Next Level Blogger » business blogging

There Are No Rules (OK, Maybe Just One Rule…)

Christian Russell — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:20:43 +0000

Don't waste time getting caught up in all the "rules" of blogging. Rules are made to be broken.

The benefits of business blogging are well-documented. If you are not convinced that blogging is a powerful way to reach your audience, build awareness of your brand and generate significant sales, this is a great time for you to go through some of the archives on this blog and some of my “recommended blog tips” articles. The facts speak for themselves.

However if you are already convinced, you are probably on this site seeking great advice on how to maximize the results you see from your blog. That’s smart.

There Are No Real Rules

I’d like to submit a thought to you that may save you some time in your pursuit for the hottest blog tips. There are no real rules. OK…maybe just one small rule, and I’ll let you in on that rule in just a second. But here’s the thing about rules: many people read them and automatically feel they HAVE to follow them. This is not how successful businesses are built.

For now I just want to point out that there are SO many articles out there telling you what to do, leading you to believe they contain the “secret” you’ve been looking for, that if you were to try following all the advice out there, you’ll never go anywhere. Don’t get stuck in this trap. Here are some examples of “rules” that I don’t believe in following:

You need to post often - this is good general advice, but it’s important to know that many successful blogs only post sporadically. Scott Stratten from UnMarketing just wrote about this recently as well, after not having posted anything to his blog in 6 weeks. Some blogs publish new content several times per day. Others post once every few weeks. Your approach has much more to do with what works for your business, not what actually works for blogging in general. With regards to blogging in general, there is no rule.

You need to write long, detailed posts - there is a school of thought which dictates the highest quality posts are long, detailed, highly valuable articles posted to your blog. Some blogs such as ViperChill and many others specialize in writing longer content. Bravo…it works. But it’s important to understand…it works for them. What does that have to do with YOU? With some things, you simply need to follow your own path. Long content and short content both work. There is no real rule.

You need to write short, pithy posts - Some tools such as Blog Grader suggest that your posts should be no longer than 800 words. It even appears to use this metric as a means of grading your blog. Longer posts seem to score lower. I don’t know what the heck this is about. Everyone knows that some of the greatest resources online are very long blog posts that took the authors many hours or days to produce. They generate thousands of incoming links, because they offer huge value. Yes, short posts are quicker to read, but your audience may value longer, detailed posts on occasion. The best approach is not to follow the arbitrary advice of only writing short posts. Nothing replaces actually knowing your audience. Again, no rule.

You need to search-optimize all your content - Sorry to all the SEO pros out there, but this is just B.S. I certainly believe in the power of search optimization, and I think every blogger should take some time to learn the basics. Michael Martine’s Wordpress SEO Secrets is a good place to learn what you need to know. Here’s another rockin post on blog SEO. Here’s another great article on SEO. But here’s what I’ll tell you…stop there. Absorb those resources and then get back to your life. SEO professionals could easily have you believe that your success online hangs in the balance, and if you don’t pay more attention, you’ll slide off the face of the earth without their advice. Ain’t gonna happen. Some of the biggest bloggers in the social web like Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk and many others admit they know very little about SEO and do almost nothing to “optimize” their content. What does that tell you? Is SEO important? Certainly. Is it worth hours and hours of your time? That’s up to you…but probably not. This is just another example of something which distracts many new bloggers. It’s not about learning the “trick”. There is no trick. Blogging is simple. It’s just talking to your audience. You don’t need an internet marketing PHD to get this done. Just talk to your audience.

You need a professional design - I’ve built blogs for many clients. Everyone wants their site to look cool, and that’s understandable. But it’s also essential to understand the difference between pretty and effective. My specialty is in doing what works. If you want conversions, leads and sales, I’m your guy. If you want pretty pictures, I’m probably not your guy. I submit that most new bloggers and marketers spend way too much time worrying about how their site looks. You don’t win a race by sitting in the driveway putting on a fifth layer of wax. I don’t mean to argue that design is not important. It is, but it’s so easy to spend hours and hours on trying to make your site look cool. It’s easy to get burned out on all this, and it’s such a waste, because it has nothing to do with getting results.

Of course, the list goes on. What other rules have you come across? Leave a comment and share! It’s important to take the advice of others with a grain of salt. Yes, the advice on my own blog is included. Here is the truth: there is no recipe…there is no turnkey, guaranteed, “cookie cutter” way of achieving success. Of course you already know this, don’t you? Perhaps you know this through experience. Perhaps you simply know it in your gut. But one way or another, you sense that good things take time and hard work.

Where to Spend Your Time

I believe it’s crucial to read other sites and learn about your craft. Don’t stop learning how to improve your work, but be mindful about what you’re doing with your time. Before you apply some new tool or technique to your approach, ask yourself some important questions:

“How much time is this going to take?”
“Is this something I’m going to enjoy doing?”
“Is it sustainable?”
“What benefits do I honestly believe will come of this?”
“Is the return commensurate with the expenditure of time or money?”
“Do I actually understand this technique and what it will do, or will I just be doing it because it sounds cool?”
“Can I delegate it?”

Answer these questions first, and if a tool or technique you’ve come across passes the test, then put it to use. If not, trash it.

How Much Time Do You Have To Waste?

Business owners often struggle with the return on investment from blogging. I hear this a lot… “How can I justify the use of my time?” Do you have this concern as well? Do you want to make sure you get a good return from the time you spend blogging?

Here’s the key: blogging can have a HUGE return on investment. But this is only true if you do it well. You need to do what works. Use the questions above, and they will keep you from blindly following arbitrary advice. This is what makes the difference between getting a huge return on your blog and burning out. Successful bloggers get results; they don’t follow arbitrary advice just because it sounds cool.

The One Rule To Follow

I promised one rule, and I will share it with you now. I think this one rule will serve you well as you go about the process of building your blog. Use this as your guide, and it will not only keep results coming your way, but it will also steer you clear of useless advice.

Here’s the rule: “Give first, then receive.”

Let me expand on this briefly, because a rule this simple can easily be glossed over or misunderstood.

Do you want more incoming links? Then link to other people first.
Do you want other bloggers to talk about you? Then talk about them first.
Do you want people to submit guest posts to your blog? Then submit guest posts to other blogs first.
Do you want people to comment on your blog? Then comment on other people’s blogs first.

Do you get the idea? Does this make sense? It may seem overly simplistic, but the idea stems from a foundational belief I have about blogging. I believe blogging is inherently social in nature. To attract the attention you want in the social web, you need to be active socially.

Finally, don’t be the nerdy kid in the corner

Most new bloggers spend WAY too much time on their blog. They need to spend time on other people’s blogs! Does this sound counter-intuitive? Think about it for a second. Spending all your time on your own blog is like being the nerdy kid in high school who sits in the corner and draws pictures, never looking up, never talking to anyone. He’s a genius, yes. He’s talented, yes. He has a lot to offer, no doubt. But he never actually offers it. He sits in the corner. He works endlessly refining his talent. The other kids see him, but no one really knows him.

Don’t be the nerdy kid in the corner. Share your genius with the world. That requires getting out there. Trust me on this, your design doesn’t matter, the length of your posts doesn’t matter. How often you post doesn’t matter. What matters is that you get out there, and you can do that in whatever way makes sense to you, in whatever way that works with your schedule, in whatever manner that is consistent with your goals.

You can “put yourself out there” by building links, writing content, spending time on Twitter, handing out business cards at your local brew pub or shouting the name of your blog from a high building…whatever truly, earnestly makes sense to you, your business and your customers. Just do it. Don’t sit on your hands, reading blogs and trying to find “the rules to success”, cuz there aren’t any. The rule I share with you here in this post isn’t even a blogging rule. It’s a life rule. If you rock, you will get results. I promise.

What are you going to do to get results this week?

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7 Business Tenets to Apply to Your Blog

Christian Russell — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:00:17 +0000

So you want your blog to climb the "ladder of success". How do you do it? The tenets of building a successful business blog are remarkably similar to the tenets of building ANY successful business venture.

This is a guest post from Tom Walker. Thanks for the submission Tom. I think this post covers some important issues every business blogger should address. Let me know what you think!

Blogging is the latest way to make money on the web. It can be done with little technical expertise, it’s low cost, and you can potentially make millions; just look of the success of the world’s most famous blog, Craig’s List. Making money or even a career out of blogging, however, is like starting any business, and the same principles apply. Follow our guide to make sure you avoid the pitfalls, and get your blog on track faster.

Pick a niche – your blog will only stand out in the millions of other blogs if it offers something different. Your blog is a product like any other, and so you need to tap into a demand in order to have something to sell. Blogs about personal opinions, for example, are ten-a-penny, and probably not going to draw a lot of interest.
Think about your sphere of influence – part of finding your niche is about looking at your sphere of influence. When people look at setting up a shop somewhere, they look first at the sphere of influence of the local supermarket to see if their shop will fall within it; if it does, their shop stands little chance of competing. Do you want your blog to be useful to people in your street, town, county or country, or does it have international appeal? For example, there may be a local news source for your county, so there would be no point competing with it, but there may not be a news blog about your town, so you may find a niche there.
Gauge interest – you may have found a niche, and you may know for a fact that a few people are interested in your topic. The next stage is to gauge if that level of interest will be enough to make your blog sustainable. Will there be enough subject matter to blog regularly about? Will the blog topic attract enough interest to get a reasonable amount of hits to drive ad revenue that will pay for the time you spend blogging? If the answer to these questions is “no”, you may have to rethink your topic.
Move quickly – blogging has democratized the publishing process. A blog is the simplest, fastest kind of publication to set up, and there are virtually no barriers to how much or how quickly you can publish. For this reason, you need to move fast; if you have spotted an opportunity, it probably won’t be long before someone else does. Make sure you get there first; even if you don’t set up the full blog, at least nab the domain name to stake your claim.
Plan – nobody can attract investment in a business where the proprietor doesn’t know how much they plan to make in a year, or how they are going to do it. Too often, bloggers hit on a fantastic idea, but the blog falls by the wayside due to a lack of direction. Once you have set up your domain, sit down and make a plan of what you are going to do and by when; even a simple plan will help. For example, you could plan to publish 50 posts within a month, attract 30 incoming links within two months, and draft an advertising rate card by the end of the third month, with a view to approaching advertising clients within six months. Stick to your deadlines once you have them.
Use clear branding – millions are spent on branding products every year. Your blog is a product and as such it needs to be branded. Don’t just stick any old header at the top of your blog and pick the first colour scheme that pops up. Think about what the essence of your blog is, and choose colours accordingly, i.e. baby pink might not be the ideal colour scheme for a serious financial blog. To make a memorable header with your title, try finding a creative commons licensed image online that represents your blog’s topic, or even take some photos yourself. Once your have decided how your blog is going to look, try not to tinker with it too much; consumers trust and feel comfortable with products that maintain the same appearance.
Work hard – blogging is easy to learn, but hard to master. Don’t be fooled by the entrepreneurs who started blogs and then retired to their millions at 25; they worked as hard at their blogs as any business demands. The only way to make money out of a blog is to invest your time and energy into it.

This is a guest post by Tom Walker who blogs and designs with an online supplier of HP 364 inks, toners and refills. He is both writing contributor and editor at the CreativeCloud where he blogs about what interests him most, namely print design and the arts.

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What is business blogging really?

Christian Russell — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:24:23 +0000

Hear is the deep, hidden truth to what business blogging is really about

Here’s something I’ve learned from running this blog now for 9 months…it’s much the same as what I’ve experienced in sales when I was out working in the field. Blogging is the highest paid hard work I can find, and it is the lowest paid easy work.

There is a lot of talk about how easy it is to be successful in internet marketing, blogging, etc. I haven’t seen that. You can certainly kick back and have an easy go of it. No one will ever push you. The world’s busy enough as it is, and if you sit on the sidelines then that’s fine. But if you want to get a significant result, the path to achieving that is going to require some work.

You will certainly get the result you’re seeking if you stick with it, and that is what’s so beautiful about blogging…you put yourself out there on a regular basis; it’s a learning process, and the more you learn, the more you earn. If you do the work, you get the result. I wouldn’t have it any other way…would you?

When it comes to blogging to market your small business or professional practice, it’s all about you. It’s not something that can be delegated…not if you want maximum impact. Clients have many times asked me to “do blogging” or “do social media” for them. I’ll be honest and admit I’ve done this in the past. I’ve been paid to ghost write and perform other tasks, and I did not find it was a win-win. I don’t do it anymore. Blogging is about engaging your audience personally. You can’t really do that if you’re not present. Can we agree on this?

Here is what business blogging is…really:

Business blogging perk #1

Blogging for your business is extremely liberating. You don’t have to stay “in the box”. You can actually have fun with it. In fact, the more personality you can inject into your blog the better. What other form of marketing allows this level of personal input and creativity? As business owners, so many of us have become so uptight, feeling we must act a certain way or be something we’re not in order for clients or customers to buy from us or take us seriously.

Many would-be bloggers feel they must be good writers in order to be successful at blogging. The only people who worry about this are people who haven’t read a lot of popular blogs! Technically proficient writing is not a requirement, trust me

Blogging allows you to simply have fun, talk about what you do and make money all at the same time. In fact, blogging sort of requires that you have fun. Bored, stuffy bloggers tend to write boring, stuffy blogs…who the heck wants to read that?

Business blogging perk #2

There is no limit to what you can achieve. No ceiling. Isn’t that part of what attracts you to running your own business to begin with? Blog marketing fits hand in glove with that mentality…there is no limit to how many people you can reach, how engaged you can become with your audience and yes, how much you can earn. In fact, blogging typically opens up entirely new income opportunities to small business owners who are open to new ideas. New income opportunities that were never possible before…would you agree that’s a positive thing?

Business blogging perk #3

Writing a blog for your business requires introspection. Yeah, it’s work. But it’s work that pays a high dividend. People (mostly people who DON’T have experience blogging) worry and argue about the return on investment (ROI) of blogging. But what is the cost of running on a business model that doesn’t connect with your audience? How expensive is it to create and develop products or services that your tribe could care less about?

Blogging enables you to be intimately in touch with what your customers want and need. It allows you to test ideas and prove demand before you spend one hour or one dollar on product development. It can also let you know when you’re doing something wrong. By simply listening to your audience, you can be responsive and turn every day complaining customers into raving fans. Even if you don’t sell (why wouldn’t you?) on your blog, the savings can be extremely significant. How cool is it to be able to use such an inexpensive marketing tool and to get such a huge benefit from it?

Business blogging perk #4

Needless to say, blogging is very inexpensive to get started. Compare the rising costs to any traditional media advertising and the FALLING returns you’re experiencing from them (yeah I know; it’s like I have X-ray vision into your business right?), and you’ll not be surprised at all to see why so many small business owners and professionals are starting up blogs and getting otherwise involved in social media for business marketing purposes. Very low investment up front and significant financial returns, new income streams and savings down the road. I’m not a math whiz, but that kind of makes sense, no?

What is a business blog really?

It’s a platform you can use to record your thoughts and observations about your business.
You can use it to make offers…
build a customer list and
be personally engaged wtih a large number of people with only a small time commitment each day.

Is blogging a full time job? It could be, but it’s up to you. I personally spend only an hour or so on my blog each week. The rest of my time I spend networking, building my business. Is an hour a week a reasonable commitment to you for such a large return?

These are a few of the things I’ve noticed so far, and I’d love to hear what you think.

What advantages have you seen from blogging?
Do you have any concerns I haven’t answered yet on this blog?

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Are You Paying Attention To Traffic Instead Of Profits?

Christian Russell — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:00:04 +0000

Are you blogging? If so, you are a step ahead. Now let's make sure your goals are actually focused and helpful to your business!

Why are you in business? Why do you have a website to begin with? Are your goals in alignment with your actions and expectations?

Show Me The Money

Where do profits come in your business? Do they come from “hits” on your website? Do they come from comments on your blog? Probably not. I’ve spent time advising clients on how to get more comments on their blog, and if I’m being honest with you I always want more comments as well. But it’s essential to make sure our focus is in the right place. Are more comments really going to help you? It’s a fair question. That’s why I’m writing this post. I see a lot of business owners and new marketers focusing on traffic and other metrics when they really need to be focusing on making sales. Seriously, traffic and comments take care of themselves. Run your business; that’s where your focus should be.

Are you running your blog to help your bottom line, or are you doing it for an ego-stroke? Many new bloggers get distracted.

Are you focused on your business or getting distracted by pseudo-important metrics like “traffic”, “bounce rates” and “comment counts”? This is an essential question that all bloggers must face at some point along the line. It’s easy to get distracted; sometimes it’s hard to keep your eye on the prize.

We see blogs like CopyBlogger and ProBlogger with 100k+ subscribers, and it’s easy to get distracted. Their posts get 50-100 comments every time, and you look at your blog that gets zero comments or 5 comments on average. Are you a failure? Should you be striving to be like Darren at ProBlogger? It’s a fair question, and as you’d expect the answer is “It depends”.

How To Rake In The Results: Blog Tips That Actually Matter

I submit that when it comes to blogging or any business endeavor, it always comes down to results. Many new bloggers want more traffic or more comments, but it’s important to know why or how that’s actually going to help your business. Do more comments build a healthy business, or does a healthy business bring more comments? Here’s a blog tip to consider: maybe it just doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have. Maybe quality matters a whole lot more than quantity. How does that jive with your current thinking?

I say this for a specific reason. I’ve seen the beauty of running small, highly profitable websites. Trust me, in most business niches small traffic is all that’s necessary. The problem is that most of us are still learning how all this works. Most of us are still deluded into thinking that being successful online means pulling in huge traffic. It’s just not true.

Most of the readers at Next Level Blogger so far are small business owners who are new to blogging and running very small businesses…5-7 employees or fewer (including many single-person operations), and the majority (from what I’ve heard from talking with you all) are running locally owned businesses. So…as a locally-based photographer or Realtor or attorney or shop owner, do you need to be concerned with getting 100k+ subscribers to your blog? No. Absolutely not.

Are you an author or beginning marketer intent on taking over the world with your great idea? Then yes…you will most likely need to shoot for the stars when it comes to building your fan base. But many of us spend too much time on our blogs and spend too much time WORRYING about our blogs when we ought to be focusing on other things.

A Nauseating Example Of Wasting Time On Blogging

I attended a conference recently and watched a Realtor talk for over an hour about all the SEO work she’s done on her blog. The audience (comprised mostly of like-minded real estate professionals) was very interested. Everyone took copious notes. Clearly, she’d done her homework, and she was obviously spending both a lot of time and a lot of money on optimizing her blog. Everyone in the room watched her in awe and she bandied about phrases like “image alt tags” and “anchor text”. Clearly she has deciphered the code to search engine excellence, and all Realtors should pay close attention to her, right? After all, blogging is the way of the future, right?

Oddly enough, I could have shown her what she needed to know about SEO in 15-30 minutes on the phone. Instead, she’s spending several hours every month and paying some SEO firm big bucks….all for her little local real estate blog that is never going to pull in more than a few thousand visitors a month anyway. What a waste. Why? Because she works in a small town that only has a small population! With regards to search optimization, her concerns are a piece of cake. She doesn’t NEED big traffic. She needs qualified, targeted traffic from her local market. She needs 1,000 highly targeted and engaged visitors per month. From that, she can make a fantastic living as a real estate pro in her town. Why spend $500 a month (her numbers, not mine) on search optimization and hours each week on tracking down trackbacks and manually requesting that they change their anchor text (again, her techniques…not mine)? But she’s gotten distracted as so many of us do. She’s seen the big lights and been deluded into thinking that she also needs 100k+ subscribers and tons of traffic to her site.

This is a great example of how distracted we can get. Please ask yourself the questions:

What are the results I’m expecting from my blog?
Why do I expect those results?
Will achieving those goals actually help my business grow?
What are the most essential metrics I can use to ensure I’m reaching my goals through blogging?

If you answer these questions, you will be well on your way to getting the results you want from your blog marketing. If you need 100k+ subscribers, there is a model available to make that happen predictably. But if you’re running a small business, especially a locally owned business, it’s likely your concerns should be much more focused. Running a high traffic site is one method of achieving success through blogging. One method…not the only method.

Final Blogging Tip Today: Blogging is Simple…Really!

Believe it or not, blogging really is simple. Talk to your people. That’s all there is to it. “What about SEO?” “What about getting tons of subscribers and huge traffic?” Don’t worry about it. Trust me, Google will know you’re out there, and if you’re posting relevant content to your audience they will find it. Taking it upon yourself to figure out every single thing about running a website is a huge burden, and it’s not why you got into business to begin with, is it? Did you get into business to be a webmaster? Most likely not. Most likely you got into business to sell something. So sell it! You already know how to do that. Talk to your people. Set up a good self-hosted Wordpress blog, and let er rip. Have fun with it! Don’t wrack your brain over SEO and all the minutia of being a webmaster.

Can it really be this simple? Yes, it is. Talk to your people. If you actually have something to say, you’ll draw the exact crowd you need.

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Why Blogging and Bodybuilding are Both Seriously Broken

Christian Russell — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:00:03 +0000

Are you wasting your time with blog tactics that don't work?

Here’s what is wrong with this whole blogging business…the advice most blogging A-listers can offer you is hugely valuable, but if you don’t put things into context, you are WASTING YOUR TIME. Context is everything! Without context, the information is useless, and that is a problem you need to address if blog marketing is part of your business. Are you putting things into context, or are you wasting your time trying to get results with techniques that WON’T work for you? If time is valuable to you, read on!

So many of us read Problogger (or any other popular meta blog) and rush out to win our fortunes online with a fancy new blog. Then what happens? Nothing. That’s what happens. We work our tails off and don’t see the results we expect. What’s wrong? There are two things that happen that cause failure to get results from your blog.

You didn’t follow the advice you got
You DID follow the advice you got

I feel compelled to submit that either way, you’re going to be thrown for a loop at some point! Why? Because the rules change. It used to be that you could follow a simple formula to get on the front page of Digg, and that would bring you a massive influx of traffic. It was a little hit and miss of course, and wouldn’t work every single time, but the fact is that you used to be able to get on Digg without a monumental effort. Today, it’s not the case.

It used to be that getting Stumbled could bring you a significant amount of traffic as well. Today, not so. I know guys like Darren Rowse (and many others; I’m certainly not trying to single him out here) have talked about the benefits of StumbleUpon as a traffic generator, and he’s telling you the TRUTH! This can’t be overstated. The blogging A-listers of today know what works for them, and they share what they’ve learned selflessly. You should pay attention to them. And you should also realize that what works for them may not necessarily be what works for you. Again, context is everything! The question for today is this: are you putting the elements of your blog marketing into context, or are you just blindly following someone else’s advice?

Building something significant requires you to be a trailblazer. Don’t expect following a generic formula to get you anything other than generic results.

Opportunities come and go. They are dynamic. They don’t remain the same year after year. What worked in 2006 doesn’t work anymore for the most part. Getting on Digg used to be a big deal, now I’d argue there are much better uses of your time.

How Bodybuilding is Broken as Well (and how it relates to blogging of course!)

This whole situation reminds me of being young, reading bodybuilding magazines. I always wanted muscles like Arnold…who the heck didn’t, right? So you read these articles that outline his workouts. It makes sense, right? If you want the same results as Arnold, do what he does. The logic is sound. Of course you’ll probably have to use lighter weights, but if you duplicate the workouts, and you’ll get great results, right? No, actually. It doesn’t work that way in most cases. Not at all.

Why is this a problem? The problem is that a number of factors are not being taken into account. First, genetics. Some people literally have a genetic ability to be able to lift very heavy weights. Also, having the ability to recuperate from workouts that intense is not something everyone can do. Additionally, the bodybuilding pros most young boys try to emulate are using drugs. No offense, but they are.

The fact is that the workouts outlined in most bodybuilding magazines are in fact, the truth. It is actually what the pros do. And if YOU do it, you won’t be able to walk for a week, you won’t be able to recuperate from it, and it might even lead to a significant injury. You have no business doing workouts like that.

So do you see the problem? Copying what the pros do does not necessarily mean you’re going to get the same results. In fact, it may very well be a colossal waste of your time. So what gives?

The Magic of Understanding the Difference Between Principle and Technique

So where does all this lead us? If modeling A-listers doesn’t work, how can you ensure you will get results with your blog? This is an important question, and it comes down to context. If you have context, you have power. Here’s how you do it.

First, let’s be clear of the difference between Principle and Technique. A lot of articles and blog posts out there talk about techniques. Techniques for generating traffic. Techniques for building a blog. Techniques for converting email subscribers into paying customers, etc. Specific step by step tutorials are techniques. They are important. But they must be put into context.

For example, if you’re reading an article from 1998 about how to build a static html website, it may have been a great tutorial…in 1998. But is it contextually valid for you NOW? You must answer this question before implementing it into your plan. Tutorials convey techniques. They are very valuable, but you have to put them into the context of your plan. No one else can do that for you. You have to do it yourself.

Principles on the other hand, are underlying concepts that work in all situations. I spend a good bit of time conveying business concepts on this blog, because my goal is to have at least 50% of the content on Next Level Blogger be content that is relevant long into the future.

Do you see the difference between Principle and Technique? Put things into context when you’re reading about how to build your blog and get the results you’re looking for. Is what you’re reading conveying a Principle or a Technique? And if it’s a Technique, does it apply to your business? Is it relevant to your present situation? If so, employ it. Use it, benefit from it, and learn from it. But first, put things into context. There is a wealth of information out there that will help you get huge results from blog marketing. However, if you don’t put the information into context, you’re wasting your time!

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Why Simple Blogs are Better for Business

Christian Russell — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:00:12 +0000

When it comes to business blogging, simple rules. Keep it simple. You'll have more fun, and your success will come as a result of that

When it comes to so many things in life, we over-complicate. Wouldn’t you agree? Don’t you think we do this with blogging as well? We make it way too hard.

We run too many plugins
We push ourselves to post more often than we really want to
We spend too much time on our blog
We concentrate too much on our design
We spend too much time trying to “get traffic” than in just “talking to people”

Look if your blog isn’t fun, you’re not going to stick with it. And that means you’re not going to be successful. Pick a simple topic that you love, and stick with it for the long haul. Here are some principles that will help you simplify and love every minute you spend building your blog.

Plugins are a beautiful thing. That said, run a handful of them. After 10-15 plugins, give serious consideration to simply cutting yourself off. You don’t need more. You really, really don’t.
Blogging should not take all day. In fact, it shouldn’t take too long at all. If you’re new, and you’re spending more than a couple hours a WEEK on your blog, you’re spending too much time on it.
Design matters. It does. But it doesn’t make or break your site. If you think your blog needs to be snazzy to be successful…if you think the perfect layout matters to the point that it will affect the success of your blog…if you think readers really give a damn about ANYTHING other than content, take a look at this very successful blog and get back to me with your thoughts.
Traffic matters. That said, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as you may think. I haven’t checked my analytics in weeks. I’m growing. That’s what matters. It may seem odd that I’ll spout the gospel of traffic not mattering and then later on launch a tutorial on how to get more traffic. Is this hypocrisy? I don’t think so. I just like to put things in perspective. You need traffic, but should you spend more than a few hours here and there on “traffic generating” techniques? I really don’t think so.

If all you want is traffic, just buy a bunch of pop-under hits for $100. Done. You’ll have a hundred thousand visitors a month overnight, and it will translate ZERO to your bottom line of course. Traffic matters, but we spend WAY too much time on SEO and traffic generation. We don’t need more traffic, we need GOOD traffic, and that comes via social networking. Just talk to people. Talk to people, and the traffic will come.

If you’re looking for your blog to blow your business up over night, you’re barking up the wrong tree. If you want to build a powerful community that supports you through thick and thin, that grows your base slow and steady over time, that opens up new income streams and gives you a considerable creative outlet, then blogging is your man. Do it, but take it for what it is. It’s really very simple. Let it be fun, and it will pay you handsomely in the long run

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How to Grow Your Blogging Business Exponentially

Christian Russell — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:57:30 +0000

There is a fundamental sales principle that most business owners do not practice. Most of us have heard of it, but few of us actually practice it. I’m honestly not sure why, but it’s true…it’s costly and time consuming to earn new business, yet there’s a very powerful way to grow our business that’s free…that most of us will never use! It’s called asking for referrals.

Are you asking your existing customers to refer their friends, families, coworkers and colleagues to you? If not, you are not alone. Most business owners and sales people fail to do this or even consider it. But why wouldn’t you?

This principle is something I see applied rarely online. The masters do it, but few others even think about it. It’s one thing to make a sale. It’s a whole next level thing to tap into that customer’s entire base of friends as well. Your paying customers should not be on the same list as your prospects (the people who have yet to buy from you). They should be treated differently, because they ARE different!

Prospects and Customers are Not the Same, and They Should Not be Treated the Same!

If someone has purchased from you, they have entered the fold. They are on a new level with you and your business, and they should be treated as such. They are easier to sell to in the future, because they are already warmed up to you, and it is also reasonable for you to ask them to refer you to their friends and coworkers. If they’ve found real value in working with you, many people will gladly tell their friends about you.

Here are two important things to consider:

Deliberately seeking referrals is one of the most cost effective ways of significantly building your business online, and few people even try to do it.
If you have a customer list of even just a few hundred people, you REALLY have a customer list of many thousands…if you know how to work referrals.

Why Referrals Are So Valuable

A contact is a contact, correct? I’d argue no. Not all contacts are created equal. People that come into your database as a result of a referral are much more valuable for a few significant reasons. Consider these:

With a referral customer, there is more trust right from the start, because they have contacted you through a friend. This usually means they are a very qualified potential customer. It usually means they are very close to buying as well.
The cost of getting a referral is zero, which means your net earnings are almost always higher with a referral lead.
A referral provides an opportunity to improve your relationship with your existing customer. It’s valuable when someone buys from you. When someone buys from you, they are deciding to trust you. But consider what it means when someone trusts you enough to refer their friends to you. A referral is MORE valuable than a sale when it comes to the relationship you have with your customer!
Referral leads, when treated like the gold they are, are often more likely to bring you referrals of their own, continuing the cycle of growth.

When your existing customers send their friends and colleagues your way, it’s essential to treat them well, as you would all your customers, but it’s also essential to reward the customer for sending you the business. This will encourage them to send you more business in the future of course, but it will also strengthen the relationship you already have, making it that much more likely you can continue to help that customer in the future.

Here are some steps you can implement to ensure you’re taking advantage of this fundamental principle:

Deliberately ask your existing customers for referrals. “Who do you know that can also benefit from …(whatever it is you’re selling)?”
Make sharing your content easy, and encourage your prospects and customers to spread your emails, ebooks, blog posts, etc around to their peers.
When you get a new prospect, make it a matter of course to find out how they found you. Did they find your site and subscribe through search, through a link, or were they recommended by a friend? It’s good to know where your subscribers and customers came from!
If someone came to you through a friend, make a reasonable attempt to find out who it was that referred you. Send a thank you note or even a special gift to someone who sends you referrals. Of course this just isn’t ever going to be something you can successfully accomplish 100% of the time, but it’s important to do whenever you can. People who send you business should be acknowledged!
Don’t just ask for referrals once. Ask repeatedly, when the time is appropriate. When someone buys something from you. When you answer someone’s question, when you follow up after a consultation, etc…there are a lot of appropriate opportunities to ask your customers for referrals.

It’s not news that everyone in the world is separated by only a few levels of contact. Referrals are your quickest, most effective, most powerful and most personal way of growing your business. Do right by just one person, and you have done right by that person’s entire network. Tactfully tap into that network over time, and you have a shot at doing right by the whole world.

Trust me, there’s more business out there than you could possibly ever handle! It’s just a matter of reaching out and grabbing it. Should you hammer all your prospects and customers everyday? Of course not. But as you know, I’m focused on the human element of marketing online. Keeping a personal dialog going with your customers, as you should, naturally leads to you getting referral business from them over time.

Here’s the thing, if you’re good at what you do, you’re going to get referral business whether you’re aware of it or not. As with all things in business, I’m a big fan of intentionally harnessing these things and deliberately addressing them. Instead of just hoping your business works out and grows simply because you’re so good, be aware of the fact that referral business is a huge factor in the success of most any business. And with that in mind, take steps to deliberately encourage it! Don’t just leave it up to chance

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Selling on Your Blog Ain’t Hard (The Art of Asking for the Order)

Christian Russell — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:14:51 +0000

Asking for the order is a key sales principle. In fact, it’s a key life principle! If you don’t ask, you don’t get! This can often come off as a “duh” kind of statement. If you want someone to buy from you, you should probably ASK them to buy from you! Agreed?

But year after year, study after study show that salespeople will often perform an entire sales presentation and fail to ask for the order at the end. Bottom line: it’s scary for many of us to ask people to buy something. So we leave them to figure it out for themselves. We do this in the name of politeness, but really we do it out of fear. As I probably don’t even need to tell you…it rarely produces the desired result.

Internet marketers and bloggers are big culprits of this as well, not just sales people in a classic, traditional sense. Most often, as much as I hate to say it, bloggers. So many bloggers want to make money yet fail to ever ask for it. They don’t want to be pushy. It’s understandable. But the sentiment is misplaced. I’ll explain in a sec…

First, it’s important to understand that asking for the order goes for making sales but also for many other things as well.

Do you want your readers to comment your posts?
Do you want people to tweet out your articles…
Link to your site?
Download your free ebook?

Tell your readers what you want. Ask for the order. If you don’t, you’re expecting them to telepathically figure out what you want, and well frankly…why should they go through the trouble? If you want to get good results as often as possible…make it easy for them!

Where to Get Confidence to Ask for the Order

Asking for what you want requires confidence. Confidence comes from three places:

Genuine Value
Technique
Practice

I’ve trained over a thousand sales people, and I can report that very few people are good at sales starting out. I sure wasn’t. Selling simply does not come naturally to most people. It is a skill set you acquire through hard work and practice. One thing about sales is very cool. If you follow the rules, you get the results, period.

Employ these three principles, and you’ll get the results you’re looking for!

Genuine Value

Genuine value is the element I mention first, because it’s the foundation. If you don’t create genuine value for your readers, everything else is a farce. There’s a difference between selling via confidence and simply trying to make money.

Selling is not the act of extracting money from people’s wallets. Selling is the act of freely and voluntarily exchanging real value. Give your reader something very valuable, and then they reciprocate. It’s a win-win. It all starts with value. If you skip this part, the exchange is empty, and you won’t be in this business for long.

This is why I mentioned earlier that the fear of being pushy is misplaced. It’s pushy to try to get something for nothing. It’s pushy to expect someone to pay for something they don’t need. It’s pushy to pressure someone to do something that’s not in their best interest. You’re not doing anything of this sort.

What you’re doing is providing highly valuable information to people who have specifically sought you out, because they want what you’re offering. And as it happens, you’re good at what you do, and you’d like to be able to keep doing it. In order for that to happen, you simply need to get results. It’s fair and necessary to ask for what you want. And your readers aren’t going to know unless you tell them what that is.

How do you create genuine value for your readers? Be good at what you do! Study your business like a mad man. Write quality, helpful content, put out good stuff. That’s the first step.

It’s important to understand that this step doesn’t work all by itself. It’s just step one of three. Many bloggers put out awesome content and still fail to make money or get results. It’s not just about genuine value, but it’s a necessary first step.

Technique

Technique is simply a matter of making sure you’re very clear on what results you need and expect from your blog, and then systematically going through to make sure every element of your site, from the opt in boxes you use to the way you manage your email marketing, is arranged in such a way that it is clear to your readers what you’re offering and what you want them to do.

There are a number of ways to ask for what you want when it comes to managing a blog. As I mentioned before, it’s not just a matter of selling products when it comes to blogging. You want people to comment on your posts, subscribe to your email list, buy your affiliate products, etc. There are likely a number of actions you want your readers to take. It’s important to ask! Try these specific steps. They are all ways of asking, and getting:

Put a line in your theme so it displays at the end of every post, asking visitors to comment.
Make sure you have 2-3 opt in boxes per page. Your opt in box should be visible from anywhere on your site.
Use a pop-up to build email subscriptions as well
Use a free gift to further entice people to subscribe
Your outgoing email messages should give valuable information and offer interaction with your subscribers, but they should also regularly offer something for sale

Use a plugin like TweetThis that makes it easy for people to share your content with others, and make sure to remind people on occasion…”Hey, if you like this post, please retweet it…” you get the idea.

Clearly, different blogs have different goals, but this list is a start. The idea is to have your goals in order, and then simply make sure your site and the way you manage it is conducive to getting the results you want.

Practice

This element is crucial as well. The fact is that when it comes to business blogging, turning your readers into advocates, customers and clients is an ongoing process. The more you practice the better you get.

I’m surprised sometimes at how often someone will ask me why they’re not making money from their blog when, with all due respect, all they’ve done is put up a dozen posts or so and install an Adsense module. Maybe a couple affiliate links. That will make you some cash…if you’re getting several thousand visitors a day. Short of that, you’re going to need to be more aggressive and tactful in your approach.

Think of your blog as a small retail shop. You’re not WalMart. WalMart puts a bunch of stuff up on it’s shelves, sells everything really cheap and then brings in massive amounts of people through. That creates sales. You’re not WalMart, so don’t follow their business model!

What happens in a small retail shop? There are fewer items for sale, and the prices are higher. But things are also very clean. There is character, and when you walk in, a friendly person walks up, smiles and warmly says “Hi! How can I help you?” Personal service. One-on-one engagement. Details…these things matter. And they also add up to you being able to make a fine living off any niche you want. But you gotta ask for the order

The Breakdown

Here’s the bottom line: sales is simple. It’s hard work getting results on a day-to-day basis. But the process is not hard to understand. It’s just a lot of work It’s why you’ve got guys like Gary Vaynerchuk yelling at us to get our hustle on. You have to believe in what you’re doing. And you have to LOVE what you’re doing, because to build a small business that makes bank…is a lot of hard work. No magical web design, no plugin, no kick ass turnkey business opportunity is going to save you from that reality.

That said, if you’re willing to really work it, there is massive opportunity out there! And the fundamentals of sales are steadfast. They are simple, and they remain simple.

If you’re not getting results from your site…there is something broken in your implementation of the steps I just outlined. You’re either not asking for what you want, you’re not asking often enough or *gasp* you’re not creating genuine value for your readers. One way or another, your fortune lies locked behind door one, two or three! All you gotta do is go figure out which one and smash down the door!

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The Threshold of Success – Why Most Bloggers Never Make It

Christian Russell — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:00:43 +0000

Success is a nasty, elusive little bugger, isn’t it? Is there a topic in the business space that gets covered more often, directly or indirectly, than “how to succeed”? If you think about it, nearly every how-to tip, every list of the “best Wordpress plugins to use on your site”, every tutorial on how to get more traffic to your site, etc…it all centers around the ultimate hub that concerns us all…SUCCESS. How do we become successful?

Success is Not Defined by “Them”, It’s Defined by YOU

One of the reasons success is such a troublesome topic is because it is exceedingly personal. When we accept this fact, success becomes a lot simpler. Not necessarily easy…but simpler none the less. But unfortunately, most of us have not accepted it! The problem is that most of us, understandably, look to the example of others for how to define success, when we really ought to look no further than ourselves. In essence, we look at the accomplishments of others, and make those accomplishments our own goals. This is not the way to do it.

A Lesson from Gary Vaynerchuk – Not All Goals are Created Equal

It’s important to ask yourself if the accomplishment you’re trying to emulate was in fact a goal of your mentor’s to begin with. For example, we see someone like Gary Vaynerchuk with 800,000 followers, or however many it is these days, and we say “I want 800,000 followers too. How do I get 800,000 followers on Twitter like @garyvee?”

Setting a goal is a great thing…if it’s a great goal. There IS such a thing as a goal that steers you down the wrong path, so make sure the questions you ask yourself, and the goals you set for yourself are taking you in the right direction.

The fact is that Gary Vaynerchuk has never given a damn about how many followers he has on Twitter. Getting 800,000 followers was never a goal. It just happened as an automatic result of following his business plan.

Do you want to model his follower count, or do you want to model his success? See the difference?

Maybe you should model Gary’s work ethic and business philosophy…the things that actually LEAD to 800,000 followers, instead of just trying to get 800,000 followers on Twitter.

If you truly wanted to model Gary Vaynerchuk’s success, you wouldn’t give a damn about how many followers you had on Twitter either. This is just one of many examples of arbitrary goals we set for ourselves, that sound good but ultimately don’t lead us in the direction of success.

I’m just using Gary as an example because he’s a marketer and business man who I personally agree with a lot of the time. Your mentor may be someone else, but the concept is the same.

Why Success is Elusive

My point is that success is elusive for many of us for two reasons, and the first one is because often, we set goals that take us in the wrong direction. To take care of this first concern, make sure you set goals that will truly lead YOU in the direction YOU personally want to go, not goals that you believe possibly lead someone else in the direction they went. See the difference?

The Threshold of Success – How to Cross Over and Make Your Goals a Reality

Second, success has a threshold. And many of us, while we want the things success provides, are not willing to do the work. Plain and simple. I’ve worked with a lot of sales people one-on-one and in group settings over the years. Sales training like I’ve done puts you front and center with what it takes to make a business work. It also puts you front and center with the reasons they all too often DON’T work.

No business is successful without strong sales. Whether it’s a service, a product or whatever, you need sales, and I’m hear to tell you that the sales skills I aim to teach my clients are able to be learned by anyone.

If you do the work, you will get the sales, period. I’ve seen it time and time again. When a business person or sales person wants to know how to make more sales, the first place I look is at their daily production. And by production I don’t mean sales…I mean their daily work-related tasks…the work you can actually control on a day to day basis.

You cannot control whether a person is a good prospect to buy a certain product at a certain time, believe it or not. But you CAN learn to have complete control over the following factors:

Prospecting
Lead generation
Lead follow up
Presentation skills

If you are not making the money you want to online, or wherever your business is based, there is something broken somewhere in that list. Why? Because that’s all there is. Success is simple. The plain fact is that while people SAY they’re working their tail off every day, they’re either working on the wrong things (things NOT on the list above), or they’re not working as hard as they say they are.

What is the threshold of success? It is hard work…on the right things. And bottom line: most of us just don’t want to do it.

We have things we like to do, and perhaps we just don’t like prospecting. That’s fine, but if you want your business to be successful, you need to make sales, and if you want to make sales, you have to prospect. Period. End of sentence. That’s all she wrote. And if you don’t do it…or hire someone who does…your business will fail.

The reason most of us don’t make it through the threshold of success is not because we don’t work hard. We just don’t do the work that needs to be done. Perhaps the reason “successful” people seem to be at ease is because they realize how simple it is to make their goals a reality. There are, however, only four things on the list!

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Not One Single Thing You Do Will Make You Successful

Christian Russell — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 15:00:20 +0000

In my years in business so far, I’ve learned something simple that I have yet not been able to disprove. I have had the pleasure of meeting and staying in touch with some of the world’s most successful salespeople and small business owners. I’ve had dinner with them, hung out with them on boats, gone out drinking with them…to me this is the ultimate learning environment.

This is what I’ve learned:

Not One Single Thing You Do Will Make You Successful!

This is what I mean: big success is made up of thousands of tiny, almost imperceptible successes. Many new business owners and bloggers are looking for a quick way to get their blog to the top of Google. They want to find the “trick” to getting a lot of email subscribers. They want to learn the correct method of generating a lot of traffic quickly.

The Trick to Blogging Success!

The trick is that there is no trick. The cream rises to the top, period. And it takes a little time in most instances, period. I’m not saying it’s going to take years to reach your blogging goals. I’m saying there is no ONE thing that’s going to make any difference. Everything matters!

Creating valuable content on a consistent basis matters.
Moderating and responding to comments and interacting in a genuine way with your readers matters.
Maintaining clean SEO practices matters.
Commenting on other blogs matters.
Being active in forums matters.
Maintaining a clean and up to date email list matters.
Keeping your blog software up to date matters.

You see where I’m going…it all matters! I don’t mean this post to be discouraging. I mean it to be motivational…I’m trying to save you the heartache and lost productivity that comes from seeking a short cut. Just get to work! Hit it every single day! Hustle! Work hard! Isn’t this how successful businesses are built? Blogging is no different. The benefits are real. The benefits are substantial. But the benefits are mostly reserved for bloggers that build very valuable blogs. And value takes time.

There is no one single thing that will make your blog rock. It’s like getting your body in shape. There’s not really a diet program our supplement out there that will REALLY create magical results for you in no time. But if you eat clean and exercise, you WILL get great results, and it won’t really take very long. It is hard work, yes. But it works. In fact it’s a LOT quicker to simply buckle down, clean up your diet, and work hard in the gym than it is to search for some kind of magical diet plan that will get you results quickly. It’s actually QUICKER and takes LESS EFFORT to just do the work!