blogging

Top 10 Myths and Mistakes About Blogging and Internet Marketing

By Christian

As more and more of my peers in small business come online and start trying their hand at blogging and internet marketing, there are a number of common myths and mistakes that need to be addressed.

If you’re considering starting a blog or using social media to promote your small business, I applaud you. My goal for this post is to simply dispel some of the biggest lies, misunderstanding and obstacles I’ve come across that you will likely run into.

Hopefully you can use these as a way of saving yourself some time and get straight to the business of making your blog or website reach your goals.

Internet marketing as an afterthought: It’s a great idea to put yourself in your customers’ shoes. For many business models (dare I say nearly ALL business models) a customer’s most common point of interaction with you is your website. Your internet presence should be given a proportional amount of your time and attention. Many businesses ironically spend very little time on internet marketing. They’ll have a site that gets thousands of visitors a month, but they do very little if anything to effectively engage them. Instead, they expect people to call them and wade through an automated phone system in order to get information. You may prefer to do business a certain way, but it’s likely that your customer would prefer your website to be a lot more usable. And it may interest you that if you help them out in this regard, they will likely reward you for it : ) Don’t let your internet marketing be something that you’re just trying to squeeze in. It needs to be as integrated into your business as your customers would like it to be.
Let me just slam this website together. Let’s get this sucker DONE! This is a powerful myth and mistake many people make! Your internet marketing is an ongoing process. Think of it more as a dialog than anything else. When you walk away, the conversation stops. Ideally you want to be as active and engaged in your internet marketing as possible. Trying to crank out a website and then thinking that it’s going to keep pulling results for you without any additional effort is the wrong way of looking at it.
Marketing online is not the same as traditional marketing: Traditional marketing is interruption-based, which means that advertisers have always concentrated on grabbing people’s attention however they can. Getting a response was key. In online marketing, people are already paying attention, so trying to cram a message in front of them is just rude. Cultivating a relationship with your visitors is hugely important. That’s why blogging is something I consider to be pretty much mandatory for most small business owners, because it enables you to communicate with a large number of people very effectively and in a personal manner. Applying traditional marketing methods to your internet marketing most often comes off badly for you. It’s important to embrace the fact that a social approach to your marketing, while it takes more time, really is going to be the best approach.
Failing to build an email list: You want people to come out to your site, correct? And after they visit, you want them to come back. The number one way to get people coming back over and over again is by getting them to subscribe. And the number one way people subscribe is still via email. RSS is very convenient, but most readers still use email. If you’re not building your email list from day one, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. For email listing building tools and campaign management, I personally use Aweber and recommend you get in on that action as well.
Failing to have a coach or someone on your team who specializes in new media: Let’s be real. You have a business to run. You’re not a SEO expert. You’re not a web designer. You’re not going to be. You don’t have time. Too many business owners try to do too much. Consult with someone from time to time. Get someone on your team, whether it’s an employee or a virtual assistant, a coach or whatever asset your most comfortable with, and use their expertise to make sure you’re being effective. Have them critique you and tell you where you can improve. Talk with someone whose job it is to stay on top of these things, and take their advice. You will be 100% more effective by not trying to do everything yourself.
Focusing on design and SEO over content and communication: Everyone, especially business owners, want their site to look great. Yet look at some of the most successful blogs on the internet today, and not all of them look all that great. Why are they popular? How can you possibly create a winning online marketing plan without a $20k custom built website? Because believe it or not, all consumers really want is quality content. And they want it to come from you, because they care to know if you’re actually as cool as you want people to think you are. A glitzy website doesn’t impress many people any more. But quality, genuine content always will get the job done. What’s nice is that you can produce quality content for free. It just takes a little time and introspection. It’s highly worth it. Design is important, but content and quality interaction with your customers is WAY more valuable. It’s what your customers care about, so it’s what you should focus on.
Spending too much time and money on marketing that doesn’t work: This one isn’t so much of an internet marketing thing as it is a business thing. So many of my friends in business are still locked into a mentality that they HAVE to pay for certain forms of marketing that they’ve always done in the past, even when they’re not pulling results anymore. On the flip side, I know some forward thinking business owners who have literally cut out their print advertising completely, and it has had NO negative effect on their business whatsoever. Obviously I’m not telling you specifically what to do with your specific business, but I urge you to look at the results your marketing is getting you. Are your customers flooding your websites, but meanwhile you’re still spending thousands a month on billboards and space ads? It happens a lot. If your advertising is not working, CUT IT! And put your money into your online business; it’s where your customers are most likely to find you anyway : )
Not having fun: Fun is likely the most important element of this business. With all the options and tools at our disposal (blogs, websites, SEO, Twitter, Facebook, blah, blah, blah), it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But there’s an underlying opportunity here that most people seem to miss. You can do anything you want! You can literally make a great living doing anything you want, and as long as you’re willing to work like crazy you can do very well. Don’t become overwhelmed by your options; revel in them! Don’t be all stiff and proper with everything you do; have fun! With the amount of work that needs to be done, fun is mandatory. It also enables you to tackle the next step…
Not diving in: There’s a lot of concern amongst business owners as to the value of Twitter, for example. I get a lot of comments regarding how it just doesn’t make sense. There is a reasonable concern over wasting time on something that is not going to produce results. Time is valuable, and that concern is prudent. However, things change quickly these days, and it’s important to act if you want to get results. Instead of using your lack of understanding as a gauge, I recommend using something else. Look at the value of the network. If there are millions of people all in one place, and the community is very active, there is a huge amount of value there, and it’s a good idea to tap into it. Dive in. Trust me, after you’ve spent some time conversing with people on Twitter (or any valuable community), it will make more sense. And so it goes with the internet in general, the biggest community of all. Being committed to getting results is key to actually getting results. Being tentative with your internet marketing endeavors will only ever produce tentative results. Don’t focus on what you don’t know. Yes, there are things to learn, but the most important thing is to dive in.
Wanting results fast and automatically: I can’t blame anyone for wanting to get turnkey results from their internet marketing work. But it’s essential to measure your results properly. Measuring results from a blog or a social media profile in the same way that you measure results from a space ad you run in a magazine is not going to make you a happy camper. It doesn’t work the same way, and it doesn’t produce the same kind of results. Measure results using web analytics. Measure results via how many subscribers you’re getting and how many of them are buying from you. The details of this are certainly a topic for another post, but to suffice for now, don’t set up a blog and expect the orders to start pouring in automatically. Trust me, there are many points of data that you can use to keep your analytical mind more than pleased with the results you’re getting. Results are trackable using new media. But setting up a website and then sitting back and waiting for the money to start rolling in is going to lead only to disappointment.

Using new media is a little interesting…you basically cannot ignore this shift in the way of doing business. You really can’t. You have to learn to use these tools, and learning to use them is basically going to force you to rethink a lot about your business, how you measure results, etc.

A Key to Blogging Success: Fun is Mandatory

By Christian

There are so many things to talk about when it comes to making your blog successful. I’ve written 70 posts in the last couple months and I can already tell I haven’t even scratched the surface. Writing Next Level Blogger is going to be a blast! I wish the same enthusiasm for you and your blog. In fact, I want to make a quick argument as to why fun is not just nice; it’s actually the most important element of making your blog successful.

The technical aspects of successful blogging, internet marketing, seo and the like can consume you. There is a lot to learn. The flip side of that coin is that these technical aspects are also valuable. While I do believe it’s essential to take the time to learn the technical basics of blogging, I ALSO believe it’s essential to take a step back from learning at some point, and focus on DOING. The fact may seem self-contradictory, but it’s absolutely true.

The various aspects of success are very complicated, but achieving success is simple. It is not necessary to understand success in order to have it.

So the real question is this: do you want to understand every detail of what it takes to build a successful blog, or do you want to have a successful blog? It’s not necessary to do both!

In other words, you can read all day every day for the next year and still have a lot more to learn when it comes to search engine optimization, ppc, converting leads, etc. Or you can study a bit and then make the decision to IMPLEMENT on what you’ve learned. I recommend the latter.

It’s Smart to Be Dumb. Here’s why…

Why would you choose to implement when you clearly still have so much more to learn? Isn’t it better to learn as much as possible to make sure you’re doing things right? Actually, no. It’s a lot better to be out there hustling than it is to worry about doing everything perfectly.

The reason you choose to implement NOW rather than later, is because you have an idea that excites you…excitement and fun are the elements that are going to carry you through, not technical mastery. Trust me, if you’re having fun you are doing it right. It doesn’t mean you don’t have to work your tail off, but when it’s fun, it’s not really work, is it?

The Success Myth

It’s a myth that successful people do everything right…that they really have their act together…that they’re highly intelligent and sophisticated…that they’re more talented than you. It’s all B.S. The only thing necessary to get huge results is to put yourself out there. Yes, you will fail sometimes, and that’s OK. It’s also a myth that successful people don’t fail. They fail a lot. But they also never stopping hustling. That’s what it takes.

It might sound overly simplistic, but it’s just the way it is. The problem is this: most of us who haven’t achieved the success we feel we deserve just haven’t put ourselves out there enough. We may feel like we’re working very hard, but we’re working hard on the minutia of our business…we’re not hustling. We’re schlepping. It’s not fun to schlep. Schlepping does take care of minor details. But it doesn’t make big money. It doesn’t attract a large readership. It doesn’t achieve much at all in the grand scheme of things.

That’s why I’m arguing that the most important element of making your blog successful is fun. When it’s fun, you work hard, you never stop, you learn constantly, and when you fail you can’t wait to get right back in there.

It doesn’t take any less than this to make any business endeavor work, and blogging is no different.

If you want your business blog to rock, YOU have to rock. And if you want to rock…day in and day out…you simply have to be having fun. It’s absolutely essential!

You need to NOT concentrate on the small details. Don’t schlep. You need to concentrate on the big picture, and the big picture needs to be something that is absolutely exciting to you. It needs to wake you up at night because you can’t wait to get back at it in the morning. That’s what successful bloggers do. It’s what successful business owners in all areas do. They work 24/7, and they love every minute of it. Fun is mandatory.

Action is All that Matters

My hope for this post is to simply illustrate how important it is to act. Reading this blog and others in this space is a very smart thing to do, but the BIGGEST thing you can do to become successful is the simplest of all…dive in. Why? Because it’s fun. And fun is not only an absolute prerequisite to success, it’s also the most important ingredient to success. If you want this to work, it has to be fun!

Why It Really Is This Simple

The fact is you learn more by doing than by studying. Yes, you’re gonna make mistakes. Probably some really big mistakes. Who cares? The biggest secret to making a successful business blog is to make it FUN! That’s really the number one feature of any successful business venture anyway, isn’t it?

If you have a topic that you’re absolutely passionate about, launch it. Get out there and do it. If it’s fun, you will feel like me…that you have an endless amount of content you can produce, that the more you do the more ideas you get. If you’re having fun, the ideas never stop coming, your creativity is bottomless, your energy is piqued. Every new goal achieved simply energizes you even more.

And here is the key: when you are energized by your business, when you’re excited to get at it every day, when you can’t wait to see what ground you can gain every day…THAT is the place you want to be. That excitement and fun makes up for a world of not knowing exactly how to do everything.

Here are a few things you may not have considered:

It doesn’t matter if your site is not designed perfectly.
It doesn’t matter if your ads are not perfectly optimized.
It doesn’t matter if your blog is not 110% search optimized.
If you’re having fun, and you’re pouring yourself into what you do every day…success is in the bag! It’s a done deal. Maybe not overnight, but it’s as good as yours. First, if you’re having fun, you’re already a success. Second, if you’re having fun, you’re going to stick with it until things click. And the whole ride will be a blast 🙂

If you take anything away from this post, take this:

The answers and solutions (all the minutia) will come to you automatically as a result of your success, and your success will come as a byproduct of your excitement and enthusiasm. Don’t wait to have all the answers before beginning. Begin. The details will take care of themselves. Act.

What if You’re Not Having Fun?

I write about blogging. From a technical standpoint, a blog can be created in about 5 minutes if you know what you’re doing. If you’re not having fun, start something else. Seriously. Quit what you’re doing and do what you love. It takes hard work and tenacity to rise to the top in any niche. Make it fun. Fun first; from there, success is automatic. Besides, if you’re grinding through every day to become “successful”, you’re never going to make it. Do you really want to have a hugely “successful” blog that you hate running? Make it something you love. That way, success is yours from day one.

I Seriously Doubt You’ll Ever Be Cool Like Me

By Christian

Here’s the thing about learning to rock your business…there’s not a formula. Here’s the thing about success…there’s not a single way to do it. Yet everyone is looking for the formula, or the way. We have to cut this out.

You’re not cool like me. You’re cool like you.

I write every day, because I love to. When I was 9 years old, I would stay up til two in the morning writing. Something in me has just never been able to shut up. I do not claim to be an awesome writer, but I do love to write.

It’s About Love, People! Love What You Do!

It’s kind of like a lot of these young girls who become pop singers. Remember Michelle Branch? She’s really not that great of a singer (sorry girl!). But when you hear her sing, you can just tell that she really LOVES singing. It comes through, and it’s engaging. It’s not talent so much as it is love, and when you have that passion about what you do, you command people’s attention. Love. That’s what we all need to tap into. It sells more than just records.

Do you have to have a blog? Yes. Do you have to write on your blog every day? No. Do you have to be a great writer or passionate about writing to have a hugely successful blog? No. Do you have to do exactly everything that Leo Babauta or Brian Clark or Matt Cutts tells you to do? No. You should probably listen to what they have to say. You really should, but then you need to go do what you love. And you have to really rock it. When you rock, people cannot help but like you. We all love a rock star. And believe it or not, that’s what blogging is about. It’s not about finding “the way” or “the system”.

Rock stars don’t follow all the rules, and neither should you.

Rock n Roll is Not Dead

I love those Intel commercials that say “our rock stars aren’t like your rock stars”. That is the essence of new media. You can be the rock star of Bloomington, IN real estate. You can be the rock star of grilled hamburger recipes. You can rock anything you want. And yes, there are things you need to do, but the most important, crucial, undeniable thing you need to do is lock into what you cannot shut up about and just go with it.

For me, it’s writing. I’ve been criticized for not having pictures on this blog. Yes, I could spend time picking out stock photos that somewhat go along with the post I’m writing. But why? It’s taking energy away from what I’m good at and what I love. I accept that not everyone is going to dig my site. If you require pretty pictures in order to be engaged, this just isn’t going to be your cup of tea. But if you want straight up awesome written content on a regular basis that helps you promote your business and motivates you to grow, I think there’s a lot of value for you here. And I’m just getting started.

If You Don’t Love it, Don’t Focus on It

For you, maybe writing is not your thing. Maybe for you it’s video. Maybe it’s live blogging. Maybe it’s conducting seminars or interviews or meeting people face to face. Maybe you prefer to paint pictures or do podcasts…the point is that the possibilities are endless, and the further point is that there’s SOMETHING that you LOVE to do that is in alignment with growing your business.

You need to find it, and you need to blog it.

Believe me, when you tap into something that is absolutely exciting to you, work becomes fun. You can work tirelessly to make things happen, because you love doing it! And this is what makes you successful.

One True Success Flows to All Other Areas of Your Business

And here’s the thing about success. Real, true success in any one area of your life flows into all other areas of your life. You really think Next Level Blogger is going to succeed or fail based on whether or not I add pictures or not? No. If Next Level Blogger succeeds at reaching my goals, it will be because I was successful at getting my message out, and that can be done through pictures, yes. But it can also be done any number of ways. I choose to focus on my strengths and on what energizes me.

If you do this for your blog as well, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I could point out technical problems with a lot of very successful sites. I’ve seen very successful blogs with horrible permalink structures, confusing navigation, images without alt tags…the list is endless. You think the authors care? Why bother with this stuff?

If you think the success of your blog is going to hinge on whether or not every page is ultra-optimized, you’re not focusing in the right place! Focus on the one thing that you absolutely rock at. Do it every day. Do it with passion. Get your message across. Everything else…all the technical B.S….will take care of itself.

The Power of 100 for Blogging Success

By Christian

I’ve learned something from being in direct sales. It’s something that I feel a lot of other bloggers don’t get. As internet marketers, we spend so much time working on our sites, to optimize and get more traffic. We want to capture as much search traffic as possible, and I think it’s smart to make those efforts.

But I think there’s something a lot more important that we should put at the front of our priority list when it comes to building our small business online. And that something is the power of 100.

For the past week, I’ve been tweeting out updates like “30 down, 70 more to go!” I’ve received many inquiries about what the heck this means, and what it means is that I have a rule, and I’ve decided it’s important to once again follow that rule.

Here’s the rule:

Make 100 contacts a day.

That’s it. Touch 100 people every day. Whether I respond to an email, call someone on the phone, send a letter in the mail…it doesn’t matter. 100 daily. That’s the rule.

Why? Because it forces me to be social. And being social is not only energizing and a heck of a lot of fun, but it’s also an essential process for building your business. In case you haven’t noticed, people rock!

Where the Power of 100 Came From

It comes from my direct sales experience. In direct sales, if you’re not making contacts you’re out of business. Well, I’ve learned to adapt to internet marketing, and here is something I’ve learned about internet marketing…a lot of us hide behind our computers.

It’s very easy to tweak on your site all day. VERY easy. I’ve done it. It’s very easy to spend all day reading blogs or studying tutorials, or God forbid, coding! Tweaking ads, the list goes on…and I’m not busting on any of these things. It’s important to have your site looking good. It’s important for your ads to be optimized, etc. But it’s MORE important…MASSIVELY more important to talk to people.

Why the Power of 100 will Transform Your Business

Why? Because no matter how awesome you are, and no matter how awesome your site is, if you’re not talking to people every day, no one is going to care. Because at the end of the day, no one cares if you’re awesome! People want to know what’s in it for them, and if you want to make money online, you need to be interested in interacting with them to find out how you can help!

Here is My Challenge to You

So here is my challenge to you: make 100 contacts a day. Do it with me! I will continue to put out my updates, and I encourage you to do the same. Are you following me on Twitter? Do it, and let’s kill this thing together! There is power and motivation in numbers! Make 100 contacts a day. It will build your business; I promise!

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

I’m using the #powerof100 hashtag to track tweets related to this program. Even if I’m the only one doing it, it’s cool. I’m doing this because I know it works, and since I write a blog, it occurred to me how cool it would be if I could get even one or two other people doing this also. I guarantee, it’s difficult to produce like this every day, and it also changes your business like you wouldn’t believe!

Like I said, I have seen many top performers over the years employ a simple rule like this, and it creates tremendous results. Bottom line, it goes along with all the basic concepts I cover on Next Level Blogger:

It’s very simple
It’s a lot of work
It gets MASSIVE results over time!

Here’s what counts:

Respond to a message: email, tweets, phone calls…it’s all good.
Blog comments: real, thoughtful, engaging ones…not thoughtless spammy ones. The point is real contacts.
Writing a letter, emailing a friend, following up on a lead, etc.
You get the idea…here’s the rule: it needs to be a PERSONAL, ONE-ON-ONE contact.

Here’s what doesn’t count:

Emailing your list: if you email a bulk list of 1,000 contacts, it doesn’t count as 1,000 contacts! Emailing your list is good and necessary, but this principle is only for PERSONAL, ONE-ON-ONE contacts. The point is personal engagement.
Spam commenting: you surely understand this, right? Any form of automation is not the point.

If you make the effort to personally engage 100 people a day on a personal level, you will see real power and real results from this. Like I mentioned, I learned this in direct sales, and I know some of the top sales people in the US literally are employing this concept right now, today, as you read this. It works! Get to it and let me know how it goes!

Talking to People is More Important Than Anything Else You Do

By Christian

There is so much concern about getting traffic to your blog. This is how you get people to your blog: Talk to people!

When you talk to people and become a valuable part of the conversation in your space…wherever that is, you will get traffic to your site. Now, KEEPING that traffic, getting subscriptions and actually selling, monetizing and so on and so forth are all essential elements as well, but the point I want to make here as succinctly as possible is this: Talking to people is the number one most important thing you are going to do to build the success of your blog.

So Where Can I Find These People You Speak Of?

People are everywhere, aren’t they? They’re not hard to find! There are a lot of tips I’ve read about where to go, and the TRUTH is that they ALL work…if you’re talking to people, you’re doing it right. The better the quality of the conversation, the more valuable it is for all concerned, the better it is for your business. You are branding when you talk to people.

You Are a Salesperson

It might seem scary, but you are a salesperson. Yes, YOU. You are in sales, and you may never have wanted to be in sales, but the world has changed, and to make it in business, you have to be able to make it online, and to make it online, you have become a good salesperson.

Lucky for you, I’ve been a sales trainer for years, and I have a very important fact I’ve learned that I hope will help you with this:

Sales comes naturally to very few people, but ANYONE can learn it. And with practice, EVERYONE can benefit massively from learning sales skills.

This the essence of why I started Next Level Blogger. To teach sales skills. I’m not about big media, and I’m truly not a techy guy. I’m a salesman, and I’ve learned how to apply sales principles to internet marketing. And one of the first things you learn in sales is that if you’re not face to face with a prospect, you’re unemployed. If you want to make it, you have to engage people.

Talking with people is key. It is absolutely mandatory. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Yahoo Answers, some Facebook group or a forum you just joined…it’s all essentially the same. Ideally, do them all! There is not one place that’s better than any other. The point is that you’re getting out there, networking and engaging people on a personal level as much as you can.

What Are You Doing Right Now to Grow Your Business?

Do you spend more time tweaking your site than you do networking? Do you spend more time creating content than you do networking? Do you spend more time reading about how to blog than you do networking? If so, you are doing it backwards!

The fact is that tweaking your site is important. So is creating content and reading content. I recommend all of them, but if you want people coming to your site, the number one most important thing you can do is to simply talk with people. A lot of them. Every day.