Successful Blog

3 Easy Steps to Persuade a Quality Blogger to Link to You

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Linking Relationships

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The blogosphere is a web of connections made by links from blog to blog. The strongest relationships and the links that last longest are those that are made between bloggers.

If you want a link from a blogger you’ve not yet met, you’re really asking for a vote of trust. The link I give to your blog or your blog post means that I’ve tied my name to yours. Naturally any blogger would be more inclined to give your link a home, if you show it will be in the blogger’s best interest.

Who wouldn’t want to link to you if your link improved their readers’ experience in some meaningful way?

3 Easy Steps to Persuade a Quality Blogger to Link to You

Choose carefully when finding home for your links. Hopefully, you’re starting a long-term relationship. You want to be part of a network of quality people. Let’s imagine that the blogger you want to link to is me.

Here’s how you might persuade me in three easy steps.

  1. Do Your Homework

    2. Get to know me and my blog. Make a a project of finding out who I am and what I write about. Study my blog and my readers’ comments. In other words, do a little homework.

    So many people peddle their blog posts from blog to blog without even bothering to read the front page. You’ll stand out if when you say, “I’ve been reading your blog . . .” and what follows that shows that you really have. Chances are, if you show a real interest in my blog and your idea is off, I might suggest a new idea for you to try.

  2. Plan a Link that Adds Value

    3. No one needs a link on their blogroll. No one needs a random blog post that’s unrelated to a blog’s readership. Find a reason that your post that ties well to one I wrote. Show how your post expands on a topic that my readers have an interest in. Explain how the subject your content compliments mine or offers a point of view my readers might enjoy.

  3. Persuade an Individual (not sir or madam)

    4. When you send that email, be personal and gently persuasive. Don’t talk about yourself; talk about what you are offering.

    Please be simple and brief. Realize that I wasn’t waiting with nothing to do until your email came and that I probably still have plenty to get done. Doesn’t everyone these days? I want to see a compelling reason for your using your link. I can’t say “yes” to everyone, but it’s not fun to say “no” either. It’s real luck when a clear thinker comes along — someone who knew exactly what to offer that really does add value for my readers.

You lose nothing if I refuse. Make a good case, and a friendship could be starting. If you researched the blog you want to link, you’ve probably learned a few new things.

If your post goes up, you’ve made a connection to a quality blog. Hopefully that blog will grow into old age with yours, sharing many links along the way. We’ll all meet to discuss how the bloggers who come asking for links never seem to do their homework, don’t show how they’ll add value or personally offer a compelling reason why we might want to link.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

The Secret to a Successful and Outstanding Blog

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How to Blog Series

Once upon a time in the real world, I started a blog. . . .

I thought it was going to be a writer’s project. I’ve been wrong before, plenty of times, but I don’t think I was ever quite so spectacularly off. I thought a blog would offer me a place to practice my writing and maybe allow me a chance to offer a thought. I thought a blog was a flat surface for communication. That’s not what I found.

I found the secret to a successful blog is more, and more touching than that.

calculator for head

Readers come for the information in a blog post. There’s no question of that. Readers read what writers write and writers write to teach, inform, entertain, mystify, motivate, and inspire. Every word we write, every idea we construct to share, moves from our minds to others on a fine silver thread of digital thought.

Still the thoughts alone would be sad and lonely without a heart to back them up.

heart box for heart

It’s the heart and the passion that fuel the words, make the magnetic. It’s the heart that plays the beat that resonates to bring readers back. Even when our hearts find themselves in distant places, we still recognize our humanity and our relatedness. When we write with our heads and hearts together, people notice.

Heads engaged, hearts beating, a blog has power.

collage for meaning of life

A truly successful and outstanding blog also has meaning. Somehow, in some way to each individual, a successful and outstanding blog makes a difference by adding something of value to being one who visits. You might call that spirit. You might call that direction or focus. I call that soul.

The soul of a blog is carried by the person who writes it and the folks who come to read it too.

That’s what I found, a successful and outstanding blog is head, heart, and soul. It’s all of what makes us human and worth paying attention to. Bring it who you are and the folks you meet will help you become more.

I know. It happened to me. It happens again every day.

Be irresistible
Thank you to everyone who has made this our successful blog.

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Drive a High Performance Blog and Watch Your Numbers Go Up

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How to Blog Series

High Performance Blogging

Most folks are blogging for some sort of visibility — making money makes visibility even more important. Like a great car, a great blog works best on the right fuel, and the right fuel with the right driver can take a great blog to performance numbers that hit the top.

We have to use all we are and all our blog can be to hit peak performance. Still it’s worth it for the community and the response.

The Engine

The content is the engine. High performance content

  • is factual and accurate.
  • is original and adding value.
  • is well-expressed and well-structured.
  • is timeless and linkable.

Outstanding content is so engaging that we’re drawn into the experience or the story. We forget that we’re reading and move along from thought to thought.

The Handling

High performance design and presentation is

  • is simple and elegant
  • fast and intuitive in navigation.
  • enhances the written communication.
  • offers white space and visuals to support the text.

Top-notch presentation doesn’t call attention to itself. It underpins the content with a feeling that helps to define the experience.

The Driver

The high performance blogger makes the blog a beauty to watch. A high performance blogger

  • has a presence and a voice that readers respond to.
  • gets jazzed by readers’ ideas and what they say
  • isn’t afraid of the blog or a crash now and then
  • knows that performance is all about the fans

A high performance blog is fun to watch and even more fun to be part of. Make a high performance blog and watch your numbers go up! Remember to keep it and yourself tuned and fueled regularly.

In which areas is yours already a high performance blog?

Be irresistible
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

To Write a Review Folks Find Useful — Don’t Stick to the Facts

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Reviewers Who Think

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Have ever read a review and still wondered whether you’d like the product? Do you know any reviewer who you rely on because he or she has the opposite opinions of you? Sometimes a reviewer who thinks differently than we do is more valuable than one who doesn’t say what he or she thinks at all.

I’ve been reading a passel of product reviews all weekend. Now I remember why I don’t read reviews. In an effort to be unbiased, reviewers seem to be too distant, too flat — they give the facts. The facts aren’t enough.

Don’t Stick to the Facts

When you blog the facts only, anyone could write basically the same review. The differences will be in the writing only. When you blog the facts only people tend to read to the minute detail to make sure your facts are exactly right . . . and that they’re all there. Too many facts can be either distracting or boring. Would the VW Beetle have been a hit based only on the facts? What about McDonalds? the iPod?

If you want to write a product review that folks find useful, don’t stick to the facts.

  • Facts don’t tell me if I will love my future mate.
  • Facts don’t tell the story of history.
  • Facts are only a part of the whole picture.

Write your experience too.

The Two Key Reasons to Write Your Experience

Here are the 2 key reasons why you should write a review with both the facts AND your experience.

  1. When you add your experience, readers get to see you. They know you used the product. It’s your voice and your credibility.

  2. When readers hear talk about using the product, they can picture themselves. It doesn’t matter whether they agree with how you found it, If you explain what made you think as you do — they’ll decide for themselves.

Any customer needs more than facts to decide whether to buy any product. Sure the facts are important, but looking only at the facts doesn’t tell what it’s like to use it.

When you add your experience, people are more likely to remember both the product and you. A great review can save a reader a great deal of time and money.

Don’t be shy. Tell me what you think.

— ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Call her now!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

10 Bloggo-Fears That Go Bump in the Night and How to Make Them Worse

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Blogger Nightmare

help me

It’s the middle of the night. The wind is blowing. The moon is high. Creaking noises are sounding. Memories of comments are running through your head, and you’re thinking of emails you sent that went unanswered.

You had such hope when you started blogging. It was daytime. You were always laughing then. Now you’re just shell of yourself in despair, dejected, and broken. Your bloggo-fears have taken over with the things that go bump in the night.

Not to worry. Wait, sorry. Indeed with just a little more worry, you have the power to take those concerns beyond the blogosphere. Go for it. . . . become a mess on the floor.

The Top 10 Bloggo-Fears and How to Make Them Worse

As you read, remember, the more you buy into these the better at crippling yourself you will be. Here’s your chance to prove you’re good at something besides misspelling words and looking like a fool.

If you’re faint of heart, read no further. Jumping without a parachute and shooting yourself in the foot requires a certain sort of dedication to being a . . . hopeless blogger.

    10. Fear of Looking Like a Fool Don’t go near the comment box on any blog. If you make a remark or as question, folks might find out about you. If you find you’re having trouble in this area, translate the blog into a language you don’t understand. You need this fear in your repertoire — Fear the clueless, pest that everyone knows you are.

    9. Fear of Blogs See how much better every other blog is. Count the ways that you’ll never be half that good. Write the reasons. Frame them. Put them on a wall in your line of vision. Feel the fear of an undisciplined wimp who is inept when you do your best work.

    8. Fear of To-Do Lists Think up at least 50 urgent things you MUST do — blog tweaks, promotion spots, blogs to read and not comment on. Don’t stop until the list could only be done by 83.479 people. (Get the math right, not 84 or 83. Be precise.) You’ve moved up a level on the fear chart. Fear how lazy and shiftless you are. [What does shiftless mean?]

    7. Fear of Code Tweak your template for hours to fix minute details. Then copy and paste back to the original stylesheet, throwing your own work away. The thought that you might change the code should fill you with fear that you are an egotistical and anal-retentive rat.

    6. Fear of the Numbers Check your stats. Hit refresh every 30 seconds for an hour. If your page views don’t rise by 100,000 or more between clicks. Write three posts. Publish them. Then do the whole thing again. Fear being exposed as a woeful underachiever.

    5. Fear of Ideas Hunt down the perfect idea — the one that will get you on the front page of every Social Networking site. (Great ideas have nothing to do with readers.) If you don’t find that perfect idea, you are ridiculously dimwitted and slow. Fear that everyone knows what an idiot you are.

    4. Fear of Relationships Link out in every sentence of every post you write. Link to anyone who has ever said “hello.” Link to rocks, trees, and statues, if you can. It will take forever, but people will notice how desperate. If you don’t link promiscuously, fear that you’re a hermit, anti-social, and a prude.

    3. Fear of Saying “No” Answer all email, including spam. Always do what folks ask — buy, do, subscribe. You’ll know that you’re needed. Fear that if you don’t, those you gently refuse will call you jerk. Fear that the world will know it’s true. Then fear even more that no one would know who you are or care.

    2. Fear of the Written Word Get out your dictionary and Thesaurus. Be sure you have two grammar books near. Use words so large that you can’t say or spell them. Then you’ll sure that you write unintelligible mush. Fear that you’re not only a slacker, but also a bottom-of-the-barrel writer. See every teacher you ever had finding out how much you forgot.

    1. Fear of Your Personal Worth If you can’t get those 9 above right, then what the heck could you possibly be good for? All of your fears come together here. This the crown jewel. You have made it to the consummate fear of all . . . you are a worm.

On this deep, dark, dastardly night, you no longer have to be a shell of yourself in despair, dejected, and broken. You can be crippled and hopeless blogger too — melted down into unrecoverable mess. Follow this Top Ten List, and you’ll show the world what fear is really for.

On the other hand, if you would rather get out of your funk and come back to us. . . .

Definitely, positively, and for sure, surround yourself with positive people, because positive people make positive thing happen. And frankly it’s looking like you could use a few Here are a few blogs you might check out.

Think Positive Blog

orbitnow!

Make It Great! with Phil Gerbyshak

The Chief Happiness Officer

Positive Communication

This post was part of the b5media business channel theme on fear. If you enjoyed it, would you give it stumble? Thanks!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Other b5 business bloggers talk about fear.

FEAR in Home Business – Find Every Available Resource
Investing Fear Factor: Know Your Risk Tolerance
Fear and Social Media
Freelance Writers and the Fear of Success and/or Money
FEAR and RISK – You don’t know what you don’t know.
Fear And Trembling
Symptoms of productivity phobia
Fear? Think This Is A Stretch Do You?
The four letter word that keeps us from success
Fearing the Taxman: When Not To Be Scared

More fun:
Desperado: The 7 Payoffs of Making Your Blogging Relationships Suck
65th Crayon Finds that Google Doesn’t Use Search
Internet Slang Dictionary and Translator

Where Does Your Blog Fit in Your Business?

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Blogs Are Tools, Not the Core Business

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Two days ago, Steve Broback and Teresa Valdez Klein announced that Blog Business Summit Chicago would not be happening after all. In its place they have launched a new blog called Web Community Forum. Steve explains their reasoning this way.

Our conferences have always relied heavily on local participation, and our feeling is that Chicago has been very well served this year by at least two excellent, and very reasonably priced blogger conferences: SOBcon and BlogHer. A third event close on the heels of these other shows is obviously a tough sell. In addition, it’s clear from discussions with local marketers that blogging has normalized and is not the disruptive force it was back in 2004 when we launched the BBS.

I applaud Steve and Teresa for their insight and courage.

I think they’re right. Blogs shouldn’t be the center of what we see anymore.

Where Does Your Blog Fit in Your Business?

In February 2006, I posted that blogs are technology. At the time, I didn’t take the idea as far as I might. But I’ve been thinking about this since SOBCon07. My thought is that we don’t talk about computers, spreadsheets, or pencils the way we talk about blogs. Yet to me, all are tools we use to get our work done.

Unless we charge a subscription, blogs are not our businesses. They help us advertise, communicate, teach, interact, meet with our customers, but they are not our product or service. They are not what we do or sell. A blog is a business support not the business itself.

My point is this:

Just as knowing how to lay bricks, work with wood, paint walls and decorate can make beautiful store, but does not ensure a thriving business. Having a beautiful blog with wonderful content is not having a thriving business either.

The design, the usability, and the words on our blog are merely a vehicle to sell the products, ads, or services that are our real income streams. Knowing how business works is still key.

A great business uses a blog, but is not merely a blog.

So I leave you with these questions.

  1. How would you describe your blog’s place in your business?
  2. If you could get one all-important question answered about your online business what would it be?

Thank you for your answers.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!