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5 Things That Make Sure Your Content Pass The Test Of Time - DailyBlogTips

5 Things That Make Sure Your Content Pass The Test Of Time

Posted: 29 Jun 2012 11:00 AM PDT

How to know whether you are writing the right content, centered on the right keyword, for optimal exposure, and some search engine love?

Because knowing you are actually doing that can act upon how much you are passionate about that exact content, how work you invest in the whole procedure, how serious you are about that link building strategy and that marketing thing in general.

And being reluctant to think about this aspect of content can represent the difference between having the mindset to create a great content, or to just push another filler stuff on the shelf.

You have already chosen your niche, and there is no turning round, for better or for worse. The question however, you should be asking yourself right now is whether you are choosing the right material to fill that niche, ergo your blog. And that question ladies and gentleman is not that easy to answer.

I've been right there on the line asking myself whether that the material I'm about to produce is going to be worth the time invested in it. And to make long story short and cut right to the case, here is how I can almost always come with the answer that allows me to start typing and sleep sound at night, knowing that it wasn't all for nothing (well, not nothing, but at least time bad spent when elaborating about the whole investment-profit scenario, of course not just regarding the materialistic aspect that is).

And without further ado, here are a couple of ways to find out, and couple of questions you have to be asking yourself:

Five things that make your content pass the test of time

1. Go to Google Keywords tool. There you will find more than just numbers. It's what that numbers mean, and also what this tool is suggesting you to write. The numbers mean one thing – how many people are searching for the term you are inquiring about.

Knowing this you can make your equation upfront, and decide whether you are willing to trade hours for whatever that is that you want to achieve. The numbers show something more – and that is competition. You can see how competitive a term is, and judging by that make a logical and informed decision about whether you are going to step in.

The next thing that this tool shows is the related terms that people are searching as well. Being in the niche, and reading a lot, you should already know couple of related terms, so this is always a good test to see where you are standing in your niche.

By reading these terms you are not only seeing what is searched out there, but you are also learning the lingo within your own niche too.

And that's always a plus. For example when we were preparing a series of posts about a 5k run, we found out that what people wanted to learn about the most was how to get from couch to a good shape for the race.

And how did we learn this? Well, statistic showed that the term "couch to 5k" was the most searched term related to this thing. So by knowing this you can choose towards where to continue.

But, have also in mind that this tool is not the absolute truth, nor it's the only tool worth checking. Always try to do a little dirty work yourself, like checking the SERPs for that particular term and try to find out if anything is missing that you could fill out and provide a missing value to the niche.

2. Another useful tool that also comes from our favorite Google is "Google trends". Just go there and write a query. What you are about to see is gold in terms of knowing the future of the content you are about to write. Google trends show you the popularity in terms of searches for that exact query for quite some time in the past. And by that you can see whether the interest in this thing you are about to write is increasing over time, and how much is that growth when taken to a certain time frame.

And while knowing this you can't tell the exact numbers it will generate in five or six months, you will for sure be able to make quite better assumption compared to most people out there. You can also put two terms, and see how they compare to each other as well.

3. Guess things based on the offline world. How's that going to work? Simple, actually. I will again take the running 5k post we wrote for example. By talking to lot of people, and by witnessing how running became more and more popular, I figured that this subject is only about to grow in the near future. Also, I came to realize that people would get into it more and more, therefore becoming more serious and specific.

So posts like training schedule for the 5k race, and best tips for running the 5k race seamed very logical, since the interest for this is only about to grow. Another thing is your personal experience, or the experience of other people. What do I mean by that?

Well, If you start running (again taking the same example), you will start to see what matters more, and what is not that important. You will maybe even face some injury, and see the importance of preventing injuries yourself.

Going through all of this, you will have the picture of what is the most likely thing people will be looking for. And then you swoop in with your post and targeted keyword and give them what they are looking for. If there is a more complex thing involved, you can always look for communities and circles in which you can find more about what you are about to write. You will know the lingo, the phrases, the demand.

Try and ask yourself- is this going to be talked about a year from now? Are people catching to it ? The answer should be a positive one.

4. Follow the questions. See whether the thing you are about to cover is having some popularity on communities like Yahoo Answers or Quora. If so, you are off to a good start. Maybe even follow your peer bloggers. Forward an e-mail to some of them out there in your niche, and ask them whether it's ok to maybe write a guest post for them on that topic in the future. You will see how they are feeling about the subject.

5. Writing the post alone is not going to be enough. With the post you're only trying to answer the need for the subject on the market. You must answer this need without a question.

If you are writing a post about the tips on how to run a 5k race, then you better deliver them in the post. If you are writing about the best way to prevent injuries, then you must stay up to your promise. If you like your material to stay out there and to rank high in the engines, promoting it isn't enough. You have to make it so that it will promote itself. And that can be achieved only if you are satisfying the need of the readers with your content. Then you have social sharing, linking to your content, and the material gets the attention it deserved.

Composing the right material is crucial if you want a future for your blog. And while the filler and non-evergreen material that you are about to compose will not be so innocuous with regards to the survival of your site, it will for sure make so that your site never reaches its potential, and you never start making it for the long run – and if you are in this seriously, the long run should always be on your mind. Producing the material that gets talked about for ages to come, sure makes a difference with your blogging efforts.

Writing this post I didn't went to Google trends, or Google Keywords Tool, but being in blogging and experiencing this whole thing, as well as seeing the need of answering this question, I know that this material is going to be valuable to readers, and more so it would hopefully only gets more popular over time. So there you go – another example of how your experience will help you a lot. And that experience comes with time and patience.

Slavko Desik is a freelance writer and editor at Lifestyle Updated where he takes his passion for living full time and combines it with his knowledge of blogging and internet marketing.

Original Post: 5 Things That Make Sure Your Content Pass The Test Of Time

“Tips and Techniques for Selling Training on Your Blog” plus 1 more

Tips and Techniques for Selling Training on Your Blog

Posted: 29 Jun 2012 01:02 PM PDT

Training and electronic courses are common product offerings for bloggers, and as the range of tools and services available to help us create and market engaging courses has grown, so has the competition in this space.

Jules Clancy talked earlier today about offering classes and training as a blog business model.

Still wondering why you’d choose ecourses over other models? Have a look at 8 Great reasons to add an ecourse to your blog. This post explains the not-so-obvious advantages of this business model.

What does it take to create an online course? Peep Laja explains the basics in Creating Online Courses 101. It’s a great guide for those who are considering dipping their toes into the training waters—but want to know what they’re in for ahead of time.

What about the launch? How to launch a product on your blog (and sell out in 12 hours!) is Danny Iny’s story of the wildly successful launch of his first online course. Also see his post Make money locally—and globally—through your blog—there are more than a few tips in here to help you make the most of your own launch when the time comes.

Finally, Ramit Sethi’s advice on products, focused mainly on the launch of his course, has many tidbits to get you on the road to a great course launch. Even seasoned course sellers would do well to read this one!

Do you sell courses through your blog? What tips or resources can you add to the list?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Tips and Techniques for Selling Training on Your Blog

Blog Business Model 5: Sell Training and Courses

Posted: 29 Jun 2012 07:06 AM PDT

This is the fifth post in our series on Blog Business Models.

When you think of online training as a blogging business model, cookery classes may not be the first topic that springs to mind.

The Stone Soup course homepage

But Jules Clancy of The Stone Soup has created a successful cooking class business around her food blog.

Hi Jules. First up, can you share a bit of your history with us? How did you get into blogging?
My background is in food science. I used design chocolate biscuits for a living—for Australia’s largest biscuit manufacturer.

I love everything to do with food, so it was only natural that after getting addicted to reading food blogs, I took the leap to starting my own.

Your blog supports online training product offerings. Did you develop the blog first, and then adopt that business model, or develop the business first, then build the blog?

It was blog first for me. I had no idea where blogging would lead me, or that it was even possible to use a blog to make money online. It wasn’t until I’d been blogging for a few years that I came across the idea of turning a blog into a business.

And at what point did online cooking classes appear as an ideal product idea? Did you always think that that might be the way to go, or did you need to be convinced of the model’s viability first?

It wasn’t until I saw a class on the A-List Blogging Bootcamps called something like “Create Courses that Sell” that I even had the idea. But as soon as I had that “a-ha” moment, I decided to give it a shot.

Cooking is something that works really well on TV and video, so I figured it would translate well into a class format. (Although if we could get someone to invent ‘scratch and sniff’ video that would be even better!)

Ultimately, it was an organic evolution of my blog—that was just how it happened. There was no grand (or evil!) master plan.

Great. So in what ways does blogging support your training offerings?

Primarily, my blog attracts customers to buy my ebooks and my online cooking classes. It’s a way of developing a relationship with my readers to turn them into buyers.

That being said, my blog also works as an online business card. I have a book coming out next year because of my blog—my publisher discovered Stonesoup and contacted me about doing a book. It also works for speaking gigs, and I’ve done a bit of freelance writing based on contacts from my blogging.

What kinds of challenges do you face in using your blog to build your business?

At the moment, my biggest challenge is moving away from making most of my money when I launch a new cooking class to a more continuous (and sustainable) model. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to do it, but I think building a process with email marketing at the centre will be part of the solution.

I’m also struggling with conversions. For the amount of readers and traffic I get, I don’t think I’m doing a good job of turning them into paying customers.

So what converts best for you: your ebook or your courses? Do you think the blog reading marketplace is saturated with certain format offerings?

In terms of overall revenue, about 50% of my income comes from ebooks and 50% from courses. So even though ebooks are cheaper and convert better, the total income is about the same as the higher priced classes.

In terms of saturation, I think there’s always a market for high-quality products that solve real problems for people, regardless of the offering format.

You mention price. How did you work out how to price your classes?

Pricing is something I’m still experimenting with. At the beginning, I thought about what other classes cost, then considered what I thought I’d be prepared to pay for a course, and took it from there.

What are the key elements that have helped you get to where you are with your blog?

Passion! It’s a bit of a cliche, but in my case it’s totally true. I love cooking, writing about food, and taking photographs of what I cook. I can’t imagine doing anything else and enjoying it as much as I love working on my blog and my business.

Consistency has also been key. I promised myself when I started I would publish at least once every week and I’ve been doing that right from the beginning.

The quest for continuous improvement is also important. I’m not a perfectionist by any standards but I’m always thinking of how I can do things better.

That’s interesting. How do you continuously improve your courses? What’s involved in that process—from a content perspective, but also from product integrity and delivery viewpoints?

I ask my students for feedback. After I run a major class I do a short survey using Survey Monkey to collect testimonials and also get feedback on what worked and what needs improvement.

I’ve also started running a Poll Daddy quiz on my cooking school site so my students actually vote for the topic of the next class. Actually, you’ve just reminded me I’ve been meaning to set up a feedback option on the site using something like uservoice.com so it’s really easy for my students to give feedback, get help, and make suggestions.

Cooking’s a very cluttered niche. What’s unique about the way you’ve developed your offering?

I’m all about simplicity. All my recipes have only five ingredients and deliver big when it comes to flavour and healthiness.

And have you carried that philosophy through to your cooking classes?

Absolutely! Simplicity is really a core philosophy of my life, so even if I wanted to do a “fancy” or “complicated” cooking class, I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Right. So you mentioned Survey Monkey and uservoice, but what other tools or services do you rely on as you develop your business?

I’m using:

Aweber for email list management
Clickbank for selling products and their affiliate network
Visual Website Optimizer for split testing (although I’ve had a few issues recently with them).

What tools do you use specifically in developing and delivering your courses?

At first I had a little flip video camera for making my videos but I’ve since upgraded to a Nikon D7000 for recording video. And I just use imovie for editing videos. And then in terms of my membership site management, it’s a WordPress blog using the plugin Wishlist Member.

And how did you go about researching and sourcing those tools?

I’m very lazy when it comes to researching things like that, and I’m pretty sure the flip cam and Wishlist Member were what was recommended in the “Create Courses that Sell” class I took.

What advice, tips, and insider secrets would you give to someone who was just starting out with a blog business model based around selling training?

Get your own product out there sooner rather than later. I made the mistake of quitting my job and then not launching my first product for seven months, so there was no income coming in.

That was fine, but I would have been much better off to get something out there and start learning how to market etc. sooner rather than later. It’s definitely one of those things that you can only get really great at if you keep trying different things.

Interesting! So what does the future hold for Stonesoup and your course offering?

Hopefully lots more sales! And I’d like to have things more automated so I can step back a bit and spend more time in my veggie garden and less time in front of a computer screen.

Thanks to Jules for her time and advice. To find out more about Jules’s business, visit The Stone Soup, and check out the article she wrote for ProBlogger.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Blog Business Model 5: Sell Training and Courses