getting 150 RSS subscribers in 3 weeks
• Writing a novel and getting rejected by publishers until the end of days
• Writing guest posts for Problogger
• Shopping for pants when you’re 6’8”: hint, move somewhere warm and buy more shorts
• Fingerstyle guitar
• Coping with an extreme case of Tourette’s Syndrome

Here’s the point: now that you know my skills, you can ask yourself the right question—it’s not “Do I need a mentor?” The answer is yes.

Rather, ask yourself: do I need this person as a mentor? Are my goals more achievable with this person than on my own?

Some qualities to look for in your mentor:

• Humility: they admit mistakes
• Imperfection: they’ve made mistakes so you don’t have to
• Knowledge: they must know things that you want to know and may not be able to learn on your own
• Patience: they have to be willing to answer questions. Lots of them. If someone enters into a formal mentoring relationship with you, don’t hang around for too long if it turns out they don’t have the time or temperament to spend time teaching you.

Some qualities you must have as the mentored:

• Humility: you don’t know everything. Ask questions, but don’t second guess until you must.
• Direction: don’t ask someone to help you reach a destination that you can’t describe. No, “I’ll recognize success when I see it, just help me get there.” Have a plan. If it’s the wrong plan for what you want, a good mentor will tell you.
• Work ethic: don’t ask for help, receive direction, and discard the advice. Be patient and try what they say.
• Realism: mentors aren’t miracle workers. Don’t expect perfection. Mentors are usually people who have gone through enough failures to recognize a losing hand quickly enough to fold.

But why would a mentor agree to help me?

I currently have two official mentors. One (no name—he’d be embarrassed to know I was calling him an official “mentor”) is my blogging compadre who helps me build traffic, polish my content, and market myself.

The other is a professional strongman, “Unbreakable” Adam T. Glass. He’s helping me get stronger. That’s it, because those are my goals right now: blogging and strength.

But when I asked them what they get out of our relationship, both said honestly, “Part of it is because it’s fun to help others. And part of it is hoping that when you get famous that our names will always be linked.” In other words, we may each be more successful later than either of us may be alone.

That’s the beauty of the Internet. Reciprocity is king. It’s easy to do favors. It’s simple to give someone a boost. Show someone who’s already successful what you can do for them. Chances are, they won’t say, “Oh, I’m already successful enough. Pass.”

And if they pass, so what? Life goes on. Find someone else.

How to find a mentor

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: how to find a mentor:

Find someone who has done what you want to do and ask them if they will mentor you. That’s all.

As Darth Vader said to young Luke Skywalker when he threw open the paternity test curtain, “Search your feelings…you know it to be true.”

It is that simple: ask. Dumb luck may play a part, but mostly it’s just asking being willing to ask. Same thing with landing interviews. Same thing with asking for that date.

Same thing about being happy—fulfillment of dreams comes from action. Nobody owes us a favor and nobody is going to show up in tears begging to help us with our goals.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t willing. It just means they don’t know what we want.

But where do you find people like that? If you’ve read any of Darren’s writing, you know where: Problogger, Technorati, trade shows, magazines, social networking groups, Twitter…good grief, there are even more ways than I thought there were.

Make a list of choices and go find someone. Tell them how you can help each other. Do it today. The sun will set either way. You can wake up tomorrow with a mentor lined up, or regretting that another day went by without action.

It won’t make any difference to the person who hasn’t heard of you yet.

Josh Hanagarne writes World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog to help you get stronger, get smarter, and live better…every day. For bonus articles, videos, and original music, please subscribe to the Stronger, Smarter, Better Newsletter. If you know someone with Tourette’s Syndrome, please let them know about the blog. They need to know that someone out there “gets it.”

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Better Questions Than “Do I Need a Mentor?” and “How do I get one?”

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A few mont Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress. The promotion was so popular and I’ve had so much positive feedback from readers about the plugin that I asked MaxBlogPress if we could run it again.

This time they’ve set it up so ProBloger readers can get the $30 discount (around 30% off) until 3rd July.

The best way to learn about what the plugin does is to visit the sales page and view the videos there which outline its features.

Effectively it’s a tool that manages all of the affiliate links on your blog from one central location. Here’s a list of features:

• Easy Affiliate Link Management - You can easily give each affiliate link an easy-to-remember name.
• Flexible Link Management - Accepts every affiliate link format out there, so you don’t have to waste time with various affiliate marketing tools..
• Create Professional Redirect Links - Use professional looking redirect links that let your prospects know you’re a pro marketer..
• Manage Links by Groups - Too many affiliate links? Ninja Affiliate allows you to easily create different groups to manage your links..
• Prevent “Affiliate Theft” - Cloak your affiliate links to prevent link theft and affiliate sabotage. No one will ever steal your hard-earned commissions again..
• Insert Affiliate Links Directly - Add your affiliate links directly for your Wordpress blog editor - you’ll never have to hunt for links again..
• Transform Keywords to Links - Automatically turn keywords in your blog to affiliate links. You can set a limit too, so your posts don’t look like a spam blog!
• Advanced Display Options - Ninja Affiliate allows you to display any text you want in your web browser’s status bar..
• Use “No-Follow” Links - Control your link juice and escape punishment from Big Daddy Google with ninja precision. In fact, you can control your links any way you want to.

All in all - if you’re doing affiliate marketing on your blog this is a plugin you’ll want to consider investing into.

This has been a ProBloggerDeal - for notification on Twitter of other deals, discounts and competitions for bloggers follow @ProBloggerDeals.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Get 30% off the Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress - Limited Time Offer

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I was doing some research recently, wondering if my blog would ever take off and what it really depended on. I was a little bit discouraged about writing lots of content for two months on my blog, but having a significant amount of less traffic than on my friend’s blog which is only two months older than mine.

To see if my blog would ever receive any readers that would get interested, and hopefully raise my hopes, I went on ProBlogger. I looked through his much older posts and went through the comment list. I clicked on a bunch of commentators’ names that took me back to their blogs and recorded how many of them were still blogging today. Their comments were from 2006 and I noticed that most of the bloggers had either just abandoned their blog or quit paying for hosting completely.

Now the interesting stuff I learnt from my research was that the ones that actually held on to their blogs and kept posting through good and through bad on topics that they found dear to them, they in fact had a pretty decent following with many RSS Subscribers and were receiving quite a few comments on each post. I also ran their blogs through a Link Checker and saw that the older the blog, the more backlinks they had.

The great thing about perseverance when it comes to blogging is that the longer you push your blog, the more you get out of it. It doesn’t matter what topic you write about, because there are a lot of people out there that have the same interests as you no matter what they are.

Perseverance gives your blog backlinks, it gives your blog a higher rating on search engines, and it gives people time to learn more about you and spread your blog’s name through word of mouth. If you read this blog and a bunch of other “making money online” blogs, it opens your mind out to how to market your blog properly, and if you connect perseverance to marketing, there is no stopping you. All that’s left is time to allow someone big and famous to come along and mention your blog in a review or just mention a little bit about your post to really help you explode onto the Super Blogger level.

So all in all, in my opinion, there are really just two things every blogger should keep in mind when either starting a new blog or whenever they’re discouraged about their own blog:

1. Make sure you’re blogging about a topic you really love (I know this one has been said before by almost everyone, but it’s true. Shite I Like is my second blog for a reason.)
2. Whatever you do, don’t give up. Keep blogging and blogging, and reading, and blogging. The more time you put into it will really come back to help you 100 times more in the long-run. And you just might never know when your blog will turn huge.

Also, if you’ve got the time to blog on a topic on an almost daily basis, you more than likely have the time to do research of your own on how to market and make your blog popular without having to really spend much money on it.

Many people’s biggest flaw in life is entering into something thinking that easy money will just flow their way, and once the going gets even a little bit difficult, they abandon ship. For example, when I was going to University and Real Estate College at the same time, I thought I’d become a Real Estate Salesperson in no time and start selling houses in the summer time while everybody from University would be working some landscaping summer job. Becoming a Real Estate person was harder than I thought and took much more time than initially planned. At many points I thought about quitting that and just focusing on Univ, but perseverance got me through College to get into the field of Real Estate as a part-time job while still continuing with my Univ studies. I’m happy I pushed myself, because now I see that if I could keep a weekend job while going to University and College all at the same time, while also learning about blogging, then I can push myself to blog on a regular basis.

Keep those 2 points I outlined above in mind and make sure to always keep pushing yourself, because without perseverance you’ll never see any glory. I hope this post really gave you a motivation to keep blogging and reading and most importantly believing that all you need to reach your goal with blogging is constant determination, time, and a little bit of luck.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Perseverance Will Save Your Blog

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Just read over at FOX Business that Amazon has decided to close out their affiliates program to residents of North Carolina (USA) due to a proposed change in sales tax for affiliate sales.

“In an email, Amazon reportedly told marketing affiliates in the state that the move was a direct result of North Carolina’s push to levy a tax on purchases made through Amazon affiliates.” FOX Business

I remember there was a similar situation with New York, I wonder which US state is going to be next? There’s more details on Amazon’s calling NC lawmaker’s bluff here.

Interesting what politics and legalities can do to a blogger or affiliate marketer, in just a blink. How do you feel about these laws that are changing the way bloggers effectively handle their income options?

Update: Appears that they also closed off Hawaii, and may be considering California as well. [Thanks, 5starAffiliatePrograms for the tip off in the comments!]

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Amazon Ends Affiliates Program for North Carolina

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This morning I tweeted this question - ‘what are the first 3 things you do when you get online in the morning?‘

You can see many of the answers to the question on this twitoaster thread.

A number of people asked me to answer the question for myself - so I thought I’d do so as a blog post as it is pretty relevant to how I run my business. Of course I couldn’t just stop at three - here’s some of my morning routine:

Firstly: I liken most of what I do in the mornings to a Triage in the emergency room of a hospital. It’s about assessing what happened over night, identifying urgent things that need immediate attention and less urgent but important things that I need to prioritize and then mapping out how I’ll use my day.

Note: Preceding all of what follows is Coffee…. without it I find very little of it works.

1. Check Blog Stats

The first thing I do in the morning is to check the stats of my blogs. While this might seem like a bit of an egotistical thing to do first thing in the morning I actually do it because it gives me a very quick overview of any problems or opportunities that might need my immediate attention.

I am particularly looking for any spikes or lulls in traffic.

Spikes indicate that something has happened to bring me traffic on some other site. This could indicate a social media event (front page on Digg or a hot link on Twitter) or could indicate something more controversial that someone has written about me. Either way - I want to know about it - either for damage control or to see if there’s a way to extend the positives.

Lulls in traffic indicate potential problems with servers or other problems on my blogs including broken design, posts not going live, newsletters not going out that should have gone etc.

What flows from analyzing stats could be leaving comments on another blog to respond to what they’ve written, tweeting a hot link to extend it’s viral qualities, fixing an error on my site, checking server errors etc.

2. Scan Twitter Accounts

I find Twitter is another great source of being able to assess what I’ve missed while I slept. This is particularly important for me because I’m in Australia and actually sleep during the peak times on my blogs when most of my readers are online.

I scan three main things on Twitter - my Direct Messages, my @replies and trending topics (via Twitscoop).

Twitter quickly reveals any topics/stories/news that has broken over night that could be relevant to my blogs. Many times I have links that have been DM’d to me by my followers alerting me to these stories.

I am also on the look out from any problems with my sites that readers are reporting (I find that if one of my blogs was down even for 5 minutes that I’m told about it on Twitter).

Lastly on Twitter I’m looking with interest at what people ReTweeted overnight - particularly posts on my own blogs. If I notice a post I’ve written is doing well on Twitter and has a lot of RT’s it can be worth me giving it a second push. It might also indicate to me that it could be worth writing a followup post on the topic to keep the momentum going.

If a story has not been RT’d much at all it’s an indication that perhaps the post needs reworking or that it wasn’t a topic that connected with my audience.

3. Scan News Alerts

This is a quick one but can be important. I have a number of alerts set up in Google News and Blog Alerts that I quickly scan each morning (it’s my ‘vanity folder‘). Each of these alerts is either an alert to anyone using my name, blog URL or a keyword relevant to my niche in a blog post or news article.

It’s important to know what has been written about you and about topics you’re writing about as this can lead to all kinds of opportunities and interactions (not to mention damage control). I generally don’t respond immediately to these unless they’re urgent but they’re good to keep in mind as I plan my day.

4. Scan Email

Are there any urgent matters in my inbox needing my immediate attention? This is a real challenge as most mornings I wake up to around 100 emails in my inbox (this is after another 500-700 emails are filtered automatically in Gmail using techniques that I talked about in this post on clearing your inbox.)

I don’t reply to many emails at this point - I’m just scanning them looking for important stuff (I don’t always see it unfortunately). I come back to email later in the day.

5. Scan my A-list of RSS feeds

In Google Reader (my RSS reader of choice) I have a folder called ‘A-list’. In this folder I have around 20 feeds from blogs and news sites that I read religiously each day. These are feeds I want to read because they have important news, stories or posts that are directly relevant to my niches.

They are from thought leaders or news sources - I want to know what they say and I want to know it as soon as I can after they write it.

Many days what I read in these feeds will lead me to a post that bounces off their stories, informs me of new products that have been released overnight or alert me to controversy or hot topics in my niche.

Then What?

The above process usually takes me around 15 minutes (on a normal morning where there’s nothing that needs an immediate response).

Remember it’s simply about scanning rather than stopping to respond - unless there’s something important.

At the end of this process I generally have a list of a number of things that I need to achieve in the day ahead. I then attempt to plan my day combining the list I’ve compiled with other tasks that need to be done.

Usually at this point I identify posts that I want to write and publish for the day, schedule in other marketing or admin tasks etc.

I tend to ‘batch’ my tasks together so that I’m not flitting from one thing to the next but instead am setting aside chunks of time for different activities.

Once I’ve got a plan for my day (that usually takes me 5 more minutes to compile) I get to it and start to knock off the things on my list.

One More Tip

I use Firefox and have a number of bookmark folders set up. One of these folders is called ’start up’. It contains the following bookmarks:

• All my stats packages
• TwitScoop
• Google Reader
• Gmail
• A couple of news related sites

Each morning I simply hit ‘command/startup folder’ and each of these sites opens up in a tab of its own. I have them in the order that I’ve mentioned above and simply work through the tabs one at a time. This way I don’t have to think about what I need to do next - all my stats are there ready for me to take a look at first, TwitScoop is open next so I can look at that…. etc

Of course I have to open my Twitter client (I’m using Tweetie at the moment primarily) to check my twitter accounts but apart from that everything I need is open in a tab of its own for me to work through. I simply close down tabs and move on to the next ones as I move through the list.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Watch How I Spend My First 20 Minutes Online Every Morning

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I recently read that for every person who starts tweeting, another blog dies. But here’s the thing. Back in 2004, blogs were dismissed as a fad, and today there are billions of them. Blogging is not going away anytime soon.

You might be interested in blogging yourself, but don’t have the time or inclination to write one independent of your day job. What if you could be like the hundreds of people at Microsoft who count blogging among their daily responsibilities? Here are a few steps to proceed in that direction:

Develop your area of expertise:

It’s not realistic – or even a good idea – for every employed person in the world to have a blog. For one thing, the blogosphere is cluttered enough as it is, and blogs that have no real purpose for existence will just muck things up even more. You should write a blog because you have a unique opinion on an industry issue and can establish yourself as a credible expert. Hone your perspective by reading literature and other blogs in your field and determining where there’s an unmet need.

Get your writing up to par:

Not everyone has the natural ability write and/or maintain a blog that requires a concise outpouring of coherent thought several times a week. If you want to blog but sense that your command of the written word needs a little fine-tuning, consider a writing class and study how the top bloggers construct their most popular posts.

Test launch outside of business hours:

Your first foray into corporate blogging should not discuss the company you work for – that could get you in trouble. Instead, become involved with the blogging community in your industry, and make your blog as general and helpful to readers as you can. Piggyback on recent news, cite other writers’ work, and watch the accuracy of your facts. While you get the ball rolling, make sure you research/write your posts and do your commenting at home.

Showcase your blog to marketing:

As your blog is gaining traction, study the social media efforts (hopefully there are some) being conducted by your company’s marketing department. Determine the most logical way that your blog could fit into the mix, and then, once Google Analytics says that your platform is flourishing, meet with marketing to discuss it. Make it clear to all involved that your blog is currently independent of your job.

Work out the details:

Marketing may feel that you can add value as an official blogger for the company. This may mean continuing your own blog with company sponsorship, or forming a partnership with a senior executive or group of employees who are already blogging. Ask marketing if they would be willing to contribute to your salary in exchange for using your blog as an outreach tool.

Approach your boss:

Even if marketing offers its support – keep in mind that it may not – you will need to approach your boss about your proposed new responsibility. When you do, talk in terms of value provided to the company. How can allotting you an hour a day to blog pay huge dividends in terms of organizational awareness, genuine customer engagement, and search engine real estate?

As you undertake this process, remember your patience and your humility. I know several people who turned blogging as a side project into full-time gigs at their companies, but all of them started with the heartfelt desire to provide useful content that creates a win for both the reader and the organization.

Alexandra Levit is an internationally recognized expert on business and workplace issues. She writes for the Wall Street Journal and is the author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College, How’d You Score That Gig, and Success for Hire. Follow her at @alevit.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

6 Steps to Get Your Company to Pay You to Blog

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I’m not sure why they’ve both come at once - I wasn’t planning on doing either at all even 36 hours ago - but sometimes ideas hit me in groups. Here they are - I hope one or both interest you:

1. @ProBloggerDeals

ProBlogger Deals is a new Twitter account where I’ll be tweeting out deals for bloggers. I’ve written more about the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of it here - but in short it’s a place where I’ll be sharing promotions, deals, discounts, bonuses, coupon codes (and more) for bloggers.

I don’t think that this will be everyone’s cup of tea - but it’s an attempt to pass on more of the offers that come my way that I don’t pass on here on ProBlogger - simply because there are so many of them.

Two Launch Deals

• The first ‘deal’ that we’ve got is an exclusive to ProBlogger readers - 30% off the Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress - a very useful plugin that many ProBlogger readers use to help with their affiliate marketing.
• The second deal is a $20 Discount on any of the licenses at WP Review Site - another great plugin that turns WordPress into a powerful review site engine.

In the coming days I’ll be releasing other ProBlogger Deals including discounts on blogging themes, training resources and more discounts and trial offers on paid tools and plugins.

2. DarrenRowse.com

I’ve been planning to develop this URL for a while now but have never quite gotten around to it. However of late I’ve had many instances where I’ve wanted to write something a little more personal or reflective and didn’t think it was appropriate to do it here on ProBlogger or on one of my other blogs.

One example of this is my launch post on darrenrowse.com - Who Else Wants to Change a Child’s Life? It’s a post telling the story of a need that I came across through a friend - a class of children who have a total of 4 books between them and a request for people to consider a donation to help buy them some books - I hope you can help me with it.

I’m not sure where this new blog will end up - but I know it’ll be a more personal journey. You can read a little more about my thinking behind starting this new blog here.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Want to See My Two New Blogging Projects?

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Aweber allows you to deliver three kinds of email updates to readers:

1. Broadcasts - this is the tool I use to deliver my newsletters. They require you to manually write up a newsletter and then select a time for it to be delivered.

2. Blog Broadcasts - I don’t use this but it’s a handy tool for allowing you to send automated emails to subscribers based upon your latest posts. Essentially it takes your RSS feed and turns it into email. You can set it to go off automatically at certain times of the week or when a certain number of posts tick over.

3. Follow Up Messages - these are essentially autoresponders or sequences of messages that you send out at predetermined intervals after a subscriber signs up. This is what I used to deliver the free/beta version of 31 Days to Build a Better blog. People signed up and then I set up a sequence of 31 emails to go off every day after they subscribed until they got to the end of the 31 days. I also use this on my photography site to send out periodic special newsletters (see this post on how these drive a lot of traffic to my blog).

A New Feature for Follow Up Messages

Over the weekend Aweber announced an update to their Follow Up message service that makes it a heap more useful.

Previously with Follow Up messages you could only set them to go off at daily intervals. You could choose to send emails at any interval you had no control over the times that they went or over whether they went on certain days of the week. That’s now all changed.

Now you can set daily intervals but you can also set other conditions including times and days of the week.

For example - you can choose that emails will be delivered between 9am - 3pm but only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays. There are quite a few ways that this can be handy. Aweber list a few examples:

• Look at when subscribers are opening your emails and/or clicking your links (the Opens over Time and Clicks Over Time reports will show you this) and adjust your send windows so your messages stand out at the top of the inbox during those times!
• Run a weekend sale - schedule one of your follow ups to only send on Friday mornings!
• Are there certain days and/or times that you know are bad for your subscribers? Use send windows to avoid sending during those days/times!

Another one that I am loving is that when you send two types of emails to readers (ie a weekly newsletter and some autoresponder messages) you ideally don’t want them to hit your subscribers inbox on the same day of the week. Now I can make sure that the autoresponder messages only go out on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and leave Thursdays and Fridays for the newsletters.
This extra feature won’t be useful for those of you not using auto-responders but for those that do it’s a very handy feature from Aweber.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Aweber Introduces More Sophisticated Timing Options to Autoresponder Messages

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The following is what they replied with - in their words it is ‘a concise guide to how to prevent and monitor invalid clicks, and keep an AdSense account in good standing.’ I hope that it is helpful to AdSense publishers everywhere:

The Google AdSense team has heard many concerns about how Google treats invalid click activity on publisher’s sites, and there have been questions on how to keep your AdSense account in good standing. The Google Ads Quality Traffic Team wants to help all publishers keep their accounts in good order, so here are some tips to keep in mind.

We understand that it’s not always possible to control the behavior of your users, but you can be proactive about monitoring your traffic, and you can take steps to ensure that your site provides a helpful and safe environment for users and advertisers. Here are some top tips for keeping your account in good standing (which you may have seen before): https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=23921

Expanding on the tip “Be aware of how your site is promoted.” we’d like to remind you that, should you purchase traffic to promote your site, you do so at your own risk. There are many site promotion services out there that appear to be legitimate PPC advertising companies or search engines, but actually may be sending artificial traffic to your site for their own gain. (For legal reasons, we’re not allowed to disclose the names of such services.)

To combat this, we highly recommend that you use channels to segment your traffic by source (e.g. a channel for your site’s Google AdWords traffic only). If one channel’s reports look particularly suspicious, you may want to consider unsubscribing from that traffic service. We also recommend using Analytics to slice and dice your traffic reports further to ensure that you’re receiving clicks from users who are genuinely interested in your ads.

Though we encourage you to be proactive about monitoring your site and ad traffic, we highly discourage the use of click tracking via third-party software or custom ad implementations. These methods may:

• inadvertently disclose sensitive information about you or your site to a third-party
• disrupt Google’s ad delivery or click logging in a way that violates our Terms and Conditions

In addition, click tracking may not provide you with significantly more information than you can already find in your AdSense or Analytics reports. We believe that the creative use of channels can help you gain detailed insights into your account.

If you see unusual activity on your account, feel free to submit this form to let us know: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=invalid_clicks_contact Please note that we will only respond if we find a significant issue with your account.

Invalid clicks can come from many sources, as described at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=16737. While we’re unable to go into the details of our monitoring system, you should know that invalid clicks don’t always mean clicking on your own ads or using click bots. Our Ad Traffic Quality Team looks for numerous types of activity that may inflate advertiser costs, then takes the necessary actions to protect our advertisers.

That said, we still find that many publishers are clicking on their own ads, possibly because they feel that Google is disregarding those clicks. Keep in mind that even though we filter the revenue from an invalid click, we don’t ignore it completely. If we detect significant invalid activity on your AdSense ads, we may take action on your account to protect our advertisers from inflated costs. Here are some examples of situations in which clicking your own ads is prohibited:

• Clicking out of interest in the ad content
• Clicking to see an ad’s destination URL, such as for filtering purposes (we recommend trying the AdSense Preview Tool, available at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10005)
• Clicking to ensure that Google is properly registering clicks on your ads (we log all ad clicks, but it can sometimes take up to 24 hours before your reports are finalized)
• Clicking to test your website

For general invalid click questions, you can find more information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=8426

For questions about AdSense accounts disabled for invalid clicks, you can find more information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Thanks to the team at AdSense team for providing this information.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Prevent and Monitor Invalid Clicks, and keep an AdSense Account in Good Standing [a Statement from AdSense]

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The report has been downloaded by over 20,000 bloggers and has helped many get their head around some of the basics of getting a blog up and running and moving towards the success that we all dream of as bloggers.

Gideon and Yaro are stand up guys with a heap of experience - if you’re just starting out I recommend you grab their report and learn from their wisdom.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Get Your Free Roadmap to Become a Blogger

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