There’s not many blogging niche’s that are free from overcrowding. Everywhere you look in the blogosphere, somebody, somewhere (plus 99 others) are blogging about every, and indeed any, topic.

So in an industry that often resembles the scenes of ‘Rua 25 de Março’ (seen in the photo above), how do we stand out from the crowd? How do we draw attention to ourselves? How do we build a relationship with a reader who, undoubtedly, is reading 25 other blogs in the same niche as us? These were the questions I asked myself as I was preparing to launch Blogging Zest 10 days ago. Below are my answers.

Your ‘About’ Page Should Create a Connection

There’s no debate that, after your home page, your ‘About’ page is the most important page on your blog. 60% of new visitors to my blogs click straight to my about page after hitting the home page. It’s a natural reaction for humans to want to know about the person behind the creation (be it a blog, art or something entirely different). For example, while Banksy’s art is good, it’s the constant quest to find out more about the shy and hidden artist that consumes the time of most people interested in his work. It’s the same with blogging. For some reason, no matter how good our writing or art is, it’s the person beyond the creative that continues to inspire and draw in others.

For readers to become subscribers, the reader has to feel a connection. They must feel drawn to you. They must find something you have in common with each other. And that’s why they head to your about page. At that point, when they click that mouse button and search for the connection, they want to subscribe. All you have to do is give them a reason.

So when I came to writing my about page, I had ‘connection and emotion’ in mind. I wanted to build a connection. And I wanted to provoke emotion. I wanted readers to leave my about page feeling ’something’. Quite what that ’something’ should be, I wasn’t sure. It could have been laughter, sadness, feel-good-happiness, surprise, anticipation or any number of other emotions we humans are capable of expressing.

All my previous about pages have been nothing more than a self-obsessed-alpha-male-ego-trip. They went something like this, albeit in many hundreds of words, rather than one paragraph:

“Hi! I’m Jamie. I have green eyes. I’ve achieved this, this, and this in my seven year career, and I’ve appeared on X radio and in Y newspaper.“

So while I could have gone the same route this time, listing links to radio and newspaper interviews, boring everyone with my business history, telling you about what I hope to achieve with Blogging Zest, and (because I don’t have a wife of 14 years and two lovely kids) tell everyone I have two brothers and no pets, I knew that wasn’t going to build a connection.

So What Did I do?

There’s no better way to build a connection and evoke emotion than to tell a story. With three of my most popular blog posts being stories, experience has shown me they work well.

Naturally, the only story I could tell on my about page was the story of my life. Or the story of my childhood.

Childhood, specifically, evokes great emotion. And unlike adults where we all move on to doing our own things, for many of us our times as children were very similar, allowing us to make connections.

Just 10 days after launching this blog and publishing the about page, which tells stories of sleep overs, squashed hamsters, business plans at nine years old, smashed windows, childhood graffiti and girlfriends, I’ve received countless messages from readers. Most say they couldn’t stop laughing. One said she was crying with laughter. Another took the time to (quite rightly, might I add!) tell me how cute I am in the photo as a seven year old. And another? Well, he took it upon himself to post a link to my about page on Twitter, treating it like a creative blog post. After he recommended my about page to his friends, I knew there and then that my effort to build a connection and evoke emotion had worked.

Don’t slip in to the sea of boring about pages. Stand out from the crowd. Be different. Ensure it’s interesting for your readers, and not just another self-centred ego-trip.

Create a Mini-Bio in Your Blog Sidebar

Blogging Zest is the first blog where I’ve used a mini biography in the sidebar, and the results are amazing. The “Find Out More” link that goes to my about page receives five times more clicks than the “About” link in the main menu at the top of the blog. The image to the left shows the heat map of the area of the site where the mini-bio is located. I guess that quick, one-paragraph introduction does a great job of enticing people to read more about the person behind the blog.

Display Testimonials from Current Readers

Whether via blog comments, emails or social networking, at some point, somebody will express their gratitude for your writing and the community you build around your blog, so why not bring those positive comments together in one list and turn them in to a list of testimonials? There’s very few better incentives to subscribe than recommendations from real people.

Create a ‘Welcome’ Post for New Subscribers

One of the best ways I use to help Blogging Zest stand out above the masses is making use of a ‘Welcome’ post for new subscribers.

Readers who subscribe in their RSS reader will see a post titled “Welcome New Subscriber! Get Your Free Ebook!”.

The welcome post gives a personal message from me, and also a link to the free blogger interviews ebook that all subscribers are entitled to. The post is a ’sticky’ post and only displays in RSS readers (it doesn’t display publicly on the blog). The ’sticky’ feature ensures that no matter how many posts I publish at Blogging Zest, the welcome post will always display when a reader subscribes.

How Do You Create a Sticky Welcome Post?

The post actually makes use of two WordPress plugins. Here are the steps to create your own sticky, RSS only welcome post.

1. Create a WordPress category called “Subscriber Only”
2. Download and install the Advanced Category Excluder plugin.
3. Once installed, go to the plugin settings and change the checkbox settings for the “Subscriber Only” category to correspond with this screen shot (click to enlarge):

4. Download and install the WP-Sticky plugin. Unfortunately, the Advanced Category Excluder doesn’t work with WordPress’ built in sticky post functionality, so downloading the WP-Sticky plugin is required.
5. Write your blog post. Assign it to the “Subscriber Only” category. Check “Sticky” in the “Post Sticky Status” box on the right side of the “Write” page.

6. Publish! There you have it. A sticky post that is visible only to your RSS subscribers.

Create a Survey for Your Subscribers

This is a relatively new area for me, but one that has already proved its worth.

Included in the ‘Welcome’ post is a link to a “30 second subscriber survey”. The survey asks just one question: “How did you find Blogging Zest?”. It really does take just 30 seconds to answer. The result gives me a good idea of where most of my subscribers are finding Blogging Zest (Mostly Twitter, so far, by the way), and also gives me a good chance to get my subscribers interacting with me and the blog.

In an ideal world I would have the survey post setup as an RSS only sticky too, but it seems the WP-Sticky plugin combined with the Advanced Category Excluder only likes one sticky post. While the amount of surveys I was receiving during the launch when the survey was a sticky were very high, I decided to replace the survey sticky with the ‘Welcome’ sticky and link to the survey from the welcome post. The percentage of subscribers who complete the survey is still significant and enough to let me see and analyse trends.

To setup your own subscriber survey, create your survey form, insert it in to a post and assign that post to your ‘Subscriber Only’ category.

Try to keep the survey short. You should be looking to build the interaction between you, your subscriber and your blog as much as you are looking to collect survey results and find trends.

In this ever growing blogosphere, it’s becoming increasingly important to stand out from the crowd. Hopefully by employing some (or all) of these tactics, you’ll be able to get the edge over the other bloggers in your niche.

If you’re a subscriber here at Blogging Zest, what effect did the welcome post and survey have on you? How do you try and ensure your blog stands out? Is your about page just a long ego-trip about your qualifications, or is it interesting that is full of the same amount of energy that you put in to your best blog posts? Let us know in the comments!

No related posts.

The nature of Twitter meant his response was short and sweet, but it boils down to him determining that to be the best time of the day to post to his blogs. The UK is arriving back to the office just after lunch, the US and Canada is just waking up and arriving in their offices, and Australia is settling down during the late evening. In a sense, the top three sources of traffic for (most) blogs are awake and more often than not, at their computers.

This short conversation with Darren got me wondering whether there were any trends as to what time of day bloggers publish articles, and actually whether many bloggers put any thought in to the time they write, or whether they just publish as and when they finish writing. That’s what this weeks poll is about. Please feel free to add your vote below.

Personally, I tend to post between early and late evening GMT. I’ve found this to be the best time for my audience, but I’m sure it’s different for other bloggers.

What time do you publish posts? Have you put any thought in to your publish time, or do you publish as and when you finish writing? Please let us know in the comments!

No related posts.

Over the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve been fortunate to be able to write guest posts for several high profile blogs, including in front of an audience of 45,000 at John Chow Dot Com, and most recently on Darren Rowse’s Twitip.

I’ve previously spoken about guest blogging, specifically how to secure guest post slots and how to make the most of guest posts, so I won’t go in to those two things too much in this article. Today, I want to help you to identify and ask the right questions when deciding which blogs to write guest posts for, and how to ensure the audience reading your guest post clicks through to your own blog.

John Chow Dot Com Vs Twitip

Before I analyse the results of my guest posts on these two blogs, I want to set the scene:

Subscribers (at time of writing guest post):
John Chow Dot Com: 45,000
Twitip: 6,000

Average Comments Per Post
John Chow Dot Com: 50
Twitip: 30

Average Visitors Per Day
John Chow Dot Com: 6,600
Twitip: 5,000

All logic tells us, while looking at those stats, that the best blog to write for (most subscribers, most comments per post, most visitors) would be John Chow’s blog. But my own results tell a different story.

Guest Post Conversion

Here are the results during the seven days after the guest posts were published (including the day they were published):

Total Visitors from Guest Post
John Chow Dot Com: 39
Twitip: 125

Total Page Views from Guest Post
John Chow Dot Com: 103
Twitip: 175

Total Subscribers Gained from Guest Post
John Chow Dot Com: 0 (0% conversion)
Twitip: 4 (3% conversion)

From those results, we can clearly see that the initial public stats, that is the subscribers, visitors and comments, do not mean your guest post is guaranteed to bring good results. In fact, under the surface, there are several things that Darren at Twitip does that ensures guest posts convert relatively well compared to other blogs.

Why Do Guest Posts at Twitip Convert Well?

When trying to decide which blogs to guest write for, you often have to look beyond the basic stats to gauge an idea of how valuable your post will be to the community. Twitip has three things that the stats can’t show, but that ultimately lead to exciting conversion rates for any guest poster.

1. The WordPress Author is “Guest Poster”

After writing many guest posts across a wide range of blogs, the biggest problem I’ve found is that many blog readers are ‘Author Blind’. Because the blog author can’t setup an author account for every single guest writer, he or she usually publishes the post under his own author account. This causes lots of problems, because many readers simply don’t realise the post is a guest post. Here is just a sample of the comments on guest posts I’ve wrote, where commentators have referred to the blog author rather than me.

At Twitip, Darren has a WordPress author called “Guest Poster”, which he uses to publish all guest posts. Immediately, his readers are much more informed about who the author is, and immediately they know that they should look for the biography of the guest author in the blog post.

2. Darren’s Readers are Loyal

Whereas John seems to have a high turnover rate of readers (that is, many readers read his blog for a few weeks, then move elsewhere) Twitip is a relatively new blog with loyal readers, who have built relationships with Darren, and have become prolific commentators.

Going back to yesterdays discussion on how people buy based on relationships and emotion, readers at Twitip are far more likely to see a guest post as a recommendation by a friend (Darren), and are therefore more likely to click through to the guest authors blog. John doesn’t have the loyal following or relationships, unlike Darren, that aid in the sales (or conversion) process.

“Relationships and Loyalty Abound at Twitip”

3. The Author Biography Isn’t Skipped

One of the problems I’ve found with guest writing, is blog authors try to make the one paragraph biography of the guest writer stand out. They’ll make it italic, bold, and maybe even have a bright yellow background. Unfortunately, this totally counteracts the attempt to get it noticed.

On a blog where people are used to adverts, like JohnChow.com, text that is heavily styled and at the top or bottom of the post will often go unnoticed. Readers minds treat it like an advert. They’re blind to it.

While at Twitip, Darren makes little attempt to make the paragraph stand out. It’s often just italic text with normal links. This equals normal reading by the audience. Rather than separating it from the real post content with fancy styling, the paragraph gracefully flows at the top or bottom of the post. Whereas at other blogs, readers know they’re about to read a bio before they even start reading it, at Twitip, readers only realise they’ve read the biography after they’ve read it.

Remember to look beyond the basic stats when considering which blogs to write for. There’s far more to it than the amount of subscribers. The quality of those subscribers is just as important.

What Can I Do to Ensure my Guest Post Converts Well?

Of course, there’s only so much return you’re going to receive by picking a blog that presents itself well for guest authors. 60% of the battle is ensuring your actual guest post does the right things to convert. Here are four things to remember when creating guest posts for high conversion:

1. Ask the Author to Put Your Biography at the Bottom of the Post

How often do you want to click on a link of a guest author before you’ve read their guest post? How often do you finish reading their post, then remember to scroll back up to the top of the page to click through to their blog? I’d imagine the answer to both those questions is “Not often”. You’ll get a far higher click-through rate if you ask the blog author to put your paragraph biography at the end of the guest post.

With that said, in an ideal world, you would ask the author to quickly introduce you in one sentence at the top so readers know whose writing they are reading, and then add the main paragraph biography at the bottom. This is what Darren did for me with my guest post at Twitip.

2. Link to a Specific Blog Post in Your Biography

My guest post at Twitip was the first time I’ve ever linked to a specific post on my blog from my guest author biography. I was amazed by the results! Over the seven days after the guest post, 94% of the clicks from Twitip were direct to the specific post I had linked to. Very few people decided to click to my blog homepage.

Always ensure you link to a specific, targeted post from your author biography.

3. Links Inside the Blog Post Don’t Work Very Well

On several of my guest posts, I’ve linked to a post on my own blog within the guest post content. While I’ve had a few click-through’s, there’s never any harm adding the link, don’t expect great results. Most people find it awkward to stop in the middle of reading an article so they can open up another post. You’ll always get more click-through’s by linking to the post in your guest author biography.

4. Before Proceeding, Ask Previous Guest Authors for Reviews

Take 15 minutes to look back through archives of the past two months of a blog you’re considering writing for. Pick out three or four names of guest authors, then contact them. Ask them if they would mind sharing the results of their guest post. How many visitors did they get? How many subscribers? Were the results worth their time? There’s no better way for you to make decisions than by asking those who have made those decisions before you.

Let’s Recap!

• Don’t just look at the basic stats to make your decision on who to write for
• Be a part of the community before writing. Get a feel for the loyalty and persona of the readers
• Don’t just go for the blog with the most subscribers. Your post may get lost in a sea of less than loyal readers
• Always ask the blog author to put your biography at the bottom of the post
• Ask the author if they would mind giving you a quick, one sentence, introduction at the top of the post
• Always link to a specific, relevant blog post within your author biography
• Try to get feedback from past guest authors before deciding who to write for. There’s no better indicator than experience!

Do you find it difficult choosing who to write for? Have you been a guest author on blogs and not seen much return? Are you looking to guest write but don’t know where to start? Let us know in the comments!

Related posts:

1. How to Get Your Guest Post Published on a Pro Blog Recently, I’ve been writing a lot of guest posts for...
2. What to do After Your Guest Post has Been Published Yesterday, I spoke about how to get your guest post...

In the last six months, Twitter has rapidly become one of the Web’s hottest properties. It’s no surprise then, that bloggers are trying to take advantage of this growing medium by letting their readers easily share blog articles with their Twitter followers.

And it’s not just bloggers getting in on the Twitter marketing game. If, on Twitter, you follow any more than a couple hundred new media junkies, you’re likely to have come across somebody genuinely and humbly promoting any one of the many topics of Guy Kawasaki’s ‘Alltop‘ Web site. Right now, Alltop seems to be picking up 30-50 links from Twitter every five minutes! That’s some seriously powerful word-of-mouth promotion!

People Buy Based On Relationships & Emotion

Think of the $150 pair of jeans over the $50 pair. They both do the same job, but you’re emotionally attached to the $150 pair because society and good branding has meant the name on the label gives you more respect, a better mental feeling (emotion) and has been recommended by a friend (relationship).

It’s for this reason, relationships and emotion, that Twitter is so powerful in promoting your business, blog, Web site or other medium. I’d wager that an honest, humble recommendation from a Twitter follower is almost as powerful as a recommendation from an offline friend.

Car Mechanics & Your Blog

Despite his rates being 20% higher than Bob, you visit John the car mechanic because your friend Billy recommended him.

Likewise, despite your blog speaking on the same topic as many others, people visit it because they’re recommended by a search engine, a social media message, or a friend.

90% of visitors to your blog via Twitter have been recommended by a friend. Because of this, visitors to your blog from Twitter are already attached by a form of relationship, making them far more likely to subscribe, buy, or interact in whatever form you want them to. It’s for that reason that Twitter is so powerful for bloggers.

I see a conversion rate of 7% from visitors via Twitter. That means for every 100 visitors from Twitter, seven subscribe to my blog. When you look at the conversion rates of less than 1% from search engines and other forms of social media, 7% suddenly seems like a huge conversion. It’s because of the connection (the recommendation from a friend) that has already been established via Twitter.

I should stress that those figures are for my Jamie Harrop Dot Com blog, and come with no prompt from me. They come from users clicking through from my Twitter profile, my daily link to my latest blog post, and the few people that retweet that daily link. But what if, like Alltop, bloggers were able to prompt readers to Tweet a link to a blog post? What if we were able to give our readers a nudge to prompt them to recommend our blog to their friends? Well now we can, as you will see from the ‘Retweet’ link at the top of this post, and the ‘Tweet This’ link at the bottom.

How Do I Let My Readers Share My Blog Posts on Twitter?

There are three ways I’ve found to prompt blog readers to share posts on Twitter. All three are simple to setup.

TweetMeMe Button

TweetMeMe is a Web site that gathers the most popular links on Twitter and outputs them in a Digg like interface. That’s a good resource to have by itself, but just like Digg, TweetMeMe offers buttons for your Web site so your users can recommend your blog post to their Twitter followers (and in turn, submit it to TweetMeMe).

Whereas with Digg, a ‘vote’ on an article would just add a vote on the Digg Web site, TweetMeMe retweets your blog post link on the visitors Twitter account, therefore sharing with all their followers, and also adds a vote on the TweetMeMe Web site.

How do I add TweetMeMe to my blog?

To add TweetMeMe, just copy/paste the following Javascript to the area of your blog post that you want the button (as seen at the top of this blog post) to appear.

TweetMeMe WordPress Plugin

TweetMeMe also has a WordPress plugin that adds the button just like above, as well as a few styling options.

Tweet This Link

Of course, you don’t have to use a service such as TweetMeMe to display a “Tweet This” link. You’ll notice at the bottom of all my posts, I have a Tweet This link.

This link is generated by a minimalist, excellent WordPress plugin called “Simple Twitter Link“. Developed by David Artiss, this plugin allows you to place a ‘Tweet This’ link anywhere in your WordPress template. Once installed, here is the code you’ll want to use in your template (making sure to replace ‘@jamieharrop’ with your Twitter username):

Tweet This Feedburner FeedFlare

While many blog readers will read your articles on your actual blog, many will only read them in their feed reader. With this in mind, it makes sense to allow readers to share your article with their Twitter friends straight from the feed.

To do this (and assuming you’re using Feedburner), you need to create a FeedFlare. A FeedFlare is a small script that adds a link to the bottom of a FeedBurner generated article, as seen in the screen shot below.

FeedBurner doesn’t include a “Tweet This” FeedFlare option as standard, so you have to install a new one within your FeedBurner account. FeedBurner themselves recommend the ‘Twit This‘ FeedFlare, but I found the lack of ability to customise (specifically, the ability to add my Twitter username in to the resulting Tweet) was a problem, so I created my own FeedFlare.

How to Create Your Own Twitter FeedFlare

• 1. Open up Notepad
• 2. Copy and paste the following code in to Notepad

• 3. Replace ‘@jamieharrop’ with your Twitter username
• 4. Go to File > Save as and choose ‘All Files’ in the ‘Save as Type’ drop down menu
• 5. Save your file as ‘tweetthis.xml’ (Remember to add .xml to the end)
• 6. Upload your .xml file to a location on your hosting account
• 7. Login to Feedburner
• 8. Click your feed title to enter the settings for that feed, then click ‘Optimize’
• 9. Click ‘FeedFlare’ in the left column
• 10. Under the list of currently installed Flares, you’ll see a form with a button that says “Add New Flare”. Enter the full address of your .xml file in that form. For example, http://www.yourblog.com/tweetthis.xml
• 11. Click “Add New Flare”
• 12. Ensure the two check boxes for your new Tweet This flare are checked then click “Save” at the bottom of the page

Top Tips to Make the Most of Your Twitter Buttons

Here are four tips to help you make the most of Tweet This buttons.

Include @username in the Tweet

If possible, always ensure your button code includes your username in the message that it Tweets. There are two benefits to this:

First and foremost, you’ll get more followers as people see your username and click through to your profile.

And second, and more importantly, it will treat the Tweet like an @ reply and therefore allow you to track all the Tweets that are sent via your buttons.

Include the Title of the Blog Post in the Tweet

Try to ensure the title of the post is included in the Tweet that is sent. I often see Tweets that simply contain a link with no description. I never click them. Always ensure a description, such as the title of the post, is given.

Shortern the URL

There’s only room for 140 characters in a Tweet, so try to ensure the blog post address is shortened when the Tweet is sent. Using the methods listed above, the TweetMeMe button and the ‘Simple Twitter Link’ plugin do shorten the URL. Unfortunately, the FeedFlare doesn’t.

Add a Twitter logo Next to Your ‘Tweet This’ Links

Twitter’s logo is far more prominent than a simple ‘Tweet This’ link. Even if it’s just a small Twitter icon like in my Tweet This link at the bottom of the post, always try to include one.

Spontanious Tweeting of your articles is great, but giving your readers a friendly nudge in the right direction will bring fantastic social media rewards!

Do you use ‘Tweet This’ buttons on your blog? Have you ever clicked one on another blog? How many blogs do you find and subscribe to via Twitter word-of-mouth? Let us know in the comments!

PS. How about you share this post by clicking that little ‘Retweet’ link to the right?

No related posts.

Once again, Thanks for your interest!

Blogging Zest Subscriber Survey

No related posts.