We’ve spent the last 29 days getting all the way from a domain name to a completely customized professional blog, and now that we have completed every last item from our checklist it is important to spend our last day making a gameplan to ensure our success well into the future. One of the most important reasons that other people are better bloggers than you is that they have a routine. That’s right. One of the defining characteristics of a good blogger is that they set themselves up for success by devising a structured attack plan to execute every day.

Today, we are going to work on setting up our gameplan so that you know exactly how to optimize your half-hour of blogging every day to form a wildly popular blog on the internet in as little time as possible. I’ve been in this industry for years, so I have a very good idea of what works and what doesn’t work. Let’s complete our Build A Blog Workshop and start on our way to blogging success!

Understanding When to Work and When to Market

Many people will tell you that the success of any website is due to the 70/30 rule — 70% marketing, 30% content. With this in mind, it’s tempting to shun content altogether and pour all of your time into marketing… but what most people don’t realize is that this rule only works when you are in a certain stage of growth. It is important during the first weeks of having a blog that you are putting out consistent content and marketing the heck out of it. From there, you should tailor your gameplan going forward based on the kind of growth that you’ve seen.

The basics of blogging gameplans:
What gets growth? Marketing.
What maintains growth? Content.

I’ve devised what I think is a great system for maximizing your 30-minutes of blogging every day during your first month of operations. After the first month passes, it is important to re-evaluate and decide for yourself which route is most effective on a day-by-day basis:

As you can see, there is going to be a big decision to be made of when you need to write new content (“BLOG“) and when you need to go around and market your website (“MARKET“). The advice given above for your first month of blogging focuses on delivering maximized marketing efforts. You can see that it is always smart to start out with content (writing new stuff 4/7 days in week 1)… but by the time we reach the end of week four we are really getting all we can out of the content we have put up already.

What Do I Do On a Blogging/Marketing Day?

I’m glad you asked! The difference between a success and a flop in the blogosphere is how efficiently you blog and market… it’s all about time management. There are a few different activities you can do on each side of the coin, focused on either writing content or marketing that content, but it is ultimately your call on what is best worth your effort.

BLOG: On a blogging day, you should be writing new content (duh!). I find that 30 minutes of writing is really all that you need if you are staying honest with yourself and working throughout the thirty minutes of your allotted time. If you have a great idea for a post, write it down… there’s a reason that the “Draft” section in your admin panel exists. If you are running out of things to blog about, check out my post that contains some things to write about when you run out of ideas.

MARKET: Content marketing is a lot more up in the air than blogging, and there are literally hundreds of techniques for things to do to boost your traffic and search engine placements. Remember the list we made on day 25 for blog commenting? Now is a great time to pry through that and drop comments on blogs in your niche with recent posts. Another technique along that line would be to comment in forums with a link to your site in the signature. The second way to drive direct traffic to your blog would be to start ramping up your social media efforts, creating Facebook pages, boosting your followers on Twitter and even building a network on StumbleUpon or Digg. Indirect marketing efforts such as article marketing or writing guest posts can be just as effective in the long-run… so be sure to balance your time between short term traffic and long-term search engine results.

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Content is expensive, and to develop your 30-day gameplan you will want to consider how much you can really “dig” out of each article you post on your blog. The name of the game is to write less and still get more traffic. By following my attack plan for the first month and then shifting gears depending on what is working (and what you ultimately want to do), you will be a much more successful blogger than by trying to do it all at once.

That’s it for Jimvesting.com’s Build-A-Blog Workshop! I hope that you have enjoyed this series… and please continue to check back at Jimvesting.com for more great free tips to make money online every day. We will be posting a complete .pdf version of this series on our newsletter for your reference in the near future, so stay tuned for that release and stay bullish on the net!

-Jimvesting dot com

Our blog is ready to go and completely synced to our social media profile… so what’s left? I would have to say that the number one way to deliver the “big money” to your website (while increasing your readership at the same time) is to start into the wonderful world of email marketing!

Creating your first “list” is a task that many feel should be left only to the professionals — but I tell you that this is not so! If you are only capturing leads through your Feedburner RSS feed, then you are missing out on at least 50% of your traffic potential. If is very easy to get yourself a digital product to offer and pull additional leads by gifting them to your subscribers in exchange for their email addresses. The possibilities are endless once you have a user signed up to your email list, and I’m sure that you will find your efforts well rewarded once your list starts growing larger day after day.

Advantages of Building an “Opt-In” Email List

If you own a blog for the purposes of driving revenue, it is definitely in your best interest to own a list. Remember that starting a blog is free, but paying for a newsletter service to help you manage an “opt-in” subscriber base is certainly not. The reason for this? Email marketing is more lucrative. Once someone subscribes (aka “opts in”) to your email list, you have captured their name and email. With this, you can send them targeted offers and promotions built on making you commission off of their sales. It is a lot easier to add subscribers via a list than RSS, so once you start building your listing up… the promotions you offer become a lot more profitable.

People that opt-in to an email list are inherently more willing to pay for a product than someone casually reading a blog. Imagine you have an offer that converts at 8% via email and pays you a $35 commission for each referral. If you have just started a list, you have 100 people and have just made a commission of $280. That ain’t bad for sending an email! Now let’s say you continue building your list and get it to 1,000 members — you are now making $2,800 for that one email! Let’s wrap this up by saying you send your list an email like this just once a week… hardly enough to annoy anyone into leaving your list… you now are making $145,600 in commission every year! Wow.

The Best Email Marketing Hosts

Newsletters run right alongside your blog, and mesh very well with your content, so they are really a no brainer to any blog owner looking to boost revenue at low cost. I’ve used a few of these services throughout the years, and have settled on Aweber as my personal favorite. Aweber is the industry leader and offers a TON of great options at less than $20 a month — a price you should easily be able to gain back after your first offer conversion . Here is my list of the top three newsletter services based on my experience:

1. Aweber – Get Your First Month for Just $1 (LIMITED TIME)
2. Constant Contact
3. Vertical Response

All of these services are excellent, but again I have found that the most cost-conscience decision is with Aweber… whom is the #1 trustee of the affiliate marketing community and a great company to work with. With that, I highly recommend that you check out these options and consider the fee to run a service only in light of the potential profits from these services.

Setting Up Your First Campaign

Okay, so you’ve registered for one of these sites and you want to start building your list. There are literally dozens of different methods out there for getting your list started, but the number one technique that I endorse for blog owners is simply putting an opt-in on their blog. As you can see in my current design, I am offering a free digital download to anyone who simply enters their email address to opt into my email marketing list. This is a quick and dirty way to generate tons of additional subscribers, and I think it is perfect for bloggers even despite the fact that everyone seems to be doing it these days.

Logging into your Aweber account, it is quite easy to set up an opt-in list with one of their pre-defined templates. I would recommend simply asking for the users’ name and email, so that you can target emails to them with subject lines like “Hey Jim, check out this cool offer!” Aweber makes it quite easy to slap their code right into your blog and see it work immediately to start converting offers.

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Need to give your users an incentive to join? Offer them a digital download (software,ebook, etc)! Don’t have an eBook? Subscribe to my newsletter and download one of my books… if you leave my links you can give my book to your readers for free!
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Bottom Line: Now that you have made your blog and have a fully customized & monetized look, it is in your best interest to start to plan for the future and build up your email marketing list. The sooner you start, the more you will be able to profit down the road. Not only are lists useful for pushing commission-based products, but you can also send people broadcasts from your blog to keep them coming back and reading your content. With so much seamless integration, setting up your first email marketing campaign is a must.

-Jimvesting dot com

Yesterday, we talked about signing up for social media websites… which is a very important step to getting your name out there on the blogosphere. In order to run a successful blog, however, you cannot simply bank on traffic coming from social media to your site — you also must capitalize on the reciprocal traffic that your blog can send to your social media profiles!

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when trying to pump traffic to their blogs is paying no attention to the traffic sent to your social media sites, only focusing on the traffic that goes from social media to your blog. The thought process is rather simple: “if I can get fast traffic to my blog by setting up a few social media accounts, why would I bother sending traffic back to my social networking profiles?”

I must admit, this is one of the harder things to do because the rewards aren’t as immediate. However, I can say without a doubt that you are literally cheating yourself out of long-term growth if you ignore your community. It is imperative that we not only have all of these social media accounts, but that we get them all interlinked with our websites so that we can form a following online… we’re talking about a business, not just a blog.

Top Three Methods to Sync a Blog to Social Media

1. Place Social Media Icons on Your Website
2. Insert Social Media Links at the End of Blog Posts
3. Hold Contests to Boost Your Social Media Exposure

1. Place Social Media Icons on Your Website
Putting strategically-placed icons to link up to your social media accounts is one of the best strategies that I know of to beef up your social media profiles. This practice has been growing in popularity, and is now the cornerstone of most websites that we see in the blogging arena. There are literally tons of different ways that you can incorporate social media icons into your website, as an example… take a look at what I have done:

You’ll want to hire a designer to make this work well for your website (if you don’t have the technical knowledge of web design), but assuming you know what you are doing… check out these links for great looking social media icons:

• The Ultimate Roundup of Amazing Free Social Media Icon Packs
• Vector Social Media Icons
• 20 Free Social Media Icon Sets for Bloggers

2. Insert Social Media Links at the End of Blog Posts
Write good content? Then it would be in your best interest to dish out a mean helping of social media every time you wrap up a blog post. This is a highly effective method of converting your readers into followers by strategically positioning links to social media sharing networks right after your blog posts.

This is one of the easiest ways to gain great additions to your social media profiles, as there are literally a ton of great WordPress plugins that can help you achieve it in an instant. I use a plugin called “SexyBookmarks” as you can see pictured below:

My favorite Social Media “In-Post” WordPress Plugins:

1. SexyBookmarks
2. AddToAny
3. ShareThis
4. Socialize This
5. Sociable

3. Hold Contests to Boost Your Social Media Exposure
Our final technique to sync your blog to your social media accounts is to simply add social networking as an entry method to any contests that you hold. Many bloggers, myself included, have used this method with great success in the past to make sure that their social media networks are alive and kicking… so the next time you are hosting a contest start to think about how you can use it to benefit your bookmarking.

One of the first and strongest attempts at this that I remember seeing was over at JohnCow.com for the “COWpetition” he held two years ago. The blog owner, Jason, added following his Twitter account & tweeting about the contest (excuse me… the cowpetition) as a method to gain entries to the event… and it worked out very well (Jason has over 12k followers).

Bottom Line: The social media tsunami has finally arrived, and as bloggers jump on board it is important to know how to stay ahead of the pack. Turn your blog into a virtual social factory with the three key techniques above… and you’ll be sure to dominate for years to come!

-Jimvesting dot com

My apologies for the delay in the Build a Blog Workshop, we will now be concluding our 30-day program and releasing our internet product soon thereafter. I have been in the thick of it with exams and a job search, but now I’m back!

By this point, you should have your blog completely set up and you should be seeing your first trickle of traffic come through the pipeline. We’ve gotten our website (almost) fully customized and even have a few ads up, so what is left now is to capitalize on alternative traffic methods and firmly plant your blog into the niche you are attempting to target.

Having a successful blog isn’t all about writing good content, but making sure that people see it! With that, we will round out the next few days with the best tricks outside of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that will turn your ordinary blog into a true industry leader.

The Social Media Bandwagon – You Should Jump On!

Social Media websites are all about networking and communicating with people on the internet, and the beauty of these networks are that they allow marketers to get highly targeted traffic and instantly tap into new subscriber bases. I’m sure that all of you have heard the buzz surrounding these social bookmarking websites, but most people still use them as a way to meet friends and hear about things they might be interested in… not to leverage their own businesses (which we will be doing). Signing up to these websites is always 100% free, and takes only a few seconds to complete simple one-step registrations. Therefore, it is in your best interest to set up as many accounts as you can muster, gaining tons of added links back to your business in the process.

I’m going to break up my list into two parts: the sites you absolutely must sign up to and make an account, and the sites that you should definitely keep in consideration and register if you have the time.

The Top Social Media Websites:
1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. StumbleUpon
4. Digg
5. Technorati

These five powerhouses top our list for good reason, they offer the best backlinking potential with the highest traffic numbers to boot. It is imperative that you sign up for an account at all of these places and put into each of them a full description of your website along with a link back.

Twitter and Facebook should be used primarily to recruit and maintain hordes of fans, your top two “community” websites. Need an example of someone doing it right? Check out Ian Fernando’s Twitter or John Chow’s Facebook Page.

Digg and StumbleUpon are going to be your “fast traffic” money makers… so when you make accounts there be sure to keep in mind that you should be Stumbling and Digging as much content as possible to boost the status of your account and make your own Diggs and Stumbles more worth while. Technorati is an old favorite that has lost momentum as of late, but is still very valuable for SEO purposes to set up an account.

More Networking Sites To Consider:
1. Mixx
2. Propeller
3. Reddit
4. Del.icio.us
5. FriendFeed

These next five websites (in no particular order) are additional ways to get your link out. I have personally seen a bit of action from Reddit and Del.icio.us in my time, but the normal kind of traffic from these second-tier names is nothing to call home about. That being said, because it takes only a minute to sign up to each of the sites, and only a few seconds to submit new blog posts to them, it is worth your time to take a shot. At the very least, you’ll have a bunch of new links floating out there that can potentially get your website indexed faster.

EXPERTS TIP: Want to submit your articles to dozens of social media websites in one click? Try OnlyWire, a completely free (ad supported) service that connects all of your accounts together for maximum efficiency.

-Jimvesting Dot Com

We’re stringing together two consecutive posts (a first?) today, and getting you another powerful marketing technique. Because we have built up our blog from scratch and have everything monetized and ready to go… we need to get the word out to interested readers, so it’s time for a little bit of marketing!

Our strategy yesterday was to steal some traffic (and, more importantly, readers) from popular blogs in your niche area. Now, we are going to expand upon this method and even more fully infiltrate other bloggers’ domains by guest posting.

Why Guest Posting Rocks

Guest posting is a great way to expand your reach and your reader base because you are literally putting your top stuff right in front of another established audience. While I want to encourage you to focus in on your own blog, there is definitely room to grow by branching out and giving content (with a link back) to other sites. Read the rest of this entry »