It’s been a few days since I launched the latest ProBlogger eBook – Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers. Since that time we’ve seen over 1000 purchases of the book and have had some fantastic feedback.

Here are of the first reviews so you can hear what others are saying about it.

1. Clare at Women in Business writes

“The eBook shifted my perspective on the purpose and value of each blog post. Sure you can have your call to actions at the end of the blog post – but does the content you’ve written support and encourage your visitor to take that action?” Read the full review

2. Ali Hale writes

“While reading, though, I was struck by how useful this book would be for many newer writers in the blogosphere. I see basic grammatical mistakes every day, and I also see posts which are fundamentally sound but poorly structured or formatted. It’s so easy to lose attention online, and this ebook would be invaluable to bloggers who are struggling to build an audience.” Read the full review

3. Kristi from Kikolani writes

“In addition to the checklist, the beginning of the ebook gives you 10 questions to ask about your blog as a whole, as well as 11 questions to ask before writing each post. If you refer to these answers as you write each blog post, your writing will not only improve, but you should also see better reader engagement with your posts as well.” Read the full review

4. Paul from Blogging Teacher Writes

“When you find a weakness in your writing all you need to do is look up that section in the ebook, learn how to improve that part of your writing, and put it into practice. In no time it will become second nature and you’ll be writing high quality blog posts with complete ease.” Read the full review

5. Jennifer from Gurls Asylum

The Copywriting Score Card for Bloggers is a great product for all writers, especially those writing for the web. It shows many blog copywriting secrets in a way that is easily understood. The topics are actionable and often have a nice tip to help you use the topic better.” Read the full Review.

6. Stanford from Pushing Social

Check out this cool video review of the Scorecard – Stanford gives some thoughtful and considered analysis.

Updates and Price Increases

The feedback has overwhelmingly been a positive so far – however we’ve also had a couple of good suggestions on how to make it better. Glenn and I are already talking about how we can update it (any update will be given to those who already have it for free) to make it even more useful and anticipate having a significant update by the time the price goes up on 1 September (again, if you buy it now you’ll get the update free).

Keep in mind that the current price of $9.97 USD is an introductory offer. We’re putting the price up on 1 September. We’ve previously said that the price will go up to $14.97 USD but the feedback we’re getting is that it is worth more and with the updates we’ll most certainly put it up beyond that mark.

So to secure it at the introductory discount grab your own copy of Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers now.

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

6 Reviews of the Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers

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This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts) – Darren

Think interviews are best left to Barbara Walters, news reporters, or magazine journalists? Think again. Conducting interviews for your blog helps create unique content, increases your blog’s authority, and adds an additional voice of expertise. In today’s post, we’ll look at how some bloggers covered this week’s most talked-about stories using interviews and how you can use interviews to your advantage. As always, the weekly blogosphere trends have been provided by Regator.com.

1.  Proposition/Prop 8 – The Courage Campaign Institute’s blog, Prop 8 Trial Tracker, has been traveling the United States, doing video interviews with both supporters and protesters of gay marriage. One interview in particular, from “An amazing 24 hours: Round-up of NOM tour and marriage equality news,” was featured by several other bloggers and news organizations. Creating exclusive content that is picked up by other media outlets gives you opportunities to build your blog’s reputation as a voice of authority in your niche.

2.  Steven Slater – There are a lot of ways to secure an interview and, while stalking apartment building elevators as City Room did for “Flight Attendant Had Long Imagined Escaping Down Chute” certainly isn’t your best first option, it did do the trick and prove that a bit of persistence and thinking outside the box can lead to an unexpected win. Try a brief, polite email or phone call first, detailing what you’d like to talk about, the amount of time you expect it to take, why you are interested in talking with that individual in particular, and when/where the piece will be published.

3.  Jennifer Aniston – You don’t always need to interview the big celebrity to create a useful post. For “Jennifer Aniston Not ‘Destructive,’ Say Parenting Experts,” PopEater talked with parenting experts about Aniston’s newest role. Insights from a social psychologist, a parenting expert, and a mommy blogger add information and expertise. If you blog in a particular niche, you should be working right now to build relationships with experts in your field. Keep a database of people who can be interviewed or quoted on your topic.

4.  Teen Choice Awards – Odds are you won’t be joining PopSugar on the red carpet of the Teen Choice Awards (“David Beckham and Twilight Take Over Teen Choice, Zac Tips Vanessa’s Sexy Dance, and Ashley’s Bikini Party”) and unless your blog is focused on celebrity gossip or pop culture, you probably wouldn’t want to. But the good news is that “regular” people (aka non-celebrities) can be just as exciting and interesting—often more so because, unlike stars, the average Joe isn’t media trained to spit out PR-approved soundbites. I interviewed musicians and actors for years and, to this day, one of my favorite interviews was with a cop who’d been fired for perpetrating a Bigfoot hoax. People are interesting if you give them a chance.

5.  CEO Mark Hurd – Keep in mind that, because these are the week’s most blogged-about stories, the blogs that are able to score interviews with the high-profile individuals involved are likely to be larger entities, such as The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to learn from them when it comes to growing your blog. “Digits Live Show: Mark Hurd Isn’t Leaving H-P Quietly,” shows the importance of prepping for an interview and researching your subject before sitting down to talk. Study the topic and come prepared with a list of questions. Never try to wing an interview.

6.  Ground Zero – Though it’s difficult to tell exactly how War Room’s interview with Newt Gingrich’s spokesman for “Gingrich aide: Mosque at Ground Zero is like statue of Marx at Arlington” played out based on the post, it does bring to mind another piece of interview advice: Leave controversy and potentially upsetting questions until last. Make sure you’ve asked your subject any other questions you may have because, by bringing up sensitive topics, you stand the risk of ending the interview or, at the very least, putting your subject in a less-than-helpful mood.

7.  Net Neutrality – If you enjoy interviewing, consider adding a weekly or monthly podcast to your blog. Bits has a regular audio component that features a combination of interviews, news, and tips (“Tech Talk Podcast: Net Neutrality”). You can choose from any number of podcasting tools.

8.  Senator Ted Stevens – GretaWire conducted a phone interview for “Former Gov. Sarah Palin Reflects on Ted Stevens.” Interviews can be conducted via phone, instant message, email, or in person. If your subject is high-profile, they may have their own requirements. Otherwise, choose based on the length of the interview (driving two hours for a ten-minute in-person interview doesn’t make sense) and the limitations of each option (email and instant message don’t allow you to read body language and the subject’s vocal cues). If you decide on an email interview, be clear about your deadline. If you choose phone and decide to record, be sure to ask the subject’s permission.

9.  Scott Pilgrim – The “Exclusive: Edgar Wright Vs. ComingSoon.net…FIGHT!” Q&A illustrates the most important quality of a good interviewer: being a good listener. Remember: The interview is not about you. It’s okay to add some personal information to put the subject at ease or build rapport but keep the focus on your subject. In my personal opinion, this interview tends to bring the interviewer into the mix a little too much but it’s clear that he is taking the time to listen to the answers and ask solid follow up questions. Follow-ups of this kind can yield some of the best information, and if you’re too busy thinking of what you’ll say next, you’ll miss those opportunities. Keep quiet and let your interviewee fill the silence.

10.  Katy Perry – Blogging is about filling a need for your readers. As you interview or prepare for an interview, ask yourself what your audience wants or expects to learn from your subject. According to “YouTube Users More Interested in Katy Perry Than Barack Obama,” YouTube’s approach to interviewing Katy Perry was to actually ask YouTube users for question suggestions. You can try this on your own blog if you’ll be talking with someone who is well-known in your niche. Keep in mind that the questions you choose—whether created by you or your readers—should be open ended (“What do you like about ProBlogger?” rather than “Do you like ProBlogger?”) and creative. Stock, overused questions yield nothing but stock, overused answers.

One last bit of advice: If you can’t score the interview, don’t do this.

Do you do interviews for your blog? Please share any tips you have as well as an example or two from your blog in the comments. I’d love to check out what you’re working on. See you next week!

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blogosphere Trends + Interview Tips

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In The Myth Of Great Content Marketing Itself, Darren said that:

The reality is that many blogs produce quality content that doesn’t get read. The reason isn’t that the blog’s not worth reading – but in many cases it’s because nobody knows to go read it.

Later, he said:

Letting your content market itself DOES work IF you already have an audience to help with that process by spreading word of it through word of mouth. YOU need to be the one who starts the process.

It’s time to hustle and get word out about your content.

I agree. Most of the apparent success you see on a blog is based on what happens outside of content creation. The main secret to kicking arse online is knowing the right people.

Yes, I’m talking about the networking.

How Networking Leads To Blog Success

Image by Sudhamshu

Do you ever see posts with high profile commenters and tonnes of retweets that seems to echo around the blogosphere? All that happened off the blog. The connections were made months before a favour was asked. The person had provided enough value for the person to not even considering saying no to a request for help.

I recently wrote a post taking readers step by step through my networking methods. This guest post will take you through specific observations that helped me garner the attention of the big guns – and keep it.

Be A Filter. Be Seen.

I owe the discovery of this concept to Dave Navarro at The Launch Coach

“the busier and more successful someone is, the more they rely on people they trust to filter decisions for them.  They don’t have the time to take in an process all the pros and cons of some new unknown quantity, so they simply look to their “influencers” - the people who already have established trust with them – for recommendations. “

Positioning yourself as a filter is a great way to get on the radars of awesome people.

I became a filter by accident and it’s a role that I’ve embraced. I’m known as the person that hooks people up. I did one consulting call and was interviewed for two paid programs in the past week. In all three cases, I asked the person is there was anyone I could connect them too.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In many cases, it means getting them featured on a certain blog. They get publicity. The blogger gets quality content. I get the happiness from making awesomeness happen.

The key to being a indispensible filter is being so darn useful that the A-listers clamor to get to know you. However, before you can get to know them they have to know who you are.

So – how do you get to know them?

Meet them on their turf and go where they are most comfortable. This is where they will me most receptive to your attempts at connection.

For many people, this is Twitter. For others, it may be a uStream or an interview. Be where they are, and without being spammy show how intelligent and helpful you are. In some cases, they’ll get to know you and ask to take the conversation elsewhere.

Taking the conversation off that platform

Image by Moriza

Take the conversation to phone

It’s weird, but hearing someone’s voice encourages them to be more emotionally involved. They are more likely to remember you and be willing to help you out down the track.

I know this because I’ve Skyped a lot of my blogging friends. It’s hard, especially when you are introverted. It has lots of awesome networking opportunities. You can pick up little pieces of information to leverage later, such as birthdays and children. You can also bond over accents or similar work.

For most people, this means talking to them on Skype. You can also talk to them via conference call products or by a regular phone.

Take it to email

I try and funnel most conversations to email. This makes it a lot easier to form a connection and figure out how you can help each other. I have one email for most people and a separate email for those I have a preexisting relationship with. This means that I can give a priority to those I am willing to help out.

This may not be practical for some of the bigger names. They generally get so many emails that yours will get lost. In these cases, it’s worth getting to know the person that filters their email if you definitely need their attention.

Meeting in real life

In most cases, this is unlikely to happen. That’s just the way the internet works. There is often too much hassle involved in meeting up unless you live physically close to them. I have three main ways I meet people:

• If a social media friend will be in the same city as you, casually offer to meetup. I got to meet Yaro Starak and Melinda Brennan this way.
• I also to conferences that my friends will be attending. This means we get to hang out during the sessions and can make additional connections with some of their friends.
• My other method is tweetups. I limit the ones I attend because they can be tiring but they are an awesome place to develop new friendship circles.

How to be incredibly useful.

Image by thebittenword.com

Know what they need before they know they need it

Imagine. You are craving an ice cream. You don’t have the time to go and buy the ice cream but then someone offers one because they instinctively know that it could help you right then. Now, imagine that you could help people find solutions that could save or earn them thousands of dollars. They’d be pretty darn grateful, right?

That’s what I do and it’s how you can get a lot of the big guns to view you as a peer in a short period of time.

To succeed at this you have to be good at reading between the lines. You have to:

• Be able to see when they are hinting towards needing help such as them tweeting about feeling sick.
• Know what type of person/product they like being referred to.
• Know about the various solutions that they haven’t heard of. This can require a lot of research.

It’s hard work but you eventually develop processes so it requires very little time. One you reach a tipping point most of the people come to you on a referral basis.

Connect them to people that profoundly change things for them

I know I changed Dave Navarro’s career when I reviewed How To Launch The **** Out Of Your Ebook on this blog. That connection has led to so many opportunities and experiences for me.

When you do something amazing, the person will be grateful for a long, long time. People still thank me for mentioning the in the 30 Bloggers To Watch post. And, when I recently needed help, they all rallied around to support me because I’d done so much for them previously.

You don’t have to help in a huge way. Sometimes, it can be a small favour that spurs a person on. Ideas include:

• Get a review copy of an information product on their behalf
• Review their product on a popular blog
• Highlight them in front of an influencer
• Connect them with people with complementary skills

Givers get. Simple.

I help you build your influence at jadecraven.com. If you want to know whats hot in the blogosphere before it goes mainstream, check out my How to Network Fast Course. People come to me whenever they want their stuff to be shared and I only share the best with my readers.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The Unmissable Secret of Long Term Blogging Success.

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Posted by Dr. Pete

This post is the culmination of two of my lifelong dreams: (1) To spend an entire day on YouTube and call it "work", and (2) To Photoshop Matt Cutts’ face on cartoon food. Early in 2009, Matt Cutts, Google’s most visible anti-spam engineer, began releasing a series of short Webmaster Help videos. You’ve probably seen some of these videos, but what you may not know is that there are currently over 200 of them, with more than 70 posted in 2010 alone.

From time to time, I’ve been amazed at the details that slip out during these videos, many of which don’t get much play in the blogosphere. So, I decided to watch all of the 2010 videos and report back on what I learned. This post contains my Top 10 picks along with a few interesting tidbits and one SHOCKING CONSPIRACY.

Obligatory Disclaimers

Let’s get this out of the way, as Matt seems to be a lightning rod for controversy. I’m a nice guy, but if you don’t read this section, don’t expect me to reply to your comments.

I don’t speak for Matt

Other than having played a couple of hands of Search Spam with Matt over the years (I think we’re 1-and-1), I don’t know him and I’m not trying to put words in his mouth. I’ve used the original video titles, for reference, but the rest is paraphrased. I strongly encourage you to watch the originals.

Don’t believe everything you hear

Matt, like everyone, has vested interests, and Google doesn’t have any motivation to tell us every detail about how the algorithm works.

Don’t disbelieve everything, either

I don’t think Matt stays up nights scheming about how to deceive SEOs. I think he’s a smart, decent guy who cares about search quality.

My Top 10 Picks

One quick note, before I reveal my picks (counting down from 10 to 1). If you want to get Matt to answer your questions, it apparently helps to have a cool-sounding name, like "Magico" or "Youser". From now on, I will have my Muppet Intern Yoozer submit all of my help questions.

10. Should I spend time on meta keywords tags? (Apr 19)

Matt says: "I wouldn’t spend even 0 minutes on it, personally".

I know most of you know this, but it’s good to hear it from the source. Google does not use the keywords meta tag for ranking. Meta description still has value for other reasons (Watch the video – 1:21).

9. How does URL structure affect PageRank (Apr 6)

Matt says: "Google doesn’t worry so much about how deep a set of directories is."

This post raises an important distinction – URL structure is not link structure. We get this confusion frequently in Q&A. Let’s say you have a URL like this:

http://www.example.com/year/month/day/topic/blog-post-title

That page isn’t 5 levels deep, just because it’s 5 /s behind the root domain in the URL. The depth of the page is determined by your internal architecture and link structure. URL length may affect the power of keywords in the URL and the click-through of the URL, but the crawlers don’t really care when it comes to finding your pages. What matters is if this page is one hop from the home-page or 10 hops away (Watch the video - 2:04).

Note: SEOmoz correlation data has shown that deeper folder structure may correlate with worse rankings. Deep folder structures can be an indication of other issues, including information architecture problems.

8. Can I make sure Google always uses my meta description tags? (Mar 24)

Matt says: "The short answer is ‘no’."

I hear this complaint a lot. Google will sometimes rewrite its own snippets for relevance. You can block the ODP and you can write relevant, unique meta descriptions, but you can’t completely control what Google does (Watch the video – 1:52).

7. Can having dofollow comments on my blog affect its reputation? (Feb 22)

This is an interesting two-parter. First off, outbound links to spammy sites can have a negative impact on your reputation. Manage your outbound links and nofollow if you have to. Individual, inbound spammy links will typically not harm you, on the other hand, because they’re beyond your control (although, in my experience, a pattern of inbound spammy links can be a different story). Matt has some great comments at the end about the value of commenting on dofollow blogs (Watch the video – 2:35).

6. Is cross-linking websites bad? (Jan 25)

Matt says: "I would ask yourself: are these websites really related in any kind of sense?"

When Matt wants to read cartoons, links to auto insurance and coffee tables make him sad. Cross-linking 3 sites probably isn’t a big deal, but 30 or 300 could likely get you into trouble. Relevance is the key, and footer cross-links are often low-value (Watch the video – 2:00).

5. How can I get Google to index more of my Sitemap URLS? (Mar 23)

Matt says: "I wouldn’t get hung up on just how many pages have been indexed…"

We hear this one from frustrated webmasters every day. Google does not guarantee that pages in your XML sitemap will be indexed. Indexation has a lot to do with your authority and trust – an authoritative site will get more love from the crawlers, plain and simple (Watch the video – 1:31). Check out Rand’s recent post diving deeper into Matt’s comments on the indexation cap.

4. Will changing hosts cause any SEO concerns? (Feb 9)

Matt says: "Most people can switch their IP address and never have any issue whatsoever."

This is a common fear that is usually unfounded. As long as your domain name and hosting country stay the same, switching from one reliable host to another should have no SEO impact. Matt gives a nice briefing on how to change DNS servers and set your TTL that’s worth watching (Watch the video – 1:53).

Note: Although I implied this in the recap, it deserves repeating. If you’re changing your domain name and/or hosting country, that can definitely affect your ranking and is a much more complex issue. Consider the risks and plan accordingly, in those cases.

3. Is Google Analytics data a factor in a page’s ranking? (Feb 2)

Matt says: "I promise you, my team will never ask the analytics team to use their data."

I don’t think you’ll hear a more direct answer from Matt than that. Conspiracy theories abound, but there are 3 separate videos in 2010 where Matt states that the quality team does not use Google Analytics data. Of course, that doesn’t mean that user metrics (click-through rate, etc.) aren’t a factor, but these are more likely coming from other sources, such as SERP tracking (Watch the video – 1:17).

2. Can you give us an update on rankings for long-tail searches? (May 30)

This is a discussion of the so-called "Mayday" update. Matt clearly states that Mayday is a deliberate, algorithmic change to improve the quality of long-tail searches, and it is not temporary. It is not related to Caffeine, although the roll-out timeline overlaps somewhat (Watch the video – 2:39).

1. Should I be obsessing about load times? (May 5)

Matt says: "We have considered in 2010 using page speed…"

There are a couple of important points here. First, Google hadn’t even finalized the decision to use page speed as a ranking factor until this spring*. Second, page speed is just one of over 200 ranking factors. All else being equal, a fast site is good for users and good for search, but an occasional server glitch isn’t going to kill your rankings. If you can speed up your site with a few simple changes, though, why not do it (Watch the video – 2:28)?

*Edit: As Lindsay points out below, Matt’s April 9th blog post does suggest that page speed was incorporated as a ranking factor. One of the issues with the dates on the videos is that they’re often recorded a bit before they’re released. On the May 5th video, Matt suggests that Google hadn’t made a final decision on using page speed, but the reality is that that decision was probably made in March or April.

Honorable Mentions

3. How many bots does Google have? (Feb 30)

This is a nice review of what bots/spiders actually are. They aren’t real robots that come knocking on your door. It’s a good, short primer for new SEOs (Watch the video – 1:30).

2. State of the Index 2009 (Jan 20)

This is a long one, and it’s slightly out of date, but it’s a good review of some of what happened in 2009. It has a solid explanation of rel=canonical, as well as the parameter blocking and fetch as Googlebot features in Webmaster Tools. It ends with a brief explanation of what Caffeine is all about (Watch the video – 25:59).

1. How many search algorithm changes were made in 2009? (Apr 22)

Google makes a change to the algorithm on the order of ONCE PER DAY. These changes may be batched and rolled out in chunks, but another video confirmed a number of roughly 400 algorithm changes in 2009. If you think May-Day and Caffeine are the only things that have happened in 2010, think again. Google is constantly evolving. This video also includes a statement you don’t hear from Matt every day – Good content is necessary, but not sufficient (Watch the video – 1:53).

The Shocking Conspiracy

Of course, it wouldn’t be a post about Matt Cutts without a conspiracy. If you watch the 2010 videos, you’ll see a shocking transformation, where Matt goes from having hair to no hair back to hair again almost instantaneously. I’ve graphed this phenomenon below:

Matt claims this has something to do with the timing of the videos and filming them in batches, blah blah blah, but those of us who are savvy are forced to reach one of two conclusions:

1. Google has discovered the secret of re-growing hair and refuses to share it.
2. Matt is, as I’ve often suspected, a cybernetic extension of the Google algorithm.

So, there you have it. My Top 10 picks of 2010 (so far), a few highlight reels, and one shocking conspiracy, as promised. By the way, if you’re a beginner or are interested in general SEO tips like these, make sure to check out our completely revised, free Beginner’s Guide to SEO.

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This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts). – Darren

Hello, fellow bloggers! Hope you’re having a fabulous week. Since I started this weekly column on April 7, we’ve discussed strong headlines and opening lines, use of video and images, list posts, effective quotes, and more—all through the lens of the week’s most-blogged-about topics. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the conversations we’ve had together in the comments and the knowledge you’ve all shared with each other and with me.

In the spirit of those open conversations, I wanted to answer the most common question I’ve received: How can I use these general trends if I don’t blog about current affairs? Well, you can find trends on your specific niche on Regator, but the true answer is that no matter what your niche, there is often a way—with enough creativity and research into the details of the story—to make it work for your readers. And tying posts to the week’s hottest topics can be a great way to get new readers and attract attention. This week, along with trends from Regator, we’ll take a look at how these topics were covered by bloggers in unexpected niches…

1. Gulf of Mexico – You’d expect the disaster in the Gulf to be covered by blogs on environmentalism, marine biology, perhaps even business and politics, but PopEater managed to find a way to bring this ecological story into the realm of pop culture in “An Interview With the Guy Skewering BP on Twitter.”
2. World Cup ­– The Next Web’s “World Cup fever? Here are 5 apps to keep you on top of things” took what would traditionally be a sports story and moved it into the technology space by focusing on related apps rather than the event itself.
3. Steve Jobs – Jobs’s highly anticipated World Wide Developers Conference talk unveiled the iPhone 4 and was covered widely by technology blogs but Star Trek blog TrekMovie.com was able to make the event relevant to their readers by focusing on the Star Trek references in the talk and technology from the show and movie in “Steve Jobs Invokes Star Trek (Again) While Unveiling 4th Gen iPhone.”
4. Helen Thomas – While political bloggers obsessed over Thomas’s offensive comments, women’s blog Jezebel covered the story by discussing what Thomas’s undignified fall meant for a woman who had been an icon and inspiration to women everywhere in its post “Helen Thomas: When An Icon Disappoints [Iconography].”
5. MTV Movie Awards – Rather than approaching this star-studded event from the usual entertainment blogger’s perspective, gay blog AutoStraddle’s “MTV Movie Awards 2010 Celebrate Lesbian Innuendo, Swearing, Twilight” made the awards more relevant to their readers by honing in on the “10 most homosexual moments of the MTV Movie Awards 2010.”
6. Rue McClanahan – While many television and entertainment bloggers focused on McClanahan’s television and theater legacy, Ecorazzi’s “RIP: Actress And Longtime Animal-Advocate Rue McClanahan Dies At 76” brought the story to their ecologically conscious demographic by focusing on the actor’s animal rights work.
7. Lady Gaga – On a week when Lady Gaga’s latest music video was on everyone’s lips, Social Psychology Eye’s post “Facing illness, belief helps” skillfully worked the pop icon into the blog by discussing the psychological implications of Gaga’s recent revelation that she had been tested for lupus, undoubtedly earning them quite a few more readers than they would’ve gotten on a straightforward academic post on illness perception.
8. Rush Limbaugh – Rather than obsessing about the details of Limbaugh’s wedding, as many entertainment bloggers did, The Daily Beast’s “Celebrity Wedding Singers” took Elton John’s unexpected role as Limbaugh’s wedding singer and created a list post that broadened the appeal of the story.
9. Israel – Music bloggers aren’t the most expected source of news from Israel, but several, including Drowned in Sound with its post “Bands cancel shows following Israel’s flotilla raid” covered what is essentially a political and international affairs story in a way that created value for their music-obsessed readers.
10. Harry Potter – While film bloggers were busy dissecting the latest Harry Potter trailer, travel blog Gadling put its own spin on the popular character with “London mayor rails against Wizarding World of Harry Potter’s Florida location.”

One thing all of these posts have in common is that the bloggers took the time to learn enough details about these stories to find a way to make them work for their blogs’ niches. Have you managed to work a popular story into your blog’s niche by using a creative angle? Tell us about it in the comments!

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Using the Blogosphere’s Trends for Your Niche

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This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts). – Darren

Each week, Regator brings you a list of the ten stories bloggers have been writing about most during the previous seven days (click any trend to see a list of posts about it). And while blogging about the week’s hottest topics may help you snag some new readers, it also puts you squarely in the center of a massive crowd, all talking about the same subject. That’s why, along with the top ten lists, I always give examples of posts that covered the week’s top stories in interesting ways.

We’ve already looked at interesting formats that can inspire you and add variety to your blog. Today, we’ll look in more detail at one of those formats: list posts. Writing a list post is the assignment for Day 2 of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook because (among other reasons) list posts are scannable, succinct, visually attractive, persuasive, and have a higher than average chance of going viral. If you’re new to this type of post, get some valuable tips by checking out “10 Steps to the Perfect List Post.” Let’s see how some bloggers used lists to cover this week’s top stories:

1. Gulf of Mexico – By offering five solutions, Inhabitat’s Top 5 Green Ways to Clean Up Oil Spills ensures that readers know exactly what they are being promised.
2. Rand Paul – The Atlantic Wire’s 6 Ways Rand Paul Is Like Sarah Palin uses a bullet-pointed list to break up what might otherwise have been an unwieldy block of text providing comparisons between the two politicians.
3. Google TV ­– 7 Ways to Watch Web Video Without Google TV gives readers value through tips on products, along with the pros and cons of each. Using a non-round number such as seven can have the effect of encouraging readers to add to the list in the comments, which has happened on this Gadget Lab post.
4. French Open ­– The Bleacher Report’s 10 French Open Observations, provides tennis enthusiasts with ten scenes from this important event. As one commenter noted, the post keeps things “brief and moving along.”
5. North Korea – As demonstrated by PajamasMedia’s North vs. South Korea: How Bad Could a War Get? list posts don’t always have to be numbered. Breaking this story down into “The Good News,” “The Bad News,” “The Worse News,” and “The Downright Scary News,” dissects and simplifies a complex situation.
6. World Cup – Abduzeedo’s The 10 Stadiums of the 2010 World Cup is appropriately image-heavy and text-light for this design-focused blog and uses the round number 10, which (like 25, 50, or 100) lends the post a certain amount of authority.
7. Mark Zuckerberg ­– Agree to Disagree’s 5 Ways to Deal with Facebook’s Privacy Policy shows that the list itself might be only part of your post. Create the list then spend the rest of your post playing devil’s advocate or debating the pros and cons of each item.
8. Craig Venter – Jacks of Science used a bold, attention-grabbing, humorous headline to sell 5 Reasons Craig Venter Might Kill You. It’s not a brand-new post relating to Venter’s recent creation of the first synthetic life, but it does provide interesting trivia in a fun-to-digest format.
9. Series Finale ­– BuzzSugar’s The Top 10 Highlights From the American Idol Season Finale! uses the word “top” to create interest. Words like “top” and “best” lead your readers to believe that they’re seriously missing out if they don’t read your post and therefore tend to do very well in the titles of list posts. Techland’s 10 Ways LOST Shouldn’t End takes the opposite approach and looks at the worst ways the show could end rather than the best. Lists of the “worst,” “most awful,” “most disastrous” also tend to do well. Call it schadenfreude.
10. Shrek Forever After – Reelz Channel’s Top 10 “Wow, You’ve Really Let Yourself Go” Movies uses one timely story to illustrate a trend, presenting each list item with a clear subheadline in larger text and bolded phrase that hopes to intrigue readers into reading the smaller text.

How often do you use list posts? Under what circumstances to you think they work best? Let us know in the comments.

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Top 10 Blogosphere Trends + 10 Great List Posts

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Welcome back for another edition of the weekly Blogosphere trends, now on its new day of the week. If you’re blogging about stories, like those on the trends list, that are covered by hundreds of other bloggers across the blogosphere or in your niche, how can you make sure your post gets the attention it deserves? We’ve talked a bit about using effective headlines, interesting formats, and strong opening lines to draw readers to your posts. Today, along with the trends generated by Regator, we’ll look at some types of images that could be used to help posts about these popular stories stand out from the crowd.

Normally, I use individual blog posts to illustrate the week’s tips. This week, I’m taking a slightly different approach and using images from Flickr (unless otherwise noted) because I want to demonstrate the variety and quality of images available there via Creative Commons licenses. We’ll talk in a moment about licensing and other places to get free (or affordable) legal images for your posts, but first, let’s take a look at how this week’s hot stories could’ve been enhanced with visuals:

1. Gulf of Mexico – Powerful photos, such as this oil-covered pelican, can be used to add emotional impact to your posts. Remember, a picture is worth 1,000 words…but it’s the internet, so your readers probably don’t have the attention span required to read 1,000 words.
2. Elena Kagan – Clear, well-framed photographs can also be used to set the scene for your post. This photo of the U.S. Supreme Court is Konomarked, which is a bit different from the standard Creative Commons licensing normally used by Flickr. The Konomark symbol, which looks like a pineapple in a circle, generally means that the owner of the content is willing to share it but must be emailed first for permission.
3. Cannes Film Festival – Perhaps you weren’t able to stand in the center of the red carpet at Cannes to get a dramatic shot…but someone was. Use their access to transport your readers to an exclusive location or event in order to give them a perspective they wouldn’t ordinarily be privy to.
4. Ronnie James Dio – When choosing photos of celebrities–or people in general, for that matter–spontaneous shots that capture a moment in time are usually far more impactful than staged, posed promo shots provided by PR companies. Though taken on stage, this shot of Ronnie James Dio, who died this week, seems to offer a glimpse into the human being behind the rock star persona.
5. Senate/Rand Paul/Arlen Specter – You might also consider using a comic or illustration rather than a photo. Because of the time involved in creating them, it can be tough to find free versions of political cartoons, this Arlen Specter work isn’t free but the prices are listed to give you some idea of what something like this would cost.
6. Miss USA/Rima Fakih – The right image can be used to add humor to your post. In this case, this (really weird) “pole dancing is prohibited” sign could provide light-hearted commentary on the Miss USA pole dancing scandal.
7. Robin Hood – If you regularly blog about movies, music, or television, you probably receive more publicity stills and promo shots than you’d use in a lifetime. They can be useful in the right context though. Slashfilm used promo shots to give readers a glimpse of the highly anticipated but then-unreleased Robin Hood movie. PR contacts are often happy to provide you with promo shots if you just ask.
8. Steve Jobs – Although the old adage that pictures never lie is certainly not true in the age of PhotoShop and photo manipulation, they do still add a certain level of credibility to a story. Gawker published screen shots of a heated exchange between a blogger and Steve Jobs because it was not only a more visually interesting approach, but also helped legitimize the story.
9. David Cameron – Infographics, such as this analysis of the UK election under different voting systems, can help your readers quickly and easily understand a complicated topic or simply present information and statistics that might’ve been dry or wordy in a more dynamic, interesting way.
10. World Cup – Like infographics, maps are a visually engaging way to provide a great deal of information using minimal text and space. This annotated map of the World Cup surrounds quickly conveys important safety information to World Cup fans.

Most of the images above are available via Creative Commons licensing on Flickr. It’s vital to understand the various types of licensing so that you understand what you can and cannot do with a particular image and how it needs to be attributed. Many new bloggers make the mistake of using random images from a Google image search, hot-linking to images (a BIG no-no), or using Flickr or other image sites without fully understanding the licensing. Here’s my approach: I begin by doing an advanced search on Flickr, making sure to check the box that says “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content.” Then, once I’ve found an image I’m interested in, I click the “Some rights reserved” link (if it says “All rights reserved,” it it not available via Creative Commons) under “More information” in the lower right corner of the page to learn more about the licensing for that photo.

Flickr is a great resource but certainly isn’t your only option for free-high quality images for your posts. Here are a few other options:

- Use the advanced option of Google Image Search. Select the correct option under “Usage Rights.”
- Wikimedia Commons is another amazing resource with more than six million images to choose from.
- If you’re ever in need of space or astronomy-related images, you can’t do better than NASA Images, which allows you to use any image (as long as it doesn’t imply that NASA endorses a particular product) simply by including a credit that says, “NASA/courtesy nasaimages.org.”
- Stock.xchng, now owned by Getty Images, has 350,000 free stock photos. There are also a few other sites where you can find images free of charge, including MorgueFile, EveryStockPhoto, and Freerange Stock.
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a sizable library of nature-related digital media, all available free of charge.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a beautiful library of photos, all available for free with a few minor restrictions regarding attribution.
- Use your own photos. With a decent camera and a bit of practice (along with some tips from photography blogs like Darren’s Digital Photography School), you can save yourself the time it’ll take to hunt down photos taken by others and get the satisfaction of creating even more original content for your blog.

Do you have a great image resource I haven’t mentioned? Please share it with your fellow bloggers in the comments.

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blogosphere Trends + Choosing and Using Images

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This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts). – Darren

Welcome back, my blogtastic friends! As you may have gathered by now: Every week, we use Regator’s blog trends to show you what the blogosphere has been writing about during the previous seven days (click any trend to see posts about that story) and I give you a few blogging tips to go along with the trends. Speaking of which, I just finished watching the first, second, and third groups of videos that Darren gathered from readers who had tips to share, and I’m both impressed and inspired.

That’s why I thought we’d use this week’s trends to talk a bit about videos in posts, namely why and when to use video. The “Tips From Our Readers” video series as well as Darren’s weekly video posts are effective because they not only convey information but also use video to strengthen the community and to help readers connect with Darren on a more personal level. Building community and helping readers connect with you as a blogger are two ways of ensuring repeat visitors and higher traffic. Let’s take a look at this week’s trends and how a few specific blogs used video to add to these stories:

1. Gulf of Mexico/Deepwater Horizon – In “Video of Oil Rig and Fire Rescues” The Lede features five separate videos of the oil rig fire in the Gulf of Mexico. These videos are used to convey the drama of the event and play into the human fascination with disasters. In general, don’t write about a tornado if you have video of it. Don’t describe an explosion if you can show it.
2. Goldman Sachs – The Consumerist’s “Senator to Goldman Sachs: ‘Why Did You Push a S#!tty Deal?” uses video to show rather than tell readers about this altercation. Using video this way is a good alternative to transcribing long passages of quotes and also provides readers with nuances such as body language, facial expressions, and linguistic quirks that can be important in circumstances such as this.
3. Kentucky Derby – Videos can be used to add humor to your blog. In “The Late Movies: Horse Racing Hijinks,” Mental Floss does this by providing a series of videos showing commentators struggling with unusual horse names during the Derby. (The Aaaaarrrr! video is priceless, but makes another point because the 1:34 second video only gets going after the 50-second mark. Don’t be afraid to edit videos down to the relevant bits. The internet has a short attention span.)
4. Gordon Brown – Gordon Brown’s recent gaffe, in which he insulted a woman while his microphone was unintentionally on, is a perfect opportunity to use video to illustrate a controversial moment. The author of Britannica Blog’s “Bigotgate and the End of Gordon Brown” recognized this and inserted video proof of the incident. Covering stories such as this one without video simply feels incomplete.
5. Born Free – Rather than simply showing M.I.A.’s controversial banned-on-YouTube new video for “Born Free,” The Daily Swarm used it, along with other recent music videos, to highlight a trend in its post “Why the Event Video Is Back.” If you’re handy with video editing, you can also create videos that demonstrate trends by showing that multiple people taking part in a particular activity, wearing a particular fashion, or using a particular phrase, for example.
6. Times Square – When timeliness matters, you might be able to cover a breaking story more quickly for your readers by posting video of a press conference than by writing your own analysis. Towleroad’s “Car Bomb Scare Shuts Down Times Square” quickly summed up the story with quotes from major news outlets and video of the mayor’s press conference. You can go this route to keep your readers informed then go back and write a more detailed post later.
7. Bret Michaels – TV Squad uses video to provide additional commentary and opinion on Bret Michael’s medical condition from a public figure in “Did Trump Inadvertently Spoil ‘The Celebrity Apprentice?’” Using video in this way helps add additional voices and color to the post.
8. Stephen Hawking – Video can also be used to add pop culture references to your posts. In “Stephen Hawking: ‘Don’t Talk to Aliens,’” The Seminal uses amusing video clips from movies to indicate that Hawking thinks aliens are more like the crazy attack aliens from Independence Day than friendly E.T.s from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
9. Arizona Immigration Law – Liberal U.S. political blog Crooks and Liars uses video of protests against Arizona’s new immigration law to support its viewpoints and take readers to the scene of a story in “Tens of Thousands March in Major Cities for Immigration Reform.” Taking your own video at a drama-filled event gives your readers inside access and puts them in the moment.
10. Sandra Bullock – In “Sandra Bullock Paparazzi Feeding Frenzy Videos: Pure Chaos,” Gawker used video when words might’ve fallen short. The scene is so chaotic and overwhelming that video was, very likely, the best way to quickly communicate the situation.

Do you use video for any of the reasons mentioned here (to build community, to convey drama, to show rather than tell, to add humor, to illustrate controversy or chaos, to show a trend, to cover breaking news quickly, to add voices and commentary, to add pop culture references, or to take readers to the scene)? How have you used videos on your blog? Please share your experiences in the comments!

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blogosphere Trends – What Bloggers Are Writing About This Week

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This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts). – Darren

Happy Monday, bloggers! Every week, we use Regator’s blog trends to show you what the blogosphere has been buzzing about during the previous seven days. (As always, click any trend to see posts about that story.) Because so many people are blogging about each of these stories, it becomes more important than ever to find a way to set your post apart.

This week, we’ll be taking a look at a few posts from bloggers who used interest-adding formats to approach these widely covered stories. So many of us tend to think in terms of text and paragraphs when we sit down to blog, but there are dozens of options you can use to add variety to your blog, find new ways of looking at a story, and present an oft-covered topic in a fresh and engaging way. Live blogging, slideshows, infographics, charts and graphs, timelines, contests, polls, lists, interviews, videos, reviews, tutorials, Q&As, and lists are just a few formats that are worth keeping in mind. Let’s take a look at how some bloggers approached this week’s top stories:

1. Earth Day – Treehugger’s “An Earth Day Tribute to 11 Environmental Heroes” uses a slideshow to great effect, putting faces to the names to help readers connect more closely with the people being profiled. If creating a slideshow feels a bit overwhelming, a post with large, high-quality photos with deep captions can achieve the same thing in most cases.
2. Goldman Sachs – In “SEC vs. Goldman Sachs Q&A,” The Huffington Post explains a complicated issue without frightening readers off with huge blocks of uninterrupted text by using a Q&A format.
3. NFL Draft – In “Our NFL Draft Drinking Game Will Melt Your Face,” Asylum creates a game, complete with lengthy list of rules, for readers. My first thought was that creating games would rarely be a good option, then I searched Regator and found blog posts on drinking games relating to Earth Day, Avatar, Glee, income taxes, Battlestar Galactica, and dozens more. A search for more wholesome, less boozy options turned up posts on Appropriation Bingo, Gender Bias Bingo, Food Writer Bingo, Chatroulette Bingo, and too many more to mention. Get creative.
4. South Park – BoingBoing’s “South Park’s 200th, Litigious Celebs and Mohammed” makes great use of video. Videos add an extra dimension that can work well if your subject is engaging enough to hold your readers/viewers’ attention. In general, the shorter the better (without losing important context, of course).
5. Gizmodo/iPhone 4G – Like a Q&A, timelines have the ability to break a complicated situation up in a way that makes it more digestible for readers. The timeline used by Today @ PCWorld in “Apple’s iPhone 4G Debacle: A Timeline” is in text format but, if you have the technical prowess and time, you could potentially get quite fancy with interactive visual timelines.
6. Nick Clegg – Live blogging events encourages interaction and gives your readers the freshest information available. The Telegraph used this technique in “Sky TV Leaders’ Debate: Live Blog.” If you blog with others, live blogging as a group is a good way to give readers’ some extra viewpoints.
7. Country Music Awards – You can use polls as a quick, easy way to cover a story and to encourage reader debate and comments. The Hollywood Gossip’s post “ACM Awards Fashion Face-Off: Taylor Swift vs. Miranda Lambert” is an example of how brief a poll post can be.
8. Project Runway – Interviews are a great option and, if you ask the right questions, also guarantee that you’ll have something original and exclusive to post. FabSugar’s “Exclusive! Project Runway’s Jay Talks About Second Win and Why Nina’s Opinion Matters Most” has a descriptive headline and solid photos to accompany the interview.
9. Tribeca Film Festival – Film, book, art, and music blogs employ reviews regularly (The Independent Eye has a series of well-written review posts on Tribeca Film Fest movies) but your niche might give you some even more interesting/unexpected options.
10. Beijing Auto Show – Going to an event of interest to your readers? A thorough day-in-the-life post to share the experience with them is a useful alternative to live blogging (who has time to live blog while taking part in an event?). The Truth About Cars‘ “TTAC at the Beijing Auto Show. Day Two” is an example of a detailed post of this kind. It’s obvious that the blogger took care to take ample photos and notes throughout the day.

What other formats have worked for you and your readers? Please share your examples in the comments!

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blogosphere Trends – What Bloggers Are Writing About This Week

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Today we’re starting a new type of post here at ProBlogger – Blogosphere Trends – something we hope will become a regular feature of ProBlogger and a way for bloggers to keep up with the latest trends in the Blogosphere.

This column is written by Kimberly Turner (pictured left) from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts) – Darren

What were bloggers writing about last week? We used Regator’s trending topics for the week to generate a top ten list that shows you exactly that (click any trend to see posts on that story). But as Darren pointed out in his video post “11 Ways to Add to the Conversation of the Blogosphere and Stand Out from the Crowd,” it’s not enough to cover the stories that everyone else is covering: “Successful bloggers have something of their own to say.” So in addition to the trending topics for the week, we’ll take a look at some specific posts that managed to truly add to the conversation around these stories. Did you cover one of these stories in an innovative way that broke out of the echo chamber? Tell us about it in the comments.

1. Sarah Palin – For “What Does the Future Hold for Sarah Palin? (Besides LL Cool J)”, Jezebel heeded Darren’s sixth piece of advice by considering the implications of the current story on future events.
2. Hot Tub Time Machine – Though the post does contain spoilers, io9’s “Open Letter to the Writers and Director of ‘Hot Tub Time Machine,’ From a Physics Professor” is a refreshing take on a story that many bloggers covered with a simple review. Interviewing experts for posts is a great way to create original content—bonus points when you do it in such an unexpected way.
3. Apple iPad – Like the Sarah Palin post, iPhoneCTO’s “iPad Misunderstood: 5 Ways Apple’s Uber Tablet Will Transform Business” looks into the future but, just as importantly, also takes a broad story and focuses it for the blog’s specific readership. Knowing your readers and shaping stories to meet their needs can help you craft unique content.
4. Earth Hour – Earth Hour elicits its fair share of debate. Many bloggers approached the topic as devil’s advocates (more of Darren’s advice). Lifehacker’s “Forget Earth Hour and Do Something Useful Instead” not only argued against the effectiveness of the event but also provided alternate ways its readers could save energy.
5. Ricky Martin – Autostraddle’s “Cracking the Coming Out Code With Clues From Gay Ricky Martin, Infographics” analysed the star’s decision by putting it in the context of other gay celebrities and their experiences. Putting a specific story within a broader context is another way of adding to the conversation. The nifty infographics don’t hurt either. The good news is that, while they are eye-catching, they aren’t so elaborate that you’d require an art director do something similar for a story you’d like to explore in this way.
6. Kids’ Choice Awards – While most posts covering this Nickelodeon event were pretty predictable, Videogum managed to elicit a giggle from me with its humorous presentation of the winners list in “Old People React to the Winners of the 2010 Kids’ Choice Awards.” A bit of well-placed humour can take a post on a story that everyone’s covering to the next level.
7. Sandra Bullock – Rather than echoing the countless stories on the subject, “David Brooks + Sandra Bullock = Matrimania” from Living Single uses a New York Times opinion piece as a jumping off point to provide an alternate viewpoint and to look at the institution of marriage as a whole.
8. Michael Steele – Another of Darren’s tips is to aggregate various opinions on a story. The Moderate Voice does this well in its post “How Long Will Michael Steele Last at the RNC?” The author gathers snippets of coverage from a number of major sources then goes a step further by adding his own opinion/analysis of each.
9. Catholic Church – “Are the Media Picking on the Catholic Church?” at Blogging Religiously uses a few bits of Darren’s advice. The author indicates what aspect of the story grabbed his attention—in this case the angle and nature of the media coverage—and then provides what he sees as missing information and answers to questions. Although he does quote from other sources, these techniques help him avoid the echo chamber.
10. Large Hadron Collider – We’ve seen (iPad example) that taking a broad story and focusing it in for your audience can be very effective, but sometimes—particularly if you’re dealing with a complex subject such as the LHC—taking a very specific story and broadening it to provide background or additional explanation is an even better option. Ars Technica/Nobel Intent’s “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Particle Smashers (But Were Afraid to Ask)” illustrates this well.

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blogosphere Trends – What Are Bloggers Writing About

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