First-Class Blogging: 12 Perfect Upgrades to Power Your Wordpress Site

There were a few posts here and there about different Wordpress plugins last week. I thought I'd post a quick list of some of the more useful ones I use here on my site. Each of the links takes you right to the plugin's page if you're interested in any of them. Read more

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DoFollow, KeyWordLuv and Backlinks…Oh My

First of all, hat's off to Steven Lohrenz for finding this great little plugin. He posted about it earlier this week but I'm just getting around to adding it thanks to a little Wordpress upgrade SNAFU. So here's the deal…

Search engine optimization (SEO) 101: Links to your site from other sites (i.e., backlinks) are good, especially backlinks that have text that include your keywords. You DO know what keywords you're trying to rank for, right? Comments on Wordpress blogs are one way to get these sort of links and are particularly good since you can control the text that's used, unlike some sites.

Problem #1: By default, Wordpress automatically uses the commenter's name as the text for the link to their site. That's great if I want to rank for "Kenton Newby", but seriously, how many could there be?

Problem #2: By default, Wordpress adds "nofollow" tags to the links used in comments. Nofollow tags basically do you no good from an SEO standpoint, although people might still click the links and visit your site.

So up until now, if you left a comment on this site, you'd get a not-so-useful link to your site using your name instead of something targeted.

Solution:

I installed two plugins. One is the plugin Steven recommended which you can find at his Internet Business Systems site. That solves Problem #1.

The other is the "Do Follow" plugin, which gets rid of that pesky Problem #2 mentioned above.

So give it a shot. Leave a comment below, but instead of the usual "name only" in the name field, use something like this:

Kenton Newby@Online Business Blog

Fill in the rest of the comment form like normal and you're all set.

We'll see how well this works and if things go all SPAM crazy here. But for now, seems like a better way to run things.

P.S. - Another great comment plugin is this one: WP Ajax Edit Comments

It allows users to edit comments they leave for a specified period of time. Ya' know, to fix typos and stuff like that.

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Excuse #1: I'm Not an Expert

Well, here we are at #1 on the list…let's get to it.

Excuse #1: I'm not an expert

This excuse is one that comes up time and time again, especially for infoproduct developers.  And when you think about it, this is sort of a "chicken or the egg" thing…which came first?

A lot of people don't want to write those blog posts or articles, create those products or podcasts, build a list or any other online business activities because in their head, they're not an expert.

Well think about authors for a second.  Writing a book makes them an expert, at least in the eyes of many of us, no matter what their TRUE experience may be.

The same goes for you…doing those things mentioned above (creating content) is what makes you an expert.

It forces you to organize what you know (or research the topic well enough), then synthesize it into an easy-to-follow format.  Knowing something is one thing.  Being able to explain it or teach it is what really makes someone an expert.

You don't need to know every nit-noid detail about your topic to be an expert.  You've probably heard that old saying that studying something for an hour a day for a year is all you need to become an expert.  That's a good starting point.  And by the way, don't worry about needing to know EVERYTHING.  No one knows everything.

I've also heard that something like 80% of books purchased on Amazon are bought as gifts, not for self-consumption.   I'm not sure if that number is accurate, but let's just say "most books".

So obviously not too many people are really out there trying to become expert in much of anything…which probably includes people in your market too.  So if you're willing to take a little time to research and learn about your topic, you'll know more than the average person in your market, and therefore, YOU'RE the expert.  And you probably already know more than you're giving yourself credit for.

Let's face it…no one, not even your own mother, is going to come down from on high and anoint you an "expert".  You just gotta' go get it, by demonstrating it through your content, the products you create, what you teach and what you do.

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Excuse #2: No One Will Buy That

Almost to the top of the list…check out number 2 on the list of common excuses for not starting your online business.  This one affects a lot of people.

Excuse #2: No one will buy that

Maybe they won't. 

Or maybe it'll be so costly to get traffic to your site (in time or money) that the numbers don't make sense even if people DO buy it. 

But you should have a fairly good idea about whether people will buy your "thing" before you even start creating it.  Are they buying similar things from someone else?  Then why not you too?

Remember, for a lot of topics (most actually), people are going to buy more than one solution…especially if they're passionate about learning something.

And ideally, you would have already done a bare minimum of market research first - and hopefully built a list of potential customers - before creating ANYTHING.  You would have also found other sites, newsletters, blogs, etc. where your ideal prospects can be found.

Doing those things can minimize the "no one will buy that" factor.  And if you already have something on the market that's not selling, here are some other things you should consider:

• Have you tested different parts of the sales process to see where the problem is? 
• Are you getting enough traffic? 
• Are people not staying on the site very long? 
• Are they staying, reading, but not clicking the "buy" button? 
• Are they clicking the "buy" button but not completing the order?

If nothing seems to be working, before you take it off the market, think about how you can repurpose it? Can you break it up and use it for content, list building or some other purpose?

Hopefully it won't come to that, but not all projects work out like we planned.

That being said, that old excuse of "no one will buy that" is rarely the case unless due to poor planning or market research.

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One Simple Question to Guide Your Online Business Success

I've taken the plunge and jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, along with some other social networking sites…more on that in a minute.

But first, a quick story.  As I was reading some of the posts on my Twitter page, I noticed one from John Reese where he was responding to one of the people following his twitters…or twits….or whatever they're called.  Anyway, this guy had a really great question and it's one that I've wondered about for awhile.

So this guy named Mike Blaes said he's "…still baffled as to why so many marketers are caught up in doing things to try and "make money" and not actually building a business"

And John Reese replied saying, "I think it's because most people just don't understand what it means to build ASSETS in a business."

I won't post the whole back-and-forth here, but there were a few more related messages so if you're interested, feel free to go check them out.  But just that little exchange got me thinking…uh-oh!

A better question to ask rather than JUST focusing on the money is:

How can I provide the most value…to the most people…the fastest?

Then…how can I monetize that?

The rest will take care of itself.  That'll help solve the "which market do I go into" question and all sorts of other roadblocks that seem to come up as people learn about "this Internet stuff".

I agree with the focus on ASSETS versus "making money".  And one of your biggest assets (and ways to provide value) is your content.

Another good question we should all ask ourselves from time to time is:

What content did you create today that's going to make someone's life better?
Teach them something new?  Solve some sort of problem?

It should be pretty obvious that "providing value" isn't done by checking email, surfing forums, planning your next big project to the nth degree, surfing the web or any of the other random things that take up wayyyyy too much of our time. 

It's done by the start-to-finish creation of some type of content.  This could be:

• a special report
• a mini-course
• an ebook
• a podcast
• a video
• a DVD
• a CD
• a newsletter
• a tip sheet
• a checklist
• an online tool
• software
• an article
• a blog post

…but create SOMETHING.  (Or have it created, but this isn't a post about outsourcing)

One of my daily to-do's was inspired by Dan Kennedy…to do one thing everyday to fill the pipeline.  He talks about that all the time.

I think if you expand that to include doing one thing everyday to add value by creating some form of content, then you'll be well on your way to building a successful online business.

Am I off my rocker or what?  Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

P.S. - Almost forgot to add this, but like I mentioned in the intro I've jumped in headfirst into the whole social media thing.  Feel free to come join me…I think this will be fun.  You can find me on the following sites (if you don't have an account, just sign up and give it a whirl):

Twitter Profile (go check this out just to see the cool background if nothing else)
Facebook Profile

I'll be posting some more about these in the near future and might even whip up a special report with some of my insights so far.

 

 

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