Wednesday 30 April 2014

Desiderata - Sunset Beach Waves Posters

Featured Product!

A gorgeous design. Click to customize and personalize. Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it?


tagged with: full desiderata, desiderata poem, go placidly, noise and haste, sunset beach, inspirational guidance, hrbstslr hrcol35, peace verses, wisdom poetry, hrfptraz fineart wallart, artistic photos

Inspirational Guidance series The full Desiderata by Max Ehrmann: Go placidly amidst the noise and haste... With a soothing and inspiring image of gently lapping waves on the shore at sunset.
The poem has inspired young adults who are coming of age since the 1920's and is as popular today as it ever was. It's been given as a gift by loving parents, grandparents, godparents and aunts and uncles as essential life-wisdom ever since it was written.
They've found it to be one of the few ways for such wisdom to get past those raging hormones, giving support to the upcoming generation through their rebellious years and beyond...
more items with this image
more items featuring the full Desiderata

image code: hrcol35

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Motivational Words #2 fridge magnet

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: positive thinking, positive attitude, encouragement, positive outlook, hrbstslr, motivational words, mowds2, motivation, values, encouraging, word art

Motivational Words series Give some positivity! Here's a great design using motivational word-art. Each time you look at them, you should get a subtle positive boost!!
more items featuring these motivational words
more items in the Motivational Words series

image code: mowds2

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Beagle Puppy Dog Mousepads

Cute Alert!

How can you resist this cute puppy design? Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it? Click to customize and personalize...


tagged with: beagle, puppy, dog, puppies, animal, pet, animals

Cute Beagle Puppy Dog Mousepad

»visit the giftscollectibles store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Weigh In: Are Personal Blogs and Business Blogs Really That Different?

Blogging with purpose

original post »
Image via Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net

Image via Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net

Do you remember how it was back in the 90s, when most of us didn’t have a clue about blogs and blogging? Today we can hardly imagine a world without them. And if the first blogs from mid-90s had a personal character and resembled an online diary, business blogging has taken quite a different track. Or have they?

What do personal and business blogging have in common?

At first, I would say it’s the need to have a blog to write for (just joking, I’m sure this is something that can’t be skipped).

Personal blogging means having your own little corner of the web, where you express everything from your personal beliefs, ideas, tips for spending free time, preferences, hobbies; to relating personal stories from your everyday life.

Business blogging works following a similar principle – the one of having an own place on the web where to present yourself as a company, to be more human, show what you’re like, and  engage with your followers, just like you do on a personal blog.

For both types of blogs you need to have a well-contoured idea of what you want to write about, although the business blog requires even higher levels of structure. You can’t (or at least shouldn’t) start a blog just for the sake of following a trend, if you don’t have any hint on what your blog’s purpose should be.

A second common point is: keeping your audience in mind when you write. For whom do write? Do you write for tech savvy people? Don’t be afraid to use some technical jargon, then. Do you write for your grandma’s generation? Use language that isn’t too tech-heavy. An useful measure for knowing for whom you are writing is to undertake audience research. Personas can help you imagine how your typical reader looks and behaves. It’s then easier to craft content for someone you already have in mind.

The whole purpose of a blog is to have a more personal touch. Hence, the writer’s personality will come to the surface through their style of writing on both types of blogs. The personal one, however, allows its owner to express their thoughts in a more intimate manner than on a business blog, where communication has to respect some basic guidelines.

Another common characteristic of both blog types is the need to engage with followers. Whether it is a personal blog or a business blog, your articles shouldn’t take the shape of a monologue. On the contrary – you should encourage readers to comment and share their ideas and thoughts. Besides developing your discussion and making it more interactive, visitors can provide you with new ideas on what they’d like to read, which then informs your content.

Now tell me what you think of blogs that don’t have a contact method. I personally tend to ignore them, because I can’t explain to myself why you wouldn’t want to get in touch with your readers. It bothers me not to have any way of sending the blog owner a message, especially because it’s very easy to include a contact form on your blog. There are plugins for WordPress that let you build and publish a contact form in no time.

One more thing you can do on both personal and business blogs is have guest posts. This can be a good way to offer some variation in content and writing style, which your readers might appreciate. Though, the topics and the most appropriate guest authors depend on your blog type. Business blogs can benefit of featuring well known industry speakers, fellow business owners, or product/service partners. Personal blogs might have a smaller chance to feature opinion leaders, but they are still useful.

Last but not least, you have to be careful what you write about and what you make public. It’s true that blogs should express honest opinions, but that doesn’t mean you can wake up one day and begin to denigrate everybody in your life.

How are personal and business blogs different?

Apart from sharing a few common points, these two types of blogs can be poles apart. Here are the main traits that distinguish one from the other:

  1. In many cases, the audience of a business blog is more specialised. It’s more of a niche audience, which at some point might be more picky than the readers of your personal blog. For example, you can choose to write today about kittens on your personal blog. Tomorrow you shift the content direction and cover diet tips. And the day after tomorrow you feel like speaking of planes. Your followers might be indulgent when it comes to your personal blog, but business articles should stay quite focused.
  2. For a business blog, I would say that it’s more difficult to write compelling content that keeps readers coming back. Your blog has to speak about your business, but be of a more general interest at the same time. As for the personal blog, you have a higher freedom in choosing what to write about.
  3. The previous point leads to mentioning one more difference: business blogs offer valuable, useful content, engage and advertise at the same time. Perhaps ‘advertise’ is not the most appropriate term, but business blogs do provide information on the product or service behind the business. Common sense asks for this information not to be overly promotional, but to present additional advice on how to make the most out of the product, how to benefit of the product’s partnerships and others.
  4. Moreover, there are several points to keep in mind when crafting your business blog content – how to write headlines, not having a clear posting strategy, being all too promotional, using images incorrectly. or being too SEO-crazy.
  5. The content on a business blog should be even more engaging than on a personal blog, meaning that it should be accompanied by strong calls-to-action that make the visitor convert. After all, the final purpose of a business blog is to convince the visitor that your product is the best choice, something that you do through presenting its extended features, advantages, use cases and so on.
  6. Besides strong calls-to-action, your business blog can benefit from including lead generation methods, such as lead generation forms. This type of form can include various sub-types like the contact form, the request a quote form, the newsletter subscription form, the freebie form and others which can fulfill the lead generation requirement.
  7. Because we’re talking of the business sector, where every resource allocation has to be justified, your business blog also needs to be analyzed. Engagement, ROI, conversions, requests for more information about your business – they all have to be tracked closely to see how your blog strategy is working out. Unlike your personal blog, the business one has to drive clear results.
  8. We’ve established before that you are responsible for what you post on the web for both personal and business blogs. Nevertheless, posting on a business blog requires you to be even more careful. How do you perceive a typo on a personal blog and how do you do it when it comes to a business blog? When writing about and for your company, you are associated with the company image. The slightest mistake you make can have a huge impact on the brand you’re representing.

Having said outlined these differences, some could argue that personal blogs, particularly personal blogs that create income and are brands unto themselves, also benefit from such “business-blogging” strategies. Where do you stand on the issue?

Sabina Stoiciu enjoys blogging, photography, traveling and finding ways of gathering and sharing relevant business knowledge. You can follow her on Twitter. She also writes for 123ContactForm, the online form and survey builder – try it for free.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

Weigh In: Are Personal Blogs and Business Blogs Really That Different?

Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

Weigh In: Are Personal Blogs and Business Blogs Really That Different?
 #bloggingtips 

Set up an Autoresponder using IFTTT and your Gmail account

Autoresonder IFTTT Recipe - click to see larger
If you want to email someone something specific when they ask for it, all automatically, here's a way to do it using IFTTT and your Gmail account.

You might want to do this as one of your marketing / promoting choices such as when you have a brochure of your products you want people to get.

Sure, you could put the same brochure on a website or blog instead - but consider the following...

It's a well-known fact that if you can get people to take some form of action, your conversion rates improve.

The reason is, that taking action establishes a relationship with you in the subconscious parts of their minds.

Of course, what you do with that early-stage relationship is down to you and your marketing / promotion strategy

Setting one up for yourself

And it's so easy....

On your blog, mailings, social media etc. you tell people:
"To get my current brochure, send an email to youremail@gmail.com and put the hashtag #brochure in the body somewhere.
You'll get an email back again within the hour with my latest brochure"

Steps

1) You set up an IFTTT recipe with a trigger channel of Gmail (new email from search)

2) You tell IFTTT to send to the FromAddress ingredient (i.e. to the person sending the email)

3) You give it a body containing the html of your brochure

I don't have a brochure, so for this example, I've used it to automatically give out my current Zaps promotional coupon code.

Try it out: send an email to highton.ridley@gmail.com and within 15 minutes or so, you'll get an automatic reply with my Zaps voucher code in the email.

To set up an 'autoresponder' for yourself you'll need to sign up for IFTTT and connect it to your G-mail account (they call it 'Activating channels')

IFTTT Set-up

Here's a video tutorial on activating channels in IFTTT. The initial slide gives you the link to IFTTT so you can sign up for an account if you need to.

320° Licht: A Repurposed 112-Meter High Gas Tank Converted into a Cathedral of Light

Fun and Random

320° Licht: A Repurposed 112 Meter High Gas Tank Converted into a Cathedral of Light projection light installation
Thomas Wolf © 2014
320° Licht: A Repurposed 112 Meter High Gas Tank Converted into a Cathedral of Light projection light installation
Thomas Wolf © 2014
320° Licht: A Repurposed 112 Meter High Gas Tank Converted into a Cathedral of Light projection light installation
Gasometer Oberhausen / Wolfgang Volz / Urbanscreen
320° Licht: A Repurposed 112 Meter High Gas Tank Converted into a Cathedral of Light projection light installation
Thomas Wolf © 2014
320° Licht: A Repurposed 112 Meter High Gas Tank Converted into a Cathedral of Light projection light installation
Thomas Wolf © 2014
320° Licht: A Repurposed 112 Meter High Gas Tank Converted into a Cathedral of Light projection light installation
Thomas Machoczek © 2014
German creative studio Urbanscreen have just unveiled ‘320 Licht,’ a massive light projection inside the cathedral-like interior of the 20,000 square meter Gasometer Oberhausen in Germany (the same space that housed Christo’s Big Air Package last year). Urbanscreen utilized both the ceiling and 320 degrees of the interior space of this former gas tank to project a 22-minute loop of digital animation with 21 high-powered Epson projectors.
“This experience is based on the vastness of the Gasometer,” sound designer Jonas Wiese told the Creator’s Project. “We tried to work with that expression to make the space bigger and smaller, to deform it and to change its surface over and over while not exaggerating and overwriting the original effect of the room.” He continues, “the age of the screen is coming to an end, digital interfaces will dissolve and merge into the social space [...] we poetically contribute to this through art.”
320 Licht is part of the exhibition The Appearance of Beauty and will be on view through December 30th, 2014. Watch the included video above from the Creator’s Project to learn more about how it all came together.

#funandrandom 
original post: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/colossal/~3/-w0yBosWDKE/

Tuesday 29 April 2014

Giftee Name, Egyptian Theme Gift Wrap

Featured Product!

A gorgeous design. Click to customize and personalize. Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it?


tagged with: gift wrap, luxury look, classy elegance, elegant, egyptian theme, egypt, eye of horus, akhenaten, egyptian icons, hrfptraz hrbstslr

Egyptian series Gift wrap paper - with the name of the person whose gift it is. Using an Egyptian Theme with Akhenaten and the Eye of Horus for good luck, this is the perfect wrapping paper for an elegant gift!
more items with this image
more Egyptian items


»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Motivational Words #2 mousepad

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: mousemat, motivational words, motivation, positive thinking, positive attitude, encouragement, positive outlook, word art, mowds2 hrbstslr, values

Motivational Words series Give some positivity! Here's a great design using motivational word-art. Each time you look at them, you should get a subtle positive boost!!
more items featuring these motivational words
more items in the Motivational Words series

Image code: mowds2

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Dachshund Lovers Greeting Cards

Cute Alert!

How can you resist this cute puppy design? Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it? Click to customize and personalize...


tagged with: dog, dachshund, breed, akc, cute, puppy, love, heart, pink, hound, graphic

Dachshunds are popular pets in the United States, ranking seventh in the 2008 AKC registration statistics. They are popular with urban and apartment dwellers, ranking among the top ten most popular breeds in 76 of 190 major US cities surveyed by the AKC. One will find varying degrees of organized local dachshund clubs in most major American cities, including New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The breed is popular in Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Guatemala, Finland and Japan.

»visit the kabloo20 store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Monday 28 April 2014

Motivational Words #2 Print

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: motivational words, motivation, positive thinking, positive attitude, positive outlook, encouraging, encourage, mowds2 hrbstslr, wordart values, motivating encouragement

Motivational Words series Give some positivity! Here's a great design using motivational word-art. Each time you look at them, you should get a subtle positive boost!!

more items featuring these motivational words
more items in the Motivational Words series

Image code: mowds2

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Westhighland Bunny Cards

Cute Alert!

How can you resist this cute puppy design? Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it? Click to customize and personalize...


tagged with: westhighland, terrier, westie, bunny, dog, puppy, cute, funny, dogs

Westhighland Terrier Celebrates Easter

»visit the prizestealer store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Not many Zazzlers know this special promotion tip

Did you know you can change the name or greeting when you promote one of your Zazzle products? It's got to use a text template for it to work.

This is really cool when you want to personalize something to show to a potential customer.

Unfortunately this tip doesn't work to change images.

Official way

Here's the official way. Did you know this technique?
  1. Go to your product page
  2. Change the name as appropriate and then click away from the box so the display updates to use what you just typed. This is important.
  3. Click share and then you've got all the ways you can post to pretty much anywhere you want.


Here's an example using one of my products. Here's the product with a monogram as it shows by default.
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672 Travel Mirrors
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672 Travel Mirrors by HightonRidley
View Star galaxies Compact Mirror online at zazzle


And here it is using a name instead of the monogram:



Behind the scenes method

But it's a good opportunity to learn a bit about what goes on behind the scenes.

This assumes that you've used the default text0 as the url parameter, as I have done with the above (if you haven't, then change the 0 to 1 or whatever you've used).
All you have to do is add the following to the end of any product page link or any image link:
  • If there's already a ? in the url, then put: &t_text0_txt=Jenny on the end
  • If not, put ?t_text0_txt=Jenny on the end
So let's say you're starting with:
Note that, to keep things simple, I'm not using my rf id and tracking codes in those links.
The links will open in new windows, so go ahead and try them. Change Jenny to something else and see how cool it is!

I mentioned above that a good use would be to personalize for a particular customer. Maybe you've got a friend on Facebook and you want to show them what your design looks like with their name on it. Simple, adjust the product link above to use the right name and then paste it into a new post on their timeline.

Perfect!

Happy Promoting, fellow Zazzler :)
~~Mark (HightonRidley)


Sunday 27 April 2014

Stylized Sportscar - glowing red neon auto design Dry Erase Boards

Featured Product!

A gorgeous design. Click to customize and personalize. Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it?


tagged with: automobiles, race, convertible, hardtop, red, sportscars, sports car, modern coupe, glamorous autos, hrbstslr hrfptraz, drive, speed, transport, vehicle, metallic, metallic style, metallic look, metal look

Metallic series A great sportscar theme featuring a stylized metallic automobile design with red neon glow effect.
more items in the Metallic series
more items with Sports Cars


»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Pony And Lone Gorse keychain

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: keyrings, key rings, dartmoor ponies, pony, grazing, gorse, piebald, hrbstslr, hrcol67, wild horses, keychains, key chains, free-running, cropping, animals, nature

A piebald pony quietly grazing beside a lone gorse bush in Dartmoor National Park.

All items with this image
All pony Items

Image code: hrcol67

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Two Pugs Postcard

Cute Alert!

How can you resist this cute puppy design? Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it? Click to customize and personalize...


tagged with: animal, cute, dog, doggy, funny, mops, pet, pug, puppy, pugs, adorable, beige, breed, canine, curious, domestic, friend, fur, mammal, pup, purebred, small, surface, twins, two, whelp, vintage, young

Two pug puppies on a vintage surface with fur background.

»visit the pictocrate store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Bears on Stairs: A Stop Motion-Animation Created from 3D-Printed Frames

Fun and Random

Bears on Stairs: A Stop Motion Animation Created from 3D Printed Frames stop motion bears animation 3d printing
Bears on Stairs: A Stop Motion Animation Created from 3D Printed Frames stop motion bears animation 3d printing
Bears on Stairs: A Stop Motion Animation Created from 3D Printed Frames stop motion bears animation 3d printing
The creative team over at London-based DBLG recently released this in-house animation titled Bears on Stairs that involed old school stop motion techniques paired with modern 3D printing. The painstaking process involved printing a sequence of 50 tiny sculptures which had to be photographed one by one over a period of 4 weeks—all for a mere two seconds of animation. I love the texture on the surface created by the printer. See more over at DBLG. (via Visual News)

#funandrandom 
original post: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/colossal/~3/4kRs_7aEPdE/

I've heard of Piano Forty before..

Fun and Random

I've heard of Piano Forty before..
...but this is ridiculous!
12 amazingly talented  pianists play a piano in a way you've never seen before! Click the link to see the video on Facebook.
Shout out to +Atta Hosseini for the find :)
  #funandrandom  

original post: https://plus.google.com/116000959328274308893/posts/P1Nzx8PS3Fc

Saturday 26 April 2014

Auto Car on Brushed Steel - Sportscar template Business Card Templates

Featured Product!

A gorgeous design. Click to customize and personalize. Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it?


tagged with: business card template, metallic style, sportscars, autotrade, automotive, hrbstslr genbct1a, car logo, metallic look, steel autos, hrfptraz, chrome look, metal look

Metallic series A great business card template for the Auto trade. Just upload your logo or use the Sports Auto provided. Then customise with your details and give a strap line, quote or personal message for that really professional feel.
more items in the Metallic series
This business card template with other artwork


»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Chocolate Panda birthday card

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: white chocolate, textured, happy birthday, birthday greetings, hrbstslr chcpnd, vanilla bear, cuddly bear, chocolate panda, panda bear, happy panda, birthday cards

A great birthday card for someone you know who loves chocolate! A great big cuddly Panda made of that heavenly substance - what better combination could there be?! The background is a plain vanilla white chocolate colour, complementing the milk chocolate colour of the bear's coat.
So treat that special someone whose birthday it is with this great design. Go on, you know it's deserved!

more items featuring this image

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Cute Puppy Mail Postcard

Cute Alert!

How can you resist this cute puppy design? Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it? Click to customize and personalize...


tagged with: illustration, clip, art, puppy, dog, animal, canine, pet, mail, mailbox, post, postal, parcel, package, eyes, ears, head, face, flag

A cute puppy is putting in or getting out a parcel from a mailbox. Customize this product with a name or message to make it truly unique

»visit the mariabellimages store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

6 Lessons for Writing Irresistibly Magnetic Blog Post Headlines

Blogging with purpose

original post »
This is a guest contribution from Matthew Capala of SearchDecoder.com
Abraham Lincoln Axe Quote 1
Many newbie (and sometimes even veteran) bloggers erroneously spend 95% of their time creating blog content and only 5% pondering titles. Unfortunately for these bloggers, most readers’ attention spans expire in seconds.
Unless you reel in your readers instantly, your well-crafted content goes largely unnoticed and going viral becomes impossible.
Set aside at least 15 to 30 minutes for choosing a magnetic title after crafting your post.
List three to five intriguing titles guaranteed to increase your CTR and page views. After carefully thinking through each option, select the one that inspires you like no other.  Ask your friends or followers for feedback.
Most importantly, test and learn from data you collect looking at engagement metrics, such as social sharing and page views.  Double down on best-performing headlines and keep testing new ways to engage your audience.
Garret Moon proposes re-writing your blog headlines at least three times to A/B test your headlines using Twitter and email marketing. If you are serious about blogging, invest as much resources and time as you can to headline testing and optimization.

6 Lessons for Writing Irresistibly Magnetic Blog Post Headlines

At SearchDecoder blog we did an in depth headline analysis looking at the most popular posts of 2013. The data included over 30K visits and 6K social shares.
Most of the content featured in the study that made the top 10 lists was generated by NYU students participated in the Inbound Marketing Clinic and couple recent grads who work with me at Lowe Profero. The objective of this post is not to brag but rather share data insights with the blogging community to get feedback.
Top 10 Most Popular Posts on SearchDecoder Blog in 2013

Use Power Verbs

Use power verbs to goad readers into clicking on and sharing your content. Imagine yourself as a blogging commander, enticing to swift action with assertiveness. Start titles with actionable verbs like “Read,” “Download” or “Learn”.  Actionable verbs can be visualized and acted upon easily.
Keep things simple and never use a power verb in any spot other than the beginning of your title. Maximize the effectiveness of these action words.
The third most shared blog post on SearchDecoder, Optimize Your Click Through Rate on Google (Infographic) is a good example of using a power verb to drive action.
SearchDecoder Take Action 3

Employ Colorful Adjectives

Colorful adjectives effectively magnetize eager readers to your titles. Consider using colorful words to appeal to the imagination. If readers can see what you wish to convey, you will generate high CTR.
Pull out a thesaurus. Scour the manual to find descriptive, entertaining adjectives to lasso readers’ eyeballs. Test words like “awesome,” “unstoppable” and “unconventional” for engaging your reader’s visualizing faculty.
The number-one most shared, read and commented on blog post on SearchDecoder, 10 Unconventional Keyword Research Tools to Include in Your SEO Toolbox, generated over 7K views, nearly 700 social shares and over 30 comments. Moreover, it got picked up by the editors of Moz Top 10.
Interestingly, the two blog posts I’ve published using the word ‘unconventional’ in the title made it to the top 10 most shared blog posts on SearchDecoder.com.
10 unconventional keyword research tips 4

Arouse Curiosity

Reading questions piques your interest. Interested web visitors set the foundation for viral blog posts.  Readers rarely scan question-themed titles without clicking through because inquiring minds need to know.
Brian Clark notes on Copyblogger that sharing benefits via insider knowledge is a timeless approach to crafting magnetic titles.
Asking questions or exposing industry ‘secrets’ compels clickthroughs because few can resist mystery. Observe the masterful novelist. Supreme writers craft cliffhangers filled with mystery and intrigue. How could you put down these page turners when each chapter ends with either a question or some other secret yet to be revealed?
One of the top shared blog posts on my blog, The 10 Secrets of Effective Bootstrap Digital Marketing for Startups, leverages this tactic. If you want to successfully run a startup, getting enough credible information is critical.
Crafting this title for the accompanying deck on SlideShare goaded readers to click through and share it on Twitter at a stunning rate, appearing on SlideShare’s homepage as ‘Hot on Twitter’ and boosting its views to over 7K.

Build Lists (Always)

Building list-themed headers is a surefire approach to crafting magnetic titles. In fact, 9 out of the 10 best performing posts on my blog included a list in the headline.
Testing various numbers in list headlines (I tested between 7 and 30) on my blog didn’t indicate a clear winner (statistically), however the number 10 performed best.
Readers need gobs of information to satiate their curiosity. The average web cruiser craves thorough content. Sharing 11 tips or 8 steps to solve a particular problem draws readers in because they expect to find a practical answer to their specific questions.
Jeff Goins notes how using obscure numbers in titles like 19 or 37 can appeal to readers. Experiment with different single and double-digit numbers to see which titles result in the most clicks.
The highest number in the list headline I used was 30 and it performed surprisingly well (contrary to the less is more approach). The 30 Awesome Free SEO Tools for Small Businesses headline was the 8th most popular blog post on Searchdecoder in 2013.

Use the Magic Words

“Quick,” “Easy,” and “Simple” are the magic headline words guaranteed to boost clicks pronto. Do you want to know the quick, easy or simple way to solve a problem you have been trying to address? Of course you do.
Appeal to the Internet culture of today by using these magic words frequently. However, make sure that the solution is quick, easy or simple to keep your credibility intact. Promising a simple solution to a problem but following up with complex instructions can damage your online reputation.
Add “lessons” to your ‘magic word’ list. People read blogs to learn, and no matter how ‘easy’ your advice seems, it is always a good idea to anchor your findings in data, interviews or case studies. The #5 best performer on SearchDecoder, 7 Lessons for Effective B2B Content Marketing via the Maersk Line Case Study, drew in eager students quickly.

Pick Up the Paper

Always learn from the pros. Read a newspaper or scour online news sites to find appealing blog post title ideas and become a trusted curator of information for your community.
Follow the example of the 8 Internet Books You Should Read in 2014 post that performed exceptionally well for me during the slow Holiday period in December. Whatever you are blogging about; there are tons of relevant books and blogs you can curate.
Vintage Books 5
Mine the web or your local newsstand for creative, proven titles guaranteed to increase blog readership. Taking a cue from some of the best title writers on earth is a simple way to create a viral post.
Curating content proved to be the most low-effort, high-return activity on my blog. The 8 Content Marketing Statistics You Need to Know title was the second best performer on SearchDecoder.

Headlines are visual

It’s a social media world. If you want to increase the sharibility and CTR of your blog posts, include eye-catching images and visuals which get populated on your homepage and social media feed. Spend time choosing the best ‘featured image’ for every headline.
SearchDecoder blog posts 6

What didn’t work?

Using names of influencers in blog titles didn’t perform well for me. While the Q&As and interviews represent some of the best content on my blog, they underperformed in terms of traffic and engagement. Using Twitter handles and hashtags in the headlines didn’t perform well for me either.
What worked for your blog last year? I’d love to hear your best-performing blog post headline in the comments section.
Matthew Capala is an inbound marketing strategist, personal branding coach, Internet entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and author. He is an Adj. Professor at NYU and Head of Search at Lowe Profero. His free personal branding e-book, Away with the Average, has been widely praised. A leading voice in the start-up community, Matthew founded SearchDecoder.com, a venue for SEO ideas for entrepreneurs. You can find him on Tiwtter at @SearchDecoder.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

6 Lessons for Writing Irresistibly Magnetic Blog Post Headlines
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

6 Lessons for Writing Irresistibly Magnetic Blog Post Headlines
#bloggingtips

How to Take a10-Day Vacation, a 5-Day Business Trip, Get Food Poisoning, and Still Be Able to Write 42 Posts In a Month

Blogging with purpose

original post »

This is a guest contribution by Karol K of newInternetOrder.com

Just to set things straight… I’m not talking about writing 42 300-word posts. In September last year, I did write 42 web articles in total. Some of them were 2,800 words long. Some just 500. On the average, each article was about 1000 words. How do I know so precisely? Well, I keep a complete record of everything I write.

Having this little disclaimer out of the way, I can tell you the whole story of how I did it, why I’m so proud, and how you can do the same.

The story

Those 42 posts were meant for 3 clients and 2 blogs of my own. Regarding the work for my own blogs, I could just take it easy and not set any stone-written deadlines (I did anyway). On the other hand, the client work is always time-sensitive and needs to be delivered on a specific day no matter what.

There are some elements that add to the difficulty of this whole thing. You can see most of them in the title of this post, but here they are again:

  • 10-day vacation. I stayed in Barcelona for 6 weeks (whole August and half of September). And even though I did keep the normal work schedule, at some point, I decided to take a 10 day vacation and enjoy Barcelona to the fullest. In that time, I did no work whatsoever.

  • 5-day business trip to Turkey. This was another obstacle. Considering that it was a business trip, this meant that I had to take care of a lot of other things apart from writing articles. So, I needed to find a different approach to get it all done somehow.

  • Food poisoning. Oh yes, here’s what reminds me of Turkey the most. As it turns out, Turkish food isn’t good for me at all. That’s about 3-4 days (kind of) out of my schedule again. I’m saying kind of because I did manage to do some work then, but not much. Actually, even less than during my business trip.

So in total, this makes 10 days completely out of the calendar. Another 5 days of half-time working (or even 1/3), and the final 4 days of quarter-time (is that a phrase?) working. In total, 19 days.

But isn’t September just 30 days? Yes, it is.

Oh, and one more thing that’s not making my life easier, I’m a non-native English writer. This means that I have to proofread the hell out of my articles, which obviously takes a lot of additional time.

Here’s how I did it.

Plan first

Everything starts with a precise plan or at least, it should start with one. At the beginning of the month, I knew exactly how much time I will spend on vacation and on the business trip, the food poisoning was the only surprise.

I also knew how many posts I should write (roughly). Now, why is that number not exact? First of all, I had much freedom regarding my own blogs. Secondly, I told one of my clients that I will write around 20-25 posts for him.

Of course, you can’t always make that happen. But if you inform your clients that you’re going to be out on vacation, most of the time, it’s no problem as long as you can deliver the work shortly afterwards (it’s simple freelance marketing 101 if you’re into freelance blogging and not only publishing for yourself).

But let’s go back to the plan itself. So how was I able to create it and even make some room for any “unfortunate” event?

The way I do my planning when it comes to writing is something I’ve developed over time. I basically use one tool – a spreadsheet (a log) of my writing efficiency – fancy name, ain’t it? Every month, I jot down the exact number of words I’ve managed to write each day. So at the end of a given month, I have the total number of words written.

After doing this for a while, I know exactly what’s the comfortable number of words for me per month (and therefore the number of articles as well). And once I have the per month value, I can easily tell the per day value.

So, when creating my plan for September, I made an educated guess about the number of days I’d be able to work and then set the maximum number of words I was capable of writing. As a result, I estimated that 40-45 is indeed a possible total number of articles.

In short, it’s pure math, nothing else. Here’s the action plan if you want to replicate this for yourself:

  1. Start a writing log and record each article/chapter/post you write. It’s best to focus on the number of words, rather than on the number of articles.

  2. Gather data for 2-3 months.

  3. Now you have your personal writing efficiency score, which lets you estimate your performance going forward.

Get the tools and the hardware

At home, I do most of my work on a standard desktop computer. I have a standing desk, and an environment I find really great for focusing my attention and maintaining my productivity.

However, working abroad requires some additional arrangements…

As for the computer, I use a standard laptop. I find working on it way easier than on an iPad, which I also took for other purposes. (iPads are still great for some situations, more on that in a minute).

When it comes to tools, I didn’t even install anything new on the laptop. Whenever I realized that I need a specific tool, I just downloaded it, so there was no extra hassle (most of the tools I use are either free or online).

The only app I made sure I had installed was SugarSync. This really is invaluable. (When I got back home, my work was already waiting for me on my desktop computer automatically.)

The most important point here is to make your work (your posts/content) available remotely. So, double check if everything you need is inside your SugarSync (or Dropbox) account. You can be in much trouble if you’ve forgotten something and don’t have a way to get it.

You probably know this already, but using Gmail is helpful here as well. Gmail allows you to hook up any other email account (even those based on external domains), so you can have everything managed in one remotely available place.

Finally, if you’re doing active marketing while being abroad, Bidsketch is a nice way of handling client proposals (wink!). The tool will help you craft those proposals and make sure that every prospective client receives an offer.

Set the habits

Everything is under control at home. But when you’re abroad, you tend to get easily distracted by all the stuff that’s going on around you.

If you want to remain focused, you have to set some habits and dedicate yourself to keeping them in mind.

For instance, the main habit I keep mentioning in many of my publications is writing first thing in the morning. There’s really no better way to start the day off than by having your work done by 11AM. With this habit alone, you’ll make massive progress no matter what emergency the rest of the day brings.

There’s a really good reason why this approach works. Our brain or our personal processing power, if you will, runs out during the day. We simply get tired quickly. So if you want to get anything important done in a given day, you must take care of it as early as possible. In a sentence, do the important stuff first.

Not surprisingly, for a blogger or a writer, the important stuff usually revolves around writing itself. Hence, write first thing in the morning and then use the rest of the day for other tasks.

The other habit is using your NET – No Extra Time. Your NET is every moment when you’re doing a specific thing, yet you can successfully do something else at the same time.

Now, the most important distinction is that NET does not equal multitasking! Multitasking is the biggest enemy of productivity!

Multitasking is where you devote yourself to doing a number of things at the same time consciously. For instance, when you’re trying to write, answer email, and listen to a podcast all at the same time.

Utilizing your NET is when you’re doing a number of things during a time that is already lost, or time when you can harness different areas of your brain to do the work.

Let me give you two examples of NET:

  • Example #1 (time already lost): You’re on an airplane or at the airport (this obviously goes for any other mean of transportation as well). You’re there anyway, so why not do some writing? This is where an iPad comes really handy.

  • Example #2 (harnessing different areas of your brain ): At the gym. You could listen to an audiobook or an interview, either as part of your research prior to writing an article or just for fun. In essence, when you’re working out, you’re not using the creative part of your brain. You’re just using the simple impulses that tell you to exercise, so there’s still room for some intellectual activity.

And again, because I really want to emphasize this, utilizing your NET is not multitasking. Don’t. Ever. Multitask. Human beings are not meant to multitask.

Noticing your NET throughout the day, on the other hand, and using it to your benefit will allow you to get significantly more things done. I estimate that around 1/3 of my work in September was done during my NET.

Use a project management system

A system sounds like a big deal, but I actually don’t have any better way to call it.

Of course, in some cases, especially if you’re doing a lot of work collaborating with other people, and have to take care of a number of clients, getting an account at Teambox or Basecamp might be a good idea. But just to manage your own work, you don’t need much.

What I use for my own project management is Google Drive (formally Google Docs) and Remember The Milk. I find these tools easy to use, not to mention that they have all the functionalities I require. For a blogger, there’s not much you need… just a way of recording every post you write, task management, keeping up with the deadlines and with the people you’re sending those posts to (e.g. guest posts, posts for your clients).

For some of you, this sounds really basic, but you’d be amazed at how many people manage their work through an email account/software (meaning, tagging certain emails, and then going back to them at random occasions).

The main lesson here is that any system is still better than no system at all. You should at least sign up to Google Drive (available through your standard Google account).

Create the mindset of a winner

This sounds corny, but please bear with me here. When you have difficulty meeting a deadline or some other emergency strikes (like the food poisoning) then the only thing that can save you is your mindset.

And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m any better than you. A mindset is not something we’re born with. It’s something we can learn with time.

For me, the things that work best is imagining the goals that are in front of me and the things I’m set out to achieve. In comparison to all this, a puny food poisoning is simply not enough to shoot me down.

Also, by having your goal in mind, you can get the job done even if you’re not at your full abilities for 19 days in a month.

So this is how I did it. I’m positive that you can achieve similar results, or be even better, especially if you’re a native English writer.

Just to summarize the advice here in 5 simple steps:

  1. Plan first.

  2. Get the tools and software in place.

  3. Set the habits.

  4. Use a project management system.

  5. Create the mindset!

What’s your take on this? What’s your secret of remaining productive even if you know that you won’t be available for a number of days? I’m really curious to get your input on this one.

Karol K. is founder of newInternetOrder.com and a team member at Bidsketch (proposal software). Whenever he’s not working, he likes to spend time training Capoeira and enjoying life.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

How to Take a10-Day Vacation, a 5-Day Business Trip, Get Food Poisoning, and Still Be Able to Write 42 Posts In a Month

Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

How to Take a10-Day Vacation, a 5-Day Business Trip, Get Food Poisoning, and Still Be Able to Write 42 Posts In a Month
#bloggingtips 

Friday 25 April 2014

Final stage: Using Zaps as part of your Ausome SOCIAL strategy

This is the second and last part of the project: Using Zaps creatively for automatically publishing / sharing articles you find
(»see Part 1 opens in a new window)


Here's the flow of the whole project, just to remind you.

This is what will be achieved by the project as a whole once you've completed parts 1 and 2
In the first part, we closed with you being able to share your interesting finds on Google+ with the share also going automatically to your collection blog.

Remember, as you write your text to go with the share, you'll be adding a hashtag or two to categorise the find. You'll see in a little while why this is important.

What we have to do in this second part is
  • Draw items from your collection blog under the control of one of the Zaps tools, and share down appropriate other channels in your social media / blog portfolio.
 Here's the picture of how things will flow.
This is what we're covering in part 2, the final part

Step 1

Get to the configuration screen to set things up ready for your IFTTT recipe
  • If you're a Zaps license holder, you'll want to use the Collection Blog Distributer, available on the Zapsters community
  • If you're not, you can use the free Ausome Social Feed Digest to post to your social media channels / niche blogs.
Btw, if you're wondering what the difference is, the free Ausome has limited scheduling and only posts from the newest items it finds. The Collection Blog Distributer uses the Ferris Wheel approach to post from whatever it finds and has really nifty scheduling capabilities. If you do use the free Ausome, 1 in 10 of the digests will include a short message about it - this is a fairly common practice for free tools. This is what it looks like:

The AutoSocialiseMe tool (Ausome) automatically enriches your social media streams and blogs with interesting information and articles all about your niche. In fact, this article was selected and posted automatically by Ausome. Find out more here...

Step2

Configure things. In the screenshot below I've used my collection blog. Note that I'm looking only for items that include the hashtag #funandrandom (that's one I've been adding as I share posts on G+)
Configuration screen set up ready for IFTTT recipe
  • When you're have things as you want, change the run hour to a couple of hours in the future.
    This is to give you chance to create the IFTTT recipe and give things chance to bake while there's nothing being emitted by the configuration.
  • Click the "Run Pipe" button one last time
  • Right-click the "Get as RSS" and choose "copy link location", or whatever your browser's equivalent is
    This is ready to paste into the "Feed url" when you're creating the IFTTT recipe

This is the video tutorial for setting up an IFTTT recipe. It's the same one you watched in the first part when you were setting up the recipe to post to your collection blog. We're re-using it here, and it works out just nicely.
  • Watch starting at 2:18 (it should start from there automatically when you click the video)
  • All you have to do is paste in what you just copied when you get to 2:40.
  • What you do from 2:56 depends on where this recipe is to share to, so you can stop watching at that point.




Next steps

So now all you need to do is to make new recipes to spread the items you've hashtagged around your various niche blogs and social media channels.

The end result? Find interesting stuff anywhere as you do your normal bumbling around the internet, share it straight away on G+ and then, according to the schedules you've already got set up, they'll be distributed around the places you want them to go!

Neat:
  • It does away with any form of delay between you finding something cool and getting your act together to share it the old way down each of your channels / niche blogs.
  • And that means you won't forget to do it.
  • And it won't cost you any more time, in fact it'll save you time!
  • And that'll encourage you to do more of it because it's so easy.
  • And that'll be great for helping you to socialize your blogs / channels.
  • And that will lead to more followers, more popularity and more sales, in time...

You'd be mad not to!


Happy learning!
~~Mark (HightonRidley)