Remarkablogger

Link Journeys for March 13, 2010

Michael Martine — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:41:29 +0000

Emotional Connection, Brand Loyalty & Cinemas: The Art Of Storytelling – Find out what really makes a good story. An excellent breakdown of the elements of great stories.
How to do A/B Split Testing with WordPress – How do you know your page is selling? Test it. Finally, it’s now easier to do in WordPress.
Custom Login Page for WordPress – Especially helpful for membership sites! Here’s how I’ve put it to use.
Vlad Studios Desktop Wallpapers – Most wallpaper sites are skimpy on dual-monitor wallpapers. Not this one. Plus, tons of other resources, too.
Third Tribe – The middle ground between making no money online and selling out. I’m in. Are you? Disclosure: affiliate link.

I’ve been super-busy this week, so it’s a short list, but there’s valuable stuff in there, something for everyone.

Do you have any good links to share (not your own)?

Blogging Fears and How to Overcome Them – Part 2

Michael Martine — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:06:57 +0000

In What are You Most Afraid of about Blogging? I asked you to lay bare your fears about blogging. In Blogging Fears and How to Overcome Them – Part 1, I took some of those fears and made them less fearful for you, and the response to that was gratifying. Here in Part 2, we continue to shine light into the dark corners of the blogging mind. Here are the next batch of blogging fears we haven’t yet covered:

I’m afraid I’m being too obvious and simple (or I haven’t researched enough)
I’m afraid I won’t make any money
I’m afraid of putting myself out there, afraid to hit “Publish”
I’m afraid I’m not really helping anyone (lack of feedback)

I’m afraid I’m being too obvious and simple (or I haven’t researched enough)

This blogging fear is felt often (but not only) by more experienced bloggers. They’re afraid that they may be wasting their readers’ time with information they already know. Information that is beneath them.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t get too obvious.

Your own perspective is completely warped and cannot be trusted when it comes to this. Let your audience response be your guide. Think of it this way: you are much farther along the path than your readers are. You’ve already been where they are or have yet to go. Your own experience and knowledge are all old news to you—but not to anyone else.

The longer you’ve been in business and blogging about a subject, the more you will feel like you’re repeating yourself or you won’t want to write anything because you’ve already written it.

But, do you have the exact same audience now that you did in the past? I hope not! Your audience is gaining new recruits all the time, and everything you do now is completely new to them.

People who study something intensely and get really good at it (and who also may be naturally talented) often suffer from “expert syndrome” in the sense that what’s obvious and easy for them is not at all obvious and easy for others. The challenge is making it obvious and easy for others. One easier way to do that is to remind yourself what you take for granted and what is obvious to you, and state this obvious information for others.

And people always need to be reminded of the fundamentals. Who is a true expert? One who always remains aware and practices the fundamentals. Who is a true teacher? One who can impart the fundamentals effectively to others.

Research certainly plays an important role in blogging (and should play a more important role than it does for most bloggers). But there’s a point of diminishing returns where you’re not really making the post any better for all the research time you’re spending. Get your point across and get done. Endless “research” is a delay tactic. It’s self-sabotaging perfectionism.

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of “done.” Or in this case, “published.”

I’m afraid I won’t make any money

The more you focus on something, the more likely it is you will move towards it. This is how the mind works. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re focusing on a goal or a fear. When you learn how to ski, you’re told: “Don’t look at the trees, look at where you want to be.” If you look at the trees, you will crash right into them. Because you focused on them, instead of on where you wanted to be. When you’re driving, you look ahead to where you want to steer the car. You don’t look at the cliff at the side of the road, or you’ll drive right off it.

What does this have to do with money? Everything. If you focus on your fear of not making money, what do you think’s going to happen? You’re going to move towards what you focus on: not making money!

Now, here’s where it starts to get even weirder: you might think the solution is then to focus on making money, instead of the fear of not making any.

But you’d be wrong. Money is not what you should focus on. What you should focus on is selling something that helps a specific group of people solve specific problems. Focus on meeting the needs of your market. Focus on creating value for your market, for which they will gladly pay, and the money simply takes care of itself.

Focusing on the money instead of the market is backwards, because the money comes from the market. Not the other way around.

If you are relentlessly focused on meeting market needs, the money will come. Market needs are the true North of your compass. Take your eye off true North and your course will stray.

I’m afraid of putting myself out there, afraid to hit “Publish”

As strange as it sounds, this is one fear you should have.

Why? Because if you’re not a little afraid to hit Publish, you’re not trying hard enough. You’re not digging deep enough where the juice is.

Most people are total chickenshits. Most people never put themselves out there (you will find people like this in meetings a lot). If you put yourself out there even just a little bit, it’s like turning on a blazing light in a dark cave. Blogging and hitting Publish means you’re already braver than most people. Most people are too afraid to even comment on a blog.

But who are the biggest and most popular bloggers in the world? Are they people who are afraid to hit Publish? Certainly not. In fact, the most popular bloggers in the world are the ones taking the most risks.

Heather Armstrong of Dooce got fired because of her blog and she’s gone on to become one of most well-known and popular bloggers in the world. People like Clay Collins, Johnny B. Truant, Naomi Dunford, Nathan Hangen, Penelope Trunk, and Elizabeth Potts-Weinstein are putting themselves out there with each post. As a result, their audiences (and their incomes) are growing.

Let me put all this another way: safe blogs are boring and who the hell wants to read boring blogs?

I’m afraid I’m not really helping anyone (lack of feedback)

People don’t always tell you if you are making a difference to them or not. How do you know you’re really helping anyone? There are three things you need to know:

Getting feedback and participation is something anyone can learn
Feedback and participation does not happen without compelling content
You may not recognize all of the channels you have for feedback as such

Most bloggers simply fail to ask for feedback. Ever notice how Chris Brogan nearly always ends his posts with a question? That’s no accident. That’s deliberate, and it’s designed to foster engagement. Techniques like that can be learned by anyone. Where can you learn this? Any good blogger, either by example (watch what they do, how they do it, why they do it, and the results they get), or by instruction (Problogger, Copyblogger, Chris Garrett, John Haydon, Danny Brown, and Chris Brogan again).

But note that feedback doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It has to be triggered. Asking for feedback on a boring blog post or a post that doesn’t particularly help anyone is a lost cause. Without compelling content, the only feedback you’ll get is silence.

The secret?

Solve problems.

The posts I get the most positive feedback on are the ones that solve specific, real problems people have, like how to add a blog to a website, or how to wrap text around a video in a blog post, or how to market your business on Twitter.

Finally, feedback comes in other ways besides comments, like through social networks, email, and visitor analytics.

Stay With Me

We’re not done with this series yet. Here’s what we’ll tackle next time:

I’m afraid I’ll go “too far” with personal content and turn off readers
I’m afraid I’ll write something that’s already been done a million times
I’m afraid I’ll be exposed as a fraud

You don’t want to miss it so be sure to subscribe.

Open Discussion: Where Do You Draw the Line on Deleting Comments?

Michael Martine — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:00:54 +0000

I got a great question from Marc the other day in a comment on my post Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less:

Hi. I’d like to suggest a blog post topic for you. It has to do with where a blogger draws the line about posting someones comment. This is a complicated and highly personal topic since no two bloggers have identical personalities and have different tolerances for all the ways that commenters can be rude. It seems there’s a large spectrum in how bloggers deal with commenters.

Some don’t want to bother themselves at all with this and keep the comments turn off.

Others seem to cherry pick their comments and some are very sensitive to the slightest hint of disagreement or debate.

And there are some like Jim Edwards who will publish even the rudest comments (but will defend himself).

I personally don’t have skin as thick as Jim Edwards and am somewhere in the middle. I do feel that my blog isn’t Youtube (I’m always amazed at the frequency of quarrelsome comments over there) so I have my own limits. There are also a number of ethical issues such as whether to publish a criticism regarding a product one promotes that also provides the money to feed ones family.

When I decide not to publish a comment, I often wonder how the person will take the rejection.

I thought this would make a great open discussion topic, so I’m putting the question to you: where do you draw the line on deleting comments?

The Difference Between Failure and Success

Michael Martine — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:14:42 +0000

Do you know what the difference between a business owner and a blogger is? A business owner expects to exchange value for value (usually in the form of money for services, information, or products, and I mean both as buyer and seller). Bloggers, on the other hand, seem to expect to just get everything for free. As soon as you want to charge them for something, you’re a “sell-out” and a “scummy marketer.” An offer presented in an email is suddenly “spam” (and never mind they voluntarily signed up to be on your list).

If something is cheap or free, the business owner questions its worth. If something requires a financial investment, bloggers complain and go elsewhere.

I realize I’m painting with a broad brush here. Yes, I’m deliberately over-simplifying. I’m doing it to keep the discussion manageable. We can work with stereotypes without losing sight that they’re stereotypes.

But why do you think me and every other serious blog marketer out there keeps saying: “think of your blog as a business?” I don’t have to tell that to a business person, do I? But people don’t hear what they don’t understand.

All that free information online is not enough to give you everything you need to succeed in online business. That information exists as marketing material for people who have products and services to sell. It will never be complete enough for you. There is a wall stopping you. On the other side of that wall is information which is not free, because it is too valuable to give away or it is impossible to give away because it cannot apply equally well to everyone (that’s why there’s one-on-one coaching and consulting). You don’t get that valuable information, product, or service until you exchange something of value for it—usually money.

And this is where we come to the real problem. No, the problem is not money. It’s your perception. It’s your faith in yourself. Let me explain what I mean.

Let’s say I present you with an offer for something, like Skellie’s book The Blog Business Funnel, which is an affiliate link. If you purchase through my link, I get a commission for referring you. If you use this resource correctly, you will make back the money you spent on it by hundreds or even thousands of times over. In other words, you spend the measly $29 to get Skellie’s book, and you implement what you learn in it and make $3,500 from your new freelance business in just one month (no, that’s not unrealistic at all and if you think it is, you have yet another problem). You took a paltry $29 and turned it into $3,500. That’s a return of 12,069%!

Now, here’s where the perception problem comes in: did you look at that $29 as a cost or as an investment? The difference is far more than semantic. A cost is something you will never recoup. When you buy consumables like food or toilet paper, you don’t make money from that. That money is just gone.

But the $29 you spend on The Blog Business Funnel is not a cost. It is not money down the drain unless you personally fail to act. It is an investment from which you expect a return. You will use the information in that book to make more money than it took to buy the book. When people say “it takes money to make money,” what they’re talking about (on a small scale). That’s the difference between a cost and an investment. It’s not “marketing-speak” to try and slip the price in under your radar. Far from it.

So, what’s more ridiculous: that an ebook costs $29, $39, $47, or even $97? or that you can’t learn from it and make your money back a hundred times over?

Don’t think I don’t know what it’s like to be broke. I do. Been there, done that. Not doing it ever again. Most people aren’t broke. They will say, “I don’t have the money for this ebook right now,” and that day they bought a $4-something drink at Starbucks. Or they spent $6-something on a six-pack of beer. And they spend this much every day on these items, which add up to $120/mo. and $180/mo., respectively. That’s $1,440/year and $2,160/year. Or they spent $80 every single month on their monster cable TV package (and not the internet part, either).

They’re not broke. Anybody spending $1,440/year on fraps isn’t broke. They’re just not interested in breaking out of their current self-created patterns (and that’s what they are—they are not “circumstances”). This kind of continued thinking and behavior ensures failure.

You may be wondering, “Yes, but how do I know I will make my investment back a hundred times over? What if the information is wrong? What if the seller is a scammer?” Here’s how you know:

If the information is factually incorrect and the seller is reputable, you can ask for—and expect to get—your money back, and you’re not out one single cent.
If you don’t know the reputation of the seller, investigate. That’s what Google is for. Add the keywords “review” or “scam” or “problem” to your search terms.

Now I’m really going to crawl inside your head. It’s my belief—based on my own prior experience and the behavior I see from others online constantly–that something else is going on, here. I believe most people expressing doubts about a clearly described and reputable product or balking at the price are covering up for their lack of faith in themselves. They don’t believe they will succeed. They don’t believe enough in themselves.

It’s easy to take that fear of failure, that lack of faith in yourself, and turn it around and project it outwardly onto the seller or the product or even an entire industry. It’s understandable, but once you recognize that you’re doing it, it gets harder and harder to lie to yourself. And soon you can’t do it anymore, and that leaves you with a scary decision: sooner or later, you’re going to have to believe in yourself.

If you begin to believe in yourself, you will also begin to have faith in yourself. If you have enough faith in yourself, you will be able to make the leap of faith required of you to truly begin moving towards success (however you define it, but for most of us it includes being able to feed and shelter ourselves and our families at least). You can’t make a leap of faith unless you have enough faith, sort of like charging up a battery. Belief in yourself and tiny successes along the way help to charge up your “faith battery.” Which leads to bigger successes.

Investing in that training product or that ebook requires you to have enough faith in yourself that you will see a return of many times the investment amount. That’s a leap of faith you have to make. When you focus the risk on the product, you’re fooling yourself. The risk is inside you. There are other leaps of faith to make along the way. For example, the first time you ever sell something to someone online requires a leap of faith. Starting your business and/or blog in the first place requires a leap of faith, though a lesser one.

You cannot succeed if you don’t believe in yourself enough to make these leaps of faith. You just can’t. It’s risky and scary and necessary. You can love the idea of being a diver but you’ll never be one until you get up on that diving platform and jump for the first time. You can jump or you can chicken out and crawl back down in shame and humiliation. Your choice. I find it sad that most people actually choose the latter and then rationalize and justify and blame.

Consider also the hypocrisy: here you are trying to start a business or make money from your blog. That means you have to sell something and someone else has to buy it (the rest is details). How can you expect others to invest in you if you can’t invest in yourself? If you’re too afraid of failure, how can others possibly have faith in you or see you as a success? You will give yourself away or, more likely, never even get off the ground. But when you have enough faith in yourself that you can get a good return on a training investment, the hypocrisy just evaporates. Your self-confidence is real and others will feel it. It will inspire them to buy from you in a dozen invisible ways.

So, am I saying the difference between failure and success is only $29 and and a little faith?

I’m saying that’s where it can start. Where you take it after that is up to you. Life on the other side of that moment is infinitely better.

10 Small Business Blog Tips (that Make a Big Difference)

Michael Martine — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:07:06 +0000

In business blogging the “little things” add up to a cumulative effect. What little things have you overlooked on your blog? Here are ten little things that add up to a better impression on your readers—if you’ve paid attention to them. If you’ve missed these, well, you may not be making as good of an impression as you’d like. These tips are specific to WordPress, by the way.

A tag line that instantly communicates your business benefit to the visitor. If you’re stuck on just how to do that (and it’s not easy) see this post on taglines at Copyblogger.
Somebody other than “admin” is writing your posts. I see this happening way too often. Hey there, “admin,” why don’t you go into your user profile settings and change them!
Clear contact information (or better yet, a contact form). I use Contact 7, but also check out Cforms. If you want the business, for goodness’ sake make it easy for people to get in touch with you: Phone numbers, email addresses, social media and IM names, whatever. Throw the kitchen sink at that contact page, because you don’t know what other people’s preferred communication style is.
Make what you’re selling obvious to find and easy to buy. Whether you’re a consultant, coach, freelancer, or selling products, don’t bury that fact in your About page. This information should be front & center on your home page and on dedicated page(s). Notice that big fat blog consulting link in my navigation bar and now the contents of my home page are unmistakably all about business. There are nice big buy buttons on the consulting services page: there is no mysterious process, here. No hoops to go through. Easy-peasy.
If you actually want people to subscribe, make it obvious and easy to do. See my post on the FeedBurner basics nobody told you about for how to add an awesome email subscribe thingy to your blog sidebar.
Simplify your permalinks with %category%/%postname% or just %postname%. Easy enough to do if your blog is new, but what if it’s not? Then you need Dean’s Permalink Migration plugin, which will automagically (I love that word) redirect all your old permalinks to their new ones. This way, any links to your blog (your internal ones and links from other blogs) will never be broken.
Clean up your slugs before you hit “publish.” Slugs, what? Yes, the post permalink file name is called a “slug.” You can edit them just below the headline in the blog post writing page in WordPress. Shorten them up for better SEO and human readability.
Put some thought into your business blog’s categories. Actually, put a LOT of thought into them. When you think categories, think keywords. For ideas, look at how your niche is categorized at large sites like About.com. This is especially important if you use %category%/%postname% permalinks.
Pictures of you and the other authors (if yours is a multi-author blog) so we know you’re real people. Happy, smiling faces induce trust. If your target market is people like you, let them see that you’re like them. The more you are your own brand, the more important this is. Make sure they’re decent pictures, too, taken with a good camera with good lighting.
Only put what matters in your sidebar. Get the rest of that stupid junk out of there. Unless you spend a lot of time on sites like MyBlogLog, you don’t need those widgets cluttering up your sidebar and slowing down your page load times. Everything on your blog serves the ultimate goal of subscribing or selling, and that goes for the sidebar, too. Don’t let it become the “junk drawer” of your blog.
Overdeliver. Go the extra mile. That’s where the real difference is made between you and your competition. When you feel like you’ve done enough, keep going. Add even more value than what is required of you. Do this consistently, and you will have a better shot at dominating your niche over time.

Are you doing these? Have you overlooked any of them? Did I miss something important? Add your thoughts in the comments.

Attention Effectiveness and Chris Brogan’s Email Newsletter

Michael Martine — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:39:44 +0000

In Chris Brogan’s latest email newsletter he talks some good stuff about the value of time, trust, and attention. There have been a few times when I replied to these and he has always been kind enough to reply back. But in this one he discusses the value of time and the transactional/opportunity costs of attention:

So, my ATTENTION is at a premium. Where I focus my efforts is more important to me. Time is more valuable to me because of this. This one is tricky. Because on the other side of this equation, people who seek my time feel like “it’s only five minutes,” but 5 x 100 requests is 8.4 hours, and I get more than 100 requests for something a day. Attention, in this measure becomes more valuable.

Now, there’s a lot of other good stuff just in this one newsletter about other topics, but this one bit stuck with me, because it made me think about how I value my own time. More specifically, how can I get more value out of not only my own time, but everyone else’s time, too? Well, one way that occurred to me immediately was instead of replying back to Chris’s email, I could write this post. Why? Because for the time taken, it benefits a much wider group of people besides me and Chris. I like that kind of leverage. Sure, private communications are nice, but there’s no reason I can think of why this shouldn’t benefit you, too.

Another way this is an effective use of everyone’s time (and not just mine) is that I don’t have to make this kind of public “reply” every time Chris sends his newsletter. I only have to do this once. Benefits? Chris gets more subscribers, you get another great free resource from me, the public discussion is good for everyone, and from a purely selfish point of view maybe I’ll get more subscribers too.

If Chris wants to comment here, it would take him the same amount of time as replying back to private email I could have sent, but again, others besides me benefit from a public reply if he wants to make one. It’s a more effective use of his time, too (not that I simply expect him to reply—I’m not baiting him and it’s totally his prerogative).

Can you take these ideas about attention & time effectiveness and apply them yourself? I hope so. If so, then I know the time I took to write this (and for you to read it) has truly been worth it.

The Wealthy Freelancer – Book Review

Michael Martine — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:20:30 +0000

The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle (affiliate link) is a book worth getting if you are a freelancer of any kind. Check out my video review below:

If you can’t see The Wealthy Freelancer Book Review video in your email or reader, watch it on the blog.

The Wealthy Freelancer covers major aspects of freelancing in a confident, casual style:

How to get the projects you really want to work on
How to get the clients you really want to work with—and who really want to work with you
How to get the income you desire (lots of great stuff in here about pricing, fees, getting paid, and dealing with clients)
How to have the work/life balance, priorities, and freelancer lifestyle you’ve always wanted—from guys with a lot of experience living in the freelance trenches

If you are a rank beginner at freelancing, maybe this shouldn’t be the very first book you read. It seems to me The Wealthy Freelancer is a much better fit for those who have already dipped their toes in the freelance waters. In that case, this should definitely be at least the second book you ever read on freelancing.

Couple of fun facts: These guys are blog consulting clients of mine. I helped them over a year ago with their original blog design and launch strategy. Since then, I’ve helped them a number of times with strategy and tactics regarding their blog & social media marketing—especially getting ready for the publication of The Wealthy Freelancer book. I’m also featured in the book (page 152), which is fun.

You should not get it because I’m in it (that would be the worst reason). And that’s not why I like it, either. It’s just a practical, approachable book. Everything in it is just… useful. Everything in this book can be dropped right into your own freelancing life for results. I recommend it for that reason.

Why Integrated Online Marketing is the New Watchword for Bloggers

Michael Martine — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:48:43 +0000

This is a guest post by Sheryl Sisk.

Once upon a time in the golden days of yore, bloggers made money hand over fist (or so it seemed) simply by showing up and blogging. A handful of particularly lucky ones got lucrative book deals, and the rest raked in the dough with Google ads peppered all over basic templates.

Take a moment if you need to mourn but those days are well and truly over. These days, whether your blog is your business model (affiliate marketing, ads, info products, or a combo of all three) or whether you’re blogging to snag leads for your business (as my clients do), your blog is no longer enough to achieve the kind of business success most of us are seeking. In short, it’s no longer “all about” blogging.

And if you’re thinking, “Well, I’m on Facebook and Twitter, too. I’m golden!” — not so fast! You’re in for a surprise: it’s not even “all about” social media and social networking, either. Not anymore.

Today, it’s all about integration. Or, better yet: integrated online marketing.

What Is Integrated Online Marketing and Why Is It So Important?

Integration is the act of tying it all together:

Blog
Social media and social networking
Press releases
Referral marketing
Outreach to journalists and other bloggers

Integration is crucial to anyone making a living from a blog because we’re scattered all over the place. Think about it: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Plurk, Plaxo … and now Google Buzz gets thrown into the mix. Sure, we blog — we put out all the great content that Michael’s been urging us to create for eons now and we might even tweet the blog post URL. Great start, but we need more.

We need to bring it all back to a single point of entry, and we need to tie it all together. That’s integration. That’s integrated online marketing.

How Integrated Online Marketing Works for Bloggers

An example might help illustrate the concept in practice.

Let’s take an imaginary Inspired Solo client (simply because that’s the model I’m most familiar with). We’ll make her a life coach who specializes in relationship coaching. Cathy Coach writes her three or four blog posts religiously every week. She minds her primary and long-tail keywords with precision, and she regularly checks her Analytics to see what keywords are performing well. She’s on Twitter and she’s got a personal Facebook page.

Cathy might see an opportunity in the recent Tiger Woods scandal. She knows she has to be careful with this one – it’s incendiary and it’s ethically fraught. If she approaches it unwisely, she could get blasted for trying to profit off others’ misfortune. But Cathy believes in what she does and she thinks she can help others who are trying to rebuild after the heartache of infidelity. She’s got an ebook on this very subject, actually, and she wants better sales for it.

Cathy could simply write a blog post tying Woods’ public apology to the act of apologizing to your spouse after infidelity and working in some advice from her ebook. She could even tweet that post. And she might see a small bump in sales as a result.

But what if she did this instead…?

Wrote the post as a series of posts offering concrete and specific advice on dealing with infidelity in a marriage — never once mentioning her book.
Tweeted each post, and then …
… followed up on Twitter by engaging others on the subject — asking questions, engaging in real conversations about the subject in a thoughtful, substantive way.
Created a business Facebook page for her coaching business, and sent out an email campaign to her list asking them to become fans.
Crafted a press release based on her branding as “the No-Nonsense Relationship Crisis Coach” and distributed it via online press release sites, directing readers back to her website and blog for further information.
Built up the “News and Announcements” portion of her website with links to interviews, other blog posts, and journalism in which she appeared as a cited expert.
Integrated all this with her Google Buzz account, so that those following her there could easily share her links (both her own blog posts and the news articles citing her) with their groups.

Would Cathy Coach see a bigger uptick in book sales? With all the new traffic coming to her site, I don’t see how she could fail in this (as long as her sales page is easy to get to and halfway decent).

This is just one example of integrated online marketing. Instead of thinking in micro-sized chunks of your marketing puzzle — one or two pieces at a time — you’re marketing on the macro level, with the entire puzzle laid out before you as a cohesive whole, each piece linked to the next and all of it pulling your targets back to your primary channel: your blog.

How to Add Integrated Online Marketing to Your Blog Marketing Program

Getting started with integrated online marketing takes a little thought and planning. With practice, it becomes a self-perpetuating mechanism. The more you systemize and automate it, the easier it gets. Start with the following steps, and then explore the possibilities on your own:

Take stock of your current channels and your activities on those channels. Twitter, Facebook, your blog, Tumblr — wherever you “are” in the virtual marketing sense, make note of it. Check out your profiles and your activity on those sites. Is it all presenting a cohesive brand? Does it all direct back to your blog? If not, fix these problems.
Brainstorm ways you can integrate your blog marketing on future posts. With any upcoming content, ask yourself “How can I creatively distribute this content in ways beyond what I already do?”
Explore the wide wonderful world of press releases. They’re no longer simple news announcements; there’s an art to writing PRs in a way that tells a story and presents your brand — the “you”-ness of your blog and/or business. Some excellent resources to learn about the new art of writing press releases are Publicity Hound Joan Stewart’s free course (which gives 89 solid tips on writing powerful press releases) and Publicity Insider.
Create an online “news room” on your site for journalists if you don’t have one already. You can furnish it with announcements, a media kit, links to any press you’ve done … get creative. Your goal here is to create a valuable resource for journalists who might be interested in the topics related to your blog/business.
Expand your community. Explore forums and message boards related to your blog topics. Reach out to other bloggers and to journalists, both on their sites and on Twitter, and form relationships with them. Offer your new contacts valuable information that isn’t totally self-serving. It’s OK if you link to your blog once in awhile, if the post truly answers the question, but also direct them elsewhere for their information. That builds trust and reliability, and means they’re more likely to call on you in the future when they need a source.
Think about your story. Stories sell, because they touch our emotions. For proof of this, think about any big tragedy. The tragedy itself can be almost mind-numbingly hard to grasp because it doesn’t scale on a human level — it’s too big for us to wrap our minds and hearts around. But if a news article tells the story of the tragedy through the eyes of one particular victim, suddenly we get it in a deeply personal and moving way. So what’s your story? How does your brand tell that story? Figure these things out and then make each piece of your integrated marketing consistent with that story and that brand.

Integrated Online Marketing Pays Dividends

Integrated online marketing is time-consuming and requires a big-picture perspective. For that reason, you might think it’s “too much” and stick with the piecemeal approach. But if you do that, you’ll only get the same results you’ve already been getting. Are you happy with that, or did you want more? The savvy bloggers in 2010 will embrace integrated online marketing and be rewarded accordingly with greater and more precisely targeted traffic.

Sheryl Sisk is the marketing/blogging coach behind The Inspired Solo. She lives in Salisbury, North Carolina. You can follow her on Twitter (@theinspiredsolo) or on Google Buzz (s.schelin).

The Business Blog Funnel Review – How to Get Profitable Freelance Work Through Your Blog

Michael Martine — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:59:50 +0000

The Business Blog Funnel (affiliate links in this post) by Skellie of Skelliewag and Envato just might be the best overall book you will ever read on how to create a thriving freelance business from an existing blog. But before I get into the what I think about the book itself, let me tell you about its author. After all, why should you consider buying a book from a person unless you know something about them? And what is my connection with Skellie?

About the Author

Skellie is from “down under,” as we say, and she appeared on my radar shortly after I got serious about my own online business and blog marketing. By making good connections with the right folks and by writing amazingly useful content on her blog, she quickly rose to prominence. I’ve always been a fan of hers and our blogs have “grown up” together over the last few years. We’ve always stayed in touch with each other.

In addition to figuring out her own highly workable and profitable freelancing/blogging method, she did a lot of great writing for Freelance Switch and now works with Collis Ta’eed on the Envato network of sites. Throughout all of this, Skellie has always been kind, courteous, and helpful. I’ve always been eager to help her promote her excellent blog posts (when she decides to write them). Being an Aussie, she’s not been much of a self-promoter (it’s a cultural thing down under—everything I’m saying here is probably dreadfully embarrassing to her). Skellie does not think of herself. She only thinks of helping others, and that ethic has treated her very well (instant karma, you might say). She’s a great example of Zig Ziglar’s famous line: If you help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want.

About Business Blog Funnel

It’s in this same spirit that she wrote The Business Blog Funnel. She spent six months making this book perfect from the text to the design. The information it contains is highly valuable, and yet it isn’t priced any higher than a normal book you would find at a bookstore (and is much less than many books, actually).

The book is 90 pages of solid content, excluding the cover, legal hoo-ha, and table of contents (93 pages overall). The design is clean and minimalistic. The design does not get in the way. The text is highly readable because of the font size (not too small) and because of Skellie’s breezy, easy-to-understand writing style. Here’s the table of contents:

Why Aren’t Bloggers Filthy Rich? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Setting Yourself Up for Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The Blog Business Funnel Explained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Trust and Targeted Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Turning Readers Into Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Using Business Launch and Re-launch Formulas . . . . . . . . . 55

Advanced Blog Business Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Scaling Up! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

As you know, brothers and sisters, I preach the word of the business blog: a blog designed to attract and convert readers into leads if not outright paying customers. To some degree in my free content and to a high degree in my paid content and consulting services, these are the issues I help you with.

The Business Blog Funnel also covers business blogging, which is near and dear to my heart. If you haven’t already been reading Skellie’s blog, I think you will very much enjoy learning about these from a different voice than mine. Her own success has been undeniable, and in this book she teaches you how to set up your blog and other methods (or “systems” if you like) so that you can do the same. Nothing in this book makes any claims to being easy or “set it and forget it.” Real business doesn’t work that way: there are no magic bullets.

Below are my thoughts on each chapter.

Why Aren’t Bloggers Filthy Rich?

At first, you might think this is the same old rah-rah about how bloggers have been sold a bill of goods and Skellie has the real secrets to getting rich online. Nope. Nothing like that. Yes, she does cover some of the obvious territory: affiliate sales and advertising aren’t really cutting it for most bloggers.

But where Skellie takes a detour from the usual is how she talks about freelancing. She specifically says it’s not easy but it is rewarding—and not just because of the money:

You will not make a million dollars a year freelancing. While you could make six figures—and many are doing so right now—good money is a boon, but not the core appeal of the freelance lifestyle. Choosing to freelance is about choosing to do work that makes you happy. Work that allows you to create. Work that you can be proud of. And that’s not all…

Then she goes on to talk about freelancing in way that’s unlike anything I’ve read from anything I’ve read about freelancing. It’s pretty refreshing stuff.

It’s important to understand that this book really is about freelancing: getting hired by other people to create stuff for them for money. In other words, you’re selling services. If that’s not what you want to do, then this book is not for you. You don’t need to already be a freelancer.

In this chapter, Skellie also tells the story of how she stumbled across the methods which became The Business Blog Funnel and gives an overview of what the Business Blog Funnel is.

Setting Yourself Up for Business

Even if you’ve never freelanced before, you have nothing to worry about. “Setting Yourself Up for Business” explains various freelance business types and how to get started. She covers how to charge and set your rates. She covers invoicing. And she provides great links to free resources online where you learn more.

The Blog Business Funnel Explained

The funnel aspect itself is no mystery. Traditionally in sales, a funnel has long been used as a way to describe the process of attracting leads and converting them into paying customers. In this case, what Skellie is talking about is very similar to my ideas about Gateway Blogging: the blog is a funnel designed to channel attract the right readers and turn them into freelance clients.

Skellie explains three different types of blogs that work as funnels and provides examples of each kind.
She explains what to do if you’ve already created your blog and how to change direction without tipping over the whole boat.

If you’ve never freelanced before or if you’ve tried but had trouble attracting clients, you will find this chapter invaluable.

Trust and Targeted Traffic

Everywhere you read online about blogging and content or relationship marketing, you see the same mantra recited over and over again: build trust.

Skellie does something amazing in this chapter: she explains seven different “trust points” that your prospective freelance clients are looking for. Once you know what they are, you can then make sure you speak to these in your blogging. Personally, I think the whole book is worth what’s in this chapter alone.

In her information on traffic-building, she echoes much of what I say in my Blog Traffic Fisher course, but as it relates specifically to the The Business Blog Funnel. She breaks down the different kinds of traffic-getting blog posts in a way that also helps you write their headlines (which is important).

This is an extensive chapter, covering different avenues to attract traffic. What I find interesting is that it’s in this chapter that she explains and ties in the idea of a “personal brand.” Why? Because of its connection to trust and traffic. Does a personal brand have anything to do with traffic? Yes, it does, but I can’t give it away in a review.

Turning Readers Into Clients

One of the biggest reasons why people don’t do business with a freelancer is because they actually had no idea the blogger sold freelance services. Skellie tells you step by step how to promote your business through your blog and achieve an airtight, efficient funnel.

Some of the points she covers in this chapter:

How to describe your services so that they sell and where to put these descriptions on your blog
How to set up your “store-front.”
How to craft your unique selling proposition (USP) so that you’re not seen as just another commodity.
How to overcome objections in your descriptions and remove all questions which would prevent a visitor from becoming a client.
How to use testimonials the right way: what they should say to be effective and where to place them in your blog.

Using Business Launch and Re-launch Formulas

This chapter is where Skellie gets all “ninja” on you and shows you how to do something I’ve never seen anyone else do before: combine product launch methods with selling freelancing services. This is another chapter that justifies the entire book, in my opinion. I know a thing or two about this stuff and this chapter was an eye-opener for me.

This chapter addresses something nearly ALL freelancers get wrong: how to actually start the business and hang out your shingle, as they say. Most freelancers don’t do anything to kick off the start of their business. Skellie shows you how to open your doors in a way that has people lined up to buy. And for those of you who have already started freelancing, but maybe you’re struggling or want to take it to the next level, you can re-launch your business.

Advanced Blog Business Strategies

This chapter covers promotion and advertising most freelancers never do, or do poorly:

How to use online advertising to effectively attract freelance clients (you’re a business after all, so why not use the same tools other businesses use?).
How to encourage and maximize client referrals for invaluable word-of-mouth for your services.
SEO for freelancers so that people searching for your services find you, and not your competition

Scaling Up!

If there’s one thing that’s impossible, it’s having more than 24 hours in a day. Most freelancers put themselves in a position of over-commitment and creating a prison for themselves of never-ending work. They cannot afford to take even the slightest break (except “life happens,” doesn’t it?).

So in this chapter, Skellie tells you how to scale up your freelance business without it sucking every minute out of your day. It’s no secret that one way to do this is to raise your rates. What’s not so well-known is that you’re more assured of success if you do a few other things besides simply raise rates. Skellie reveals what these other steps are.

Most freelancers have a “lone wolf” mentality. Skellie shows you how collaborating with other freelancers opens up incredibly profitable doors for you. By working with others, you can create irresistible freelance service packages that lock down a larger market segment so that clients don’t need to go outside of your trusted network. Brilliant stuff.

Last, she covers how information products and services (like ebooks or training) can enhance your reputation and earn more money for you. I know this path is successful one, because it’s what I’m doing here: a big chunk of my income is from selling information products as well as consulting services. If that has seemed daunting to you, you’ll enjoy Skellie’s easy-going explanations on how to get started with this.

Finally

At the end of the book, Skellie even helps solve the “what now?” problem by giving you some immediate steps you can take to move forward. She also invites your comments and questions by email, so you’re not left hanging.

Should You Get The Blog Business Funnel?

If you’re interested in getting started with freelancing or if you already are a freelancer, I think The Business Blog Funnel will put you wayahead of the game. This is one of the few ebooks I’ve reviewed here that I can’t think of a single negative thing to say about. I can’t find a downside to this one.

And judging by the fact that I’ve already sold a slew of these as an affiliate before I even wrote this review tells me this thing is hitting home with you and it’s a home run. All I’ve done is mention it in an email and tweeted about it a few times and people are devouring it. Based on my own reading of it and existing sales, I don’t see how you could go wrong with The Business Blog Funnel.

Link Journeys for March 6, 2010

Michael Martine — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:59:22 +0000

This week’s links are pretty darn useful if I do say so myself. If you especially like any of them, let me know in the comments and by all means, please share this post with your friends!

Out-teach the competition – Training, education, teaching, whatever you want to call it, you can also call it something else: selling without seeming to sell. Great video of David Heinemeier Hansson from 37Signals on how they used “teachable moments” to grow sales.
Can Entrepreneurs be Made? – Apparently, the answer is yes. Fascinating article goes into what motivates entrepreneurs and why the myth of the “born” entrepreneur are all wrong.
Keyword Research: Beyond the Ordinary – Lisa Barone blogging a presentation on keyword research from the SMX conference. Lotta good ideas in here.
SEO Quake for Firefox or Google Chrome – One of the tools I recommend in WordPress SEO Secrets is SEO Quake as a Firefox add-on. That was when Chrome was barely off the ground. If you’re not using Google Chrome as your main browser, you should seriously consider it (holy shit it’s fast and has great features). Now that you can get extensions for it, Chrome is giving Firefox a run for its money. And if you want to do some serious SEO sleuthing, SEO Quake is a great tool to have.
7 Insanely Useful Ways To Search Twitter For Marketing – This is a goldmine. Enjoy!
Random Thoughts on Being an Entrepreneur – I did something with this post I almost never ever do: I printed it out and put it up on my bulletin board. It’s that good (look for my review of Hugh’s book coming soon).
31 Ways to Grow a Business – You could easily triple your sales with the information in this post. Not kidding.