4 Tips to Create a Successful Instagram Strategy

At 435 Digital, we love all things social media and are big supporters of brands incorporating social into their daily marketing efforts. At the same time, we will be the first to tell brands to be cautious when deciding which social networks are right for their business. It is important to get in front of your consumers and integrate your business into the places they spend their time, but it is just as important not to spread yourself too thin and not to force anything.

Stick with what works. There is no harm in trying a new social media platform, but make sure you have a strategy before you dive into it.

Not familiar with Instagram yet? No worries, it is still relatively new to brands and many are trying to grasp exactly what they should be doing with it. Instagram’s main draw right now is that it is completely focused on the love for visual messaging and sharing. From its early days in late 2010 with only two employees, the goal, according to co-founder Kevin Systrom, has always been to use the “power of images to connect people to what was happening in the world around them.”

Just a few years later, Instagram has been bought by Facebook and has more than 100 million monthly active users. Instagram gives brands a new and creative way to reach their consumer base. Best of all, it is easy to use no matter where you are and at any time.

So what exactly is it? Instagram is a mobile app where users share their life stories and events, using only photos with cool filters and captions. Similar to Facebook, photos are posted to a feed where followers can see what is being shared and leave comments or click on a ‘heart’ to ‘like’ the photo. Similar to Foursquare, people can tag a specific location to a photo. Similar to Twitter, users can view a feed of the most popular photos around the world from other public-sharing users or only view the photos in the feed of the people they are following.

Do you think your business should be on Instagram? Here are some things you should keep in mind.

Make sure you have a good idea of what you have to offer to people on Instagram. Give your followers something they can’t find anywhere else – something different from what you offer on Facebook and Twitter. Use Instagram to show off what you love about your business location and the surrounding community. Show your followers some behind-the-scenes shots to help them know and love your business. Show the pride you have in your brand. If you are a restaurant, feature your chef and show new specials before they are even introduced at the restaurant. If you are a workplace full of cubicles and 9-to-5ers, share your work environment, photos of your employees, and community outings.

This may seem strange, but if done right, it can work. Have you heard of Warby Parker? You might have if you are in the market for boutique eyeglasses. They are often applauded within the social media industry as being one of the most creative brands on Instagram. Why? They do a great job of showing off their merchandise in a completely non-salesy way, while capturing the unique culture of their employees and their community with every shot. They certainly found their strategy and are running with it.

Warby Parker Instagram

Hashtags — love them or hate them — are important on Instagram. Hashtags are words or phrases marked with the # symbol (ex: #hashtag) and are used to enable collecting all content with that tag in one place. With public Instagram accounts, anyone searching for a hashtag used in a photo caption will be able to see that image. This is a great way to get specific photos and brand accounts a lot more attention. Like Twitter, users need to be smart with hashtags because they can be annoying. Don’t overuse them, and only use words that are actually relevant to the photo you are tagging. Some brands overuse hastags with the goal of getting more likes and followers. This is not going to get the followers they want to have and will likely attract spammy comments.

Also, become familiar with some of the popular hashtags and use those that can naturally work with the content you are sharing. Some popular hashtags on Instagram include #tbt (throw back Thursday), #photooftheday, #food and #instafood. There are also a lot of hashtags that are popular by city. For example, in Chicago, hashtags like #Chicago, #Chitecture, and #Instagram312 are popular. Our friends at Chicago Tribune capture some great engagement from their followers by using a weekly hashtag theme encouraging Chicago area users to share their photos of anything from their breakfast to the CTA by posting their pictures with the hashtag #Trib2013. At the end of the year, we will all be able to browse through an impressive album of Chicago area images that document our 2013.

Chicago Tribune Instagram

You don’t need to post on Instagram every day. The ‘feed speed’ on Instagram is still mostly laid back. If you start posting a lot, you might over-saturate your followers’ feeds, and you don’t want to force yourself into the noise too often. Decide what you have ready to post and create a schedule to help you remember what to post when and to track what is working once you get going. If you see that your followers are starting to gravitate toward certain images, be flexible with your plan and change things to fit. Don’t forget to make engagement part of your strategy. Join the conversation, that’s what this is all about. Answer questions and thank people for being loyal.

Take notice of who is following your brand. Follow them back, ‘heart’ their pictures if it makes sense — avoid the personal pictures unless you have a personal connection with them. Encourage your followers to share your photos and your page. This is a great way to spread your reach and attract other users. Once you get a good following, feature your fans’ photos by encouraging them to use a hashtag or tag your Instagram handle when they are posting a picture. Just be sure to give them credit for the photo. This is easy using an app like InstaRepost.

You can also reward your loyal fans with contests and promo codes based on user-generated content. There are a lot of brands catching on to this concept right now. Sony does a great job encouraging their customers and followers to post pictures using specific hashtags, and then featuring their favorites on the Sony feed. Bonobos and Free People essentially use their followers as models, encouraging them to post pictures while wearing the brand’s clothing. Starbucks customers are already used to using #starbucks to share their coffee breaks from all over the world.

Sony, Bonobos, Free People, and Starbucks on Instagram

Don’t forget to take some time regularly to search Instagram and Twitter for your brand name to find customers that may have already shared images or reviews from your business. I post photos of my food all the time when I eat out, and every once in a while a restaurant will take my shot and feature it in their feed. I think that’s cool. It shows they appreciate my business and interest in them.

Think your business is ready to start using Instagram? Take some of these tips and you should be in a good place to get going. Already finding success with Instagram? Send us your shots! We would love to see them.

Carly is an Account Manager at 435 Digital and manages the day-to-day responsibilities associated with running successful SEO and social media campaigns.Previously, Carly managed media campaigns for Tribune Media Group’s New Business Development & Cross Platform Team. Those campaigns incorporated a combination of newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and online advertisements.

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Tags: instagram, user-generated content

435 Digital helps businesses build brands on the web. Visit here for inspiration on how to stand out and grow your business.

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Behind the Scenes of a Successful Blog Acquisition [Case Study]

I really love the idea of buying and selling websites. Recently I listed one of my blogs on Flippa, a marketplace for buying and selling websites, and sold it successfully.

Then, I bought another blog outside of Flippa. Since we’ve already talked about selling blogs this week, I wanted to walk you through my buying experience today…

Image by Flickr user quinn.anya, licensed under Creative Commons

A couple of months ago while browsing the web I landed on a blog called WPBlogTips.com. Eventually, my eye got stuck on a banner that said, “This site is for sale”.

At that time I was thinking of starting a blog in the internet marketing niche, which is the niche that WPBlogTips.com covers.

To be honest, I personally hate to start a blog from the ground up. It’s a lot of work! Choosing the domain, crafting content, building traffic, waiting till the Google sandbox effects end before you can start link building, growing an active community … obviously there’s a lot to do, and in many cases the job is tedious. I would prefer to buy an established blog in a niche that has decent traffic, an engaged community, and quality content.

Long story short, I decided to buy that blog.

Before jumping in to buy that blog, I undertook some due diligence research on both the owner and the blog itself. Doing your homework before you purchase may help you to avoid disappointment down the track.

So before I made an offer on the blog, I researched a few things:

the owner of the blogthe site’s traffic statsthe blog’s monetization history.

Knowing more about the seller is really important task before you make an offer, or can even calculate how much the blog is worth. It’s especially important if you are not willing to use a third-party transaction site like Escrow.com to manage the transfer of payments and assets in the acquisition.

Here are the simple steps I took to research the seller of the blog.

Search the domain’s WhoIs information: Check if the domain is handled by the same person who runs the blog. In my case, the domain was not WhoIs guarded, so I was able to find the owner’s details and their address. If that information was protected, I would have ask him to remove the guard so I could see the data. This is an important first step in verifying site ownership.Do a seller profile web search: A simple Google search should show you the profile of the seller. I also found some other blogs that this person owned, and I found that reassuring—it’s nice to deal with a person who has some kind of reputation online. That’s not something most people would achieve if they weren’t honest and trustworthy, nor is it something they’d throw away by behaving badly in a site sale.Search on social media: A simple search on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ also told me a lot about the seller, and how he deals with others. Today everyone is social, especially bloggers. So this is a good way to research a site owner.

Once I’d got the details of the blog’s owner, I contacted him and asked him to send me some stats for the site’s traffic and its monetization history.

If you’ve ever looked to buy a site on Flippa, you might have seen a section called Claim Traffic where sellers need to claim their traffic by uploading Google Analytics verified stats. The problem is that straight traffic stats say nothing about the site’s traffic sources, or what the most popular content is. These are important factors in the site’s current success and its potential, so it’s important to ask for more detailed stats before you buy.

Importantly, traffic screenshots can be faked easily. So always ask for verified Google Analytics reports when you’re asking for Analytics data. Then, start analyzing…

You will get a bunch of details from Google Analytics, but those details are as good as junk if you can’t analyze what they really mean.

Unique visitors per month: This is one of the key factors that helps determine the blog’s value.Bounce rate: I think the normal bounce rate of a blog should be around 60-70%, but in this case, the bounce rate was very high. By looking more closely at the blog, I found that the main reason for the high bounce rate was poor site navigation and a lack of user engagement. I felt that with a little effort, I could bring the bounce rate back to a normal level.Average visit duration: Again, I wasn’t satisfied with this data, since it was lower than my other blogs’, so I had to look a little deeper to find out the reasons for it. The reason for the low visit duration was, again, a lack of reader engagement.

The key lesson here is to check the blog’s stats, not only to get some idea of what the blog is worth, but also to determine where you can improve the blog, and how. This will help you get an idea of how much time you’ll need to put in to improve things, which will help you to come to a decision about whether to buy or not.

Believe me, getting traffic is not a big deal today. Just Google “buy traffic” and you’ll see tons of services that offer you 10,000 visitors to your site for just $20.

The only way to make sure that the traffic to the blog is original and of high quality is to look at the traffic source stats of the site’s Analytics reports.

Before I bought it, WPBlogTips.com’s traffic was highly dependent upon Google and other organic sources. This is both good and bad.

The good thing is that we can say this blog has high targeted traffic.

The bad thing is that whenever Google updates it search algorithm, chances are high that the traffic will drop—if not almost disappear.

One of the things I discovered as I looked at this data was that Facebook and Twitter aren’t in the top ten traffic sources. The main reason was that the blog had almost no social presence. It did have a Facebook page and Twitter account, but there was no reader activity in these forums.

Another thing I found was that when I excluding Google from the mix, there was no strong referral traffic source. Likely reasons were a lack of networking and link building. So obviously I would need to focus on building these elements after the acquisition.

The interests of a blogger may vary time to time. It is quite common for a blog to have many transitional stages before it reaches to its “present” state. For example, WPBlogTips.com was obviously in the “blogging tips/internet marketing” niche, but the previous owner had also published many articles that had to do nothing with that niche.

So before buying a blog, it’s important to find out what all of the popular pages of that blog are. Sometimes the blog you are about to buy may have high Google ranking on topics other than its main focus. Let me explain.

Imagine that you are buying a blog in the internet marketing niche. Your main goal in buying that site is to sell SEO services without paying a penny for advertisements or making any extra marketing effort.

Now, what if that site has a low rank for the specific keyword you are targeting—the traffic’s coming through comparatively off-topic posts? Or, what if most of the blog’s audience is actually interested in a topic that’s off the main topic of that blog? If you don’t intend to maintain that off-topic focus in your content, you may well lose a large chunk of the blog’s loyal readers.

So it’s important to understand the exact nature of the audience for the blog you’re researching.  Find out which are the popular pages on the blog, and ask for content keywords  lists from Webmaster tools. This information gives you a very precise idea about the interests of the blog’s audience, and on which keywords Google ranks the site well.

Most of the readers of the blog I was researching came to the site through search engines. Because people were getting the exact thing they were looking for, they weren’t returning to the blog.

I could see that if I added related articles lists to every post, that may catch the eyes of readers without harming the user experience, and increase the blog’s time on site metric and repeat visit potential.

I also noticed that a few of the off-topic posts on the blog had received some Google juice, but I was planning to remove those, so that didn’t factor into my buying decision.

Another problem I found was that the blog wasn’t ranked well on Google for any relevant long-tail keywords. This was especially a problem on the Services page, so I couldn’t expect many client requests to buy those services. I thought this may because of a lack of effective link building, but it meant that, to begin with at least, I’d need to buy traffic from Adwords.

A couple of months ago Flippa introduced a new feature called the Verified AdSense Report, which is similar to the Verified Analytics Report. This feature is hugely helpful for buyers, since it means they don’t need to rely more on screenshots of AdSense income provided by the seller.

However, there’s still no way to verify PayPal earnings like there is with AdSense. So while deciding how much a blog is worth, as the buyer, you still have to rely on screenshots provided by the seller, no matter whether you’re buying the site through Flippa or independently.

That said, I would always prefer to buy a blog that is under-monetized and has massive traffic rather than a blog that has decent traffic and makes a lot of money. There are two reasons for this.

When you’re calculating how much a site is worth, it is common to give preference to earnings over traffic.

This means that the higher the earnings of a website, the more you will pay to acquire it. The problem is that as a buyer, I can’t be 100% sure that the data provided by the seller is true, unless he gives full access to verify the payments, which is almost impossible.

So the risk here is that the seller’s not being truthful about the earnings, and if you base your valuation of the blog on a false earnings figure, you’re going to lose out.

Recently I came across an article by Daniel Scocco entitled, Where there’s traffic, there is hope. In it, he explains his experience of buying two different blogs: Blog A, which had high traffic but was under-monetized, and Blog B, which had decent traffic and earned a lot of money. Due to fluctuations in search ranking, the second blog’s traffic dried out, and so did its earnings. Blog A, on the other hand, continues to make a profit.

So I repeat: where there’s traffic, there is hope!

The blog’s owner had not tested any monetization methods on WPBlogTips.com. He tried to sell blog migration services from the site, but didn’t have a nice portfolio to support the work.

I felt that his offer was not unique. Hundreds of different blogs provide Blogger-to-WordPress migration services, and there was nothing to make his service stand out from the crowd.

Soon after the acquisition I started an AdWords campaign to promote those services. To make this offer unique I offered free Blogger to WordPress migration. The only catch is that the client must buy Hostgator hosting through my link, so I still gain income, in the form of affiliate commissions.

Currently, I’m also testing AdSense units on that blog. I will be testing how those units work and, if they’re a success, I’ll continue to use them on the blog. I am not a believer of quick money making schemes. Making money from a blog definitely takes time.

I also started an email newsletter subscription on the blog. Email lists will definitely help me monetize this site in the long run. In coming months I’ll also try selling direct ads. However, I’m not hurry. I’m currently focused on attracting more traffic and making readers more engaged with the blog.

Most first-time sellers won’t have any idea when it comes to deciding how to set the price for their blog. In fact, sellers frequently overestimate the value of their blog, since they have an emotional engagement with it and have spent so much time and energy building it up.

Many people suggest that setting a price using the monthly income of your blog is the way to go. But for a buyer, to be honest, this kind of equation doesn’t make much sense.

For example, imagine that Darren decided to sell Problogger.net. Do you think that he would be willing to sell it for 24 times the monthly income? No way. He’d want more than that, for sure. On the other hand, imagine you own a blog with no reputation, and you wanted to sell it for 24 times the monthly income. As a buyer I probably wouldn’t be interested in paying such a big price for a blog with no reputation.

In simple terms, buyers value the reputation of a blog—as that impacts reader loyalty—sometimes more than the history of earnings or traffic stats.

As I mentioned, WPBlogTips.com hadn’t been monetized. Yet the seller wanted a very high price. After some negotiation, I bought it for 37% of the initial price he’d set.

All of the negotiation was done over email. However, after we agreed on the price, I made a phone call to the owner. Why? Because it is nice to establish a good relationship with the guy who you are dealing with—especially when you’re about to transfer large sums of money in exchange for an asset like this.

The safest payment method for buying or selling digital assets online is to use a third-party service like Escrow.com—especially if both the buyer and seller don’t share a high level of trust.

The buyer can create an account on Escrow.com and transfer the money to this account. Escrow.com will hold the payment until the transaction of property is complete and both parties flag that they’re happy with the outcome.

The seller of WPBlogTips.com is Indian, like me. This helped to make me confident about the transaction.

Even if a problem did arise, the law we would be dealing with would be our national law, not other international treaties that may not be consistent across nations. I felt pretty confident that no problem would arise because I knew the seller has good reputation as blogger, and he would continue to run other blogs after the sale, so he wouldn’t want to tarnish his reputation online. My due diligence had paid off here.

I told the seller that, as a first step, I’d pay half the price we’d agreed. After he received the money, he’d transfer the ownership of the blog to me, and after that I’d pay the balance. We didn’t use Escrow or similar services, and for us, everything went smoothly.

Even if you are buying a blog that has a lot of good content, nicely targeted traffic, and a massive community you might need to spend your time building content.

Sometimes the previous owner may have a personal approach to the content. In such cases, the challenge for you will be to write more content without boring the community, or losing them altogether.

How can you enhance your readership by helping readers, and thereby growing the community on your blog? To get clear idea, answer these questions.

Will you have time to spend on your blog writing content?If not, is it profitable to hire a freelancer? Will accepting guest posts enhance your community?

The old owner had accepted and published many guest posts on WP Blog Tips. But my strategy is different. I wanted to bring more visitor engagement to the blog, so I stopped accepting guest posts and started writing every post myself. This really helped. The comment counts increased and an interactive community started to grow up around the blog.

As I mentioned earlier, there were many off-topic posts on the blog. I won’t be deleting those posts, because I hate to be landed on 404 pages and expect the same goes for my readers. But I will be developing a more focused content approach going forward.

Buying a blog is not a tedious task—at least, it is not as tedious as building a blog from scratch! If you do it correctly, buying is breeze.

WPBlogTips.com was not properly monetized before I acquired it. I am not looking to sell it in future, so this will be my main online project as of now. My goal is that within a year I can make the money I spent to buy it.

Here are a few other tips I learned in buying a blog that I believe will help you.

Respect the seller’s work: Yes, you’ll need to ask the seller for different stats, but make sure that you always respect the seller and their work. Understand that this has benefits for you both. The rule of thumb is to give respect first; only then can you expect to get it back.Beware of “potential”: Don’t get obsessed with the supposed “potential” of the blog that the seller might be keen to show you. Most of the sellers have habit of claiming that their blog has huge potential, in an effort to make huge money. But the fact is that they would be unlikely to sell the blog if it had massive potential. So rely on the stats, and your assessment of how well the blog fits your skills—not on the “potential” the seller describes.Analyze the performance: When I bought my blog, I found that its bounce rate was very high. I was sure I could improve it a lot with little effort. So it’s important to carefully analyze the blog. Learn how you can improve the overall performance of the blog and what strategy you can implement to monetize it further. This will help you to gauge the potential of the blog for you, specifically.Start networking: A couple of months before I acquired the blog, I started networking with other bloggers in the same niche by commenting on their blogs. The result was that those bloggers who I interacted with have helped me out by spreading the word about the blog, and commenting on my blog. This not only increases my traffic but it also helps me to build an interactive tribe on the blog.Remember, you can buying outside Flippa: Flippa is one of the best places to buy a site. But if you are serious about buying I’d suggest you look beyond Flippa. You can find tons of sites for sale—try searching on Google with keywords like “ website for sale”, “ site for sale” and “ blog for sale” using double quotes.

One final tip is to ask a blogger directly if they are ready to sell their blog. They may not consider selling until you ask! If you can’t find any recent posts or activity on a blog, chances are high that the blogger might be busy with some other work and would consider selling it. Believe me, this strategy works, and asking costs you nothing.

Have you ever bought a blog? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

Contributing author Shahzad has recently bought a blog WPBlogTips.com where he writes about unconventional blogging tips. Find his free guide on buying and selling websites here.

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What should do every successful blogger before breakfast.

By Julie Carr, this review is the post by Plagtracker.com.

Most people think that breakfast should be the first, what a person does that morning, but that savvy minorities know the time before breakfast can be the most productive.

This is because it is when a person can focus, because they have not encountered that make and distractions that track day the honest citizens.

Here is a way we can use Blogger of this precious time snippet in the most productive and efficient way.

We all have a to do list, but the most effective task lists are posted on the eve.

You show all the tasks you need to do before breakfast the next day ball. When the morning comes, you need to go in the list, one point at a time, until the point, reach the says "Breakfast."

The trick is to consistently each bullet point in turn to complete. Do not try to two at the same time do, or try to change the order. Take on a task will be, until it is ready, then continue to the next.

This is a file where all ideas that come to you during the day. It contains hints and things that relate the research to your ideas.

How to make this file is you leave; You can create a list, or create a folder and different folders for ideas, notes, research, questions and So on.

If you then there a journal of ideas create a Smartphone or tablet, so while you can add to your day.

Once you've added your ideas in the early morning of your ideas journal, you should retrieve your mails.

This is pointed out something, that can interfere with your day. It is also currently what happened while you were sleeping you.

Spend a few minutes comes with five tasks that must now complete.

If you have free time, then but just keep an eye on the time come with a detailed plan. Do you want not have breakfast, to make lunch.

If you have a successful blog, you will receive 24/7 comments. This could be you forever to answer, but a very good way to keep alive the conversations on your blog is a regular on your comments on the answers.

So you must section from a part of your morning, to answer comments. Ten minutes to non-stop comment answer to devote. You get them all, but you get enough, so that you can move the online conversation (poke the fire a little) keep.

You can comment more and give fuller answers to comments of people in the course of the day, if you have time.

We all hate, Java Update, iTunes, WordPress plugins and So on, but it needs to be done. So, do it in the morning.

Select Update something (they are often prompted by your computer), and set in motion, while you cook and eat your breakfast. At the time you're done, you have breakfast, that it should be done.

If you keep your software updated, it is less likely hacked, running slowly or to cause the crash. In this way your "downtime", use (while you eat) very efficiently.

How to use the time before breakfast even set to above a day (or less if you are juggling other obligations) of blogging? Share your secrets with us in the comments.

By Julie Carr, this review is the post by Plagtracker.com. Julie J Carr is a freelance writer. She writes for the new free - to - use plagiarism Checker - Plagtracker. Is keen on new technologies, flavoured coffee and books loves and loves, places to visit, where you can enjoy the last two at the same time. You can send your e-mail [email protected]

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The Six-Figure Second Income: How To Start and Grow A Successful Online Business Without Quitting Your Day Job

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In the course of building an eight-figure real estate information marketing business, David Lindahl and Jonathan Rozek tested dozens of tools and techniques. This book is centered around principles they derived from all the tests they ran, tools they used, and money they spent.

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How to Build a Successful Blog the Unconventional Way

Life is all about choices; so also is blogging. In blogging, you can choose to run with the crowd and be just another blog; or you can stand out from the crowd and be a lone voice. When building a blog, you can also choose to follow the norm; and achieve normal results or act unconventionally and achieve extraordinary results. The choice is yours to make.

“The most important aspect of my personality as far as determining my success goes; has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting experts and questioning authority. While that can be painful in your relationships with your parents and teachers, it’s enormously useful in life.” – Larry Ellison

I have been blogging for over three years now and within this period; I have made several mistakes, had some failures and reaped tremendous success. Now you may want to know how successful I am. Well, as a principle, I don’t believe in spitting out income figures except when it is critically needed. But let it be known to you that my blogs serve and help millions of people all over the world. As per income, my blogs generate enough revenue to pay me a decent monthly salary. My blogs also pay my team and employees; pays the office rent and bills and still generate a return on investment quarterly. So I believe I am qualified to tell you what works and what doesn’t.

However, it may surprise you to know that my most successful blogs are those I built against the conventional principle of blogging. Now to better help you understand the process I followed to get to where I am today, I have carved out 12 unconventional rules I adhere to in this business called blogging. So if your learning mode is still activated, then let’s set the ball rolling.

Rule 1. Perception is everything

Yes, perception is the first principle of radical blogging. Who are you? What do you do? If you get the right answer to these two questions; then you’ve on spot. My perception is the reason why I don’t do things the normal way; my perception is the reason why I am not a blogger.

“As a man thinks in his heart; so he is.” – The Bible

Yes, read my lips: “I am not a blogger” and I will never be because being a blogger limits my perception. I am an entrepreneur simply minding my business. Blogging is not my business; my business is to provide information in an easy to understand format; in return for a profit. I am not in the blogging industry; I am in the information/education industry. I don’t compete with small blogs, I compete with big businesses such as Forbes, Entrepreneur magazine, Wikipedia and Inc.com. I don’t own a blog; I own a business and this is exactly the thin line between the elite blogs and the average blogs that struggle to survive. The bottom line is this: the way you see yourself and the way you think will greatly determine the heights you will attain. If you accept the conventional rule and call yourself a blogger, then you are. Now take a critical look at some big names in the industry such as Darren Rowse, Arianna Huffington, Jeremy Shoemaker, Timothy Ferriss, etc and you will understand why perception is the first rule of radical blogging.

Rule 2. Redefine your “why”

“I don’t make deals for the money. I’ve got enough much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it.” – Donald Trump

I have had people ask me how I found success doing business online and the first question I ask them is why they want to do business online. The reason I ask this is because your motive for doing a task will determine the result you will achieve. Now why did you launch that blog of yours? Are you doing it for the money? Or maybe you are in it for the fame it offers? Or are you blogging to genuinely help people? No matter what your reason is, make sure it provides you with enough fire and drive to pass through the tough times.

“I was worth about over a million dollars when I was twenty-three and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.” – Steve Jobs
Now I don’t do publish blogs solely for money; but mind you, I have to factor that in to keep scores. I don’t also build blogs because I want to help people. Well, I am passionate about helping people but when it comes to blogging; it doesn’t provide enough fire for me. My real drive comes from the challenge of building blogs, the processes involved, the joys of success and the pains of failure, the excitement of going head to head with the big wigs and the feeling of self actualization. I just don’t want to help people; rather, I want to sit back and know that I have done a great job helping people while building a great asset and giving the competition a slap in the face. *smiles*. The reason I became an entrepreneur is because building businesses keeps me on my toes; it’s something that keeps me alive and keep my brains active. Now that’s for me, I don’t know about you and I can’t also help you find your “why.” It is something that has to come from inside of you.

Rule 3. Understand the basics

Conventional bloggers love to spit out technical jargons such as Pagerank, SERPS, Linkwheeling, Sandbox, algorithm, Link baiting, and all the rest. The truth is that you don’t need these jargons to succeed. Now I am not a geek, I am not even a programmer and I don’t love computers. I am simply an entrepreneur and all I started with were the basics. All you need to know is the basics such as WordPress installation (which is now made easy with Fantastico), post drafting, publishing and updating, searching for information, creating accounts, copying and pasting scripts and so on. Don’t waste your time mastering all the technical jargon associated with blogging, just learn the basics and get started. As you progress, encounter problems and solve these problems; your knowledge base will unconsciously increase.

Rule 4. Stick with what you know

I have seen people start blogs that they are not interested in; just to earn a profit. Well, it’s not a bad idea and I also do it. But my biggest and most profitable blogs are the ones I have a personal interest in and unfortunately, they are in the world’s toughest industry but I don’t care.

“Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you are generally better off sticking with what you know and the third is that sometimes, your best investments are the ones you don’t make.” – Donald Trump

Do you want to know why I survived in the world most competitive niches? Well, the reason is because visitors to your blog can smell your passion from your written words; they can tell if you are really interested in helping them or you are just another empty blog. For instance, I can distinguish between business articles written by entrepreneurs and professional writers. When I read an article written by other entrepreneurs, I feel their passion, I feel their pain and I feel whatever they feel because they are like me. But articles written by professional writers have no effect on me; because they lack the passion and drive needed to spur me to action.

Rule 5. Listen to the heartbeat of your readers

Your readers are the reason why you started a blog and they are going to be ones to determine if your blog survives or not; so listen to their heartbeat. Write for your readers; not search engines. Be passionate about helping them, addressing their needs and problems; and they will become not just repeated readers but loyal customers. I don’t just write articles to populate my blog; I write articles strictly to solve a problem or address a recurring issue. Most of my blog content are purely answers to real life questions that my readers asked repeatedly. For instance, a reader might email me with the question:

“I have $1,000; what business do I start?”

All I will simply do is reply this question by making an article out of it and my article header will look like this:

“10 Money Spinning Businesses you can start with $1,000 or less.”

Write for humans, not search engines. Your blog content should be aimed at making your readers fall in love with your blog; your write-ups should make them imagine you as a passionate person all out to help them. I think you have gotten my point.

Rule 6. Run lean and re-invest your profit

“Waste of resources is a mortal sin at IKEA.” – Ingvar Kamprad

In my years of blogging, I have always stuck to the 80/20 principle. It’s a known fact that 20% of your effort and resources will yield 80% of the profits; yet, you will find most bloggers concentrating their limited resources on the 80% systems that only yield 20% results.

When I started blogging, I made sure I only invested my capital on the core system of the blog. But today, you will find most new bloggers investing in blog design, logo creation, paid plugins and themes, expensive computers, software, etc; when their blog is yet to generate a dime in revenue. For me, I never went that route. Everything I purchased or invested in for my blog was done with my eyes on the bottom line; if it’s not going to increase profits/traffic in the short run, then it’s not for me. Back then I used a free theme, free plugins, studied the free resources online and even till now; I still use a free theme on some of my blogs provided that the theme has a smooth design and flow.

“Everything we earn we need as a reserve.” – Ingvar Kamprad

Now I am not against investing for the long term; I am only trying to make you see the need to generate cash flow now, while keeping an eye on your long term plan. Don’t waste your resources on the less important things; invest in things that get things done now, not tomorrow.

Rule 7. Ignore the shortcut

“The height attained by great men is not by sudden flight. For while their companions sleep; they toil.” – Anonymous

There’s no shortcut to success; it’s either you take it or leave it. The reason blackhat forums exist and are waxing strong is because people are looking for shortcuts; they are looking to make $10,000 overnight starting from scratch. Go to the most popular internet marketing forums and you will hear screams from people who have been ban by Google adsense or had their website de-indexed.

I repeat this rule again; ignore the shortcut. It doesn’t pay in the long run. There is nothing like an effortless push button system; there’s nothing like the lazy man’s guide to overnight success. The earlier you get rid of the overnight success mentality; the better for you. Success in any endeavor requires discipline, commitment, investment and time. Nothing more, nothing less.

Rule 8. Love your work; not the tool

“The tone is in the fingers……..not the instrument.” – Jason Fried

I am a regular visitor on Warrior Forum and I have noticed that the Warrior’s Special Offers section (WSO) is the most popular section on the forum. Why? The reason is because people are always on the lookout for the next push button system, shining toy or super fast software. Another thing I observed is that most of the offers are bought by the same set of people, year in year out; yet, they remain the same. But the simple truth is that you don’t need all the software and tools to become a success online.

I have a friend who has a dream to become a black belter in martial arts (note that I am also a Taekwondo trainee). This friend of mine is so committed to his dream that he has invested heavily in buying several kits, books and video tutorials on sparring techniques. He knows all the fighting styles and terminologies off hand; yet, never will you see this friend of mine sweating out in the Dojan (training ground). He would rather watch videos and read books than train. Is this friend ever going to become a black belter? The answer is no.

The same applies to business or blogging and unfortunately, most bloggers are just like this friend of mine. They live with the illusion that a new technology, business software or tool will make them better bloggers and push their profits to the sky. But improved technology or the latest software/tool will be useless if you are not prepared to put in the required efforts. An expensive golf club did not make Tiger Woods a star; a super computer did not make Bill Gates the richest man in the world, their skills did. The fastest server and plugins did not make Darren Rowse a successful blogger; his focus and commitment to his readers did. So don’t waste your resources pursuing technology if it’s not going to add to the bottom line of your business.

Rule 9. Concentrate on the core

“The most important recipe for success is concentration. Learn to concentrate your time, resources and effort on just one task; your most important task.” – Andrew Carnegie

What is your core? What do you love doing and know how to do best? If you can answer this, then you may have found your core; but make sure that your personal core corresponds to the needs of your blog. The operations of running a blog includes content writing, blog marketing/promotion, SEO, comment moderation, email replies, managing staff, etc. Now you can’t do all this alone, at least you can attempt all when you are starting out but you will burn yourself out in the long run. So what do you do? You simply choose your core, concentrate on it, eliminate the unnecessary and outsource the rest.

“Time is your most important resource. You can do so much in ten minutes. Ten minutes; once gone is gone for good.” – Ingvar Kamprad

Using my entrepreneurship blog as an example, I will explain how I used the principle of concentration to build it into a success. When I started my entrepreneurship blog, I concentrated on it alone. I did not start twenty blogs at once; I started with one and learned the intricacies of blogging through this one blog. In the first year of building this blog, I concentrated on content writing and article marketing; while doing a little of email replies and totally eliminating comment moderation. As years progressed and my blog began to generate revenue; my concentration shifted to managing staff while doing a little of content writing and email replies. My blog marketing, promotion, SEO, content editing and other technical work are now either handled by my in-house staff or outsourced. Comment moderation still remains eliminated because I don’t consider it a core.
So when starting out as a blogger, identify your core and concentrate on it. If writing is your passion; then make content writing, article marketing and guest blogging your core. If you love meeting and interacting with people, then make social media marketing, forum marketing and interactive commenting your core. If you are a geek, or you simply love technical problems and challenges; then you can concentrate on SEO and product development such as software, while outsourcing the rest

Rule 10. Be an authority

Most gurus advise that you build a lot of blogs in several small niches. While this may work for them, I think it’s bullsh**. Sorry for that language but that’s what I think. I would rather have one authority blog than 10 small niche blogs. Simply put, an authority blog makes you the blogger, an authority on the subject that your blog covers. Through your authority blog, you can get JV deals, organize seminars on the subject of your blog, start a membership site, create and sell products, grant interviews, get public speaking deals, offer services, become a coach on your subject matter and even build an offline business around your blog. In fact, the list goes on and on. Owning an authority blogs give you the blogger fortune, fame, power and respect. I don’t think small niche blogs can give you this.

“Where does great wealth come from? Years ago, oil and steel were the foundations of many American fortunes. Today, it’s more a matter of how many eyeballs you command.” – Forbes Magazine

To really understand the power of authority blogs; consider Arianna Huffington who raised millions of dollars for her blog Huffingpost.com. Think about John Chow, Jeremy Shoemaker, Darren Rowse, Dan Sullivan, Pat Flynn, Brian Clark, Timothy Ferriss, Matthew Torren, Seth Godin, Evan Carmichael, Steve Pavlina, etc. This list goes on and on and on but the end point is that you should forget about building ten niche blogs; focus instead on building one authority blog and you will find fortune and fame.

Rule 11. Connect with those that matters

“Talk is cheap. Learn to listen with your eyes. Actions do speak louder than words. Watch what a person does more than what he says.” – Robert Kiyosaki

One of the reasons why I succeeded with my blogs is because I followed and learned from the masters. My goal was not just to build an authority blog but to build a business around my subject matter so I had to follow and learned from those that have succeeded in that quest. I don’t bother reading 100 blogs a week; I just pick ten experts that have proven themselves. I understudy them, follow their proven strategies and most of all, stick to them. These are the few authorities I follow:

The Business side of blogging = JohnChow.comContent writing = Copyblogger.comBlogging = Problogger.netSearch engine analysis = Searchengineland.comBusiness tips and insights for living = Fourhourworkweek.comInternet Marketing case studies = Viperchill.com and Smartpassiveincome.com

Rule 12. Exit your blog before you begin

“Life is a journey, not a destination and so also is business. Your objectives keep moving.” – Thomas Burrell

This is the final rule of radical blogging; exit your blog before you even begin. Now you may be imagining where I am driving at? Well, you will understand very soon.

Have you observed that Darren Rowse no longer writes frequently on problogger; he doesn’t even do his long posts anymore. Do you want to know why? The simple answer is that Darren Rowse has exited problogger. He’s no longer involved with the day to day running of problogger; he only breezes in once a while to drop a hint or two. Problogger is now driven by his in-house team and outside guest bloggers. Do you think this is a coincidence? My answer is no. It was all part of his plan; it was his exit strategy. Do you think Darren Rowse is alone in this? My answer again is no. Consider Techcrunch that sold out to AOL for millions of dollars; consider the thousands of blogs been sold on Flippa and you will see the point I am trying to stress.

“Always start at the end before you begin. Professional investors always have an exit strategy before they invest. Knowing your exit strategy is an important investment fundamental.” – Rich Dad

Before I proceed, I want to ask you some questions. What if you had an accident today, what will happen to your blog? How long can you maintain the pace on your blog? Will you still be blogging twenty years from now? How can you decide the right time to sell your blog? What is the right time to move on beyond blogging?

The answer to all these questions revolves around your exit plan? The seed of thought I want to drop inside of you is that your blog should not be an end; it should be a means to an end. Don’t wait till you are bored of your blog before you start planning to sell; plan your exit strategy before you even start building.

For me, my exit plan is to work towards making my network of blogs independent of me. My plan is to grow my blog in a systematic way that it would no longer need my presence. My plan is to have my network of blogs been run by technical team in partnership with outside experts on the related subjected matters. This is the sole reason why I don’t build blogs around my personal brand; I separate myself from my blogs. I also do this for my offline businesses because I don’t intend to live and die with my businesses. I want to be free to travel the world and spend time with my family while knowing that my businesses are running at full capacity without me. You should do the same for your blog. Always plan an exit before you even start building your blog; it’s a good rule of thumb in business.

“Get in, get it done; Get it done right and get out.” – Donald Trump

In conclusion, this brings to an end my 12 rules of radical blogging. Now I know I have stepped on some toes, I know I have challenged the views of many; I know I stirred the waters of conventional wisdom. So I am going to level the playing field here. If you feel I have contradicted your views or principles; then feel free to shoot me through your comments. I am prepared to take your bullets and also respond with mine, so let’s begin.

Ajaero Tony Martins is a serial entrepreneur and investor with a passion for teaching people how to start a business. He is well known for his radical article titled “How to Become a Billionaire” and other unconventional write-ups.

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Two components of successful blogs

Original Post: two components of successful blogs
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The secret sauce for a successful launch information product

I used to think that I was an expert in Internet marketing. Admittedly, I have credentials, having coauthored a book, consisting of a multinational and sold it for a few bucks.

The secret sauce for a successful launch information product

I used to think that I was an expert in Internet marketing. Admittedly, I have credentials, having coauthored a book, consisting of a multinational and sold it for a few bucks.