This guest post is by Neil Davidson of My Web Presenters.

In November of 2011 David Hsieh, VP of Marketing at Cisco famously stuck his neck out by proclaiming that 90% of internet traffic will be viewing video in three years’ time.

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The actual figure is already 51% of traffic, and it’s climbing fast. For bloggers like you and I, this has consequences. You can either bite the bullet and get started with video, or you can hide under the sheets and hope the storm passes.

For this post, I am going to assume that you are firmly in the “get on the train” camp.

At first sight it may seem that moving into video content production from textually based content is very difficult, as it requires a very different skillset. Also you may need to speak out loud or, worst of all, show your face on camera!

However, getting into video production and marketing is actually a natural progression for a blogger. Here are some ideas on how you can get started.

1. Video production

Use smartphones for impromptu interviewing

Hands up if you’ve got a smartphone. Many smartphones now have high-quality video cameras built in—some even have HD video. These can be highly effective for taking advantage of unusual situations…

Imagine that you’re at a blogging event and you find yourself standing next to Darren Rowse. You strike up a conversation that gets interesting. Suppose you were to pull out your smartphone, ask him a few questions on video, and post it to your blog. If the “interview” went well, chances are that Darren would be happy to tweet and share that content for you.

Suddenly you would be catapulted out of nowhere into the limelight—all through a chance five-minute meeting. A traditional interview would take a lot longer to capture, as well as to prepare and write up, and the chances are that busy people, like Darren, may well have to refuse an interview request. Compare these two approaches:

• “Oh, wait a moment, I am really enjoying this conversation and I know the readers of my blog would love it too, do you mind if I just video you answering that question again?”
• “That’s really interesting, do you mind if I just go and grab a pen and paper and note down the conversation that we are having?”

Use screencasting videos to show how something is done

Another very accessible form of video is screencasting. Essentially, this technique makes a video of your computer screen and films the actions you’re taking on it. This is very similar to the concept of a screen grab for obtaining a static image of your screen.

Screencasting videos are fantastic for making “how to” videos. They allow you to visually and verbally take your viewers through a process to show them how something is done. Here are some ideas from Camtasia, the makers of video software, on how their technology can be used. In this video, they explain how the tool can be used practically:

Camtasia costs $99 for lifetime usage so it certainly won’t break the bank! Perhaps the second most popular screen casting tool on the market is ScreenFlow, which this costs the same as Camtasia and has pretty much the same features. The best thing to do with these products is to download them (both offer free trials) and practice using them to make videos.

One tip that will help you get up to speed more quickly is to write down a list of the steps that you will follow in your video and have it on the desk in front of you whilst you are making the video. With a written blog post it is natural to pause and think, and to go off researching something mid article, but with video, the research must be done beforehand. You need to film to a plan.

Be strict. If you’re not happy with your video, delete it and start again. It gets easier and easier—you will be very surprised by how quickly you speed up and improve your abilities. Before you know it, you will actually be enjoying it, wahey!

2. Video publishing

There are two places on the net where your video really needs to be:

1. on your blog (or website)
2. on YouTube.

Initially, you should publish the video to Youtube. If you use Screenflow to make a screencast video then you can publish straight from the platform to your YouTube channel. From Camtasia, you can go straight to Vimeo.

The reason that it is important to publish to Youtube is not just because it is so much larger than the other platforms and is so closely tied with both Google search and Google+, but also because it easily enables your video to be openly used by other bloggers through the video embed code shown here:

Once your video’s on YouTube, anyone who has a website can grab your embed code and plonk your video on their website. This gives you additional exposure via their audience and also gives you a link back to your YouTube video. A side note here is that the number of embeds of a video is factored into the ranking algorithm of videos on Youtube and Google.

When you’re posting your new video to YouTube, there are a number of tweaks that you can make to enhance its visibility both on YouTube itself, and within search engines. Here is a detailed overview of basic video SEO for YouTube.

Once the video is up on YouTube, you can then grab the embed code and put it onto your blog simply by pasting the code into the HTML of a blog post. Don’t forget to write a short textual piece around the video to explain the content of the video and encourage visitors to actually watch it. This little blurb will also enable search engines to understand the context of the video file, since they can’t read video files themselves.

3. Marketing your video

This is where your experience in marketing textual blog posts really comes into play. Great content is essentially great content, and the people you want to reach, whether you’re creating video or textual content, will not change.

There are however, a couple of new tools that will help you market your video effectively.

Oneload

Oneload (a.k.a. Tubemogul) is an online video distribution tool. The tool allows you to upload a video once and publish it to over 20 video platforms in one go.

Prior to your first use of Oneload, you’ll need to identify all of the video platforms that you want to submit your video to, and go and create accounts with each of them. You can then link them all to your Oneload account for easy distribution.

Realistically, you’re looking at around a day’s work to set up 20 accounts on video platforms and to enter your profile information, but once it’s done, it’s done.

Other distribution tools

Finally I will just go over some tools that you’re probably more familiar with, and highlight how they can be used to market your video content.

• Hootsuite: This social media management tool allows you to manage your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn communications all in one place. You can therefore submit your video to your Facebook page, plus your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts through this tool.
• Shareaholic and Addthis: These two tools allow you to bookmark content to multiple social networks and social bookmarking sites with ease. They are also perhaps two of the most popular social sharing button plug-ins for WordPress. Install either one as a browser plugin (they work on all major browsers), then select the social bookmarking sites that you are interested in, and you have a one-click way to share your video posts on these platforms.

A word of caution here: don’t expect instant results. You need to build up a presence and some relationships with others in your niche who are active on these sites so that you content gets a kick-start once you submit it.

A wide variety of techniques are available to market your videos solely within YouTube, both to build up a following there and to push these people back to your site. That will have to be saved for another day though, as it’s a huge topic. If you’re interested, though, look into the topic of video annotations with links to other videos.

It would be fantastic to hear some tips from others who have experience with video blogging, as the starting points I’ve covered here really are just the tip of the iceberg. Let us hear your advice in the comments.

Neil Davidson is the Founder of My Web Presenters, who are a leading Online Video Production specialist. They create and market compelling and emotive video that helps businesses to grow. You can keep up with their video marketing blog here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Video Starting Points: Make and Share Your First Video

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This guest post is by Timo Kiander of Productivesuperdad.com.

Are you afraid that you’ll never reach blogging success? Are you working your backside off on top of your day job to produce articles, ebooks, videos, and podcasts, and learn everything about Pinterest (or any other social network for that matter)?

Do you feel you are running on a blogging treadmill like a hamster but never giving yourself time to rest and recover?

If this is you, then welcome to the club! I have been there, done that, and I can relate. It’s not a very pleasant feeling to experience. However, things don’t have to be that way: there is a solution for this situation.

Burnouts, broken relationships, and abandoned blogs

Let’s face it: working harder and longer hours on your blog doesn’t necessarily make you more productive.

In the short term it might do that, but in the long run you are going to burn out. You are going to lose the fun of blogging too—even on the topic you’re passionate about.

On top of all that, you also put your relationships with your closest ones to danger. When too much of your blogging time is prioritized over the family time, you are soon in a situation where you have to make a decision: you can choose either your blog or your family.

They’re to blame (and you too!)

It’s a lot easier to blame someone else than to take responsibility for your own actions, but in this scenario there are really two responsible parties: them and you.

No matter which blogging hero (or productivity hero) you listen to, they keep telling you that more is better. Create more. Engage more. Be everywhere!

They say, “You cannot build a successful blog without working like crazy, taking massive action, and producing solid, shareable content on a frequent basis. And if you can do it all on a daily basis, that’s even better!”

So, you look up to your blogging hero and think, “Well … s/he must be right. I’ve got to get my act together and work more, do more, engage more. Otherwise, I’ll never see the blogging success that I want or the six-figure income that I’m dreaming about.”

You believe the stories they tell you. It’s virtual peer pressure at its worst—and you take the bait.

Time to slow down

I have been blogging since 2010 and I have consistently produced material for my blog twice per week. That includes written content and videos, and at some points I was even doing podcasts.

In addition, I have guest posted on big blogs and produced couple of ebooks as well—all while having a day job, a family (my wife and a son), and some time-consuming hobbies (I’m a triathlete and a marathoner).

Lately, I have felt like that hamster on a treadmill—I keep running and running but I never have a chance to relax or recover. Nor have I had time to study, do more research, or truly connect with other bloggers.

That’s why I decided to slow down my blogging pace. I’m not leaving blogosphere. I’m just cutting down the speed a bit. By doing this I aim to grow my blog even bigger than it is now.

In practice, slowing down means posting every other week instead of on a weekly basis. This change gives me more room to breathe, and allows me to do more reading and testing, and to create more new material.

For instance, for a couple of months I have wanted to build my own time management system, but I had to postpone the project because of lack of time. Or what about learning photo reading? That’s yet another project that I had to postpone. Interviews, tests, experiments, case studies … I guess you already know by now why I have never started with these projects, though they’re all on my list.

Some people are scared of this change and think that slowing down is like regressing—that if you slow down, you won’t be on everyone’s minds and lips anymore.

Well, maybe. But look around. There are many big bloggers who don’t follow a daily blog post pattern, and they’re still doing well! Derek Halpern and Glenn Allsop and Jon Morrow come to mind (and by the way, check out this video to learn why Derek is posting so infrequently).

In my opinion, slowing down is not regression. Actually, it is the best thing that has happened to me for a long time.

How to slow down successfully

Slowing down may sound easy, but in reality it’s not. One scary word keeps most of the bloggers working the same way they always have: fear.

They fear that if they change their routines and habits, they are not going to reach blogging success. They are also afraid of missing something crucial if they don’t follow to the letter what the gurus are teaching (advice that so many other bloggers are following).

But if they’re brave enough and decided to get through that glass wall known as fear, a new world would emerge for them. Are you one of these brave ones? If you are, here are five steps to follow that should make the transition much easier:

1. Acknowledge your current situation. You are stressed or burned out by blogging, thus you want to spend more time with your loved ones. Things cannot continue this way any longer.
2. Listen to external signals very carefully: Are you working too much and taking the common time off from your family? Are you working like a madman, but without any remarkable results? These clues should give you indication that you should slow down your blogging.
3. Make a decision to test the blogging slowdown. Shift to blogging once per week instead of every day, for example, and see what advantages and disadvantages it has for you.
4. Hire some professional help if possible. In fact, my decision to slow down was greatly affected by my blogging coach. Although at first his suggestion of slowing down sounded foreign, I have learned to appreciate it and I feel grateful for this advice! That’s really the power of having an external person looking at you: they have the ability to give powerful, objective advice for your benefit.
5. Connect with other bloggers and ask them to write guest posts for your blog. That way, you get content almost without any effort, and you can free up your time even more. And don’t forget interviews either. They are great a way to generate valuable content with less effort.

Don’t get me wrong: it is fine to learn from gurus, but be sure to adjust their lessons to your unique situation! You are the only one to say if you are capable of producing epic content every day, or only once a week.

Over to you now: have you slowed down your blogging pace because of increased stress, weaker relationships with your close ones, or just plain burning out—even when blogging about something you are passionate about? Leave your comments and share your experiences below. Let’s support each other to slow down!

Timo Kiander, a.k.a. Productive Superdad, teaches WAHD superdad productivity for work at home dads. If you want to get more productive in your own life, grab 222 of his best Tips for Becoming a Productivity Superstar.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Blog Better by Slowing Down

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Over the last few days we’ve been talking about taking your blog to the often-elusive “next level.”

We’ve seen tips for developing your voice and message, creating stronger calls to action, and increasing traffic.

If you’re already working on those aspects of your blog, and are happy with your approach, you’ll probably be hungry for other ideas, looking to the future, and trying to predict what will be most successful tactics for you.

I know I do this myself—I’ll get an idea like the QLD blogging challenge and throw myself into making it happen.

That’s great—one of the best things about blogging is that it lets us pursue our passions!—but I have noticed a tendency to let things drop off my To Do list as these new ideas pop up. An example was pointed out by Ed Boyhan on my Google + post. He wrote:

“Seems kinda odd: here you are providing some useful info on how some use G+, but nowhere on this page is there a “+1″ button to let me share with a circle I have for future reference. Makes me doubt your involvement in the G+ community.”

This is a valuable comment for two reasons. First, it’s a reminder of something I need to do, which dropped off my list. Whoops! Second, it explains what the implications of that oversight are—how that looks to my readers, which gives me motivation not just to get that task back on the To Do list, but also to actually act upon it and make that change to my blog.

But I know I’m not the only one who hesitates or overlooks small blogging tasks that, logically, I have no excuse not to have done!

Take a look at the comments on Kelly Crawford’s recent post, If Your Email Newsletter Isn’t Generating Cash You’re Doing Something Wrong.

Many of the people who responded to that post admitted that they hadn’t tried out some of the most common, and proven, newsletter marketing techniques for one reason or another, even though they knew they should, and wanted to.

All this makes me wonder if we wouldn’t see some big advances on our blogs if we just got through some of those little, should-have-done-it-ages-ago tasks that we keep pushing aside (even if we have good reason for doing so).

What if each of us put a day aside in the next week to knock as many of those little tasks off our To Do lists for good? What difference would that make to our blogs over the longer term? If nothing else, it would probably give each of us a much more solid platform from which to try to climb to the “next level.”

At the very least, let’s start by admitting some of the things that have slipped off our To Do lists. Don’t be embarrassed—I bet the things you’ve neglected aren’t as basic as my G+ sharing oversight!

What do you know you’re not doing, that you should be doing? Admit it in the comments. (You might even help remind the rest of us of other things we’ve forgotten we should be doing…) Even getting a small task off your list could be a big step in the right direction for your blog.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

What Blog Tasks are You Embarrassed to Admit You’ve Overlooked?

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A lot of beginner bloggers do a heavy about of sinning when they first start out…

I’m not saying they’re bad people, it’s just that they are committing nearly all of the deadly sins that bloggers need to look out for.

“But wait, aren’t there 7 deadly sins?”

In the religious context, yes, but as a blogger, there are really only 5 sins you need to worry about…

1.) Gluttony

“What does gluttony have to do with blogging?”

Simply put: when you “consume” too much and don’t create some kind of output, you are being gluttonous.

For bloggers, this comes in the form of information rather than things like food.

The over-consumption of information is dangerous, it leads to someone who is always out on the prowl for the newest trick or tactic, but who has never put them into practice.

This is especially important if you read a lot of “blogging about blogging” blogs (hey, I’m just being brutally honest, as usual).

It’s not that they don’t provide value, it’s that they can get you captivated in the “ooh shiny” mentality, getting caught up in the so called ‘latest and greatest’ when you should be busy implementing a solid foundation of techniques that work, including things like creating great content and writing guest posts to promote that content.

2.) Greed

A lot of bloggers are susceptible to this sin, hell, even established bloggers are suspect.

So, what is it about greed that can really hold a blogger back?

First of all, greed often has people putting up invasive advertisements & promoting crappy products, all the while not maintaining a focus on building a thriving audience.

Your readers are not commodities, they can be loyal customers if you treat them well, and brand advocates if you treat them very well.

They are also people, would you want to be treated in misleading ways on another person’s website?

Of course not, so don’t promote filth with an affiliate link just to make a quick buck, and don’t throw up advertisements on your second week blogging: build an audience, build an email list, and treat people with the courtesy that they deserve, there’s much more to blogging than making a quick buck.

3.) Pride

This sin is a surefire way to failure.

“My content is so good, I don’t have to promote it, the quality will do the talking!”

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but here’s two things why that won’t work:

1. You are probably overrating how good your content is (it’s your “baby”, you’re bound to see it differently)
2. There is a ton of great content on the web now, businesses often have content strategists that work on just their blog (like I with my posts on the HelpScout blog)

The overall point: It’s a competitive market; scratch that, a hyper competitive market, in almost every niche!

There are people who are paid to do what you are trying to succeed with, how can you hope to compete?

Great content is now the price of entry, NOT the defining factor for a successful blog.

So, how can you market your content without being a sleazebag?

You’re reading a method right now: write for other blogs in your space, that one should be obvious to you if you aren’t totally new.

You also need to be creating content that’s easy to plug into conversations.

You needn’t be afraid of emailing people about a new piece of yours if it relates to them in some general way, such as if they are in the same industry.

Want to know how I got Neil Patel, a guy with 100,000+ follows, to tweet about my article?

I asked him!

Crazy, ain’t it?

I told him that I had this planned as a guest post for his site, but thought it went with my brand better.

I also (via email, the best social network) asked if he wouldn’t mind sharing the piece if he enjoyed it.

He tweeted it within the hour, he’s a nice dude!

You shouldn’t be badgering the same people every time to you post something new, but reaching out to new folks from time to time will do amazing things for your blog’s promotion, trust me.

4.) Sloth

Oh man, this one can get a lot of people.

I’ve had people email me about their struggles with their blog, and when I got to visit it, they haven’t posted in 2 months!

That’s an extreme example, and sometimes it’s more insidious: people who are posting regularly, but doing nothing to market their content.

Sometimes, it might even be necessary to have a “1:1″ ratio for posts, or an “80:20″ ratio for marketing vs. posting.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I’m saying that posting 1 guest post for every post on your blog can be the ideal way to actually build an audience.

I’m also saying that, in some cases, spending upwards of 50, 60, 70, or even 80% of your time marketing your posts can be the way to go.

As a new blog, you should be focusing on creating a unique angle and outstanding content: don’t worry about posting once a day, that’s a load of bull.

Instead, create posts that are worthy of promotion, and spend the next week promoting the hell out of them (and your blog in general) with guest posts, emails, networking, etc.

Sounds goofy, but people far more experienced than me will tell you the same thing.

People like to think great content promotes itself, and that’s true, but in such a crowded place as the internet, who’s going to get the ball rolling?

The answer: you.

5. Envy/Lust/Wrath

I’ve combined the last 3 sings because they all relate to one thing (in my eyes)…

Caring too much about what other’s are doing.

It’s easy to get envious of others reach & audience, lustful of their income, and even angry that you cannot seem to do the same.

But such is business, and such is life.

Everybody has to start from square one in some fashion or another, and worrying about others does nothing for your own projects.

It’s okay to “observe” others; learning from people who’s advice you actually trust is a great way to skip having the same failures as them.

Be wary though: in the world of online marketing, there are some seriously shady characters.

What to be weary of: “Quick” fixes to anything, bizopps that target people who are total beginners in business, software that promises the world, people selling shady SEO techniques, anything that makes a process you know to be a lot of work (like building a successful blog) look easy; if it looks too good to be true, it’s a scam.

Over To You

Do you commit any blogging sins?

How do you plan on “repenting” and getting back to business?

Thanks for reading, I’d love to see you down in the comments!

Gregory Ciotti is the founder of Sparring Mind and a regular columnist for DailyBlogTips. Download his free ‘Conversion Psychology’ e-Book today to learn the science behind increasing conversions.

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First of all keep in mind I don’t support or see as a positive thing the massacres that happened in Central and South America when Spain, Portugal and other European nations started colonizing the continent. Quite the opposite. That being said we can still learn from their strategic and military choices, and that is what this post is about.

Hernán Cortés was the Spanish general who was responsible for the fall of the Aztec Empire and sub-sequent colonization of the Americas by Spain. His military technology was far superior, but the Aztec outnumbered his men, and they were fighting for their lives (i.e., as motivated as you can get…).

In other words, he needed something to motivate his men to fight eagerly as well, else there was a chance they would be defeated.

That is why when he arrived at the shores he gave orders to burn and sink all the ships that brought his men. He wanted to make it clear that retreating was not an option. If the Aztecs were fighting for their lives, well, so were the Spanish men now. And as you might remember from history classes, it worked.

Bottom line: sometimes you need to burn the ships and the bridges behind you to make sure you’ll give all you’ve got.

Here are some examples of how this might apply to startups and websites, even if at a smaller scale:

• Renew your domain for 10 years, so you tell yourself that this is for the long run.
• Invest $1000 on a design for your website, so you tell yourself that if you stop working on it you’ll lose that money.
• Once your online business starts making some decent money consider quitting your day job, so you tell yourself that now your websites need to pay your bills.

What about you, are you willing to burn the bridges?

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This guest post is by Danielle LaPorte of DanielleLaPorte.com.

Blog = up? Posts = rolling? It’s time to get obsessed with your message.

A quick dictionary moment, to differentiate between your voice, your topics and your message.

• Your voice is what makes your writing distinctive, compelling, unmistakably you. You’ll carry your voice from your blog, right into your book. Seamless, identifiable. Individual.
• Your topics are the categories or subjects you write about (Eco-luxe weddings on a shoestring budget! Savvy corporate management, with heart and soul! Thrifty vegan recipes!)
• Your message is your core teaching—the why behind your what. It’s the reason you write what your write. It drives your vocation. It’s the soapbox that you’re proud to stand on. If your blog had a “life purpose” or “calling”, this’d be it. (And it goes without saying, if you’re not obsessed with your message, nobody else will be, either.)

Putting it together

Your core message is the defining character of your brand, as a writer—and for maximum visibility, you’ll apply your message to specific subjects, reaching diverse and unexpected audiences, outside of your industry. Here’s an example:

Dr. Christiane Northrup’s message is about women’s wellness. Through her numerous books and products, she filters that message through topics such as nutrition, menopause, prenatal care, joy, parenting, and sexuality. So, Dr. Northrup can take her message to niche audiences that are focused on nutrition, menopause, prenatal care, joy, parenting, and sexuality. That’s a very big audience.

The message is the over-arching theme—and lots of people share Dr. Northrup’s message. However, not everyone has her voice, which makes her writing distinctive. People go to Dr. Northrup not just for her message, but for her unique way of delivering the goods.

Let’s say you write about grieving the death of a loved one and creating a new life—your essential message is about how to heal grief. You might think that your audience is narrow. But just ask yourself: where else does grief show up for people? It goes beyond the loss of a spouse. People experience grief when they lose a job, when a dream dies, when a family pet passes on, when their children grow up and leave the home, and so on.

You could be writing about your “process” of healing grief in a variety of outlets (magazines, newspapers, your blog, someone else’s blog), with audiences who are interested in career-change, creativity, pets, parenting… Same message. Different houses.

Cross-pollinate

Perhaps your core message is that financial freedom rocks, and everyone should strive to achieve it. You’ve got theories and formulas, worksheets and how-to’s to help people make that happen.

Awe-some. Now, don’t stick to writing on the obvious financial management blogs. Go meet the people who need you and meet their needs when you get there. Get interviewed or contribute an article (or a series!) to a popular parenting blog: “5 Ways to Help Your Kids Become Money Savers.”

Does it matter that teaching kids to be money-aware is not your primary focus? Or that your next book is about making money on real estate? Nope. What matters is that you’re getting in front of grownups (book buyers, subscribers, event-hosters, humans in need), who care about financial freedom.

Hang ups

While your message and voice will ultimately define you, don’t get hung up on any one component of this—trying to get your “message” just perfect, or worrying about how your “voice” is different from someone else’s. The first six months that you’re writing a blog is all about finding your voice, and for some of us, it’ll take a bit longer.

Every movement has a story. Every nation has a story. Every community has a story. Every person has a story. You were born to tell yours.

There’s no such thing as wasted time when you’re working on your craft. Get the stories out of your inner world, give them time to breathe, and then see what’s true for you in the present time. If telling the story is between you and your God or only for your family, be proud you did it. You gave it voice. Then let it go. Something else will whisper in your ear, asking to be written.

Cross-pollinate

Once you know what your message and voice is, it’s time to spread your wings and do something that the innovative and forward-thinking types will do: cross-pollinate their audiences.

Let’s continue with the example of a core message centered around financial freedom. Want to shake things up a bit, do things differently?

Write for a major style website. Yep—style. “Financial Freedom = Hot Fashion: How To Get Smart with Your Cash So You Can Have Everything You Want In Life … and In Your Closet.” Same tips, tailored spin. Greater exposure to a niche that’s full of people who need what you’ve got.

Take time to sit down and imagine all the different venues where your message could take part. Perhaps get really radical and make a top ten list of the places you think your message could never show up—and just to get creative, stretch a bit and imagine how, if you absolutely had to do it to pay rent next month, your message could work with that unlikely audience.

That’s how top bloggers think.

Cross-pollinate your audiences. Blend n’ stir. Watch it grow.

Danielle LaPorte is the author of the forthcoming book The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide for Creating Success on Your Own Terms (from Random House/Crown). An inspirational speaker, former think tank exec and business strategist, she is the creator of the online program The Spark Kit: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs and co-author of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan. Over a million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice on DanielleLaPorte.com, a site that has been deemed “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.”

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Get Obsessed with Your Message

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We’ve all heard of it—the elusive “next level” that so many bloggers talk about online.

But what is the next level? How many levels are there? Is there an end point in leveling up?

These are all worthwhile questions—especially for more experienced bloggers who have spent a lot of time and energy in reaching the level they’re already at. For these bloggers, trying to reach the next level can involve a degree of risk, so the steps that get us toward the next level might be taken slowly and with care.

On the other hand, the web isn’t exactly undersupplied with “radical” ideas to get your blog to the next level, either. The idea here is one of leapfrogging your way to the next rung on the ladder—of taking a risk, and investing significant time (and sometimes money) in the hopes of a dramatically successful outcome.

In my experience, both approaches are valid—different techniques work at different times, after all. What might not be appropriate for you today might be the perfect solution to a problem you’re having growing your blog in a year’s time. After all, wherever you are as a blogger, there’s always a “next level.”

Over the next few days we’re going to be presenting a few ideas for getting to the next level from some of ProBlogger’s most popular guest bloggers. These ideas are varied—they cover content, conversions, and traffic—and while some are more subtle in their approach, others aim to help “blitz” your way to the next level—whatever that is for you.

It’s fair to say that these ideas could be of use to any blogger at any point in their journey, so I’m hopeful that they’ll be useful to you.

Before we kick off, I’m curious to know if you’ve ever had a blogging experience that’s taken you and your blog to the “next level.” What level were you at to begin with, and what was the technique that helped you break new ground? Please do share your experiences with us in the comments—we’d love to hear your stories and advice.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

On the Elusive “Next Level” of Blogging

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Wish you could get to Blog World Expo this year, but can’t make it to New York? Me too.

I’ll be in Queensland with the winners of my blogging competition, but I know there are plenty of bloggers from other countries, as well as within the States, who won’t be able to attend Blog World this year.

Fortunately, you and I don’t need to miss out on the information and fun of the Expo (and if the speaker list for this year is anything to go by, the conference is going to be really impressive).

We “remote” bloggers can still “attend” on a BWE virtual ticket. And if we register by May 15 (that’s roughly 24 hours from now!), the good folks at Blog World will give us a $100 discount on the tickets.

That’s a great deal—the full virtual ticket price is $397, so this is a discount of 25%.

The virtual ticket includes access to every recorded session (including audio and the slides presented by the speaker), as well as various bonuses that the BWE team adds exclusively for those with virtual tickets—click here for full details of what’s included.

Don’t miss this great discount—grab your Blog World Expo virtual ticket here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Grab Your BWE Virtual Ticket for $100 Off—24 Hours Left

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If you still haven’t seen the piece on The Verge where they slam some Internet marketing gurus pretty hard, well, grab some popcorn and visit the link below, cause you are in for a treat (whether you agree with the opinions of the article or not).

The post is titled Scamworld: ‘Get rich quick’ schemes mutate into an online monster, and it runs for thousands of words with a very comprehensive view on the matter.

Just to give you an idea on how they didn’t hold any punches: there are pictures and videos of some pretty famous Internet marketers (e.g., Frank Kern and Mike Filsaime) all over the article, with explanations of how they “scam” people out of their money. Here’s a quote:

When you first discover Internet Marketing, whether online or at an event like this, it’s tempting to overthink things. Internet Marketers like to make their industry appear complicated to the point of obfuscation. In reality, things are pretty simple.

“The product is really irrelevant,” Frank Kern tells an audience of Internet Marketers on one of his many videos floating around the web. “Now, that’s not to say that you can’t, or don’t need to, or should not make an absolutely kick-ass product. That is not what I am trying to tell you at all. But we should never put the cart before the horse.”

Later in the same video, he explains that “the market” (what people are willing to buy) is the most important factor when developing an information product, and not whether you’re actually qualified to teach someone about a subject.

If anything, Internet Marketing is a form of “pure marketing” that exists often without the complication of an actual product. Rather than develop something useful, Internet Marketers create something out of thin air: likely a worthless e-book, or some sort of coaching session that consists of a semi-regular phone consultation.

There’s even a graph showing who is connected to whom, like they do with the Mafia and other criminal organizations…

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with everything that is on the article, but I find it pretty interesting that mainstream tech publications are starting to take an interest on the Internet marketing world, and if they are shady stuff out there I think it’s positive to see it exposed.

Check it out and take your own conclusions though.

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This guest post is by Karol K of ThemeFuse.

Selecting a WordPress theme is one of those tasks that seem fairly easy at first How hard can it be? you ask yourself. You simply go to Google, type in “best free WordPress themes” and you’re good to go, right?

I’m sure you already know where I’m going with this. So let’s just say it out loud so we can put it behind us: Forget about free themes! They are evil! This is something I’ve been saying for a little more than a year now. And hey, don’t blame me, it’s just the way it is.

Long story short, almost all free WordPress themes include some kind of strange code in their structures, usually in the footer section. The code is encrypted, and, often, the theme stops working if you try to remove it. Also, you don’t have a clue about what’s actually in that code until you decrypt it. Just to make things clear, as a developer, designer, or simply a website owner, you never want to have any unknown code on your site.

What other solutions are there if free themes are out of the game, then? Three main ones:

• You can have the theme developed by someone on a contract agreement.
• You can develop the theme yourself on top of a popular theme framework (and create the design as well).
• You can buy a premium theme.

Of course, at ThemeFuse (the theme store I’m a part of), we strongly encourage you to take advantage of the last option because, well, that’s our business.

But I’m not speaking as a businessman now. I’m speaking as a WordPress developer. So let me take you through the most important elements of the decision-making process, so you can select the perfect WordPress theme for your website or blog.

What do you need the theme for?

This is the first and the most important question you can ask yourself.

Every website has its own purpose. And this purpose will greatly affect the kind of theme you should be searching for.

WordPress was originally designed to work with traditional text blogs, but over the years this purpose has evolved into something much broader. Nowadays, WordPress can successfully run almost any kind of website.

Some possible applications include:

• Video blogs: this is a new breed in the blogging world. Every day there are more and more bloggers who present their content exclusively through video.
• Photo blogs (or graphical portfolios): These blogs are popular among photographers and designers who want to showcase their work.
• Online magazines: These sites are created around the idea of publishing news from a given field, often along with a descriptive image to accompany text content.
• Business sites: These sites are owned by all kinds of professionals and contract workers, from dentists and tailors, to consultants and teachers … and more!
• Traditional blogs: These are run by people who want to share their own articles. Mostly, traditional blogs are text only content. In other words, these are blogs like we know them.
• Corporate sites: Big companies have a slightly different idea of what a good website contains, and that’s why the corporate style has sprouted up.
• Software/app/product sites: Some businesses are built around a given product or a piece of software. The websites of such businesses tend to focus on the product, rather than on the business itself.
• Small to medium-sized business sites: Such businesses often find it hard to choose a site design. The corporate style is too big, and a product site just doesn’t seem to fit many service-based businesses.
• Real-world, local business sites: This is a type of site that’s targeted towards all kinds of physical businesses, like hotels, restaurants, galleries, shopping malls, and every other brick-and-mortar business imaginable.

There are probably tens of other types of sites that WordPress can handle, but let’s just stop here as I’m sure you get the idea.

Whatever you hope your site will end up to be, you have to start with its purpose. That purpose will suggest specific goals for your site, and its design should reflect those goals. Only when you’ve decided what’s important for your future site and what isn’t, can you start searching for a theme.

The most important features of a WordPress theme

There are tons of features a custom WordPress theme can provide you with, but let’s just focus on the most essential stuff—the things you’ll actually use on a daily basis (or during the initial setup).

Price and license

This is probably the most important factor to consider when you’re choosing a theme. Just like every soon-to-be website owner, you’ll have a specific budget set aside for this, and you’ll tell yourself you won’t get anything too expensive no matter how great it is. This is a perfectly reasonable approach.

Therefore, there are some important things to be aware of here. For instance, ask:

• Does the license you’re about to get allow you to use the theme on more than one site?
• Do you get free support?
• Do you get the PSD files?
• Do you get the source files?
• Do you get any additional bonuses?

If you’re a WordPress developer and you plan on using a given theme for more than one client, you should consider getting a multiple site license, or maybe even a complete theme package (containing all themes a given theme store has to offer). Of course, the more you want, the more you have to spend, but such an investment might pay off soon.

If you’re only looking for a theme for your own site, then getting the most basic license will probably be the best choice for you.

An SEO friendly structure

No matter what other website owners are saying, SEO still is, and will remain, a very important element for the whole “getting popular on the internet” thing.

An SEO friendly theme is a really valuable asset. If you’re planning on doing any kind of SEO work around your site, then such a theme is essential. And even if you don’t have time for SEO, an SEO friendly theme can do a surprisingly big part of the work for you anyway.

Good SEO always starts with getting the basic characteristics of your site just right. Only then you can tackle link-building and other off-page SEO tasks.

How can you find out whether a theme is SEO friendly or not? Unfortunately, you can’t know for sure until you start working with a given theme. However, there are still some things to look for when you’re playing with a theme’s live demo, or analyzing the screenshots of a theme.

• Is there the ability to set the titles and descriptions for every post and page individually (including the homepage)?
• Does the theme use <H> headings?
• Are the categories and tags visible?
• Is the layout clean and simple?
• Does the theme support major SEO plugins?

Some of these factors can be seen when you’re looking at a theme, while others are simply listed in the promotional materials of the theme. Make sure to pay attention to these considerations, though. The more SEO features a theme has, the better.

Compatibility with every browser

This is a very important feature to look for when you’re selecting a theme. Your visitors will always use a range of browsers and devices to access your site. You, as the website owner or the developer need to make sure that the site looks the same in every environment. This is difficult to do if your theme doesn’t provide that functionality from the get-go.

There are a couple of ways to find out whether the theme you’re interested in has cross-browser and device compatibility built in. The time-consuming way is to check the live demo on different browsers yourself. The easy way is to look for the information in the theme’s promotional materials.

Customizable design

Your new theme shouldn’t force you to stick to the default layout. It’s usually difficult to find a theme that fits your requirements exactly. Serious theme developers understand this, so they provide you with the possibility to change the layout a bit.

Changes like switching to a two sidebar layout, or moving sidebars from left to right should be available inside a good theme.

Also, the sidebars should be dynamic, so that you don’t have to settle for a given layout for the whole site. You should be able to choose custom layouts for individual pages of your blog.

Different color schemes available

Sticking to the topic of customization, let’s have a word about color schemes.

Every website needs a brand identity or some other point of differentiation. Chances are that you already have a logo made, and that you want to use it with your new theme. The logo itself represents most of your visual identity, so the theme should follow the same direction and be in tune with the logo.

There’s no easier way of keeping everything in tune than by simply changing the color scheme of your theme. Good themes have a couple of predefined color schemes built in, as well as a number of well-defined CSS classes that enable you to create new color schemes with little effort.

This might not sound important at first, but it actually makes tuning the theme a lot easier if you have a color scheme in place at the outset.

Easily customizable header

Whenever someone gets a new theme, the header is always the first place where any sort of customization happens. This isn’t surprising at all: everyone wants to include their own logo, their own menu, or an advertisement banner.

Customizable headers are essential for every theme. If the theme you’re considering doesn’t support this, it’s going to be really time-consuming for you to do any kind of modifications by hand (i.e. by working with HTML and PHP code).

Widget-ready areas

Widgets are small blocks of content you can include in various areas of your blog’s structure. The most common location for widgets is the sidebar, but that’s not a rule.

Every quality theme has a number of widget-ready areas predefined within its structure. Such areas are not only a form of a placeholder, but in most cases, they’re set with custom formatting and styling too.

The most common uses of widgets are:

• displaying your Twitter stream and other social media icons
• displaying recent comments
• offering an additional search field
• showing categories and tags
• listing recent posts
• showing popular posts
• displaying archive links
• displaying ads, additional menus, and so on.

Custom homepage support

For a traditional blog, the homepage is simply a list of recent posts. This is how it used to work for years, and it’s still the default setting in WordPress. But as I said earlier, there are many possible uses of the WordPress platform these days, and this default listing is the optimal solution for almost none of them.

Of course, if you’re a blogger publishing insightful articles on a regular basis, then by all means you should make the default listing of recent posts your homepage. However, if you’re a business owner of any kind, you’re probably better off to create a custom homepage displaying the most important information about your business and its offerings.

Most quality themes enable you to create a custom homepage and choose the individual elements you want to place on it. This is either done by a special category or another widget area (depending on the theme).

Video and image friendly

Just to make things clear, you can obviously display videos and images on every WordPress blog … I haven’t stumbled upon a situation where a blog wouldn’t support images. However, some themes make working with multimedia really, really effortless.

For instance, here’s a YouTube video. If you want to embed it into a standard WordPress theme, you have to go to YouTube, click the Share button, click the Embed button, grab the embed code, go back to your blog, switch to HTML editor, and finally paste the embed code where you want it.

But if you know you’ll be using a lot of video and imagery, you’d do better to choose a theme that caters specifically to those content types. For example, doing the same thing in a Themefuse theme requires only one action. In the visual editor, you simply use the shortcode:

[youtube width="600" height="350" link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keIGj-bTagE"]

Making an image slideshow, or displaying a map from Google Maps is quite similar.

Social media integration

Social media and all of its forms is very popular. Everyone has a Twitter or Facebook account, if not tens of other profiles. Quality WordPress themes follow this trend and provide some form of social media integration. The most popular way is to show various share buttons next to the content, Follow or Like buttons, and sometimes even Twitter or Facebook streams.

Of course, you don’t have to use all of these options, but it’s good to make sure the theme you’re considering has a few possibilities you can choose from.

The “wow” effect: your theme’s looks

Setting all the features aside, there’s one really important characteristic that every good theme offers. All the features mean absolutely nothing if you simply don’t like the theme visually.

Some people will try to tell you that looks can always be changed and that you shouldn’t focus on this that much. I advise a different path here.

If you see a theme, and it doesn’t make you think something like “wow, this is great!” then don’t get it. Period.

Of course, remember your purpose for the theme. The looks itself are not enough to make a theme perfect for you—there are other important considerations as well, as we’ve just seen.

A theme can’t be overused

Popularity is a funny thing when it comes to WordPress themes. On one hand, it’s great to get a popular theme because you know that it’s a quality product. It’s a kind of social proof—if many people have decided to buy a certain theme, then it has to be good, right?

On the other hand, if too many people are using the same theme then it loses all of its uniqueness, and it can make branding it difficult.

Now, I’m not saying that an overall number of downloads for a given theme is important in itself, but it is important for your specific niche. The fact that 50 people might be using your theme in a different niche is not a problem. But if ten people are using your theme in your niche, that could be a big problem.

Simply do a little research before buying a theme to make sure that there aren’t too many people using it in the niche where you want to launch a site. (If no one is using the theme, that, of course, is the perfect scenario.)

Reviews are important

Depending on a theme’s popularity, you might be able to find some customer reviews, or even professional reviews to help you decide whether the theme is really worth purchasing.

The best way of finding those reviews is using Google. Search for something like “theme-name review”. The rule is simple: the larger the number of good reviews, the better.

On the other hand, if you don’t find anything, it doesn’t mean that the theme isn’t good quality. Usually, happy customers don’t spend time submitting reviews around the internet, they simply enjoy their purchase and go on with their lives.

Documentation and support

Some developers don’t believe in the power of documentation, and it’s hard to understand why. The fact is that even when you get a new washing machine, you get a user’s manual.

Essentially, digital products are no different—they, too, need a manual of some kind. Serious developers understand this so they always try to make their customers’ lives easier by providing documentation that’s easy to grasp.

Support is different. The better the product is, the less work support teams have. But still, there are times when you’ll need some assistance, either when something stops working or when you simply want to do something unusual with your theme.

Don’t choose a theme that doesn’t have any documentation or support. This might be okay when you’re getting a theme for free, but when you’re paying money, it’s not acceptable.

Only up-to-date themes allowed

This is an easy trap to fall into. Here’s the scenario: you’re browsing the web to find a nice theme, you stumble upon one that’s interesting, and you decide to get it. Only afterwards you find out that the theme you’ve chosen hasn’t been updated lately and that it has been developed for version 2.7 of WordPress, for example.

I’m not saying that every next version of WordPress is completely different from the previous one, but some things do change, and you need to make sure that your theme implements all the new functionality and interesting features of the platform.

Every self-respecting theme store makes sure that the themes it offers are always up-to-date with current versions of WordPress and current trends of the web as a whole. So when you’re shopping for a theme, simply take notice of whether the theme you’re about to get has been updated lately and if it’s compatible with the newest version of WordPress.

A step-by-step approach

This has turned out to be a rather lengthy piece, so let me sum it up with a quick step-by-step guide on how to select the perfect theme for your blog:

1. Start with the purpose of your site. When you decide what you need the site for, you’ll be able to list its most important traits—traits you need the theme to support.
2. Note the details about the themes you’re considering. Some possibilities include: price and license, SEO friendly structure, compatibility with every browser, customizable design, different color schemes available, easily modifiable header, widget-ready areas, custom homepage support, video and image friendly, and support for social media integration.
3. Let me quote myself: If you see a theme, and it doesn’t make you think something like “wow, this is great!”, don’t get it.
4. Make sure that the theme is not overused in your niche.
5. Try to find some customer or professional reviews.
6. Make sure that documentation and support is available for the theme.
7. Make sure that the theme is up to date with the current version of WordPress.

Even though it seems like there’s much to do when selecting a theme, it can actually be worked through very quickly. You just need to know where to look for the most important information.

Essentially, selecting a good theme is like selecting any other product—digital or otherwise. You just need to know what you’re looking for. Don’t forget to ask or read about the details that are important to you and your blog.

There’s been a lot of talking on my part here. Now it’s your turn: how did you go about selecting your current WordPress theme? What words of wisdom can you give those who are about to do it for the first time? Let us know in the comments—and don’t forget to visit again tomorrow, when I’ll show you how to install the theme you’ve selected, set by step.

Karol K. is a 20-something year old web 2.0 entrepreneur from Poland and a writer at ThemeFuse.com, where he shares various WordPress advice. Currently, he’s working on a new e-book titled “WordPress Startup Guide – little known things worth doing when creating a WordPress site.” The e-book launches soon, and now the best part … it’s free. Also, don’t forget to visit ThemeFuse to get your hands on some premium WordPress themes.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Select the Perfect WordPress Theme for Your Blog

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