Blog Tweaks

Blog Hot Spots to Maximize and Get More Offers in Front of Readers

It’s easy to look at your blog and think, “Wow, this site rocks!”

And why not?

The design is pretty cool, the logo is great, and you even have an awesome headline for your latest article.

Yet no one is sticking around and no one is subscribing. Your last article had an amazing 0 comments, and you earned exactly five cents from Adsense. You haven’t had a new subscriber in over a month.

I’ve got some advice for you. Make some changes to your site, and I guarantee you’ll start to see some growth on your blog.

It’s not enough to make you a ton of money, but by implementing these simple changes, you’ll begin to grow your blog in the direction that you want.

On my blog, I call these areas the “Three Hot Spots.” They’re the most important spots on any blog to get important offers in front of readers. Keep reading to learn how to use these hot spots to maximize your blog. [Read more...]

5 High School Grammar Rules Great Writers Learn to Break

By Joseph Putnam 27 Comments

We’ve all been there before–sitting in Mrs. Thompson’s (or whoever’s) high school English class–getting grilled about proper grammar for essay writing:

“Never use first or second person.”

“Never start a sentence with but or and.”

“Never end a sentence with a preposition.”

“And never, ever write a paragraph that’s only one sentence long.”

What’s the problem with these rules? [Read more...]

Valuable Blogging Advice from the WordPress Crash Course Webinar with Carol Tice

By Joseph Putnam 8 Comments

On Wednesday of last week I had the privilege of doing a webinar for Carol Tice from the Make a Living Writing blog. She’s a freelance writer who helps other writers make their writing goals come true, and she recently started The Freelance Writers Den to create a community where writers can help each other succeed.

She also invited me and another blogger named Brandon Yanofsky from B-list Marketing to join her for a webinar to discuss the technical aspects of WordPress for her writing inclined audience. The webinar went very well, and I was really excited to be asked to participate. If you’re interested in listening to the full webinar, you can buy a copy here.

If you’re not interested or aren’t ready to pay for it, I’ve summarized some of the highlights below. Enjoy! [Read more...]

How to Create Positive First Time Blog Impressions

By Harrison Li 9 Comments

How many different websites have you visited in your liftetime? A lot.

But the key question is this: how often do you go back to a website you previously visited? Not a lot.

Every time you land on a site or blog you have never visited before, your brain naturally processes a series of tests about whether you should come back or not. The topic of those tests is called first time impressions.

For instance, after you visit a new site, the answer to the test may be, “I’m never going to visit
this site again. Not ever.” It happens all the time.

Having said that, the opposite of rejecting is accepting. So what happens if our brains
naturally pass those tests and accept a new site? That means the site exceeds your average rules of expectations. If you said it’s ok, or pretty good, it’s probably not good enough. But if it really stands out in your mind, you’ll probably come back.

This is one of the most important factors in growing a popular blog that attracts new
readers—you need to create positive first time impressions. [Read more...]

Why Your Blog Won’t Survive without Providing Value

By Joseph Putnam 10 Comments

Blogging isn’t about getting a few people to read a post every now and then.

It’s about finding readers that like your blog enough to subscribe and read week after week.

The goal is to gain raving fans that can’t get enough of what you write because that’s the only way your blog will survive.

So how you do get more fans? How do you get readers who come back to read what you’ve so painstakingly written?

The answer is value. [Read more...]

5 Easy Sources for Great Blog Post Ideas

By Joseph Putnam 27 Comments

Consistently coming up with great blog post ideas can be tricky.

For posts to be successful, they need to provide value for readers, but it’s not easy to constantly come up with topics that do.

To help with this, here are five sources to help you find useful and valuable content ideas: [Read more...]