One
of the ways to show your blog potential is by showing the number of
FeedBurner Subscribers. The most vital thing to be noted regarding
the Subscriber's count is that, they are real people with real thoughts
and should never be associated with numbers. I had a Google search, for
the past one week, related to this topic and I found out that, there is
a hack for doing the same using a Netvibes accounts and an OPML file.

This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a fantastic tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts). – Darren

Okay, okay, so we’re not really talking about unicorns…but even though it’s a vital part of your blog’s tone and voice, I didn’t reckon you’d click on anything that sounded as deceptively unsexy and unexciting as what we’re really discussing this week, which is grammatical person. Wait! Before you zone out, stick with me for a sec: It’s not as terrible as it sounds. Grammatical person is simply means that you’re either referring to yourself (first person), your reader (second person), or a third party (third person). And, um, like a unicorn, it often goes unnoticed and can be exceptionally helpful. (I’m trying, you guys.)

Every time you sit down to write a post, you make choices. Some, such as your topic and headline, are likely to be very deliberate. Others, such as grammatical person, probably happen without much scrutiny—but even if you aren’t pausing to consider person (we’ll drop the “grammatical” now ’cause I know it freaks some people out), it impacts the strength of every post you write. That’s why I’ve chosen some posts about the ten most blogged-about tales of the last week (provided, as always, by Regator) to illustrate the importance of choosing the right person. Let’s take a look:

1. Oil Spill – Writing in the third person (using pronouns such as ‘he,’ ‘she,’ and ‘they’) isn’t just for newspapers, academic papers, and formal writing. Although we have talked about the importance of using your personality and opinions to strengthen your blog, there may be times when you simply want to convey the facts. Unsurprisingly, the blog of news organization Reuters is written in third person in “Dalian oil spill is all cleaned up” and most of its other posts. Be aware though that a “just the facts” approach can, when not used with care, leave you with a post that seems dull or stiff.
2. Shirley Sherrod – The writer of “After Breitbart and Shirley Sherrod, We Need a Slow-News Movement” from Politics Daily chose to add first person (using pronouns such as ‘I,’ ‘me,’ and ‘we’) in combination with third to clearly convey his opinion along with a bit of his personality.
3. Comic-Con – FirstShowing.net’s “Comic-Con 2010: Quick Review of Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim” is an example of a very first-person focused post, with pronouns such as ‘I,’ ‘me,’ and ‘my’ accounting for more than five percent of the word count. A post with this much focus on the blogger is risky because unless he or she has established a relationship with readers so that they care a fantastic deal about personal viewpoints, the post runs the risk of being less useful to readers.
4. Mad Men – Jezebel’s “Contest: Win A Complete Set Of Mad Men Barbie Dolls!” primarily uses second person (pronouns such as ‘you’ and ‘your’) to give instructions directly to readers. There are plenty of times when you might want to speak directly to your readers, giving them directions for a contest is just one.
5. Angelina Jolie – Vulture’s “Six Lessons From Salt About the Differences Between Male and Female Action Heroes” is an example of a third-person piece that—unlike the newsy style of the Reuters blog above—infuses some personality, humor, and informality into the post.
6. Kindle – “Don’t Really Care About Touch Screens or Color” from Conversational Reading uses a combination of first and second person. That choice, along with phrases such as “I wonder how many readers out there are like me…” establishes a conversational tone.
7. Magic Trackpad – Telegraph.co.uk’s technology blog questions, “Would you switch your mouse for a trackpad?” Second person is the best choice when you’re trying to encourage interaction and, although the rest of this post is written in first and third person, most of the comments directly answer the second-person question from the headline.
8. Tony Hayward – “3 Huge Reasons Why Tony Hayward Failed As CEO” from The Business Insider is a third-person piece that uses first and second person in the subheaders to provide the voice of the public. Choosing a different grammatical person in subheads can make them stand out even more.
9. Chelsea Clinton – Ecorazzi’s “Chelsea Clinton’s Very Vegan Rehearsal Dinner” uses first person (along with the ubiquitous third person and a dash of second) to help build the voice of the blog and connect with readers with statements such as “I’m just as confused … as some of you may be.”
10. Oliver Stone – When a tale has a direct impact on you for some reason, as “Place Down Your Pitchforks; Oliver Stone Apologizes” from Cinematical did for its author, the first person is likely to be your best choice. Many people find that first person is also the most natural option for storytelling, since that is how we are accustomed to telling tales on a day-to-day basis.

Even though the grammatical person was nearly certainly not the first thing on these bloggers’ minds, each of the above posts would have been vastly different had the bloggers chosen a different option. What person do you use on your blog? Is it a conscious choice? Please share your thoughts and unicorn tales in the comments.

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blogosphere Trends + Unicorns

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Every successful blogger will tell you that it took fantastic content
and hard work to reach where he has. A point he will mostly miss to
tell you is that of the benefits of building relationships with other
bloggers. It is very vital that you have excellent professional
relationships with other bloggers. There are many advantages to be
gained from excellent relationship with other bloggers.

Here are some fantastic ways to build relationships with other bloggers:

1. Commenting on Other Blogs

This seems like a basic thought, but it is a excellent place to start and
let the other blogger know about you. If you want this point to be
really effective then it is vital that your comments add value to
the post and are not simple comments like – “Nice Post” etc.

2. Guest Posts

This is another fantastic way to build relationships with other
bloggers. Providing fantastic content to other bloggers is a sure-shot way
to get them to notice you. Most blogs related to blogging, technology
niche allow you to guest post. Another vital point is the timing of
your guest posts. Suppose if your guest post comes in at a time the
blogger is sick or on a vacation then it will mean much more to him and
you can make lasting relationships.

3. Link like

You might get really worried when you link out to other blogs
competing with you, but don’t reckon that way. Be open and break free of
all insecurities – giving link like to other bloggers is a fantastic way to
build relationships. All bloggers know the hard work behind getting
backlinks and when you give them link like then it is really
appreciated by another blogger. Would you not be pleased if some one
links to any one of your posts? Reckon this way and make the most of
this point.

4. Interviews

This is a very effective way to build relationship with another
blogger. It is very flattering for anyone to get an email that requests
them to give an interview. An interview can really help in the branding
an image of any blogger. So this point is a cool way to approach and
get to know other bloggers. Moreover, fascinating interviews can become
fantastic content for you and even get you search engine traffic in the
long run.

Although, the points above are very effective to make relationship
with another blogger, but be careful not to overdo it. Please leave
your comments below..

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FANTASTIC 2 SITES 2 JOIN-

1.

2.

Content strategy might seem like the domain of giant content sites and huge-brand online publishers. But if you run a blog, you’re a content publisher. And a solid content strategy can help you to more clearly define your goals, and identify how you’ll achieve them.

For those for whom content is a business, a content strategy can help support, and achieve, the goals set out in your business strategy.

What is Content Strategy?

A content strategy is a plot that helps your users achieve their goals, and helps you to achieve your own goals, through your web site’s content.

Content strategy treats content as an asset that can be used, or combined with other informational or interactive tools, to help users achieve their aims on your site. Content strategy prevents you from seeing your content as mere tactical executions that — hopefully — support some distant business goal. Content strategy frames content as a tool.

Kristina Halvorsen, content strategy guru and founder of content strategy consultancy Brain Traffic, defines content strategy as including editorial strategy, web writing, metadata strategy, search engine optimization, content management strategy, and content channel distribution strategy.

Stepping Toward Strategy

I see the creation of a content strategy as involving these steps.

1. Set content goals.
2. Conduct content inventory and identify content gaps.
3. Review and amend, where appropriate, site taxonomy or labeling, content tagging, and categorisation so that your current treatment of content reflects the goals you’ve set.
4. Identify content-related tasks and responsibilities.
5. Set a plot for:
   - filling content gaps
   - the direction of future content
   - recycling or reusing evergreen content to achieve the greatest possible ROI

Let’s look at each step in turn.

1. Setting Content Goals

Every excellent blog meets a particular need for a given audience. Your content goals are the place where, on paper, your audience members’ needs can be aligned with your business needs.

For example, imagine I run a blog on chicken keeping, and my audience is backyard poultry keepers — families and others who aren’t exactly poultry enthusiasts or breeders, but want to have a few hens scratching in the backyard. And let’s say I want to generate an income of $1000 per month from my blog six months from now.

The only way I’m going to achieve my goal is through content: by providing my audience with the information they need. Whether I join affiliate programs, conduct paid product reviews, sell ad space or sell ebooks about chicken keeping, if I don’t publish the content, I won’t have an audience, and I won’t generate an income.

Content translates to pageviews, audience growth, engagement and loyalty — all the things that bloggers need to monetise their blogs. So my content goals might cover:

• publishing frequency
• per-post, per-month, or per-category traffic objectives
• topic emphasis, post type, or media used
• the quantity and quality of comments, discussions and feedback

Even if your blog isn’t a financial concern, content goals will help you stay focused on your blog’s unique advantage — its point of difference — and make the most of that with every post you publish.

2. Conducting a Content Inventory

A thorough content inventory involves listing each piece of content on your blog, and noting its publish date categorisation, tags, and any other metadata associated with it.

Through this process, you’ll find outdated posts, incorrectly categorised or tagged posts, broken links, spam comments, typos — all kinds of issues! Once you’re finished, you’ll also have a clear thought of the strengths of your existing content assets, as well as the weaknesses. And by considering your content inventory in light of your content goals, you’ll quickly be able to find content gaps: areas in which you lack the content that will be required to achieve your goals.

If one of my goals is for my chicken keeping site to be the recognised authority for backyard leisure activity poultry keepers, I’ll need the content to back that up. My content inventory will undoubtedly reveal some areas in which my content is lacking, incomplete, amateurish, or fails to represent best-practice approaches. They’re my content gaps for this goal.

3. Reviewing and Amending Content Treatment

The information you collected on your content’s metadata during the content inventory also needs to be analysed in light of your goals. This might reveal other gaps — perhaps you’ve overlooked some vital tags, or the tags you’ve used don’t reflect the terms audience members usually search for. You’ll want to identify those issues and address them, making additional tags, making sure your content is categorised as logically and intuitively as possible, and ensuring that the mechanics of your content are closely aligned with your content goals.

One of my chicken keeping blog goals was income, and I’ve chose I’ll use excellent organic search placement as one technique to build my readership. My content inventory shows that I’ve tagged all my content about poultry housing with the tag “hen houses”, but my research shows that searchers most commonly search for the term “coops”. I might add that tag to my site — and all related posts — to boost my position in those search results. I might also change the navigation mark on my blog that leads to specliaised content about hen houses from “Housing” to “Coops” so that when the users I’ve attracted reach my blog, they see exactly the thing they’re looking for.

This step is really about looking at the ancillary information that allows users to find and contextualise the information you present, and making sure it’s optimised for your user and blog goals.

4. Identifying Content Tasks and Responsibilities

If you’re a solo blogger, the second part of this step will be simple: you’ll be responsible for everything! But just what is “everything”?

How often will you publish new content? What tools will you use to publish it? Where will you source it and what requirements will you place on every item published on your blog? Who will follow up on any copyright issues and check the factual accuracy of each post? Who will run the spell check? Who will schedule the posts and who will hit the “publish” button? How will you work out, or know, when you need to add a category or tag to the site? And how will you populate that new category with content?

If your blog is time-relevant, you might need a plot for retiring ancient content, but every blog contains some content that will become outdated in time. How will you manage that? Where will you redirect users who try to access retired content?

These are just some of the questions about tasks and responsibilities that you’ll want to answer through your content strategy. The guidelines you’ll want to set at this point will depend on the nature of your blog, and where you want to take it in future. For example, in developing my authoritative chicken keeping blog, I might choose to request guest posts from well-known breeders. This choice has implications for copyright, publishing schedules, consistency of style and voice, and so on. I’ll need to try to anticipate and answer those questions in my strategy.

5. Setting Your Plot

The work you’ve done so far forms the basis for your content strategy. You’ve defined a focus, audience and goals, and reshaped your blog (and its underlying process and management) so that it’s in the best possible position to achieve your goals as you go forward.

The final step involves setting out action plans to implement strategies and tactics that will help you achieve those goals over time.

That might involve tasks like:

• filling large-scale content gaps
• trying new content-sourcing tactics, post types, and media
• recycling, reusing or repackaging evergreen content to achieve the greatest possible return on your investment in it

When you work with content all the time, it can be hard to step back and see your blog as a whole. That’s why comparatively few bloggers have developed content strategies for their blogs. But a excellent content strategy can help you to focus, and build your offering strategically using content assets that appreciate, rather than devalue, over time.

Do you have a content strategy for your blog, or are you winging it?

About the Author: Georgina has more than ten years’ experience writing and editing for web, print and voice. She now blogs for WebWorkerDaily and SitePoint, and consults on content to a range of other clients.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blog Content Strategy 101

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One of the largest challenges for a new bloggers starting out in an established niche is to find a way to stand out from the crowd and find their first readers. Without existing profile and/or credibility – getting those first readers can be very tough.

To combat this a few years back a number of bloggers started to use ‘Guest Blogging’ as a technique to launch their blogs and grow their brands to new audiences. This technique launched many bloggers to prominence – including Leo Babauta, Brian Clark, Chris Garrett, Skellie, Jon Morrow (all of whom have guest posted on ProBlogger) and many many more.

Much has been written on the topic of how to use guest posting but one of the best resources that I’ve seen lately has been produced by Jon Morrow. He’s just released the first in a series of videos (#aff) on the topic and they are well worth watching.

I’ve seen the complete set of videos for myself and they are simple to watch, actionable and inspiring.

Jon himself has used guest blogging with fantastic success – including this fantastic post on speech recognition for bloggers here on ProBlogger which helped many.

Jon’s first video is completely free (no opt in required) and is well worth watching. His future videos require an opt in but you’ll get a feel for whether they’re right for you from the first one. I watched them all and they’re brilliant.

Do yourself a favour and set aside some time today to watch these videos.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Use Guest Blogging to Grow Your Blog Exponentially

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