Devour The Web

About 80% of your blog’s success comes from “ass in chair” time. That’s the time you spend writing posts, editing posts, finding the perfect image, connecting with fellow bloggers, answering comments, shaping up your SEO, and all the other tasks we teach you about here on Copyblogger.

You’ve got to get that stuff right. But great blogs are not built by “ass in chair” time alone.

There’s actually a significant element to your success that you may be neglecting with all that work and focus.

Every once in awhile, you might consider getting out of the chair and physically setting eyes on a fellow human being. I realize this is a bizarre, arcane practice, but bear with me.

Social networking 1.0

Have you ever noticed that you don’t really know what a post is going to be about until you start writing? You throw something out there, and next thing you know, it’s gone in whatever direction naturally follows.

Believe it or not, you can actually replicate this phenomenon by physically locating yourself in close proximity to another person, with each of you taking turns speaking. This is called a conversation.

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I’ve written a few contrarian things lately.

Specifically, I ranted a bit about why I think the most common “make money online” technique doesn’t work for most people, and about how, really, the most important ingredients of success are persistence and grit.

Then, on my own blog, I ranted about why “systems” for achieving specific results don’t work.

I got a lot of comments, emails, and tweets agreeing — too many people are looking for a quick fix, and we need to remember the basics: hard work, and good old-fashioned stick-to-it-iveness.

But believe it or not, there’s actually a problem with taking that train of thought too far.

Yes, a lot of the marketing for how-to-start-your-business products preys on the naive and is motivated by greed. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t good information out there — information that could help you move forward, remove roadblocks, and arm you with new skills.

No, there is no magic bullet

But that doesn’t mean that you should become a business isolationist, figuring everything out solely on your own, wary of anyone, anywhere, who sells information.

A 40 year-old unsolved murder mystery. Strange cryptic codes in a bible. Sweden, sandwiches, and many, many cigarettes. The badass-est female protagonist since . . . forever. And an author who has, posthumously, caused quite a ruckus in the book world and in the minds of conspiracy theorists everywhere.

Yes, I’m talking about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. If you haven’t heard of it, the rest of us are inviting you to come out from under your rock. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) is topping bestseller lists as we speak and the theatrical release of Dragon Tattoo hits the U.S. next week.

I had the good fortune of screening an advanced copy and, of course, my mind went blog, blog, blog. Because that’s what blog obsessed people like us do. So here are the blogging lessons I learned from this tattooed ‘girl’ . . .

There’s a wonderful European-style market and bakery in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas. They serve everything from made-to-order salads and sandwiches to chef-prepared, ready-to-eat meals.

But what I love most about the place is the sign on the door when you leave. It’s classic.

The sign doesn’t read “Please Come Again” or “Thank You for Your Business” or some other typical exit sign platitude.

It says . . .

“See you tomorrow.”

That kind of confidence is compelling and downright sexy. Sure, a fantastic product, service, or experience is the starting point from which confidence comes, but too many people play it scared and safe even when what they offer is truly great.

I’m not talking about arrogance. Arrogance is an indication of fear, not assurance.

Too many people, however, approach copywriting from a defensive mindset. You’re already back on your heels from the start, instead of proudly sharing your excellence with the people who can benefit most from it.

After all, if you’re not confident in your product or service, why should anyone else be? Confidence is a strong attractor because it assures people they’re making the right choice.

Bloggers have a distinct disadvantage.

When someone hires an expert in — oh, let’s say marketing — that expert can dispense the same information she did for the last client.

And the client before that one. And the one before that.

Not bloggers. Blogging is about breaking down everything you know into bite-sized chunks so that people can learn it all over a period of time. If they look back through the archives, they can often see the entire breadth of your knowledge.

Then one day, your well runs dry.

This is a scary moment for any blogger. It’s not like running out of inspiration or having writer’s block. This is when you’ve said it all. Your blog contains absolutely everything you know.

And let’s be fair — it’s a lot of knowledge. But you simply don’t have anything new to say.

What do you do?

Go get yourself some new knowledge

I’m always amazed by how few people continue to educate themselves on their topic after they’ve become an acknowledged expert in it.

Hey, everyone knows me as the number one guy on naked mole rats! Clearly, I know everything there is to know!

According to the Guardian, Twitter just passed 10 billion tweets.  We’re not sure what to make of that except it has us wondering how many of those 10 billion tweets are about breakfast.
Also on today’s show:
Google Buzz, a wonderful tool to find relevant people to network with on Twitter, and Google declares desktop computers will […]

10 Billion Tweets Later… is a post from: Blogging tips for bloggers who want more than a following!

Does your blog get traffic? Make Money? Want it to? Click Here!

Guest posting is the “in” thing. It’s the newest craze. All the kids are doing it!

You’ve heard it time and time again — guest posting is the best way of promoting your work. So why haven’t you become part of the hip crowd yet?

I know why. You’re scared of rejection. You’re not sure if you have the chops.

I can understand these feelings, but don’t get yourself down just yet.
I’m going to show you a surefire, bulletproof, unshakable, watertight, virtually guaranteed (insert as many hyperboles as you see fit) method of putting together a guest post . . . and it getting accepted.

But wait, there’s more! (Here comes the added bonus sales pitch.)

Not only will it get approved on just any two-bit blog in your niche, but on the most highly subscribed top A-list blogs themselves!

OK, let’s begin.

1. Visit your favorite A-list blog and read their guest posting guidelines

They’re at the top of your RSS reader and you read their posts every day, but did you even know there were guidelines for submissions? It might be a good idea to check them out before you do anything else. You never know what type of obscure archaic rules have been handed down by the high and mighty overlords.

When I first had the insane brilliant idea to start a business and get out of the alleged safety of the corporate world, I started by reading everything I could find.

I wish I could remember where the thread started for me. It might have been Dan Kennedy, it might have been Michael Port, it could very well have been the Personal MBA.

Each good resource led to three more. At some point, I found Copyblogger and Problogger and Seth Godin.

Hundreds of books and thousands of dollars in information products later, I’ve given myself an education. Was it expensive? Sure was.

But no more expensive than anyone’s education. Even an education that’s completely free is expensive in time and effort.

And just like a college senior ought to be able to get more out of a class than his freshman counterpart, I’ve gotten very good at efficiently extracting the information I need, leaving aside what I don’t, and avoiding the information that’s just not worth my time.

(Because yes, I still study compulsively, all the time. There’s always more to learn.)

There are two kinds of people on the Internet: the greedy and the generous.

The greedy want you to pay for everything. Every link is an affiliate link. Every recommendation has a profit motive. The really good content is locked away until you fork over some money.

The generous want to give you everything free.

It never occurs to them that their time or expertise has value. They’re kind, selfless, giving, and (too often) dirt poor.

But there’s a third kind of person on the Internet. And yes, they belong to the Third Tribe you’ve been reading about.

This person understands that you can’t be greedy and build a following. But you also can’t just throw all your treasure to the wind. This is the person who understands the power of focused generosity.

To help understand this and get a little perspective, let’s look at how this works in the real (non blogging) world. It’s an idea that has been used by savvy marketers forever. Here are just two examples.

This is the final installment of a three-part series on how to translate advice from marketing guru Dan Kennedy to a new online environment.

One of the smartest thing any online marketer can do is to study the “old school” guys who wrote direct mail, magazine ads, and other artifacts of advertising history.

Why? Because it took a tremendous understanding of the psychology of persuasion to make those tactics work.

When you pair shiny new communication technology with tried-and-true methods to persuade and sell, you hugely increase your odds of success.

So let’s continue exploring what old-school guru Dan Kennedy can teach us about 21st-century marketing. This week we’ll cover lessons 11 through 14 from Kennedy’s book The Ultimate Marketing Plan

I can’t promise these tips will make cash start spewing out of your laptop. But they do represent a lot of sound business thinking.

(Incidentally, the links to the book are Amazon affiliate links, which means if you buy it, I’ll be able to buy a pack of gum! Put any of this advice into action and you should get quite a lot more out of the deal.)