#1 Resource List Posts

If you have spent any amount of time here at Retiredat21.com – you will know that we love posting about new resources and tools you the readers can use to benefit your own blogs. Resource posts are great because it means that we get to share a wealth of information with you; sometimes we will tell you what plugins you should be looking at installing or buying, or maybe its about a website that offers a service we think is exceptional in both value and quality; whatever it is the point is that you get to reap the benefits. Talk about a win-win scenario! Another great thing about resource posts is the comments; you guy’s often leave us with a ton of really informative information, whether it is a resource we have missed or didn’t know about or if you a just stopping by to tell us that our post really helped you out.

#2 Interview Posts

There’s nothing better than to hear (or read) a well-known expert in an interview; it doesn’t matter what the topic is they are talking about, as long as it is relevant to the niche you are working on it will retain it’s value. Interviews are great because it lets the readers inside the world of; their heroes, icons, industry experts. People that they may look up to, or perhaps just be interested in their story. With an interview you can quench their thirst for knowledge as well as giving them a page packed with valuable information and possibly even a discount or two for a product the interviewee may be promoting. You can also add an MP3 or a video if you wished so that you can add even more value. If you aren’t interviewing people in your niche right now you are missing out; so go and find out who they are, send them an email and start interviewing today!

#3 Guest Posts

These can be a real head-turner for your readers, especially if it is someone of authority; again an industry expert would do well in this type of post. A more unusual guest post that you could have on your blog could even be a readers post, if you are feeling particularly interactive and want to engage with your audience then why not ask them if they would like to write a post for your blog? It means you can get on with something else, maybe another post, maybe you could just relax for a few hours? Also there is the bonus of added traffic to your site, whose traffic? The guests traffic of course! If you were to write a guest post on a well-known blog would you keep it a secret or would you tell the world? Guest writers often bring their own source of traffic so this kind of post is a real winner if your blog is the type to do such a post.

#4 Top List Posts

This is another type of post you will regularly see on IncomeDiary.com; and we do them for a reason. Not only are they highly informative, they are also easily readable meaning that you get the information you need in a very short space of time. These kind of posts can generate a wealth of traffic just because of there very nature; everyone loves reading a great list don’t they? Also, because you can write a list surrounding any topic you like; you can create multiple traffic streams within a single post! Writing a list about the best gadgets of the year? Great straight away you will have 10, 20 maybe even 50 different products, all of them with there own individual fan base; what does this mean? It means you have the potential of creating a multitude of traffic streams! As mentioned before these top lists can be surrounding ANY topic so don’t be afraid to really go to town on them; just make sure you do any necessary research along the way.

#5 Promotional Posts

If you use and like a service or product and it helps you be more successful or saves time why not write about it and tell your readers? promotional posts are great because you get to show off some of your favorite services or products which not only benefits your readers but also the owners of the services (or products) you are promoting. Why is that so important you ask? Well If someone has created a product and it is making your life easier then the least you can do is say thank you right? With a promote that is exactly what you are doing, you are giving to both your readers and the owners of the service (and products). What’s more you can use promotions to help your income by using becoming an affiliate of the item you are promoting, great stuff! Also don’t forget that when you are promoting an item you are basically giving them free advertisement so why not ask for a better cut of the affiliate percentage or maybe a nice discount for your readers.

#6 Review Posts

Reviews are a lot like a promotional post in that you can monetize it very well, which means extra income for yourselves. They are also a really good way of helping your readers to decide whether to buy whatever it is you are reviewing which can be a great time-saver for them; this means your readers will keep coming back because you are adding more value to your blog and that can never be a bad thing. So what can you review? Well anything really the sky is the limit, or rather your niche is the limit. If you have seen some kind of product or service that you think will benefit you, your blog or your readers then email the owners ask them for a trial or a trial price and let them know you will do a review of it on your blog; the thought of free advertisement is often enough of an enticement for them to give you what you want and in return you can give the readers what they want.

#7 Debatable Posts

Everyone loves controversial content although you do have to be careful of how you use it because if you get it wrong it can be disastrous. Get it right however and you are on to a real crowd-pleaser. Debatable posts can be anything from the type of car you are about to buy right up to all political agendas; this is a post where you can really go to town, but as I have mentioned you need to hold a neutrality to your writing. Therefore it is better to discuss the different sides of the debate rather than weighing in and stating your thoughts, instead let the readers do that in the comments. If you do this properly you can get some great comments and often some fresh ideas for future posts. Just remember as stated: be neutral and let the crowd speak out.

#8 Video Posts

Everyone enjoys watching videos so why not add one to your blog? In fact if you wanted to you could have your blog filled with video posts; you wouldn’t be the first to do it just take a look at Gideon Shalwick for instance. Adding a video to your blog adds another dimension for your readers it allows them to see you or hear you talk which brings a sense of personality to your post. Have you ever watched a video blog and thought that it felt almost personal to yourself? Its a powerful tool and one that can be easily harnessed with a little practice. Video posts also allow to get exactly what is in your mind onto the video so no words are lost in translation, you speak it and your audience takes it all in. Another great thing about video posts are that they can be used in conjuntion with literally any other post you can think of, want to do a promtional post? Why not add a promotional video? Doing a review post? Add a review video! You may even find that a few of your videos may end up on other blogs which can be a good thing if it brings in more traffic right!

#9 Charity Posts

This is an unusual one but its not unheard of; charitable posts are very good at a number of things. Firstly you are obviously raising the awareness of a certain charity therefore doing your part, which can give you great satisfaction. Secondly it drives traffic to both your site and to your charity’s site win-win. A great part of doing a charitable post is that you can build from it by doing a number of follow-ups increasing your traffic each time. However don’t forget why you are doing the post and if you seriously want to make some money for your chosen charity then make sure you stick to what you say and actually follow through with it; whether it is an egg and spoon race or a skydive you need to make sure you stick to your word; doing so can only result in becoming more popular with the charities fans.

#10 Tutorial Posts

This is a fairly obvious one so I thought I would tuck it into the middle of the list. Tutorials are of course one of the best ways to bring in a great amount of traffic provided that you are teaching something that is either highly relevant to your niche, highly in demand or both. Tutorials are great for allowing your reader to interact with your blog, they can go along with the step by step instructions that you are giving them and they feel almost connected to you because of your efforts. This really does work well for both traffic and monetization, if you are teaching something that requires a specific brand of product why not see if they have an affiliate program and get involved in it. Another positive side to the tutorial posts are that you are giving back to your readers, your small community and that is worth writing it alone.

#11 Case Study Posts

Case Studies are very good provided they are appropriate to your niche as they can offer a valuable insight to many different topics such as; products, services, other blogs, affiliate programs and much more. Basically a case study is a post where you show the readers what has happened when you have done a particular task as an example you could give your readers a case study on your own experiences with a specific affiliate program or advert. You can also monetize these case studies by using affiliate links if you wish to; again creating another stream of income for yourself. Case studies, if done properly can really take off and bring in quite a bit of traffic. So get those case studies written and working for you.

#12 News Posts

If you are running a magazine style blog then you may well have a news category, this can work extremely well and depending on how you complete your news posts you could bring in a lot of traffic. The best way to become well-known in this niche is to offer something others don’t so if your rivals are offering weekly news updates go one step further and try and get yours out daily. Maybe your rival has some news but it is a very short post with lilttle in terms of information if that is the case then go the extra mile and make sure you get as much detail and research as you can and add it to your post to make it as comprehensive as possible. Blogging is all about being yourself so try not to follow others and instead go your own way you will find it makes a big difference.

#13 Competition Posts

Be warned these can be highly addictive to your readers! Competitions are great because they make the audience want to get involved for a couple of reasons, the most obvious one being to win the prize of the competition; but sometimes the readers just want a chance to be heard and this is another way for them to express themselves. This is great because it means the majority of your readers will also pass on the message that you are currently hosting a competition which helps with your traffic. With regards to the prizes you could or should offer the readers why not try some of your affiliate contacts after all there aren’t many ways you can better advertise a product than to have a competition to win it!

#14 Image Posts

Image posts are unique because of the nature of them, they are usually accompanied by a small sentence or two but that is it. So why do an image post? Well for a start they are very scan-able meaning your readers can quickly get the gist of the post and therefore quickly decide whether it is for them or not. There also very easy to promote on scoial networks as you can simply use one of the posts images and the title as a headline. Don’t just think they are merely posts with a few images and that is it, they are much more than that, you can easily use affiliate links with these types of posts, all you need to do is attach your affiliate link (provided it is relevant to the image) and there you go you have very quickly monetized the post, if that doesn’t take your fancy you can always add a text link within the images caption. For those of you who want a little more why not link the image to an alternative post which goes into more detail and have affiliate links in both the new post and the caption of the image? Double income streams! Brilliant.

#15 Report Posts

It seems these days there are more and more people writing about there income, and how much money they have made online; although they do it in an educational way rather than a bragging overly-confident way. These can be real winners because everyone wants to know how much you have made online it is in our nature to be curious after all; but what if you are not in the money making niche or maybe you just don’t want to give out that kind of information; if this sounds like you then why not write a report about another topic? For example if you are blogging about camping why not write a weather report for those going camping? If you are blogging about music why not write a report about how much was made at a particular concert? You can write any kind of report you like but in order for it to work it must be real, and by that I mean do you research first!

If you enjoyed this, your love the content we have at my other blog about how to make money online.

It is entitled “Do You Know Who I Am?” and I really like the way it incorporates the product into the video, and also the clever twist at the end.

Enjoy, and feel free to share with us your favourite viral videos.

Start a blog just to sell links

How To: Selling links from a blog is very easy. Just build up a pagerank of 3 or higher, and you are almost guaranteed to start getting offers. You can also sign up for an account with TextLinkAds.com – frankly, this is a very easy way to make money, you won’t get rich, well, not unless you create hundreds of blogs, but it is idiot proof.

Why It Is Evil: Selling links is technically against the terms of service at Google.com – so this could get your site penalised. It also goes against the purpose of linking on the Internet… afterall, a link should act as a vote, but by purchasing links, we are fixing the voting. Very evil.

Start a blog to sell paid reviews

How To: You can create a blog and add some crappy content, and then at a later date, start posting paid reviews. A paid review is like any other blog post, but it is specifically designed to promote something, and the blog owner gets paid a fee to write and publish it.

Why It Is Evil: This would be like a contestant on Pop Idol or American Idol paying Simon Cowell to give a good verdict. Look, there is nothing wrong with advertising, but don’t try and pretend it is a normal blog post. That would be evil.

Create blogs to interlink to your main blog or website

How To: You simply create numerous new blogs, and in each blog you add links to your main blog or website. If you are very careful, and use different keywords, web hosts etc… it can increase your search engine rank.

Why It Is Evil: Not only is it a little unethical, it can get you penalised if Google catches you. So if you are going to do it, make sure it is done with moderation.

Summary

Whilst there are many, many ways to be an evil blogger, and yes, it is possible to make some quick cash from those techniques… in the long-term they will get caught out, and it will destroy all of your hard work. So if you still want to be making money from blogs in 12-18 months, don’t be an evil blogger.

You Have To Find The Passion

There is no point writing about politics if your true love is snow boarding. Write about what you know, what you love and what excites you.

Be a Realist

Some industries are quite simply huge. Cracking into that market is going to take a whole lot of time and effort. So have a 12 month plan and stick to it. It is perfectly normal for blogs to get virtually no comments for the first six months.

You Should Build Friendships

All bloggers know that networking is an important part of running any blog, but most bloggers treat this process with a cold, business life attitude. Your goal should be to make friends with other bloggers in your industry, and the networking will follow automatically.

Have Fun

If you are not in the mood for blogging, don’t blog. Blogging should be fun, it should excite you and your readers. It is not a matter of life and death, so remember to always have fun.

Own Your Own Domain

Many years ago it was perfectly acceptable to have a blogspot or a typepad domain name. But we are now in 2008, and not only does it cost less than $10 for a domain name, there are blogging platforms such as WordPress that make the blogging process virtually idiot proof. So get your own domain today, before someone else gets it first.

Listen To Your Readers

I am not saying you should let your readers dictate to you, but when you get comments and feedback, listen carefully to what is being said. Some companies pay a small fortune for customer feedback, and you are getting it for free, so don’t ignore it. Put your ego to one side and take onboard the constructive criticism.

Seriously… Have Fun

This is so important we had to say it twice.

Good luck on your blogging journey.

1) Have you downloaded your FREE copy of the “Creating Social Media Superstars” report?

2) If not, are you mad?!?

Grab your free report here:

If you like it, send it to your friends.

Dean

1 – Lists – 2007 was the year of the blog list. Everyone seemed to be writing 101 ways to…. or the top 10….. so don’t miss out on this phenomenon, aim to put your content in list format wherever possible.

2 – Arguing (with intelligence) -  Arguing a point of view is a great way to get links and attention. However, arguing like a 12 year old YouTube user is only going to make you look like… well.. a 12 year old. So ensure that you have facts and logical points of view to put across.

3 – Mind Blowing Headline -  The fact that you are reading this now, means that the killer headline has grabbed your attention and guided you into the blog post… like a snake charmer playing his mesmeric tune. If you can write mind blowing headlines, you will get links and attention.

4 – Seasonal/Topical Content -  As long as I have a hole in my bottom, there will be topical and seasonal content getting huge amounts of links. For example, there will be hugely successful blog posts on April 1st that are fakes, spoofs, pranks…. there will be Christmas related blog posts on December 25th… and the week before New Years Day will almost always consist of yearly reviews. Take advantage of these seasonal tricks, and the links will flow like cheap wine.

5 – Celebs -  Don’t worry, I am not suggesting you hire Paris Hilton, despite the fact that I use “whore” in my headline. I am referring to celebs from within your industry, high profile, A-list bloggers and authority based people. Perhaps do a Q&A with them, or perhaps do n interview… just their name alone will attract attention and links.

So there we have it, 5 content techniques that a blindfolded monkey could achieve. Try them today, and enjoy all of those dirty, sexy links…. you dirty devil!

Recently I wrote a blog post that was not planned, was not analysed, and was not based on any methods or technique… I just sat down and wrote it from the heart.

The result? 64 comments in 24 hours, a response of over 140 emails within the first day, and it lead people to say things like this:

With sales copy like that only a moron would not want to hear more. I’m definitely interested in knowing what you have in the works.

Excellent piece of Marketing Dean. You have really got a knack for creating a buzz

It’s interesting to watch this buzz grow in one day. You certainly are talented at getting peoples’ attention.

Dean, your post is very good sales copy.

Ron McDaniel says you are great, and this copy is outstanding. Count me in!

Amazingly I was being hailed as a copy writing expert, and one person even emailed me and said it was the single greatest piece of web copy he had ever seen. I was well and truly baffled.

So here we are, 24 hours later, and still somewhat in a state of shock, but it is now clear why this created so much excitement….

I wrote from the heart and not the head.

I was passionate about what I was saying, everything I wrote was honest and from the heart, and somehow, that passion has leaked through my keyboard, through the cables, across continents and onto the screens of thousands of web readers.

So what is the moral of this story?

Simple. Sometimes the brain should just shut up!

Facebook has now moved into the world of targetted ads, and due to the amount of data they have on us all, they can be much more targeted than Google.

FaceBook Ads – Are they as useful as a chocolate fire guard?

Talk from the valley from mid 2007 suggested that Facebook ads were the poorest performing of all the click based ad systems available. They did some extensive tests and were getting a clickthrough rate of 400 for every 1 million views, which they claim is due to people socializing on the site and not being interested in ads. So that would suggest that promoting your website on Facebook may be as useful as a chocolate fireguard…. but…..

I don’t buy it

Personally I don’t buy the claim that people are not clicking Facebook ads because they are too busy poking each other. Let’s be honest, if they were genuinely busy, then they wouldn’t be on Facebook in the first place.

Also, they claim that the site is mainly just students, well, I know the article was published 6 months ago, but from what I have seen, the site has moved on a long way since starting out as a college platform. I have over 100 friends in my account, and I am 25, yet I don’t think I have one single student in my profile.

Has Facebook Peaked?

I recently read that if Facebook was a country, it would be the 3rd biggest country on the planet. So that shows the huge growth that they have experienced. However, I have also spoken to contacts who claim that it will become the next Myspace… aka cesspool of the Internet.

Who knows what the future holds for Facebook, but for webmasters and marketers it is likely to only bring new changes and new options, and that can only be good.

Right, I am off to poke my mum… argghhh, that doesn’t sound right!!

1) Choose a niche – Here is what I want you to do… look over all the gifts, experiences, meals, stories etc that you saw during Christmas. Now, ask yourself, which was I most passionate about? If it was your Xbox360, then start an xbox360 blog. Simple. Passion is key!

2) Get a domain & Web host – Don’t worry, this is not expensive. You can get a domain from somewhere like Godaddy.com for around $7 and a simple Google search for web hosting should uncover plenty of options. Initially you don’t want to pay more than $10 per month for hosting.

3) Get Statistical – Before you start posting you need to have a way of tracking stats. Simply subscribe to FeedBurner and Google Analytics.

4) Start Posting Daily – If you are passionate then daily posts shouldn’t be too hard. Here is a trick… if you have two posts for one day, simply set the second post to automatically post the next day, thus giving you a day off. But remember, regular posts are key.

5) Promoting Your Blog – This will take some experimenting, but try using your blog link as your forum signatures. Also, submit your best content to social media sites like Digg and Stumbleupon, and do link trades with related blogs.

6) Simple and Neat – You need to ensure that each blog post has a simple message, and that the content is broken up and formatted correctly. There is nothing worse than a huge chunk of text.

7) Images – Each blog post should have an image. It adds a little flavour to the post.

8 – Making some Cash – After a few months you should be getting regular traffic. Now is the time to start making some lovely dosh. Start out with Google Adsense and monitor that for a few weeks, feel free to also try some related affiliate programs for extra sales.

There we go, 8 simple keys to starting a successful blog this Christmas.

Happy New Year to all, and don’t forget to leave some turkey for me.

I recently saw a post from the copywritersboard that had some great info on how anyone can write killer copy for their sites, sales pages, blogs etc…

Here is what Dean had to say:

I think most people find the hardest thing to do is to get started writing.

It’s easy to get caught up in trying to figure out the best hook, or headline…but I have found an easy way to get a really quick head start on a letter.

I’d rather be golfing than sweating out a sales letter…so I’m very interested in achieving QUICK results.

It all starts with deciding exactly what I want someone to do…and then sitting down for 60 minutes to write an unedited hand-written letter baring the NAKED TRUTH of what I really want.

I sit down with a pen and a legal pad, and I start writing a stream of consciousness hand-written letter to ONE person I imagine as my IDEAL prospect.

I write the letter like they are the ONLY person who is going to get the letter, and I’m not concerned about the grammar, or the look, or the techniques of copywriting.

No one is actually going to see the letter…so I don’t edit myself.

I can get myself to sit down with the thought of having to get it all done in less than one hour. Sometimes, when I look up, it’s been 2 hours…but it didn’t feel like it.

Here’s the 10-part letter formula.

Dear Dean,

1) I’m writing to you because I want you to:

[insert my naked truth reason I'm writing...as if I were making my request known to a lamp Genie who could grant my wish]

ie: Take out your credit card and pay me $39 for my new book called…

2) The reason I’m writing to YOU specifically is because I think you want:

1.
2.
3.
etc.

3) Here is a list of what you get when you [buy my book]:

1. You get ______ — which means ________
2.
3.
etc.

4) If I were trying to guess the top 10 questions or objections you have about buying this today…they would be:

1.
2.
3.
etc.

5) So- here’s how I would clear those up for you:

1.
2.
3.
etc.

6) I want you to be completely without risk…so here’s my guarantee:

7) It’s really easy to get started…you just:

- click this button
- fill in this form
- call this phone number
- return this coupon
etc.

8 – Once you decide to get started here’s what’s going to happen:

9) You need to do this right NOW because:

10) Here’s a list of people who have already [done this] and exactly what happened for them:

When you’re done with this exercise, it’s easy to start taking the naked copy elements from it and dressing them up to take out in public.