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Archive for the ‘Create A Successful Blog 7 Day Challenge’ category

Setup Your Email List – Day 7 of 7 Day Challenge

April 11th, 2010

So today’s the last challenge. If you have been keeping up with the challenges, I hope your blog has improved.

Today’s challenge is to setup and create a mailing list for your blog. Having a mailing list, is a great way to build subscribers, and every blog should have one.

For this challenge, we are going to use MailChimp. The free account offers a maximum of 500 subscribers, and 3000 emails per month.

First of all, visit http://www.mailchimp.com, and click on the signup button. Feel free to browse the site and find out more information if you wish.

Once logged in, you have three options. One option is to create a list, the second option is to create a campaign, and the third is to create an autoresponder.

There are various help pages on mailchimp, and you should search around the site and get to know it. If used correctly, it is a very effective marketing tool.

That concludes the 7 day challenge, I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any comments about the challenge, please leave them in the comments.

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Posted in Create A Successful Blog 7 Day Challenge

Tags: 7 day challenge emailing list

Guest Post On Other People’s Blog – Day 6 of 7 Day Challenge

April 10th, 2010

We are almost at the end of the 7 day challenge. Doesn’t time fly? Today’s challenge is an extension of day 4’s challenge. Your task today is to guest post on 5 blogs. Maybe ask your new friend that you made on day 4 to see if they allow you to guest post on their blog. If they do, that is great. But the challenge isn’t over yet. I said guest post on 5 blogs! If you already guest post on a few different blogs, that great, do it some more; but if you haven’t, find some blogs you can guest post on. I suggest signing up to MyBlogGuest.com and find some blogs that are looking for guest posters. It would also be a good idea to check out the article I wrote about people guest posting on your blog, to get an understanding of how the system works.

To get the most out of guest blogging, choose a blog that is in the same niche as you are in. This way, you could possibly get some new readers over to your blog. Make sure you careful read and abide by the host blogs terms!

Guest posting has a number of benefits, and is a proven way to increase your subscriber count dramatically, especially if you write a really good article on the host blog, and you have a really good articles on your blog to make them subscribe. If you have a solid topic, then this shouldn’t be too hard. Apart from building up subscribers, guest

Extra Challenge: If you are running short on ideas, why not have people to guest post on your blog? Your extra challenge is to write a guest post page that gives people information on how they can guest post on your blog. Have a look at our guest blog page for example on guest blogging. Also, say that you are looking for guest posts over at MyBlogGuest.com.

Before you start to allow guest post, it is best to read about the things you must consider when people guest post on your blog.

Are you having trouble with the challenge? Ask for help in the comments. We would also like to know how you went with today’s challenge.

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Posted in Content, Create A Successful Blog 7 Day Challenge, Promotion

Tags: 7 day challenge guest post

Improve Your Blogs SEO – Day 5 of 7 Day Challenge

April 9th, 2010

I hope you have had success in finding a friend you can work with and to help each other out. It is now time to improve your friendship, but this time, it is with a robot. Yes you are going to for a relationship with Google and other search engines. Today’s challenge is to make your blog SEO friendly.

For this task, I am going to assume you have a WordPress blog. If you don’t, then you may not be able to perform some of the tasks I am going to discuss.

If you haven’t already installed the All In One SEO Plugin on your WordPress blog, it is a good idea that you do. This is a must have tool which you can download, or by searching for its name. Once installed, configure all the relevant settings, such as titles, description and keywords. The plug in isn’t that difficult to use – but gives you great results.

With All In One SEO Pack installed, go through each individual posts, and add a description to the post as well as adding keywords to it. Search engines will read this information, and display it, and not the actual content itself. So make sure you write something that will persuade the user to click on your link.

While you are editing each post, read through your content and see if you can interlink some of your newer posts to your older posts. Internal links is one factor that can improve your sites Page Rank, and it gives your visitors other articles that they may also find interesting and relevant to them. The more links you have on a page, the more chances of someone reading on through your blog. Plus, it also helps lower your bounce rate.

The next task for you to complete is to sign up with Google Webmasters Tools. This is a free tool by Google to help you analyse what keywords visiting are coming to your site on, and allow you to submit an RSS feed to help get your new posts index more quickly. Google Webmaster tools also have a number of other useful tools and reports that you should check out as well.

One other thing, to get the best SEO results and that is to post everyday. The more often you post new and unique content, the more pages Google can index, and the more entry points into your blog you have. You may also find these 10 SEO tips extremely useful for today’s challenge

In summary, you have two tasks to complete.

Install All In One SEO Pack
Sign up to Google Webmaster Tools
Publish a post everyday

Extra Challenge: Use Google Keywords Tools, or other keyword tools to help come up with a list of 100 keywords that you can use for your blog. Every time you write a new post, try to include as many of these key phrases as you can. When you search for good keywords, low competition, and high search volume are they key criteria. But don’t over do it. Remember, write for people, and then write for Google.

Do you require more assistance with this challenge, or want to ask a related question? Please do so in the comments. We would also love to hear how you went.

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Posted in Create A Successful Blog 7 Day Challenge, SEO

Tags: 7 day challenge SEO

Find Blogging Friends and Form a Relationship – Day 4 of 7 Day Challenge

April 8th, 2010

How did you cope yesterday? Did you get some good results? We are now up to day 4 of the 7 day Creating A Successful Blog Challenge. Challenges are going to get a bit harder now, and today’s challenge will take a bit more time then previous ones. Today you are going to form a relationship/partnership with another blogger in your niche. Don’t be too stressed out if you have no idea how to go about this, we have some tips!

Find A Friend First

The first step to forming a relationship with another blogger is to find another blogger. Sounds simple doesn’t it. Well it is. You may already read other blogs in your niche, so you may have already found a successful candidate. If not, you better get out there and start looking.

Have a search for keywords in your niche in Google Blog Search, or other blog directories that you know of, and see if you can find any sites that you think you can form a relationship with the blogger. Make sure it is a site that is around the same age, and type as your blog with a similar subscriber count as you. As a tip, if they use Feedburner as their RSS feed, add /~fc/ in the URL between the.com and their feed URL, and if the count is enabled, you should be able to see how many subscribers they have.

If you aren’t having any luck, try doing search on related:yourblogdomain.com.

Still no luck? You can always visit commentators on other blogs that you have found to see if there site is related to you. Because you will be surprised how many people are in the same boat as you. If you want, comment on this post below your blog name and niche, and you may find your friend without leaving this page.

One final place I recommend that you look is over at Twitter. Go to the Twitter Search Page, type of few keywords and see if you find any people you think you want to be friends with.

You may also want to look into our Exclusive Group offer if you are eligible. This is an exclusive group of bloggers who work together to help build up each others blogs.

Don’t Rush Into It

Now that you have found a successful candidate to be friends with, don’t rush into it by asking them to be a friend with you straight away. Ease your way in. Comment on a few of his blogs posts. The author will regularly see your name appear, and he may comment back on your own blog. Also re-tweet some of their posts and submit them to social media websites that I mentioned in day 3. They may recognise you, and again, return the favour.

Now that your new friend is visiting your site as well, write an article that promotes one of his articles or his whole blog. You may read something over on their blog that you think is really interesting, so you may want to share it on your blog. Don’t directly copy his content, but take their main views, link to the post, and have a discussion about it. If you are unclear what I mean, do something like Tom from Build That List has done with me. (Please note that Tom has sold his site since that post was published)

Just Pop The Question

You should now be at a stage where you are commenting and re-tweeting on each others posts, and linking to each others posts in each others posts. It is now time to pop the question and contact the other blog to see if you can officially form some type of relationship/partnership/friendship. When you do so, make sure you introduce yourself (if you haven’t already in your comments), explain what you have done (promoted their work, re-tweeted), why it is a good opportunity to be friends, offer them something in return and then have a virtual bear or cocktail.

Extra Challenge: Form another two or three friends. Involve each other, promote each others work and help each other out.

If you have any questions about today’s challenge or would like some extra help, please ask in the comments below!

» Read more: Find Blogging Friends and Form a Relationship – Day 4 of 7 Day Challenge

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Posted in Create A Successful Blog 7 Day Challenge, Hints and Tips

Tags: 7 day challenge friends relationship

Think of 100 Posts To Write In The Future – Day 2 of 7 Day Challenge

April 6th, 2010

By now, you should have thought of 3 goals for your blog. With these goals in mind, it is now your task to come up with a list of 100 posts and titles to write in the coming months. By doing this straight after you have carefully thought of your blog goals, you have in mind the exact direction on where you want your blog to head. If one of your blog goals was to be in the Technorati Top 100 technology blogs, you want to focus on a particular technology topics. You could focus on “How To’s”, and think of 100 “How To” posts you can write.

When thinking of your Blog titles, make sure they stand out, give as much information about the post, and use keywords. If you are writing down a title and a lot of information comes to your mind of what you want to include in the post, write that down too. Because when you come to write the actual post, you may have forgotten what you actually wanted to say.

Blog titles are not that hard to come up with. Use a few formula’s or title starters, and you should be on your way.

Discover the secrete of [blank]
XX unbelievable [blank] was to [blank] your [blank]
Solve [blank] by [blank
How to [blank] with [blank]
Why you should use [blank] to [blank]
If you don’t know about [blank] by now, where have you been hiding?

So are you ready for day 2’s challenge? If you are, you better get your thinking cap on and start jotting down 100 posts to write about.

Extra Challenge: If you want to challenge yourself some more, you can write a brief summary of what you want to include in each post, or you can think of 200 titles!

» Read more: Think of 100 Posts To Write In The Future – Day 2 of 7 Day Challenge

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Posted in Content, Create A Successful Blog 7 Day Challenge

Tags: 7 day challenge Content posts write

Set Your Blog A Goal – Day 1 of 7 Day Challenge

April 5th, 2010

Welcome to Day 1 of Creating A Successful Blog 7 Day Challenge. Today’s challenge is to set your blog a goal. If you are not sure of what a goal is, it is something that you want to archive within a particular timeframe. But having a goal is not good enough. You need to have objectives to accommodate your goals. If you are not sure what objectives are, they are the ways that you will archive your goal.

So let’s get down to business. Today, you need to think of at least one long-term goal, and two short-term goals that you want to reach. A long-term goal can be between 1-5 years, and a short-term goal can be within a few months.

When setting goals, it needs to meet the SMART criteria. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-orientated.

Specific: A goal that is specific describes the exact detail of the goal. What the goal is, how you will get there, and when.

Measurable: Is when you can measure the performance to ensure you can reach your goal. This could be though analytical tracking if you are counting your subscribers.

Achievable: Is when it is possible and realistic to archive the goal. For example, to be the first blog to reach 1000 billion unique visitors in July 2010. It is not achievable because there are not 1000 billion people in the world.

Realistic: Is that it could happen, or the chances of it happening are high. An unrealistic goal will be that my blog will be more popular than Facebook and Google in one year. Although, this could possibly happen, the likeliness of a blog being more popular than Facebook and Google is extremely low.

Time-Oriented: The goal can be measured with time, or there is a time limit. An example is that I want to gain for 50,000 RSS subscribers in 2010.

Example Goals: Let’s have a look at some examples of possible goals and see if they meet the SMART Criteria.

To Be A Good Blog: This goal is not specific enough. What is a good blog? How is a good Blog measured? How do we deem what the characteristic of a good blog is? This is a bad example of a goal. A better goal would be: To be a Blog that is highly involved in the community, gives great advice and help to over 100000 readers within 5 years.
To Be In The Top 100 of Blogs: Not specific enough. Top 100 blogs of what category? When do you want to be in the Top 100 of blogs? Is it realistic if your blog only has a limited audience? A better example would be: To be a blog that is in the Technorati Top 100 Blogs for technology in 3 years.

Now it is time to start thinking of a long-term goal and two short-term goals. Once you have thought of them, make sure you write them down on paper so you will never forget to them. If in the future you find that you are losing your blogging motivation, it could be a good idea to look over your goals and possibly refresh them.

Extra Challenge: Now you have set your goals, come up with 5 objectives on how you are going to reach those goals. In other words, what are you going to do to ensure you will successfully reach your goals?

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Posted in Create A Successful Blog 7 Day Challenge

Tags: 7 day challenge goals smart

7 Day Blog Challenge – Starting Monday

April 3rd, 2010

Today, I am announcing that on Monday 5th April 2010, I will be launching a 7 day blogging challenge.

For 7 days starting on Monday, I will give you a task to complete to help improve your blog. It will cover planning, creating content, promotion, and a few other things that you will just have to wait to find out.

Make sure you check back in two days time.

I will see you then!