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

After a brutal summer flu took me down and prevented me from writing last week’s weekly trends post, I’m especially happy to be back to bring you a fresh list of the most blogged-about stories of the last seven days. This week, along with the trends provided by Regator, we’ll be discussing your blog’s tone/voice. We’re talking about something more than first person versus third person or opinion versus hard news.

Think of your favorite blog. What keeps you coming back for more? The subject matter is certainly important, but it’s likely that the blogger’s voice and tone also play an important role in your appreciation for the content. Bloggers whose personalities shine through their writing are often more appealing, engaging, readable, and influential than those who hide their true voices. Read your three most recent posts. Do they “sound” like you? As in, would people who know you well in real life recognize your voice in your posts? Don’t beat yourself up if the answer is no. Maybe purposely adopting a voice that differs from your everyday voice, or maybe you haven’t been blogging long enough to find your writing voice. Give it time and, most importantly, have faith that your personal tone and voice will come with time and practice.

When I was a writing tutor in college, one of my peers who could verbally tell the most hilarious, charming stories you’d ever want to hear told me that he “couldn’t write.” I asked him to put down his pencil and tell me the story he’d told me a few days prior. I started a recorder and let him tell it. He conveyed it in his usual witty way and, when he was through, I stopped the recorder and we transcribed it, word for word. It was utter brilliance. He just needed to stop worrying about sounding “writerly” and start letting his natural tone come through. Let’s take a look at some posts about this week’s top stories that demonstrate the author’s voice:

1. Independence Day – The Frisky’s “6 Ways To Celebrate Being Single And Independent This Independence Day!” is an example of that blog’s positive, encouraging, reassuring tone. The post’s suggestions to raise a glass and celebrate by making a new friend or indulging in a craving are cheerful and bubbly.
2. LeBron James – Fanhouse’s posts, such as “ESPN Defends LeBron James Special,” are professional, straightforward, and unbiased. While this tone brings less personality than some others, it’s a valid choice for those who want to stay closer to the path of traditional journalism.
3. World Cup – Like all of Slate’s blogs, Sports Nut’s tone is conversational but also slightly high-brow. It doesn’t come close to being snooty, but the language (“idée fixe,” “guru of aesthetic purity,” “quixotic displays of good taste”) in “Why all soccer fans should root for Holland to lose to Spain” certainly caters to an educated audience.
4. Lindsay Lohan – The tone of ParentDish’s “Opinion: What Went Wrong With Lindsay Lohan” is sympathetic, earnest, and personal—traits that work well on a parenting blog.
5. Gulf of Mexico – The Consumerist often adopts a slightly cynical, snarky tone, but “BP Spill Now Spoiling All Gulf States As Tar Balls Hit Texas” takes it to the next level with bonus sarcasm and bitterness…but given the subject matter, they can hardly be blamed for that.
6. The Twilight Saga – As evidenced by the not one but two exclamation points in the headline itself, the tone of “Twilighters Own The Box Office! Eclipse Takes In $261.2M Worldwide!” is the same over-excited, enthusiastic, melodramatic style for which Perez Hilton has become famous. Love him or hate him, the man has a distinct voice.
7. Michael Steele – When it comes to being controversial, angry, opinionated, and divisive, political bloggers have every other niche beat, hands down. “Michael Ames–Lying Liberal Scumbag” from The Tygrrrr Express fits the mold, complete with “If Michael Ames thought I was fiery in Idaho, he is going to get the Bachmann Turner Overdrive treatment.” Bringing BTO into it is hardcore, am I right?
8. Mel Gibson – Unlike the aforementioned angry political bloggers, Feministing is not always full of rage but it is always exceptionally straightforward and to-the-point, as indicated in “Mel Gibson: Bonafide Abusive A$$hole.”
9. Emmy Nominations – BuddyTV’s tone is conversational but more importantly, the voice indicates that you are reading the words of  a highly authoritative expert, as indicated in “The 10 Biggest Emmy Snubs: Where’s ‘Sons of Anarchy’?”
10. The Social Network – Like its sister sites in the Gawker blog network, Defamer’s tone is colloquial, informal, and often tinged with humor. “The Facebook Movie Teaser Trailer 2: Too Fast, Too Serious” is a perfect example of how well this tone can work.

Are you careful to keep a consistent tone on your blog? Share your thoughts in the comments. 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 + Your Blog’s Tone

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I tweeted this question a few days back and the variation in responses was quite interesting:

What metric or statistic do you most watch on your blog?

There’s no right or wrong answer to this:

• for some it’ll be mainly about traffic – for some it is visitor numbers, for others it will be page views.
• other bloggers are more interested in subscriber numbers – against there is variation here, RSS and/or Email subscribers.
• some bloggers are more regularly checking the bottom line – earnings. This might be affiliate earnings, advertising earnings or even the sales of their own products.
• another group of bloggers are more interested in reader engagement – so comment numbers, ReTweet counts or Facebook ‘likes’ might grab their attention
• some bloggers are more focused upon the social media space and are monitoring Twitter or Facebook follower/friend numbers or how often they are replied to or interacted with.
• other bloggers get more into the more detailed stats – looking at things like bounce rate, time on site, page views per visit, referrals (where traffic is arriving from) or looking at what the most popular posts are doing in terms of traffic.
• further still, other bloggers are more into SEO and are always analyzing how many links are coming into their blog, how their blog ranks for certain keywords etc.

Of course there are more things to watch – but for you, what’s the #1 metric that you tend to be drawn to throughout your day or week? And why?

For me it varies a little depending upon what I’m focusing upon.

For example – during a product launch I’m obviously looking more at sales of eBooks, conversion numbers and at testing sales pages.

On a normal day I’m probably checking traffic numbers and watching for spikes in traffic so that I can take quick action to leverage them. I tend to check income streams a little less often (once a day) during a ‘normal’ day.

Further Reading: 17 Statistics to Monitor on Your Blog

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What Metric or Statistic do You most Watch on your Blog?

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I was always a doubter when it came to using Facebook to promote a blog. I’m not sure why – but despite my best efforts I couldn’t seem to get Facebook to ‘work’ as well as I could with Twitter when it came to engaging readers, driving traffic and building community.

However in the last few months things have changed – Facebook has become HOT for me, at on my photography blog.

I’m pretty sure it’s more about how I’m using Facebook than any particular change at Facebook but I’ve started to see it become a lot more useful in a few ways including driving traffic (see chart below), increasing reader engagement and building brand. Here’s the traffic from facebook over the last 13 months (click to enlarge):

There were always a few days of spiked traffic (usually when we did a post that went a little viral) but the last 6 or so weeks we’ve seen a nice up swing in traffic).

All the action happens on the Digital Photography School Facebook page where the bulk of what happens is simply us pulling in new posts from the blog as status updates using the ‘Networked Blogs’ application – however in the last few months we’ve also started to try a little more reader engagement. Here’s what’s worked:

1. We Ask Questions

The best thing that we do (and I have my forum administrator help with dPS facebook page so it literally is a ‘we’) is simply asking questions of those who ‘like’ us on Facebook. Every day or two we pose a simple question that asks readers either for

• their opinion on some aspect of photography
• to share an experience that they’ve had
• to tell us something about the photography gear that they use
• to do something fun

These simple questions go crazy. Some examples include:

• What was the focal length of your last shot?
• Behind Every Good PHotographer there’s…..
• What did you photograph this weekend?

Interestingly when we ask the same questions on Twitter (where we have 1000 more followers than we have ‘likes’ on Facebook) we only get 10 or so answers to our questions where on Facebook we get hundreds (we’ve had as many as 700). The fact that Facebook allows our followers to see each others responses and that it’s less fleeting than Twitter is an advantage for this type of thing.

2. Promoted ‘Hot Facebook Status Updates”

When we have one of these question status updates/discussion going on Facebook we try to get more traffic to it from other sources. This largely happens in two ways:

• Weekly Newsletter – in our weekly email newsletter we’ve been linking to one facebook discussion a week as a ‘hot on facebook’ link.
• Twitter – because the ‘conversational aspect of facebook’ is so great I’ve started to tweet when there’s a good discussion going. It might seem odd to promote one social media account on another but it’s led to significant increases in interaction.

The benefit of highlighting what’s going on on our Facebook page has been two fold – firstly it boosts the numbers of responses to the questions we ask significantly.

Secondly it’s led to a big increase in the number of people who ‘like’ our pages. We’ve gone from several thousand connections on our facebook page to over 27,000 in a couple of months.

3. Reader Involvement in Shaping the Site

Every Friday morning as I’m scheduling posts on the blog for the weekend I ask the same question on Facebook. The question asks readers to suggest a theme for our weekend photography challenge (something we run each week on the blog where we name a theme and everyone goes away and takes a picture to come back and share relating to the theme).

We get a lot of great suggestions in this weekly thread of conversation and the added bonus is that it builds a little anticipation for the challenge itself.

Another thing I did last week was create a survey for our facebook friends that asked them some questions about the content that they’d like to see on dPS. Over 600 people took the survey from facebook giving us some amazing insights into topics for future posts.

4. Promotions

We recently launched a Travel Photography eBook on dPS and saw some really positive response from our promotional efforts on Facebook. I’ve never seen much success with ’selling’ on Facebook before but this time around we built some pre-launch buzz on the facebook page and released it to our facebook community before anyone else.

Our best conversions did come from email promotion but Facebook was probably our 2nd most effective place of promotion this time around. We did some status updates about it but also sent direct messages to all of those who have ‘liked’ our page.

5. Landing Page

This is very new – but I’ve recently added a ‘welcome’ landing tab for those arriving on our page who have not been there before and ‘liked’ it (I’ve also added it to the ProBlogger Facebook Page).

The idea here is to create a tab (using the FBML application) which is a customized greeting page for new people to your page. The page directs people to the ‘like’ button and sells benefits of making the connection. Next time they arrive on the page they are taken to the ‘wall’ tab and don’t see the welcome (Facebook allow you to set this up in the ‘page’ settings.

It’s too soon to tell what impact it is having but in talking to a few other web publishers this has seen significant increases in connections.

I’ve also seen others add other things in such a page including welcome videos, email newsletter subscription forms and other things that help them achieve some kind of ‘conversion’. The FBML application lets you add pretty much any html to the tab. I’ve so far just used an image file but hope to convert it to live html with links in it in the coming weeks.

What are You Doing that is Working on Facebook?

I feel like I’m still finding my way with the use of Facebook and am still experimenting with different aspects of it. We have a ‘tab’ for our eBooks which I’m not sure is overly effective, I want to find a way to get our readers sharing photos better and I’m sure I could be promoting our newsletter better – but it’s one of those things where I find experimenting with one thing at a time is best.

What are you doing with facebook that is working (or that isn’t)?

PS: I’m pretty sure that facebook is not a site that will work for every topic. For example on the ProBlogger facebook page we’ve not seen the same sorts of results – for ProBlogger Twitter seems better. I’ve heard from a few other bloggers mixed results including some amazing stories of increases in traffic.

Also worth noting is that earlier this year I made a significant change in the way that I used Facebook when I defriended around 4800 friends and made my personal facebook profile purely for personal friends and family and concentrated all of my facebook efforts on creating ‘fan pages’/’pages’ for each of my blogs. This was the best thing I’ve done on facebook and released me to develop the pages and use my personal account to build friendships and connections with real life friends.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

5 Ways I’m Using Facebook to Drive Traffic, Build Brand and Increase Reader Engagement

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Posted by Kate Morris

We have all been there once or twice, maybe a few more than that even. You just launched a site or a project,  and a few days pass, you login to analytics and webmaster tools to see how things are going. Nothing is there. 

WAIT. What?!?!?! 

Scenarios start running through your mind, and you check to make sure everything is working right. How could this be?

It doesn’t even have to be a new project. I’ve realized things on clients’ sites that needed fixing: XML sitemaps, link building efforts, title tag duplication, or even 404 redirection. The right changes are made, and a week later, nothing has changed in rankings or in webmaster consoles across the board. You are left thinking "what did I do wrong?"

A few client sites, major sites mind you, have had issues recently like 404 redirection and toolbar PageRank drops. One even had to change a misplaced setting in Google Webmaster Tools pointing to the wrong version of their site (www vs non-www). We fixed it, and there was a drop in their homepage for their name.

That looks bad. Real bad. Especially to the higher ups. They want answers and the issue fixed now … yesterday really.

Most of these things are being measured for performance and some can even have a major impact on the bottom line. And it is so hard to tell them this, even harder to do, but the changes just take …

Patience

That homepage drop? They called on Friday, as of Saturday night things are back to normal. The drop happened for 2-3 days most likely, but this is a large site. Another client, smaller, had redesigned their entire site. We put all the correct 301 redirects for the old pages and launched the site. It took Google almost 4 weeks to completely remove the old pages from the index. There were edits to URLs that caused 404 errors, fixed within a day, took over a week to reflect in Google Webmaster Tools. 

These are just a few examples where changes were made immediately, but the actions had no immediate return. We live in a society that thrives on the present, immediate return. As search marketers, we make c-level executives happy with our ability to show immediate returns on our campaigns. But like the returns on SEO, the reflection of changes in SEO take time. 

The recent Mayday and Caffeine updates are sending many sites to the bottom of rankings because of the lack of original content. Many of them are doing everything "right" in terms of onsite SEO, but now that isn’t enough. The can change their site all they want to, but until there is relevant and good content plus traffic, those rankings are not going to return for long tail terms. 

There has also been a recent crack down on over optimized local search listings. I have seen a number of accounts suspended or just not ranking well because they are in effect trying too hard. There is a such thing as over optimizing a site, and too many changes at once can raise a flag with the search engines. 

One Month Rule

Here is my rule: Make a change, leave it, go do social media/link building, and come back  to the issue a month later. It may not take a month, but for smaller sites, 2 weeks is a good time to check on the status of a few things. A month is when things should start returning to normal if there have been no other large changes to the site. 

We say this all the time with PPC accounts. It’s like in statistical analysis, you have to have enough data to work with to see results. And when you are waiting for a massive search engine to make some changes, once they do take effect in the system, you then have to give it time to work. 

So remember the next time something seems to be not working in Webmaster Tools or SERPs:

1. If you must, double check the code (although you’ve probably already done this 15 times) to ensure it’s set up correctly. But then,
2. Stop. Breathe. There is always a logical explanation. (And yes, Google being slow is a logical one)
3. When did you last change something to do with the issue?
4. If it’s less than 2 weeks ago, give it some more time.
5. Major changes, give it a month. (Think major site redesigns and URL restructuring)

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A Guest post by Celestine Chua from The Personal Excellence Blog.

Ever wondered what are the traits of the top, successful and excellent bloggers?

I have. Since I started my blog, The Personal Excellence Blog, in 2008, I have studied top bloggers extensively. I read many articles on how to build a great blog. I listened to different bloggers say their piece. Through personal experimentation, I learned what works and what doesn’t work, and integrated them as blogging habits. It has given me great results. After a lot of hard work in the past 1.5 years, The Personal Excellence Blog has grown into an well trusted and established resource on how to achieve excellence in life.  It has 3,500 subscribers, 5,000 readers a day, 110,000 page views a month, over 160 articles, a bundle of free ebooks and has been featured on CNN and AsiaOne.

While there’s still quite a way before my blog reaches the ranks of A-List blogs like ProBlogger, Zen Habits and Seth Godin’s blog, somehow I’m not daunted by what’s ahead. If the past 1.5 years have taught me anything, it’s that the top bloggers of excellence have 8 consistent habits – 8 habits, which, when we practice duly, are guaranteed to bring you results. It’s not a miracle, it’s not luck, nor is it an abnormality. By living in line with these 8 habits, you become a highly excellent blogger as well.

1) Deliver their best value in every article

As a highly excellent blogger, you don’t write articles with a little value or some value. No, you aim to deliver your utmost value every time you write. Never do you write for the sake of writing or post for the sake of updating.  You make sure every word counts for something.

When I write my articles, whether it’s for my blog or it’s a guest post like this one, I put my best foot forward. My previous guest posts on Problogger took me a few days to write (with breaks in between). One of the commenters said I was “taking this guest post thing too seriously”, probably referring to the effort that was put in. That guest post in question was 3,000 words long (longer than most guest posts at Problogger), filled with step-by-step tips, links out to relevant resources and deep personal sharing. (Actually, this guest post is 3,000+ words long as well.)

I beg to differ. Have you ever thought about why you blog? Like really. Beyond reasons like to earn money or to have an alternate career. Why do you blog over the 1,001 possible things you can be doing? What do you strive to achieve? I blog because I see it as the fastest and most effective way to reach out to millions out there and help them achieve their highest potential. It’s more than just blogging to me – it is my life purpose and personal mission. For every article written, there is someone who is genuinely looking for it to solve a problem he/she is facing. Every article I write is an opportunity to touch others’ lives. If it takes X number of words to deliver a message, I’ll write X number of words. If it takes X number of hours, I’ll spend X number of hours. There is no compromising on the quality.

Of course, not every blogger sees blogging as their “calling”, and you certainly don’t have to see blogging as a calling to succeed. There is no right or wrong reason. You just need to be absolutely clear of why you blog. Then live true to it. Make every article you write delivers top value to your readers.

There is no fixed format that dictates valuable content. It can be long or short; it can be in list, essay or story form; it can have text, images, video or a combination of them; it can be entertainment value, educational value or both. I’ve read articles of different permutations that deliver value all the same. If your article improves someone’s life after he/she reads it, then it has value.

Some questions to ask yourself as you write are:

• What is the specific reader group I’m writing to?
• Why would they need help in this?
• What’s keeping them in this situation?
• What and how can I write to help them?
• How can I write in a manner that’s relevant no matter when and where they are reading?

If I don’t have anything substantial to say or add to the topic (sometimes it happens), then I don’t write about it. The internet has enough junk; it doesn’t need us to contribute to it. What the internet really needs is real content with real value. And doing so pays off. Readers recognize you as the “real deal” and they go to you for advice on your niche. Because I set such a strict quality filter, my readers can expect a certain standard in what I write at my blog and my guest posts. They quickly become loyal readers, even though there are hundreds of personal development blogs out there.

How about you? Do you write value-laden content? Who is the reader you are writing the next article for? What is the problem you are solving for him/her? If someone with this problem is reading your article, will it help them out of their situation? How is it going to benefit them?

More resources to help you write top value:

• How to Create Compelling Content [Free Report]
• How to Get in Tune with Your Readers Needs and Produce Compelling Content
• How to Craft a Blog Post
• Writing Good Content
• How to Write Excellent Blog Content
• How to Eliminate the Echo Chamber and Add to the Conversation

2) Work harder than anyone else

Do you drive? Great if you do; if you don’t, just imagine for the next 5 minutes that you do drive. Let’s say you are driving on a normal, flat road. You press the accelerator for a few seconds, then as you reach a good speed, you stop accelerating. There’s no need to since the car is already moving at a steady pace. All you need to do is steer.

Now, let’s say you are at the bottom of a very, very steep and long mountain slope. What do you do? Do you accelerate for a few seconds then stop accelerating? No! You’re just going to stay stuck at the bottom of the mountain. Maybe you’ll move up a few centimeters, then you’ll immediately go back down when you stop accelerating. What do you do then to get up the slope? You keep pressing the accelerator, adding more power each second. Even though you may be stuck at first, it’s a matter of time before you overcome friction and gravity and drive up the slope. And as you add more power, you will move further up.

Turning your blog into a top blog is just like driving up a steep slope. You don’t just create the blog and expect others to come flocking in. You have to work hard to write powerful content, to earn readers’ trust and to get readership. I’m a big believer of hard work – Results don’t come if you don’t work hard. If you read The Dip (by Seth Godin) before, you would know there’s always a dip that comes with achieving big goals. To get past the dip and get what you want, you have to persevere and work harder (and of course, smarter) than anyone else to earn it. All top bloggers today worked extremely hard when they first started, and even when they achieve success, they continue to work hard to achieve greater heights.

3) Practice what they preach

“Example isn’t another way to teach, it is the only way to teach” – Albert Einstein

When you are a highly excellent blogger, you lead by example. As a blogger, you are (indirectly or directly) a role model to your readers, and what you say or do influences people, more so than you imagine. Your readers look up to you for advice and guidance. It’s important you don’t just talk the talk. You have to walk the talk as well.There is nothing more powerful than being living proof of your results.

Running a blog called The Personal Excellence Blog is more than just writing articles about how to achieve excellence. It’s about living in excellence every moment. I’m extremely passionate about achieving excellence. From striving to be the best in what I do, to understanding what it takes to be the best and live our best life, to helping others achieve excellence for themselves. Our readers look toward us as a testament of what’s possible for themselves – possibilities of what can be achieved, boundaries that can be removed, limits that can be broken. Hence, while I normally push hard toward my goals, I push even harder for my readers. I don’t try to teach my readers how to solve a particular problem until I have resolved it in my life, first and foremost, just like I don’t try to advice them how to achieve a certain result if I have not first achieved it. If we want others to listen to us, we need to practice what we preach first and be living proof that what we preach works.

4) Don’t write to please

“So you have some enemies… good, that means you stood up for something!” – Winston Churchill

You blog to drive a message. You don’t write to please the world. You know that no matter what you write, there will always be people who will disagree with what you say. As Timothy Ferris puts it, “10% of people will find a way to take anything personally. Expect it.” If you stand for something, you will have haters.

Average bloggers try to please people with their writings. They over-analyze what readers will want to hear and they write to be accepted. But as a highly excellent blogger, you don’t do that. You don’t shy away from writing controversial topics, but you don’t write about controversial stuff for the sake of stirring controversy either. You write about what you believe in. You stand by what you say even when others disagree. At the same time, you are also not afraid to admit when you are wrong.

I have written stuff before which others disagree. Things like life philosophies, relationships, specific advice, etc. I listen and I take the feedback accordingly when there is merit, but I don’t change for the sake of conformance. Every reader is different – if you change yourself to fit every reader who disagrees, you become just an average and you lose your voice amongst the masses. There’s enough sheep in the world – we don’t need more sheep, we need more leaders.

Find your voice by discovering your inner self. Deal to deal with critics (Read: 8 Helpful Ways To Deal With Critical People). Don’t change your views or what/how you write to please others. Try to please everyone, and you end up standing for nothing.

5) Keep things real

I see 2 types of bloggers out there – there are the bloggers who are genuine. They keep their writings real and are down-to-earth. These are the bloggers like Darren Rowse and Leo Babauta. I have deep respect and admiration for them. Then there are the hyped-up bloggers who have a penchant for portraying themselves as bigger than they are, overhype what they write and make over-exaggerated claims about what they are selling. I don’t know how you feel about them, but I avoid them like the plague.

Readers are smart. Perhaps you might entice them with big claims and bold words at the beginning. However, just like motivational seminars that fail to deliver results beyond the short-term, readers will realize in the long-term you have nothing real to offer. They see past the marketing fluff and turn to the bloggers who keep things real and deliver what they promise on.

As a highly excellent blogger, you don’t exaggerate, you don’t lie, you don’t overclaim nor overpromise. I see this as respecting your readers. You say things the way they appear; you portray facts as they are and let the facts speak for themselves. You are truthful and honest. You keep things real. Your readers appreciate this honesty, and they stick with you as a result.

6) Not afraid to be vulnerable

As a highly excellent blogger, you are not afraid to share things about yourself – things you may not be proud of. You are not interested in creating a veneered image of yourself. It’s about what benefits the readers. If sharing an unglamorous side of you will help improve readers’ lives, you will gladly do so. You open parts of your life as case studies, so others can learn where you may have erred.

The average blogger on the other hand, is concerned about how others think about him/her, and refuses to write about anything that can be seen as an disadvantage to him/her. His/her obsession with safeguarding his/her personal image stops him/her from going all the way to become a highly excellent blogger.

In my blog, I openly share about myself and my life – the upsides and especially the downsides. For example, I have written about times when I was down and out, my past experiences of disappointment (and how I overcame it), heartbreak (and how I moved on) and woes of being single in the modern society. Most people are adverse against sharing their shames, thinking it’ll make them vulnerable and look “weak”. I’m not afraid to write about them because being vulnerable is part of what makes us human. I believe everyone has that side in them – it’s just a matter who is more honest and upfront about it. If you are confident about who you are and what you stand for, there’s nothing to be fearful of.

Subsequently, it is the times when I share my worst experiences that my readers gain the most insights for themselves. Readers take the time to write personal comments and emails sharing in detail how the articles have opened their eyes to similar situations they are going through. If showing my vulnerabilities can help improve even just one person’s life, I say it’s well worth it.

Of course, it’s not about being vulnerable for the sake of being vulnerable. There has to be a point behind writing it. Every time I write about such experiences, I share how I overcame that episode and steps readers can take to work on it too. This way, there are actionable outputs and it doesn’t become just a nice-to-read story. You are more than just a story teller. You weave a message in what you write too.

When you open up more about yourself, that’s when you bond with your readers. People will benefit from your sharing and your real readers appreciate what you do. Mutual respect and trust is built. Whenever I open up about a part of my life, my readers would similarly open up to me too, sharing their personal stories, parts of them which even they admit they don’t share with others.

7) Keep upgrading themselves

As a highly excellent blogger, you don’t rest on your laurels even if you are an authority figure in your niche. You keep upgrading yourself to maintain your expertise. This helps you to continuously innovate and provide expert opinions so you remain as the authority. Problogger is a great example. While Darren runs the biggest blog on blogging, he doesn’t take his success for granted. He’s always seeking readers feedback, improvising on those feedback and writing new content on how to create better blogs.

Upgrading yourself is not just a one-time act – it needs to be an ongoing aspect of your life. How can you do that? My personal tips:

• Subscribe to the feeds of top players in your niche. I subscribe to all A-List personal development blogs so I can learn from the best.
• Set aside time every morning/night to read their new articles. Learn from how they write and what they write about. Get top insights.
• Read the best books out there (in your niche). I borrow mine from the libraries.
• Network with top bloggers (in your niche).
• Openly ask for feedback from readers and fellow bloggers on how you can improve
• Work on those feedback to become better

Transform lives with their writing

This is an extension of Habit #1 (Deliver their best value with every article) but it is important and distinct enough to be an individual habit by itself. As the top, excellent blogger, you write content that has the power to change readers’ lives.

How do you know if your content is changing lives? When your readers start telling you so. Majority of blog comments hover around “Great post! I especially like point XX about YY…” or “Thanks for writing this, it’s very useful”. These are great comments no doubt, but I see them more as courtesy comments. Yes your writings are helpful, yes they are informative, but are the readers going to apply any of the things that are written? Most of the time, probably not. Many forget what they just read and nodded to as soon as they click away.

Powerful content on the other hand, has the ability to change lives and trigger readers to take action immediately. When you get comments from readers on how your writings have transformed them and triggered them to make life changing decisions, that’s saying something. I’ve readers who told me how reading my articles has made them quit jobs they dislike, (re)discover their purpose in life and (re)ignited them to take action on their dreams. Some of the most powerful feedback I’ve ever received includes a reader who found hope from reading my articles (after his brother passed away), and readers who broke up with their partners and/or friends (who are bad matches) after reading my article on “How to know it’s time to move on from a relationship”.

When your content is triggering others to make life-changing decisions, that’s when you evolve to more than just a blogger. You are now a leader and beacon of inspiration and hope to your readers.

So how do you transform lives with writing? There is no hard and fast rule, but here are some of my tips:

• Write from your heart
• Start with your readers in mind. Put your readers’ needs before all else.
• Do not afraid to share your vulnerabilities (Habit #6)
• Understand the real problems people are facing. Make sure your writing solves the problems.
• Tap into a relevant insight from your life. Share how you overcome a similar problem.

What do you think?

What do you feel is the top habit of an excellent blogger? Do you have other habits to add to the list? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments area

About The Author

Celestine Chua writes at The Personal Excellence Blog, where she shares her best advice on how to achieve personal excellence and live your best life. Get her 113-page ebook The Book of Personal Excellence in your email now by signing up for her newsletter (100% free, unsubscribe whenever you want). Get her RSS feed directly and add her on Twitter @celestinechua.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

8 Habits of Highly Excellent Bloggers

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A few weeks ago I asked readers to submit video blog tips to share with the wider ProBlogger readership. The idea was that we’d get a variety of useful blog tips on how to blog – but that we’d also get a bit of a snapshot of some of the faces and voices of the community here at ProBlogger.

To this point we’ve had 30 blog tip videos submitted and over the next few days I’m going to feature them (10 at a time) here on ProBlogger.

Before I get to them – a HUGE thanks to those who submitted these videos. There are some great tips in them and it is great to see such a variety of techniques and creativity used in the production of the videos (I also found it really inspiring to see all your faces – it’s amazing how wonderful it is to see and hear the people who read this blog in this way) – so thanks!

please click through on the links to visit the blogs of those who created these videos and if you find one that resonates with you please share the video with your own network.

by Nate Riggs

by Julie Weishaar

by Eric Dobson

by Susan

by Brett

by Ciprian Rusen

by Paul Cunningham

by Greg Friese

by Nick Stewart

by David

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Blog: 10 Great Blog Tips from Our Readers

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At a recent book reading at SXSW I spoke briefly about a new chapter in the new ProBlogger book (due out next month) that is a case study of my main blog (4-5 bigger than ProBlogger) – Digital Photography School.

dPS is now just a few days away from being 4 years old and so with the new edition of the book Chris and I thought it might be a good idea to include a new chapter that examined how I’ve developed the blog so far.

The case study looks at 4 main aspects:

1. how I launched the blog – the four foundations that I build in years 1-2
2. how I built upon the foundations – what I focused upon in years 3-4
3. how I monetize the blog
4. the way I use email to drive traffic to and monetize the blog

In this post I want to talk briefly about the four foundations that I focused upon in years 1-2 of building my photography site.

I won’t go into great detail about each one here (if you want more the book is your best bet) but as my reading was interrupted by a fire alarm at SXSW I wanted to cover some of it here for those who missed the 2nd half.

Foundation 1 – Content

• My #1 task in years 1-2 of dPS was building content.
• The focus was content for beginners (this was expanded later).
• My aim was for very post to solve a problem that a new camera owner had.
• The content was all ‘how to’ related – practical stuff that helped readers do or achieve something
• Quality of content was paramount – but so too was the idea of increasing the ‘quantity’ of content – I started with 3-4 posts a week but aimed to get it daily after 1 year.

Foundation 2 – Promotion

• ‘Build it and they Will Come’ is an idea with some truth to it – but in the early days of your blog you also need to actively promote your blog – readers won’t just find it.
• Define your potential reader – who are they? What are their needs?
• Identify where that type of reader is already gathering online (and offline).
• Participate in those sites where your potential reader is gathering – guest posts, building a forum presence, leaving useful comments, networking etc.

Foundation 3 – Community

• People don’t just come online for information – they increasingly are coming online to find ‘belonging’
• Readers want to participate, interact, join and relate – give them opportunity to do so
• On dPS starting a forum was one way I did this however community was something I went out of my way to build on the blog itself.
• Use polls, start discussions, run debates, ask questions, highlight readers work, invite people to promote themselves on your blog, link to your readers
• When you build community you build an army of evangelists for your blog, create social proof and open many doors for growth and strengthening of your site

Foundation 4 – Capture Contacts

• Most people who visit your site will never return naturally – even if they like your site
• On dPS I prominently invite people to subscribe in numerous places
• RSS is not always King – on dPS email subscription makes up over 75% of all subscribers
• Email newsletters drive as much traffic as Google does on dPS
• Email newsletters drive significant earnings (advertising, affiliate promotions and product sales)
• Email newsletters build community and make the site more sticky and personal

NOTE: Monetization was not one of the Main Tasks/Foundations in Years 1-2

I did monetize the site from day 1 and dPS was profitable from the first month or two – but it was not my main focus. Rather I focused upon the above 4 foundations and let the monetization grow naturally as traffic and reader engagement grew.

In years 1-2 monetization was largely through 2 ad networks – AdSense and Chitika (aff). I did some low level affiliate marketing (Amazon mainly) but over 90% of the income in years 1-2 was from ad networks. Years 3-4 were when I increased my focus upon monetization.

Image by beley.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

4 Foundations of a Successful Blog

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As this post goes live I’ll be in the process of arriving at SXSW Interactive in Austin Texas.

I was fortunate enough to at SXSWi two years back and it was one of the best conference experiences that I’ve had – so I’ve made it a priority this year to return.

My schedule is pretty open. The main thing that I’ll be doing is a book reading this Friday night. I’ll be talking about some of what Chris and I have included in the 2nd edition of the ProBlogger book (due out next month).

The book reading is on at 5pm, Friday 12 March on the Day Stage. I hope you’ll come!

For those of you involved in the Third Tribe there is a drinks/meetup the next evening (on Saturday 13th from about 5.30pm) at a bar called ‘Lovejoys’ at 604 Neches Street (2 blocks north of the convention center).

Note: I originally thought that my reading was on Saturday and we’d do one after the other…. but I messed up the time so the book reading is Friday and the Drinks/Meetup is Saturday. Sorry for the messing around 3rd Tribers.

Other than that I’ve got a pretty open few days and am looking forward to checking out a few panels and keynotes and doing as much networking as possible. If you’re at SXSWi I’d love to meet you – feel free to come up and say hi any time!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Let’s Meet at SXSWi!

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Last week on my Photography Tips site we published a guest post titled Three Lenses Every Photographer Should Own.

The author of the guest post emailed me a few days later amazed at amazing amount of comments left on the post. While the average post on dPS gets a reasonable amount of comments this post is climbing up towards 200.

Why did it do so well in engaging readers?

There are a few reasons. The guest poster didn’t really set out to do any of them – but stumbled upon one of the best ways to get readers interacting on a blog post:

1. He Expressed an Opinion – the post shares one persons opinion on which lenses each photographer should own. While the post itself did indicate that it was his own personal preference and that others would find other options more suited to their situations – whenever you express an opinion you’re going to get other people reacting with their own.
2. He Made a Claim – the title was key in generating this discussion. It made a claim that every photographer should own 3 lenses. I’m not sure how intentional this was but make this type of claim and you’ll almost always get a reaction because you’ll almost always have someone who doesn’t quite fit into what you’ve proposed – and they’ll want to tell you why. Write a post about ‘essentials’, or ‘the best’ or something ‘everyone’ should do – and you’ll generally get this type of response.
3. He Invited a Response – the post finished by asking others what they’d include in their ‘must own’ category of lenses. This is the perfect invitation for an ongoing discussion.
4. He Chose a Topic People Had Invested Heavily Into – the last thing I’d say about this topic is that he stumbled onto a topic for the post that readers had strong opinions about because they’d invested into the topic. Camera owners carefully research their lens purchases and put up considerable dollars to buy them. As a result they tend to feel quite strongly about their lenses and often feel the need to defend/explain their decisions.

Keep in mind that while when you write these types of posts you will almost always get a reaction from people that you need to be willing and ready to hear some strong opinions back – something that are not always easy to hear.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The BEST Way to Generate Lots of Comments on a Your Next Blog Post

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A few days back I asked readers a question:

What Have You Been Putting Off and What’s Holding You Back?

Some of the responses to the question in comments (and via email and Twitter) revealed a lot of bloggers really wanting to step things up and get what they’ve been putting off done.

So – lets set some goals – what do you want to achieve by the end of February?

I’m not going to be calling you up to check up to see if you’re meeting your goals – but hopefully in putting them down publicly you’ll find yourself a little more spurred on to reach what you want to achieve.

My Goal for February: I want to get a new E-Book out the door by the end of the month.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What Is Your Blogging Goal for February?

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