Warning: People Are Ignoring Advertising. But They Do Read News

Just over 20 years ago, David Ogilvy noticed that people weren’t reading his ads as much as they were the editorial sections of newspapers. In fact, the main content was receiving five times the amount of attention as his well crafted copy. Ogilvy, never one to shy away from actuation boundaries, came up with the novel intent of making his ads appear more like news, and so the advertorial was born.

Advertorials have now become a stable form of newspaper advertising. Ads disguised as news can be indistinguishable from the editorial content, apart from the footnote to inform/protect readers. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever been stuck in front of your computer screen, not quite being healthy to decide what to do next?

Not that there is anything wrong with a little bit of daydreaming every now and then, but getting into the above state is terribly unproductive.

If you use blogs in your marketing or they are your primary source of online income, being in the above state puts you in serious trouble. If I had a penny for every blog that is started with good ambitions but then simply allowed to die a slow death, I would no doubt be one of the richest men in the world.

The thing that makes blogs “search engine magnets” is that they are frequently updated. So if you have several blogs you had better keep updating them if you want them to prosper.

Have a plan/routine

Hoping that I won’t come off as some two-bit self help expert here, much of your success depends on you having a plan - any plan at all. I remember reading in a book about playing chess something along the lines that “even having a lousy plan is better than having no plan at all”. In practice, being organized is essentially what I am talking about here.

Ideally you should make your own routine that you follow apiece and every day. You must plan this so that it suits your particular needs of course, but here are a few good ideas I have found useful to stay on top of keeping my blogs updated:

- Absolutely keep some sort of diary of which blog was updated when and with what. I like to do this in a spreadsheet and have it organized so that I quickly can see which blog is most “in the need of an update”. I also enter details about ideas I might blog about at a later time, if I have installed any new plug-ins, submitted the blog to a directory etc.

- Each day, keep yourself updated with what is happening in your niche. I like to do this by subscribing to some relevant rss-feeds as this allows me to quickly see what is happening on many different sites using free software like Feedreader. If you find other interesting blogs you should naturally subscribe to their feed. Relevant keyword searches at google or yahoo news, and an appropriate category at a favourite article directory are also good things to check out on a regular basis.

Try to think of yourself as a cranky old newspaper editor at this stage, ask yourself “where’s the beef” - and if there isn’t one simply move on to the next task at hand. This keeps you from wasting time and going off on irrelevant tangents.

- With the above two tips in mind, try to have some sort of schedule for updating your blogs. But if you happen to find something really newsworthy when browsing through your rss-feeds, by all means blog about that right away or at least make a note about writing a future post about it (if it can wait).

- Above all else, don’t get stuck on the drawing board too long with anything you do. Just see to it that you blog a little every day, spend a little time promoting the blog and - if your stuff is any good - you will see success eventually.

On Webhosting-tips

Blogosphere’s Amway : BlogRush

John Reese is the consummate scientific marketer. He’s brilliant.

He, of all people, understands the power of good numbers. In his time he’s prefabricated millions off very smart online marketing and self-promotion. He has seen first hand that creative and effective marketing to a huge list of eligible leads can yield massive returns.

Now, with BlogRush, John has turned his understanding of numbers into the Amway of the Blogosphere. Read the rest of this entry »

IN FAVOR

1. Targeted traffic. Unlike traditional traffic sharing schemes, BlogRush matches the headlines in the widget to the content of your blog. This is done using both categorization and proprietary content matching technology.

2. At least it’s not PayPerPost. Services like PayPerPost are there solely to get a link so that the service in question rises up the Google rankings. Google doesn’t like the intent that people can buy their way to the top, and attempts to ignore these paid links. As far as we can see, BlogRush widgets do not give pagerank, so they will not hurt your blog in Google’s eyes. Read the rest of this entry »

By rkelley

Too often in forums (and in a few of the questions the Shoe readers asked) I see something along the lines of “How do I make money online” or “How can I be successful in X within X time frame.” Every time I see this question I get pissed off. It’s like a flabby mortal saying “I want abs and big muscles by tomorrow” as he shoves another Twinkie in his mouth. Not. Going. To. Happen. Read the rest of this entry »