Michaela Cernescu’s Blog

We already establish that content is the king, and we have to keep the Blogs up-to-date, write frequently, and this is a way of getting constant traffic to our Blogs.

Blogging has truly revolutionized the way we communicate, it seems no limit to what we can do with the help of blogs.

We can communicate:

• The smallest aspect of your daily personal life like recording journal entries
• Talk about our dreams, projects
• Communicate with competition
• Engage in discussion, debates: customers, sellers, curious people, gurus, and novice; all of them can use the blogging platform to the same extend
• Branding our business
• Erase any differences and obstacle between people – this is huge and very appealing aspect of blogging
• The sky is the limit

More tips for blogging:

1. It is recommended to start some of discussions yourself, this is how you will find what the competition is thinking, doing, and make the buzz go around about what you are doing it
2. Do a lot of surveys to find out the interests of your readers, it is priceless
3. In this blog, the posts with a lot of comments were the ones I created as a response of a reader request/question, so…
4. You always respond to your readers
5. Don’t be shy, you can earn some money while blogging, it is nothing wrong about this, it is an interesting and attractive aspect of this platform. If you blog well enough for people to come and read it, you earn good chances of making quick money, by just going about your daily activity of posting blogs. Do you know other platform which will offer you an equal chance? I don’t!

What to do to make sure that your blogging activities get rewarded by more than just comments, compliments, and backlinks?

You could get yourself registered with a search engines. But keep in mind that you must do it only if you are confident enough that your blog gets good traffic. That way, the higher the ranking your blog achieves, the more you get paid.

While writing your blogs you also need to keep in mind your blog readership can increase so that the ranking of your blog with search engines go higher.

Here are a few tips that should get you through this:

• Keywords: Using the keywords of your posts frequently increases the search ability of that particular article of yours which in turn leads more people to visit your blog
• Post Title: A catchy post title or headline is recommended. It can glue a reader to your post almost immediately. However, avoid misleading post titles, or you will lose creditability
• Reader Friendly Content: This is the basic rule in marketing. At all costs keep your content reader friendly that should keep more and more readers interested. Your reader must feel that he is gaining something out of reading your post
• Worthwhile: Never let the reader feel that he has been tricked into reading your articles or clicking on your blog link. You are blow away all your long term chances of that reader coming back to your blog, in which case your blog rankings will suffer
• No errors: If you can, proof read your blog. A small typo here and there can be understood, but make sure you don’t make any major errors
• KISS = Keep It Short and Simple. This is an essential rule. Your blog will be much more appreciated if you put your thoughts simply and shortly. Make sure you put your thought clearly before the readers so that it does not become tedious for them to read
• Interesting: This is a subject mater, but make sure that you hold your reader’s attention by making your posts to point immediately in the course of your article. Your articles must not be written in a tone that is tiring to read. Write using short sentences and keep them crisp and precise
• Colloquialism: it is great to write in a friendly tone, but avoid using too many slang words

So, be consistent with your blog content and watch traffic growing to your blog!
To complement my article, I’ll give you 3 good sources of inspiration about writing content on Blogs:
SEO content writing how to write that perfect article
Writing content to make users feel welcome
Blog writing tips how to post to your blog often with good content

Until next time be well

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I was asked:  “do you really think that a blog can be profitable?”

So… Yes, and can be done in a simple way or in a convoluted way.

Let’s look it over to the simples way.

The relevance of the article according to the key words used in your Blog;  the number of times a page has been linked and viewed; are just a two simple factors which will influence ranking of you Blog.  With just a careful look into them the rankings of your Blog can increase considerably.

Those are very easy steps to follow:

• Get your Blog posts linked through various other pages. The more the pages are that contain your links, the better ranking they will receive
• Consider and plan how often you update the content on your Blog. Frequently updated sites receive higher ranking in search engines than those that have not been looked at by the owners for ages
• If you have a static website you can add a Blog to your website, as a Blog will function as a forum for people to come and discuss the ideas that concern your website too. This is how you create a platform, as well as become a journal whereby you can also post updates about your business and your website. The advantage is that the Blogs are more flexible, they aren’t restricted only to text, but pictures and videos can be posted too with great ease, and the functionality of Blogs are without limit
• The combination of having a website plus a blog is working well and long run help you to create a traffic wheel

The next easy steps as described below will take you through how to create your own blog and what are the things you must look out for:

• Cost can never be a problem because free blogging services are quit popular, you can choose sites like Blogger, LiveJournal, Wordpress  and you are sure to get exactly the kind of platform you are looking for. They are absolutely free
• For minimum cost I suggest to use Wordpress as they also allow you to use the platform and create a Blog in your own domain. In this case your expenses are: buy a domain, and have a host.  With very little money you are free, as you are the one who own the blog. If you use the free sites, they own your blog, so think about this
• Don’t be worry about web designing techniques. Creating your blog with Wordpress is not as complicated as designing template for a website. WP blogging service provide over 1,400 templates from which you can choose the one most suited to your Blog, plus over 9,000 plug-ins which provide huge functionality
• You must also use your discretion while blogging. Especially if you are incorporating your blog within your website, or creating a blog to increase awareness of your product/niche/business, you need to keep in mind that this is an open forum which is read by all. Be careful with politics and religion as they are the two most controversial subjects, and therefore anything about those must be carefully blogged about
• Stay “safe” with anything that is particularly reader friendly as your aim is indeed to increase the ranking of your site, you will have to make sure you attract many people to read it. You need content user friendly
• Also keep an eye on what other people write or say on their blogs.  You learn a lot about what kind of responses articles receive, and you can get valuable tips from them.

Blogging nowadays is considered a highly effective marketing tool. You can easily get clients and customers to interact with each other. And not only customers, also those who are relatively new to your product get a platform to ask questions and get knowledge about your product and create more awareness of your business in general, you can brand yourself easily through blogs.

Moreover, it also increases your website rankings because the blog is constantly being updates, commented on, but you have to keep discussions going on. The bottom line is your get your ranking improved.

Those are  recommendations about how to blog about your product/niche/business:

• Never make the blog post too long uselessly, and must be well written. Long posts are not ‘catchy’ frequently. Ideally, blog 3-5 times a week
• Use light hearten humor, when is appropriate
• Don’t stick only to text, use videos and photos in your blogging effort, and as much functionality you can muster through plug-ins
• Be yourself, be conversational, blog like you have a coffee with a good friend and you chat over it. People definitely like the human aspect of blogging

In summary: if you are able to drive enough traffic to your Blog and website your blog will become profitable, your business will blossom, it is as simple as this!

On Internet marketing,  traffic = profit.

For the convoluted way, follow my new challenge, which I have started, you don’t miss to much at this point.

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In general people want to monetize their blogging experience, and the statistics show us that  5% end-up making serious money and 95% fail this dream. So must be a reason why not all people who have a Blog are successful money wise.

I hate to be redundant, in my effort to summarize the common mistake you will read reasons to fail  you already know, but be patient and read all of them, as it is a serious opportunity to find ideas which can help you.  Sometime there is a little something you know about it but only after you hear it from many sources you start to pay attention to it.

I publish on my other blog an article about mistakes in affiliate marketing, they are not identical with the Blogging mistakes but there are a lot of similarities as well:
http://michey.crabbysbeach.com/blogs/business-strategies/common-mistakes-in-affiliate-marketing/

Let’s get busy!

Mistake No. 1:  People Blog For Money Only

This is an extreme position. To think that blogging is “get rich tomorrow scheme”  is a mistake from the start. This is why I hate when I see titles as “7 Days to do this…”, “30 Days to mastering that…”. Just stay away to those publications. As far as I am concern, nothing which can be life change, will happen in 7 or 30 days.

You need:

• Passion for your niche
• To be or become a specialist in your niche
• Consistency in your work
• Reaching success takes time
• Takes serious commitment on your part

Mistake No. 2: Choose a Niche which doesn’t Solve a Problem, a Real Need.

This is translating in not having an audience for your Blog effort. So you must start with a lot of research. It is not enough to know what you want to do; you must know what the competition is doing.  And this point me to the next mistake

Mistake No. 3: Try to Avoid Competition.

Nowadays it is hard to find a niche which has a market with no competition, a market nobody finds out prior to you. If you do, I’ll be very suspicious about that niche.
So what we must do? We have to bit the competition, we have to study what they are doing and do it better. Don’t choose a market with a lot of competition, but a market with a medium competition, you will be able to compete with, it is going to act as a stimulus for you to get better, your satisfaction, and trust in your ability will sky rocket.
I really recommend this game, if you don’t conquer that niche – you don’t try hard enough!

Mistake No. 4: Being Victim of Information Overload.

We have to be down the earth and recognize that it is an Information overload going on around us, and it has a good and a bad effect.
The good part is that you can find info about almost everything under the sun.
The worst which can happen is that you never finish your projects. You start in the right path, something new, hot, and tempting come along and you jump to do that as well. This brings me to the next mistake.

Mistake No. 5:  Lack of Focusing

The Internet is full of opportunities (this explains Information Overload), but don’t let this to be your graveyard, don’t jump from one project to another without to finish none of them.
If you are a beginner Blogger the solution is work just one project at a time.

Mistake No. 6:  Trying to Do Everything Yourself

If you are a medium Blogger try to:

• Outsource a part of the work:
  • find good graphic designers to work with
  • buy PLRs for writing articles  or hire a ghost writer
  • create a position for admin on your blogs
• Delegate the authority for specific tasks when is necessary,
• Form a permanent team and work with the team based on skills, talents, efficiency

Note: It is a little painful for me to tell you about mistake 4 and 5, as sometime myself  I am the victim, but I start to take care of this in 2010, and until the end of the year my goal is to have a diversify full team to work with.

Mistake No. 7:  Be flexible

Especially the beginners have the tendency to hang on too long with projects which don’t produce what they are hoping for.
So you are not married with your project! If something is not working for you, sit back reflect why is not working, learn from your mistakes, and move on to the next project.

Mistake No. 8: Not Enough Research up Front, and not Enough Testing

When you reflect about what is not working, there is 80% chance to find that you didn’t properly collect all the facts about your project, prior to start to work on, or you didn’t split test enough your squeeze page or your sale page. Based on the keywords people are using the most, sometime a single work changed on the title can make a big difference.

Mistake No. 9:  Don’t Consider Blogging a Hobby

If you are doing blogging for fun don’t expect to get huge return money wise. With the attitude “I just try, let’s see what happens” you will get no ware. This points me to the next mistake.

Mistake No. 10: Under Spending for your Blogs

Web 2.0, 3.0 and the explosion of New Technology tools are certainly bringing the cost down but don’t expect to have zero cost. In the new challenge I just started on:
http://squidooeventlog.com/d-day-of-my-new-blogging-challenge/

I’ll strive to keep the cost low, but will be instances in which you need to invest a little for:  domain,  host,  autoresponder, sophisticated plug-ins and so on.

Mistake No. 11: Over Spending for your Blogs

Under the impulse of Information Overload, some people are buying everything which is on the marketing. Especially for beginners to do that,  it is not required. Actually this is the reason why Digital Product reviewing Blogs are doing so well, as the people need to have a second opinion about a product in addition to the “landing page” of that product.

Mistake No. 12:  Blogging is a Business

The hugest mistake is  not treating Blogging as a business,  this means that some people don’t take Blogging seriously as they should.

It is a business, so request planning, investing, creating a Business Model and follow through, hard work and everything else which you do for other businesses which are prosperous.

Mistake No. 13:  People who Fail are Bloggers not Marketers

If you are an Internet Marketer which happens to do Blogging, you are better situated to make money on Blogging. Why?
Because it is not enough to have a blog, or any website, if you don’t think as a marketer, if you don’t see all the marketing possibilities, if you don’t promote heavily your chance to make money is close to zero.

Mistake No. 14:  Don’t Spend Time to Re-invent the Wheel.

It is useful to follow on the steps of successful marketers. When you choose your model, you must choose a proven model, but you also must come with your own unique proposition. We already establish that you are not going to follow a market without competition, but people must find out why you are better, what is your unique approach to the problem you want to solve.

I hope I cover almost all you need to know about classical mistakes on blogging.  If you have more mistakes coming out from your personal experience, please let me know.

Until next time be well

Michey

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What is a Blog we already know, but why are Blogs so popular nowadays? A Blog is a Journal. A place where you put your personal thoughts, ideas, knowledge, in a conversational mode, as you sit across the table with an old friend and just tell him what you have in mind.

Blogs are:

• Perfect tools for blooming your creativity
• They act as communication tools connecting, educating, and influencing people
• All of them but especial WordPress has a multitude of functionality
• Professional Bloggers build a business, an on-line asset which produces a full-time income from their Blog(s), and they manage their Blog(s) like a business.

What makes Blogs different from any websites of Web 1.0 generation? It is important to know as it helps you to develop the right mindset about Blogging:

• Posts on Blogs are listed chronologically, last in the top, in a journalistic style. They are also store by categories which make them very easy to retrieve
• In Blogs is easy to add new content, if you can write a letter using Word, you can Blog, cannot get simpler than that
• Being easy to add content is easy to update frequently, Blogs are more up-to-date vs. Web 1.0 websites which are static
• On Blogs interaction is a breath as they allow people to leave comments
• The conversational nature of Blogs make people trust Blogs more than old type websites
• Blogs in your domains allow affiliate links, which are not welcome in a lot of sites and environments as forum, ezine, even some websites

WordPress is a Blogging platform and a Content Management System (CMS).
It is not the single Blogging Platform or CMS, but the huge popularity of WordPress is coming from the following features:

• It is FREE
• It is Open Source, people as you and me can add functionality to WordPress adding our themes, plug-ins, widgets
• It contains over 4,400 plug-ins, they add a huge functionality, flexibility, and creativity
• Now Multiple Users extension (MU); is relatively new but is adding even more Web 2.0 functionality. We go now from individual users to:
  o   niche groups
  o   tribes which are communities with same interests
  o   companies as well
• It is a platform easy to use with the low level of restrictions
• WP is the single Blog Platform which let you create Blogs on your own domain. This is huge advantage for Affiliate Marketing.

The success fires up the imaginations of entrepreneurs. There are other platform easy to use but the difference is the number of restrictions on those platforms. Some of them are good for a non-technical person or a limited purposes, but a solid technical individual always closes WordPress and/or WP-MU.

What I notice in the last 2 years is the multitude of ways people start to use WordPress.

1. We use WP as a Blogging Platform
2. Some uses WP to create Websites, if you block the comment feature, and use your own domain, you really have a Website. Why people will use WP to create Websites? The answer:
   o   WP is a great system of organizing data for a Website
   o   The plug-ins which provide a huge functionality. The work behind the scene which is already done, tested, and implemented for you is a big plus of WordPress
3. Create Membership sites – this is again a great advantage of WP functionality, it is a little more work up front but is possible to do it and the easy maintenance will compensate you for the hard work at the set up point
4. Now we have an extension of WP which let us create communities, it is called WordPress Multiple Users (WP-MU). This is an example of MU: http://crabbysbeach.com/blogs/

The conclusion is people started to use WordPress Platform for almost everything. Blogs now can be almost anything you want them to be.

Welcome to the wonderful world of WordPress. In future posts I’ll take one of this functionality at a time and give you details.

I think the new functionality is more likely to interest my readers, but I always look to the comments to make my mind about what is important for you.

I’ll come back soon with new products, surprises, and more posts to keep you up-to-date.

To your success
Michaela
http://michey.crabbysbeach.com/blogs/

http://www.mc-ecovers.com

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Hi! Valentin,
Welcome to my blog. I respond with a post, it is too much to write on comment, and other people can read as well.

Sorry, you do work a little backwards.

First:
You have to start with a Blog. Create your Blog with WordPress but in your own domain, not as a subpage of WordPress domain.
You already have a domain, valentinmarketing, it is empty, and you can use it for a blog.

To be easy for you to build a blog, you need a host that gives you a cPanel which has Fantastico. This is a utility not all hosts have.
If you need the right hosting, I recommend Host Gator (this is what I am using):
http://www.mc-ebay-resources.com/recommends/HostG

From Host Gator take baby crock plan, is in not expensive and is enough for the beginning, you can upgrade later if you need, the first 1-2 years you will be just fine.
You can move your existing domain on Host Gator, they have a great support and they can help.

If you have cPanel with Fantastico, to create a Blog is just a matter of a couple of clicks and fill in screens info, choose a theme (a FREE one), and you will create your first Blog, in 5-10 min.
How to do it?

• Get on cPanel and click on Fantastico icon
• In the left menu, click on the WordPress
• Click on New Installation
• Now you have a screen to fill in, choose the right domain, if you have many, and let “Install in Directory” blank,  fill in the rest of requested info

At this point you have a Blog with WordPress on your domain, but with a default WordPress theme. Now you have to choose a theme:

• Browse WordPress theme directory, choose a free one
• Download the Theme, and unzip the file
• Go to FTP and  upload the unzip folder on  …/wp-content/themes folder of  your domain
• Go back to WordPress admin, click on Design
• Choose Theme button, and click the theme you loaded

This is it, entire process is max. 10 minutes, but you need a cPanel with Fantastico on it.

Now start to add content to your blog, put an opt-in list on a site bar, but give the people a reason to sign in (give away a free digital product: report, eBook etc), and start to build credibility for your self.

Of course you need an autoresponder, I recommend aweber:
http://www.mc-ebay-resources.com/recommends/aweber
 
But I presume you already have one, because you already have a squeeze page with an opt-in list on it. Aweber is the best autoresponder.

This must be the first step, you create trust and respect and a list in the same time and you start the process of pre-selling your future product(s) on the blog.

The truth of the matter is you can choose the trial and error method, but you will spend a lot of time until you will realize that the people don’t buy from a person they don’t know and trust.

This is way we do pre-sell first to warm up potential customers from the list.

Second:
You have to work a little more on your squeeze page, give benefits not features, create a landing page as well, and use the autoresponder to set up the automatic procedure of delivering your product.
At this point I presume you already have a product to sell, if you don’t you create one.

Third:
Only now drive traffic to your squeeze page using: your Blog, Articles, Forums, Squidoo lenses, HubPages, Stumbleupon, digg, Twitter, you name it, use as many Web 2.0 Applications as you can.
This is a huge subject in itself; the products I am working on now will be a good guide for driving traffic.

All I told you up till now is not expensive:

• You need a domain – but you already have one 
• You need a host with Fantastico, if you don’t have one, you can buy a baby crock on Host Gator and move your domain on that host
• You create your own blog, not outsourcing at this point.

However there are some rules to cover before you get going:

• Start setting up your goals, you want to sell one digital product on Internet or you want to build an on-line business that will be with you years to come. If you want an on-line business you have to start doing some thinking up front, and take the right decisions from the start
• Learn the online business from the right people, this is really hard for beginners in this information overload era 
• From the beginning learn and do a lot yourself, it is cheaper and later when you will outsource work you will know what to request from others
• Take action and be consistent with your work
• Build trust, honorable relationship with the people from your list; consider from the start that they will be your future business partners. Some members from the list will buy some products from you, but they can be affiliates, join venture partners, a huge potential for business trends and ideas for your business
• Be patience and never give up. If a niche you are working on now is not a success story, you are not married with the niche, you jump on the next one, and some point in time you will succeed. It is important not to consider a failure as a waist of time because you learn a lot in the process. Actually we learn more from failures then we learn from successes, it is our human nature, we have the tendency to take the success from granted. Some good Internet marketers will tell you – the sooner you fail the sooner you succeed!

My recommendation for quality FREE training is Eric’s tips:
http://www.ericstips.com
He has a free course of 100 lessons, he is now at lesson #27, it is still possible to fill in the gap, and continue to listen to his Videos which are remarkable.

If you consider that you learn from my answer to your question, get on side bar, sign in and I’ll keep you posted with my work.

Until next time all the best
Michaela

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