Having Trouble Keeping Up With Your Favourite Blogs?

If you own and operate a blog of any kind and for any purpose, chances are you also love reading other people’s blogs. Along with being insightful and entertaining, reading blogs is also critically important for gaining inspiration and direction for your own blog.

 

Unfortunately, there never seems to be sufficient time in the average day to keep up with the blogs you love. Particularly when you find yourself coming across new blogs all the time which instantly make it to your must-read list.

So if there simply aren’t enough hours in the day, how can you ensure you successfully keep up with your favourite blogs?

1: Edit Your Reading List

Well, the first thing you need to do is revisit your e-mail and RSS subscriptions. Assuming you have a reading list that is growing all the time, it is inevitable that you are going to need to make room by eliminating any blogs you can live without. Be as brutal as necessary to get rid of those that are not quite up there with the rest.

2: Get an RSS Reader For Your Tablet/Smartphone

You might also want to think about grabbing yourself a decent app to help you keep up with your favourite blogs on the go. There are plenty of paid and free mobile apps available, which are designed to collect, manage and read RSS feeds on just about any mobile device

3: Turn Blogs Into eBooks

It might sound like a strange course of action to take, but converting the blogs you read into files that can then be ported to your e-reader can be surprisingly effective. Particularly if you tend to go long periods of time without catching up with your favourite blogs, only then to find yourself with more updated content then you know what to do with. And of course, reading from the screen of an e-reader can be so much easier on the eyes than reading from a smartphone or tablet PC.

4: Look for Podcasts

If you can get yourself into the kinds of blogs that also feature podcasts, you’ll find it so much easier to keep up with your favourite bloggers. Particularly if you spend a lot of time behind the wheel – podcasts are a great way of passing the time during short and long journeys alike, while at the same time accessing the information and insights you need.

5: Skip Irrelevant Posts

Last but not least, regardless of how insightful or entertaining your favourite bloggers may be, this doesn’t mean that each and every post they publish will be 100% relevant to you personally. In fact, they may publish quite a lot that’s of no value to you whatsoever. As such, it’s worth getting yourself out of the mindset whereby you cannot bear the thought of missing a single word they publish. If the headline and/or first sentence doesn’t appeal to you instantly, skip the post entirely and move on.

Popular Blog Ideas for Your New Business Venture

It’s no secret that blogging has the potential to be an incredibly lucrative business venture. All over the world, bloggers in growing numbers are asking and receiving huge sums of cash as influencers, having earned extensive and dedicated audiences.

Technically speaking, most people could achieve at least some kind of success with their own personal blog. After all, we’re all experts at something…right?

The secret to coming up with a great idea for a new blog lies in two things. The first of which being to focus on something you know and are passionate about, the second being to focus on a subject of interest to other people.

A difficult balancing act to pull off?

Perhaps not, as there are more diverse and wide-reaching subjects of interest to the masses these days than ever before. So if you’re looking to start a blog business venture and need a little inspiration, here’s quick rundown of just a few of the most popular web topics you might like to consider:

1. Self-improvement. 

 Any advice and guidance you could offer those looking to improve themselves, both in professional and private capacities alike.

2. Health & Fitness for Busy People. 

Why not base your blog on the kinds of simple, effective and workable health and fitness strategies that suit those with very little time on their hands?

3. Languages. 

 If you speak a foreign language even to a relatively modest extent, you could start a blog to help those interested in picking up the basics.

4. Budget Travel. 

Everybody loves travelling and the vast majority of travellers prefer to do so for the lowest price possible. Why not share all those budget travel tips and tricks you’ve come up with over the years?

5. Dining Out. 

 If you’re the type that likes to eat out on a regular basis, why restrict your comments and recommendations to other sites like TripAdvisor? There’s nothing to stop you starting your own site/blog that could become the next big thing.

6. Recipes. 

The key to success if looking to share recipes lies in offering something different. Or at least, something with a very specific focus. Meals for under £3, dishes that exclude certain ingredients, cooking for fussy kids in less than 15 minutes and so on.

7. How-to Hacks. 

 Simple guides and tutorials covering everyday tasks and projects are spectacularly popular these days. So why not share your own unique and innovative ways of getting things done with other people?

8. Relationships. 

 Likewise, millions of people from all over the world turn to the web every day for advice and guidance on various relationship issues. Whether serious, light hearted or downright hysterical, surely you’ve plenty of words of wisdom to share!

9. Music. 

 Share your thoughts, reviews, recommendations and so on to those with similar tastes in music to your own. Or perhaps go one step further and base your blog around playing musical instruments, production, editing and so on.

10. Sports.

Last but not least, if you can bring your own unique voice, tone and style to a dedicated sports blog, you could be golden. Which technically should be relatively easy – just as long as you focus on a sport or activity of any kind you are genuinely passionate about!

 

Yes, You Do Have Time for Creative Writing

Some writers insist that their busy schedules get in the way of their creativity. Rather than focusing their efforts on quality content, they’re instead left with little to no time to write anything at all. Hence, the copy they come up with isn’t exactly their best work.

The thing is though, if creative writing is part and parcel of your profession, you need to make time for it. Irrespective of how busy your schedule may be, there are countless avenues to explore for freeing up a little time here and there.


Three of which you’ll find outlined below:

1. Cut Down on Social Media Time

If you’re anything like the vast majority of people these days, you’re probably spending far too much time on social media. Even if it’s only a few minutes here and there, it can quickly add up to several hours per week. Hours wasted doing nothing productive whatsoever.

It’s not a case of quitting social media entirely, but instead focusing on a strategic cut-down. Particularly during your working hours, when these kinds of distractions should be avoided entirely. As important as it is for you to stay connected, you can always check those non-business messages a little later. Facebook isn’t going anywhere, so there’s no rush!

2. Always Carry a Notebook

Why rely exclusively on technology to enable your craft? It can be far better and more enjoyable to go back to basics, carrying a notebook and making use of any spare time that comes your way. If it takes you 30 minutes by bus to get to work, that’s five hours a week you could dedicate to creative writing. All without the usual distractions creeping into the equation.

It’s also worth remembering how therapeutic traditional writing can be. Rather than straining your eyes staring at a screen, give the paper option a shot and see how it works for you. You never know when and where inspiration might strike – Harry Potter started out with nothing more than a pen and a napkin!

3. Schedule Creative Writing Time

Last up, if creative writing is part of your job, surely it’s worth bringing it into your schedule. If it’s a genuine priority, don’t simply cast it to one side until time permits. Bring creative writing into your schedule, ideally getting into some kind of effective routine.

If your current schedule is already full, think about which duties are more or less important than creative writing. Even if you simply slot 20 minutes of creative writing time into your lunch break, that’s more than one and a half hours per week. Or, more than 75 hours per year. A small price to pay to get those creative juices flowing and ensure your talent doesn’t go to waste.

In a nutshell therefore, it’s always possible to find at least some time to dedicate to creative writing. It’s simply a case of weighing up your priorities and focusing on what really matters.

A Monthly Checklist to Keep Your Blog On Track

Give your business blog appropriate time and attention and it will reward you for your efforts. By contrast, neglect it and it may bring you nothing but bother.

The problem being that while so many business blogs start out great, their respective ‘owners’ sooner or later begin letting things slip. It becomes less of a priority, quality begins to slide and the benefits it once brought to the business slowly but surely disappear.

Which is why it’s a good idea to perform on-going health checks on your blog, just to ensure it and you are doing your jobs properly. It doesn’t have to be difficult – simply get into the habit of working with the following monthly checklist and you’ll find it much easier to keep your blog on track:

Interpret Data

First of all, owning and operating a blog – even a successful one – isn’t enough. If your blog is successful, you need to find out why and capitalise on whatever it is you are doing right. If it isn’t successful, you need to know what you are doing wrong and change things accordingly. Or if it’s ok but could certainly be improved, the same applies. Reviewing analytics and working with the data you collect should represent one of the most important core duties in the operation of your business blog. If it doesn’t, you are effectively grasping blindly in the dark and have no idea how or why your blog is performing as it is.

Rank Entries

When dealing with data, take a good look through your most successful entries for the month or year to date, in order to rank them in terms of performance. It’s crucially important to keep a log of your successes and failures in terms of entries and headlines, in order to determine what your target audience members do and do not respond well to. Focus on things like number of shares, time spent on each article, number of clicks, bounce rates and so on. This way, you’ll have yourself something of a blueprint mapping out the most successful posts/titles for your blog.

Itemize Content
Variety is the spice of life – something that applies to blog management just as much as anything else. In order to ensure that you are providing your readers with sufficient variety, it’s good to get into the habit of itemising content. For example, establish headers like video tutorials, infographics, podcasts, lists, opinion pieces and so on, checking each month that each category has been given sufficient attention.

Strategize for Next Month

Last but not least, once you have taken care of all of the above, you will have all the information you need to develop a near guaranteed winning strategy for next month. The worst thing you can do with any blog is to simply make things up as you go along. The more strategic you are and the more you base your strategies on the data you collect, the higher the likelihood of next month being even more successful for both your blog and your business.

Should I be blogging for my business?

Once upon a time, blogging was just for journalists, fashionistas, foodies and other people who though the world needed to hear what they had to say. Though bloggers became very influential, they remained within the ‘bloggosphere’ and few large corporations jumped on the blogging bandwagon.

Fast forward a few years however and things are very different. Thanks to the impact of social media and the influence of Google’s updated algorithms, blogging is now very much a tool for business. In fact, blogging is now so effective your company can no longer afford to ignore its power.

Google

If you’re trying to improve your company’s SEO and boost your URL up the Google rankings, incorporating a regular blog into your website is an absolute must. For a while now, Google has been favouring sites that keep their content fresh. Adding a weekly or monthly blog to your site shows Google that you’re maintaining and updating it. A blog is also an excellent chance to add more keywords to your site and fill it with information rich links and images.

Social media

Social media is an incredibly powerful - and affordable - marketing tool. Used properly, social media helps you to connect with your clients, build a personality for your company and create a loyal customer base. If you add a blog to your site, you can promote it on social media and show your customers that you’re an active participant in the network.

If your blog is interesting and relevant enough, the members of your social network will like and share it, boosting brand awareness and giving your business high quality marketing for free.

Growing your business

As well as being good for your company image, blogging is also great for business. A whopping 60% of companies who blog acquire more customers, a statistic that even the most cautious business owners can’t afford to ignore.

Building a relationship with customers

A blog is a great way to create a dialogue with customers and to build a solid business relationship. Through a blog, customers can get to know your company, your products and your services, ensuring that you’ll be the first name they think of next time they’re looking for anything you offer.

A blog also shows that you’re an authority in your area, giving existing and potential customers confidence in your abilities.

If you’re one of the many businesses that hasn’t yet embraced the blog, now’s the time to begin

What Are The Benefits Of Business Blogging?

Despite the number of successful bloggers out there, many people still aren’t convinced of its benefits for online marketing. After all, they say, all you are doing is writing articles – you are not actually ‘selling’ your product so how can this grow your business? The answer is that you are selling the image of your company – the idea of yourself as a brand. And in this oversaturated global marketplace, this is a crucial differentiating factor. If you’re still not convinced, here are just some of the many key benefits of business blogging: 

Increasing Client Base: It’s hard to attract new clients if your website isn’t regularly updated because your search engine rankings will fall. A regularly updated, well-written blog is a great way to keep your site fresh without having to spend a lot of time changing the graphics. Furthermore, if your blog addresses specific problems faced by your customer base then they will come to trust you as an expert in your field and are more likely to be converted into paying clients rather than casual visitors.

Increasing Your Writing Prospects: If you are already running a business but want to become a published author in your field of expertise to boost your personal brand then a blog is a great way to start. For one thing, it’s a regular discipline that helps you to become a better, more fluent writer. If you engage with customers by encouraging comments it will also help you to discover what people like to read and what they don’t. By the time you come to write your book you will have gained a lot of knowledge of your customer base and hopefully also built up a ready-made audience to buy your book. A large number of online followers always sits well with potential publishers.

Building A Network: If your blog is well written then hopefully you will start to build up your own online network to engage with through both your website and social media platforms. Not only will this hopefully increase your client base, it also gives you access to other experts with whom you can share advice and information. It’s good to have this kind of mutual support in today’s competitive market environment.

Improving SEO: Contrary to what many believe, search engine rankings are still important. After all, search engines are still there to deliver results that will be useful and relevant to their users. If you write valuable articles around a particular topic to a consistently high standard then search engines will recognise this and your search engine rankings will rise accordingly.

5 Essential Tools Your Business Needs To Boost Your Online Presence

Let’s face it, if you are still not marketing your business online than you are not reaching at least 80% of your total potential customers. With the internet evolving every day and most people having internet access, you cannot afford not to market your business online. By building a good online presence and building your brand, you can reach millions of customers from all parts of the world! It’s time to get educated! Read on…


You absolutely need a website!
It all starts with your own company website. You can easily register a domain name for your website and preferably use your company name as the domain name. Showcase your company brands and services offered on your site. Give more details and information about your company and make sure your contact details are on your site for potential customers to be able to reach you.
Your website will enable you to even sell your products online. Just add a shopping cart and online payment processer on your site and you are good to go. Your website can make sales for you 24 hours a day, while you sleep!

Once your website is up and running, it is important to update it regularly. You want to encourage your website visitors to be repeat visitors and to do this you need to always have new content on your website. Whether you update your site with your latest products, latest company news, products specials, related articles, anything! Just make sure you always have fresh new content on your site to make people come back for more. You want to use your site to build a loyal reader base that will later convert into customers.

Add a Blog to your site!
A blog is a great way to add fresh content your site. You can add just about any content in a blog, preferably articles relating to your company and products. The great thing about having a blog is that it allows reader engagement and allows your readers to comment on your blog posts. This interaction will help build a relationship with your customers and increase repeat visitors.
Not only will this be good for returning customers but this will help you get new customers. The more your online presence improves, the more likely your website will start appearing in search engine results such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Just make sure your blog is easily located on your website so that your readers know where to access it. Similar to your website, make sure you add fresh new blog posts on a regular basis to your blog so there is always new content for your repeat customers.

Add Social Media to your site
Make sure that you add links to social media accounts of your company on your website. Yes, you have to create social media accounts. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even Instagram. They all work in building your brand online. Create these accounts using your brand or company name so they can easily be found on these sites.

For Facebook, you will have to create a Facebook page with the same name as your company. The content on here will be similar to a blog and very simple to run. Social media is powerful as it allows people to share posts and content. This creates the possibility of information about your company going viral. Your company will be reached by more users on these platforms.

More importantly you will be reaching potential customers who are using mobile devices. As technology is evolving, people are becoming more comfortable in using their mobile devices in buying products online. By aligning your business with social media you are tapping into those customers that do not use computers to access the internet. This places you 10 steps ahead from your competitors.

Go Viral with YouTube
Like social media, YouTube has also become very social. YouTube videos get shared everywhere! From blogs, tweets and Facebook even on instant messengers. Did you know that YouTube has over 1 billion users? How many customers do you think you can reach on YouTube…Thousands!
Make sure you create a YouTube channel with your company name and upload videos on a regular basis. Upload cool videos that people will like and share. Even YouTube videos end up in search engine results. This will boost your online presence.

Email Marketing
Email marketing on its own has been a successful way of converting leads into customers. There is no reason why you cannot take advantage of this. By adding an email submit form on your website, you can easily build a database of potential customers who are interested in your service or products. You can send them regular newsletter about your latest products, special and useful information. Just make sure that you do not spam them.
Building an online presence may seem like a difficult task for any small business but by implementing these 5 tools, you will be known to the world sooner than you ever imagined!

Latest Research Revealed By Technorati Media: - Why Your Business Must Have A Blog

Technorati’s 2013 Digital Influence Report is hot off the press – and its findings might just surprise you.

The report surveyed 6000+ influencers, 1200 consumers and 150 marketing companies to produce a series of valuable insights that could assist your marketing efforts considerably.
As business owners, we are constantly reminded that building strong relationships is key to producing great outcomes in terms of sales and peer recommendations. And Technorati’s latest research confirms that more consumers are turning to blogs rather than favouring social networks like Facebook and Twitter when looking to make purchases (both online and off).

Although blogs have traditionally been considered trusted sources of information, now that level of trust has moved one step closer to the marketplace, with consumers seeking the opinions of influential blogging communities before reaching for their credit cards.

And while we’re on the subject of communities, the research team found that half of the consumers surveyed believed smaller communities to be more influential sources of recommendations than larger communities.

This is interesting, as frequently we have witnessed some of the major global brands attempting to literally explode the size of their online communities by using the influence of a ‘major player’ in blogging circles, believing this to the path to greatness.

Could it be actually, that a more direct path to greatness could involve building smaller, more exclusive communities, with a team of strong personal influencers on board whose purpose is to attract highly prized members to the clan? The point being, that the popularity of an A-list blogger, say, isn’t necessarily indicative of trust.

Equally, there may be many lesser known bloggers whose influence over their smallish communities is such that forming a good working relationship with these people could prove a real asset to your business (a mutually beneficial one naturally).

The survey showed that 86% of key influencers blog and 88% of those blog for themselves. What is also interesting is that 59% of those surveyed use blogging as virtually their only digital content platform. For these committed blogging folk, the only true indication of success comes from more and more people reading their content.

So the number one priority for business bloggers has to be winning the trust of their audience – and getting people talking about them.

Ideally this process should happen long before products and pricing get a mention.

Successful blogging has always been about providing content people want to read and engage with. Keeping this maxim front of mind when creating a marketing strategy for your blog will help you target the right influencers in the right way – and get great results too.