School of Creative Business - Creative Entrepreneurship

Blogging Tip for Beginners: Learn SEO

Blogging Tip for Beginners- Learn SEO

Learn and apply SEO to your blogs. SEO is search engine optimization. You are going to find that if you want your blog to go anywhere, you need SEO, and you need to know how to use it to the advantage of your blog. Just like a website, a blog will be better off optimized.

Resources to Get You Started...

• What's SEO and Does my Creative Business Need it?
• The Beginner's Guide to SEO
• The Beginner's Checklist for Learning SEO
• SEO for Artists
  
• Keyword Targeting for Artists: A Simple Yet Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

 

Start your SEO training today! It really is a must if you want your blog to be found by other readers.

Share this article with other creative business owners.

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Looking for more solid tips on business ideas, internet & social marketing, and personal branding? Check out the School of Creative Business free email newsletter,Creative Business Ideas. It jumps off with a Social Marketing Tips E-course. Sign up here. If you know anyone who might like this post- pass it along to other creative entrepreneurs by clicking below on Tweet This or Facebook Like buttons

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How To Get An Extra Ten Thousands Hits A Year

Offer an Award,

I've seen this actually work for many creative entrepreneurs. Most of you have seen those little award graphics on web sites. They are given to the blog site by another blog site owner to reward the web site for a specific reason. They usually link back to the site that has given the award.

These acknowledgment award are drawing tons of traffic to a website. The reason is because all the sites who get the awards are linking right back to them by posting the award on their site.

So, what is stopping you from creating an award for website?

1. You could easily create an online form for your site so other people can enter to qualify for the award. Then judge all the entrees and pick a winner. You send them the award graphic with a link included. So they can post it on their web site. Now they're linking your web site.

2. Give an award for any reason you feel is suitable to your business. Your website might offer outstanding and original content award, or best marketing techniques used.

Easy Right?

This unique marketing technique can bring in thousands of hits a month- try it out and let me know how it works out for you.

 

Examples of Blog Awards

Blogger's Choice Awards

Bloggy Award

Edublog Award

Creative Blogger Award

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Looking for more solid tips on business ideas, internet & social marketing, and personal branding? Check out the School of Creative Business free email newsletter,Creative Business Ideas. It jumps off with a Social Marketing Tips E-course. Sign up here. If you know anyone who might like this post- pass it along to other creative entrepreneurs by clicking below on Tweet This or Facebook Like buttons

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Blogging Tip for Beginners: How to Write Twice as Fast

This Blogging for Beginners tip is from the Blogging for Coaches: Steve Martile and Hani Mourra. Steve and Hani keep things really simple- just like we like it.

Start using this one tip and your writing speed will soar.  No experience necessary- I promise.

To watch the How to Write Twice as Fast video click here

 

Small Business Blog Marketing for a Creative Business

Small business blog marketing is something that any creative entrepreneur can do. Having a blog and keeping it up to date with fresh content isn't that hard. All you need is a plan! Once you set up a plan of action you will then be ready to market any type of creative business from your blog.

Small business blog marketing all about blogging about your business. It's a great tool that will help you to get your business out there and known by others. However, you will need to be patient because it's a long process that will require much of your attention. Just because you have a blog doesn't mean that someone is going to find it and read it. You are going to have to make it known. One way to do this is to link business website to your blog and link your blog to your website. 

So you are probably wondering how you are going to accomplish this small business blog marketing.

Well, when you're marketing a blog, you pretty much do it the same way you would market your website. Your blog will need keywords and content. You can write the content yourself, or pay someone else to write it for you- (check out Guru.com for freelace blog writers). That part is totally up to you. However you will want to be sure that the content is decent and something that your readers will want to read. This will keep them coming back. Make sure that the content is written from special keywords that you choose. You will also want to become familiar with SEO which is Search Engine Optimization. SEO will help you to optimize your blog to get a better ranking with the search engines.

Once you  gotten some content published on your blog, you will be ready to market it even more!  Submittimg your site to social bookmarking sites are wonderful for marketing your small business blog.  Free and paid advertising ads are a big part of small business blog marketing as well. You can pay some online magazine to list your blog URL on thier ad page. However, some of these even have specific qualifications that you must have to get in. Follow all of the application steps, and you should be ok.

Another important thing to remember when you are marketing your small business blog marketing is that if anyone leaves you a comment  on your blog, you should acknowledge it and respond. You can also comment on other blogs that are relevant to yours, and leave a link to your blog as well. This will help bring in visitors to your blog, and you will begin to see more and more traffic.

Small business blog marketing is not rocket science, however someone that has never marketed a single thing before in their life may have problems. Just be persistent, and don’t give up. 

Talk with you later,

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Looking for more solid tips on business ideas, internet & social marketing, and personal branding? Check out the School of Creative Business free email newsletter, Creative Business Ideas. It jumps off with a Social Marketing Tips E-course. Sign up here. If you know anyone who might like this post- pass it along to other creative entrepreneurs by clicking below on Tweet This or Facebook Like buttons

Blogging Tip for Beginners: Track Back Feature

Blogging Tip for Beginners: Track Back Feature

Make sure that your blog has the track back feature. Let me tell you why. When you have the track back feature on your blog, you are allowing other people to link to your blog. Maybe someone has a post to post on their blog that is relevant to one of yours. They can use the talkback to your post, and send their readers to your blog so that they know what they are referring to. Another good thing to remember is that if someone gives you a track back, it is a courtesy to return that to their blog if at all possible.

 

 

Blogging Tip for Beginners: Post Often

 
  I get asked this question a lot "How Often Should I Post to My Blog?". My answer : "Often with good content." Now you may ask what is considered often, social media gurus say at least 4 times a week. For real - that may be a lot of writing and posting for you - and I can say- it's for sure too much writing to for me.

 So I say post as often as you can. Once you get the hang of writing, editing and selecting pictures for your blog -then start to post on a schedule- choose days of the week to post certain content. See, I haven't been able to master the schedule thing yet- but I try to post something new on Mondays and another post during the week Wednesday or Thursday. The best thing about most blog platforms - they allow you to schedule your post. 

If you have a few hours durning the weekend I suggest you write up a few articles and then schedule them though out the week. You readers will love the new content and that you are posting more often.   

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Looking for more solid tips on business ideas, internet & social marketing, and personal branding? Check out the School of Creative Business free email newsletter, Creative Business Ideas. It jumps off with a Social Marketing Tips E-course. Sign up here. If you know anyone who might like this post- pass it along to other creative entrepreneurs by clicking below on Tweet This or Facebook Like buttons

Blogging Tip for Beginners: Allow Other Bloggers to Publish Your Content

 
 

Blogging Tip for Beginners

Allow Other Bloggers to Publish Your Content

When you first create a blog, of course it is new and others don't know you exist. No one knows anything about your blog unless you give them the link and show it to them. However, for a new blog that has never been seen, there are many ways to get it out there and known. You just need to know how.

The first thing that you can do is to allow RSS feeds be taken from your blog. Allow other websites and blogs to publish your same exact blog. When you do this, they are giving you a link back to your blog, and also telling their readers all about your blog. You will get more traffic than ever with this tool. RSS feeds are wonderful for promoting and getting your blog out there.

Learn more about RSS feeds here

 

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Looking for more solid tips on business ideas, internet & social marketing, and personal branding? Check out the School of Creative Business free email newsletter, Creative Business Ideas. It jumps off with a Social Marketing Tips E-course. Sign up here. If you know anyone who might like this post- pass it along to other creative entrepreneurs by clicking below on Tweet This or Facebook Like buttons

How to Improve Blog Traffic:Podcasting

Well guys, we are almost done. This is the last How to Improve Blog Traffic tutorial. Today is all about podcasting, what is it, why you should use it for your business and how to create  and host your first podcast. So lets get to it...

What and Why a podcast?

Podcast means - Portable On Demand and broadcast. Any MP3 player can be used to create and listen to a podcast. Its like having your own radio station. Your words, your thoughts, your world all delivered through a RSS feed. That's is what I call super star status. 

Now it should be clear why you should create a podcast for your creative business, but just in case here are a few reasons why...

1. You can quickly gain a very focused target audience

2. The sound of actually hearing your voice brings about a personal connection to you and your content

3. You could soon become a recognized expert in your chosen niche. Like I said before a Super Star.

How to Create a Podcast Video Tutorial

How to Create a Podcast with Audacity

 

 

Publish your First Creative Business Podcast

Alright guys, you are now ready to publish your podcast online. To do this, you need a place to host your podcast- there are several free podcast hosting sites, below are 3 highly recommend hosting sites.

Podbean

Blog Talk Radio

PodOmatic

Get the Word Out about Your Podcast

The next and last thing to do is to share your new podcast content with your readers. Generate a RSS feed code of your podcast. The hosting site you've chosen should have instructions on how to create a RSS feed for your podcast. 

Submit your RSS feed to podcasting directories. One popular podcast directory is iTunes. Learn how to submit a podcast in iTunes - watch the very short video below:

 

Once you have uploaded your podcast to iTunes, you can easily post the link on your blog, or even send it in your email newsletter.

Action Steps to Improving Your Blog Traffic

Will take about 1 hour to complete.

• Pull out one of your best articles
• Download the necessary podcasting equipment
• Record yourself reading your best article (add a little personality)
• Upload podcast to hosting site
• Submit to iTunes
• Share your podcast on your site and on your social media sites

Hey did you missed the last 6 lessons on How to Improve Blog Traffic?

The How to Improve Blog Traffic Tutorial has come to a end, if you are just tuning into this tutorial, then you've missed a lot, but don't worry you can go back and catch up by click on the links below.  

Blog Traffic Tutorial 1: Choose Target Keywords

 Blog Traffic Tutorial 2: Submit Blog to Social Bookmarking Sites

Blog Traffic Tutorial 3: Ping a Hubpage

Blog Traffic Tutorial 4: RSS feed and Press Releases

Blog Traffic Tutorial 5: Create a Squido Lens

Blog Traffic Tutorial 6 : How to Create Short Video and Submit to Youtube

 Blog Traffic Tutorial 7: Submit to Classified Advertisements

 

 P.S.

By any chance, if you have any questions, please feel free to Holla at me by leaving a comment below.

Talk with you later, 

 

 

How to Improve Blog Traffic tutorial: Submit Classified Advertisements

How to improve blog traffic tutorial for today is all about submitting your blog's services and/or products on free classified websites.

 

How Can Free Classified Ads Improve Your Blog Traffic?

The best answer to this question is those who are able identify the target audience and create sales copy which entices the reader will find advertising on free classified sites to be a place to get traffic.  There is also an opportunity to gain financial benefit through advertising on these free sites. Many of the free classified ad sites already receive extensive traffic.

You know companies have been placing ads in newspapers for years, but actually placing a blog in advertisement format, just escaped me. Silly me... but anyway free classifieds are a wonderful way to advertise a product or service. Use free ad sites listed below to place an ad. It really is a good way to get traffic to your site, but I want to warn you, please don't spam- even these Free Classified website hate spam.

 

Free Classified Websites to Improve Blog Traffic

Craiglist

USFreeAds

AdlandPro

FreeAdsweb

EPage

How to Write an Effective Ad for Classified

When you start to write your ad , there are two critical points you must NEVER, forget:

1. Most people don't buy  based on logic. Buying decision are based on emotions.

2. People don't want to feel like they're being pushed into buying. They want to feel like they arrived at the buying decision on their own.

Actually, writing effective sales material has become quite simple for me.  In fact, I'm going to teach you what I've learned from the advertising pros. And if you apply these basics techniques, you'll see a difference in your sales writing.

You GOTTA write every  ad using the following classic AIDA formula:

A=ATTENTION     I=INTEREST      D=DESIRE      A=ACTION

ATTENTION: The very first thing your ad must do. The very best way to do that is with an effective headline.

An effective headline is any headline that answers this question: "What's in it for me"?

INTEREST: After you get their attention, you want to get them "INTERESTED" in your product or service. You do this by immediately telling them what your headline promises.

DESIRE:. You have to make your customer "DESIRE" your product or service. And the way to do that is with benefits. 

Remember, just keep telling them what your headline promised. Also, tell them what they stands to gain by purchasing your product or service. More importantly, tell them what they stand to lose, if they doesn't purchase.

Push the emotional "hot buttons", by using selling words like: 

new, save, amazing, free, guaranteed, security, no-risk, look younger, feel better

ACTION: You want to close your ad with a call to action! Ask them for the order. It's important to ask for the order at least 3 to 6 times.

Here are a few examples of Call to Action statements:

"Don't waste another minute! Order NOW"!

"Just click on the button below to order NOW, Risk-Free"!

"To get your FREE gift, Order NOW"!

 

Hey did you missed the last 6 lessons on How to Improve Blog Traffic?

Don't worry you can get caught up: Click on the blue links to get started

Traffic Tutorial 1: Choose Target Keywords

 Traffic Tutorial 2: Submit Blog to Social Bookmarking Sites

Traffic Tutorial 3: Ping a Hubpage

Traffic Tutorial 4: RSS feed and Press Releases

Traffic Tutorial 5: Create a Squido Lens

Traffic Tutorial 6 : How to Create Short Video and Submit to Youtube

 

Action Steps to Improving Your Blog Traffic

Will take about  1 hour to complete.

• Write an ad for a product or service your business offers
• Sign up for 2 to 3 classified sites
• Read over site rules and regulations
• Submit your ad to these sites
• Share this post with friend    
• Tweet this post!
• Share on Facebook

***Next Thursday will be the last How to Improve Your Blog Traffic tutorial: Podcasting

 

 

How to Write to Connect with Your Blog Readers

  
There’s a big difference between promotional sale writing and writing in a way that really builds a genuine relationship with your readers. Can you guess which one generates more sales and traffic to your site? You guessed it – when you write to build real connection, you’ll see the difference in your site traffic and bank account.

 How do you write in a way that actually builds relationships? Here’s how.

 How to Write to Connect with Your Blog Readers

Share Yourself

Be the real you.  Chances are, you’re not the only person selling what you are selling! But if you write in a way that’s real then people will listen to what you’re saying, not only because of your content, but because they enjoy hearing you share your experience.

 If you had a specific experience that relates to what you’re writing about, share it. Believe it or not, this actually have a big impact on people feeling like they can trust you. Because they feel like they know you more.

 

What’s In It For Me?

The “WIIFM” question is a question that you should answer in the first paragraph of your blog post. Blog content that rambles on and on without being clear about why the reader should read it  does not get read, period.

 

Be Conversational

Write like you talk. Don’t use corporate boring speak. You’re having a person to person conversation, so there’s no need to speak corporate. When I first started blogging- I thought I had to sound super professional- but actually it took me longer to write my post and a lot times I just felt like it wasn’t me. 

 Now I use slang. I start my sentences with “and” or “because” it sounds natural to me.And most importantly, my passion and spirit is behind each and every word I write.

 

Let It Sit

Before you publish your content, let it sit for a day or two. Then, come back and review it one more time before you publish it. Often times the second time around you’ll pick up on things you didn’t the first time. These could be grammatical mistakes, or it could just be more information you can put in that’ll make your content even better.

 

Credibility

One important element to having readers listen to what you have to say is credibility. There are so many other bloggers on the internet giving different advice; it’s hard to know who to listen to.

 Have you helped over 100 people solve a specific problem? Make sure they know that. Have you been featured on top ranking blog site? Make sure that’s plastered all over your website. Have you done exactly what you’re teaching? Make sure they know that.

 

In short, the question of “why should I listen to you” and “why should I trust you” should be answered before you ask your readers to take your word on something.

Here’s the bottom line: If you write in a way that really connects with your readers, you’ll build more traffic, more loyalty, more referrals and more sales. Write to connect with your readers.

 

Talk to You Guys Later,

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Looking for more solid tips on business ideas, internet & social marketing, and personal branding? Check out the School of Creative Business free email newsletter, Creative Business Ideas. It jumps off with a Social Marketing Tips E-course. Sign up here. If you know anyone who might like this post- pass it along to other creative entrepreneurs by clicking below on Tweet This or Facebook Like buttons