How to Avoid the ‘Idea of Entrepreneurship’
Today’s guest on Hack the Entrepreneur is a freelancer turned agency owner and entrepreneur. His first introduction to working for himself was doing side-work after hours. Eventually, he was able to quit his job and freelance full-time. He expanded to a physical office and had 11 full-time, salaried employees with clients all over the world. Family and health reasons forced him to step away from his brick-and-mortar agency while moving into software and online training. Now, he makes his living by providing great software and products to freelancers and consultants from his upstairs office, with his wife…
Proof That Grit Is the Only Way to Reach Your Potential
In our culture, much is made of natural ability. But natural ability is nothing without grit. In fact, without grit, natural ability can actually be wasted. Recent science tells us that grit can accurately determine who will graduate from high school or West Point or even win a spelling bee. In other words, grit is an indicator whether or not someone will reach his or her potential. But what is grit? Where does it come from? Can you develop grit if you don’t have it? And what does this have to do with content marketing? Fortunately, these are the questions The Lede hosts Jerod Morris and Demian Farnworth tackle in…
What to Do When You Absolutely, Positively Must Know if Your Content Will Rock
Editor’s note: This post was originally published on June 29, 2011. We’re running it again today to honor DIY media and the endless possibilities for your business when you’ve built a loyal audience. Ever had a great idea, and then started to doubt yourself? Or maybe you’ve already executed on that great idea, but you’re hesitating to launch. Maybe it’s an article, or an ebook, or a new product or service. How can you be sure it will work? Should you ask for feedback? I’ll answer both of those questions in this article, but first I need to tell you a …
5 Ways to Write a Seductive Sentence
Here’s the thing: Your sentences don’t have to say much. They just have to say the right things. When you are trying to get people to respond to your articles, subscribe to your email newsletter, buy your products, or donate to your cause … you need to write seductive sentences. And you need to do it naturally. Here’s how to do that. In this episode of Rough Draft with Demian Farnworth, you’ll …
Deadly Conversion Busters: Building a Targeted Audience
Lots of people talk about “traffic,” but how can you attract more of the right people? How can you grow an audience of people you can help the most — people who will see success from using your products and services, and who will be long-term, loyal customers? In this episode of The Mainframe, hosts Chris Garrett and Tony Clark reveal: Why you need to constantly look for ways to attract new people into your community How to clone your best prospects What to do to meet…
Passion Projects, Clarity, and the Evolution of No Sidebar
As an online entrepreneur, No Sidebar host Brian Gardner is learning just how crucial being agile is to running a successful business. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being involved in a personal project — especially when you’re passionate about it — but continually keeping your audience in mind is always a good thing. Over the last couple months of running No Sidebar, Brian has identified three types of people he wants to specifically cater to … In this 24-minute episode of No Sidebar, host Brian Gardner and Robert Bruce discuss: Who has control over whether or not something is great Focusing on the fundamentals of your craft Bono, being 16, and taking over the world Why passion projects are tough in the context of business…
What Does It Mean to Be a Showrunner?
So … what exactly is a “showrunner” anyway? And what does it take to be a successful one? The Showrunner hosts Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor define the term and explain what separates successful Showrunners from all the rest. In this episode of The Showrunner, hosts Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor discuss: What essential lesson about building an audience can we learn from the very first scene of House of Cards? Why aspiring Showrunners should think of themselves as producers, in the classic media…
Why Your Mom Was Right About Blogging
It’s a good thing your mom taught you everything you need to know to become a well-respected, successful blogger, isn’t it? What’s that? Your mom never taught you anything about blogs? Because blogs didn’t exist when you were growing up? I beg to differ. I’m going to bet that she really did teach you everything you need to know. She just may have forgotten to say “when blogging.” Let’s take a look. Choose your friends wisely (when blogging) Did your mom ever tell you she didn’t like your friends? Maybe it sounded something like this: Be careful about who you spend time with. Your…
10 Social Media Errors to Avoid
Using social media to grow your community and promote your brand is a must for community expansion, especially if you run a blog or business site. However, sometimes we slip and our efforts backfire. Perhaps it’s been months since you first registered and you’re still not gaining any followers. Or you seem to attract the wrong kind of followers. Or you deleted that TMI tweet AFTER someone else has already seen it (and trust me, they have). So what do you do? Social media channels …
On Updating Your Business Blog
I’ve often heard the advice that you should update your business blog everyday, at least twice a day. Seriously? But what if you don’t have anything to talk about? Daily updates are only advisable if several significant changes or events in your business happen frequently and regularly. Otherwise, it’s not necessary to post as often. After all, your number of posts will not always guarantee a greater audience. What you do need to remember is that two critical factors are needed in order to expand your readership and client base. These are consistency and exposure. Consistency Although daily posts aren’t required, …
What Makes An Effective Newsletter?
Does your blog come with a little ‘extra’ for your readers in the form of an email newsletter? How does that newsletter work for you — does it bring in more leads, more engagement with your audience, more people clamoring for your product? Or do you simply slave away at a subscription that makes its way from the inbox to the trash bin in 0.02 seconds flat? If your blog has its own newsletter, make sure you maximize its purpose. Otherwise, it’s nothing but online …
Does Length Matter?
This will always be one of those blogging questions that will never get resolved: does post length matter? Post length has always been a bone of contention amongst bloggers — some prefer long posts (2,000 words or more), some stick to 500 to 1,000 words, and some prefer the spontaneity of 140 characters. But regardless of preference, is there an ideal length for a blog post? The answer is a resounding no. There are plenty of considerations to be made when deciding how long your posts should be. In fact, you can vary their individual lengths according to what you need to say (this is especially important for those new to blogging). Content There are topics that take 100 words, some call for 2,000, …
Student Blogging: Not Just Kids’ Play
Young students today are intuitively adapted to technology, and many educational systems have long integrated the use of the Internet in their curriculum. Some of the online references that students use for research are blogs, which may also spark an interest in budding creative writers and journalists in the classroom. For safety reasons, it’s more advisable to introduce blogging to students in their early teens. Although many children ages 12 and below are already attuned to the use of the Internet and social media, and there are…
Banish Generic Calls To Action From Your Campaign NOW!
The title sounds cheesy, right? But it tells you exactly what you’re going to do. This is one of the fundamental elements of a marketing and advertising campaign, both on- and offline. After you’ve made your pitch about your service or product, the next logical step is to invite your audience to do something about it. This is your Call To Action (CTA). Image source: freepik.com If you visit any website that offers special…
5 Ways To Stay Motivated In Blogging
If you’ve decided to blog, chances are you’ve begun on a high note, especially if you’ve been inspired by the idea of putting your thoughts online for everyone to see. But a few weeks or months into blogging, the love affair falters. You will run out of words to say, ideas to brew, and you will begin to slow down. You might even ask yourself “What’s the point in all of this?” especially if you’re not gaining an audience as fast as you wish you would. Relax, it’s inevitable. You are not a machine. I’ve also been there several times. But instead of merely giving up, there are ways to get back into…
Decision Paradox and Your Niche
Chances are you’ve already heard of numerous bits of advice on how to find your blogging niche. But unless you are single-mindedly driven to pursue and discuss one topic, it’s hard to decide on exactly what your blog will be about. The common refrain you’ll hear is, “Figure out what you love to do,” as basis for establishing your blog niche. So what will you do if you have several interests that you love equally? What if you’re good at something else? What if you wish to pursue other topics altogether…
What Makes SEO-Friendly Quality Blog Content?
You’ve heard it thousands of times: QUALITY OVER QUANTITY. While for some, it’s still debatable, the fact remains that quality content is the reason why your audience will come to you AND stay. Quantity can be attractive, but minus substance, it makes more for forgettable material that results in high bounce rates for your site. Quantity-driven content may work for low-value sites that publish several posts within the week, or even within the day. But not you. Although you’re posting regularly on a consistent schedule, you also want your readers coming in to refer to your …
Grab Your Ticket for the 2015 ProBlogger Training Event
Yesterday we released tickets to the 2015 ProBlogger Training Event on 14-15 August here in Australia on the Gold Coast. As I write this post 560 bloggers, speakers and team have grabbed their tickets (400 of those went in the first 10 minutes) and under 150 tickets remain. This year we’ve got attendees coming from all states and territories in Australia as well as attendees flying in from the USA, New Zealand, India and Fiji. Attendees not only come from all…
7 Commonsense Tips to Improve Your Next Expert Roundup
This is a guest contribution from Neil. Are you wondering why your expert roundups are not living up to your expectations? Why you are never getting the level of response some other people are getting? After all, the idea behind creating an expert roundup sounds foolproof on paper. Get eminent experts to answer a question for you. Gather the responses and publish the ultimate answer to that question. Get your experts to share the content and then leverage their audience to get a viral post. There is no way you can fail…
3 Secret Weapons I Used to Launch My Fulltime Blogging Career
This is a guest post by Jeff Goins of Goins, Writer. “I’d like to be a writer,” I told my friend one day when he asked what my dream was. “But that’ll never happen.” And I quickly went back to moping around, waiting for my big break. At the time, I was working for a nonprofit as a marketing director, secretly wondering what it might be like to write for a living. Little did I know how close I was to my goal. My was staring me right in the face the whole time. I was just blind to it. “Every great dream begins with a dreamer,” Harriet Tubman once said. “Always remember, you…
Blog Post Idea: How I Do It Posts
Recently I shared a simple technique that I use to come up with ideas to write about on my blog – answering a beginner question. While not really rocket science I had a number of readers contact me privately with thank-you messages appreciating the nudge to write that type of post. Today I’d like to suggest another simple technique for coming up with blog post ideas. It’s simple yet is perhaps one of the most powerful types of posts I’ve used on my own blogs many times in the last 12 years. I call these posts the &#…
Editing for People Who Love to Write… Too Much
If you’re anything like me, you love words. You love prose, you love language, you love how a perfectly-constructed sentence can say so much more than just letters put in order. If you’re unlike me, however, you love to use lots of words, and write mountains of prose. I know it’s hard not to get carried away, telling everyone everything you’ve ever wanted to say about a subject. Especially online, when blogs are creative outlets, and there are no restraints or word counts. But having been on…
7 Effective Tips To Grow Your Social Media Presence The Right Way
This is a guest contribution from Adam Connell. Have you ever wondered how to gain a significant advantage with social media? Not just in terms of growing a following but growing an engaged following? I have too, and so have countless others. The truth is that you can, and it’s easier than you might think. If you’re serious about growing a more engaged following, you’ll find this post helpful. You’ll learn how to focus your efforts, boost engagement, monitor your progress and ultimately start seeing real growth. Ready? Let’s dive in! 1. Get to know your audience Your …
30 High-Impact Ways to Level Up Your Writing
This is a guest contribution from freelance blogger and email copywriter Hassan Ud-deen. Ever feel like your writing could be better? If you’re a blogger, there’s no way around writing. It’s critical to everything you do, and shapes your reputation online. This makes a lot of us dread writing. We approach it with a heavy heart full of anxiety and minds clouded by doubt. But what if you could ensure that your writing is at least decent every time you hit that publish button? You’d be less worried about the mechanics of writing, and more focused on your message to your audience. Making you a more powerful blogger. So here are 30 high-…