Buffer App – you may have heard about it over the past few months. Lots of people have been talking about how they use the Buffer App to Tweet more effectively.

You may be wondering – What Is Buffer App. In this article I’ll explain what it is and why you may (or may not) want to use it.

What Is Buffer?

The Buffer App website says it best:

Buffer makes your life easier with a smarter way to schedule tweets. Work out all your tweets at one point in time during the day. Then fill up your Buffer with your tweets and Buffer schedules them for you. Simply keep that Buffer topped up and you will then be tweeting consistently all day round, all week long.

Buffer App is really very simple. It works on the premise that a lot of the time, the Tweets that we send aren’t seen by our followers. This is because of the way that Twitter is. Twitter, like Facebook (well at least, like Facebook used to be) is based on a timeline. So your tweets appear as they happen in someone’s Twitter stream. If they have a lot of friends, then they may not notice your tweet, particularly if they aren’t looking at Twitter around the time that you make your tweet.

So if we accept that a lot of our tweets aren’t getting the biggest audience that they could, we need to figure out how to change that.

And this is where Buffer App comes in.

Buffer lets you schedule your tweets at a time that your followers are more likely to see them. I’ve written before about how I live in Australia and most of my followers are in America and Europe. So I’m asleep for a lot of the time that they’re active on Twitter.

The way I get around this is that I automate some of my tweets, using TweetAdder. But whilst Tweetadder is good, it doesn’t give me as much control over the timing of my tweets as Buffer does.

How Do I Use Buffer App?

Schedule Your Tweets For The Maximum Audience

Buffer is very simple to use.

Firstly, you register on their site and enter the details of your Twitter account.

Next, you go into the ‘Settings’ tab and enter your preferred Tweet schedule.

I’ll add another blog post soon about how to determine your ideal tweeting schedule.

Next, you download the Buffer App browser extension. I use Firefox, so I downloaded the Buffer App extension for Firefox. Once the Buffer App extension is downloaded, you’ll see a little Buffer App icon sitting at the bottom of your FireFox window.

The rest is so simple. Whenever you’re on the web and reading something you want to share with your readers, you click on the Buffer App icon at the bottom of your Firefox window. This will open a pop up box that has the title and description from the web page.It also automatically shortens the URL. You can also add your Bit.ly details in the Buffer settings if you want to use Bit.ly as your URL shortener.

You’re able to change any of the text around to suit what you want to say (HINT: always try and add the Twitter ID of the person who’s content you’re tweeting. If you do this they’re more likely to see that you’ve re-tweeted their content).

When you’re happy with your Tweet, just click on the ‘Add To Buffer’ button at the bottom and the tweet is added to your buffer.  It’ll be sent sometime in the future, depending on how you’ve set up your Buffer account.

It’s that simple.

There are some other ways you can add content to your buffer – I’ll explain these in a later post or alternatively, head on over to the Buffer App site and see what else it can do.

What Is Buffer App – Is It For You?

I’ve blogged before about how some people are comfortable automating some aspects of their Twitter use, and others aren’t. That’s fine. Figure out what suits you and do it.

If you’re not comfortable with automating any aspects of your Twitter use, then Buffer App isn’t for you. But consider this – Buffer App isn’t just mindless automation with no quality control. You determine what goes into your buffer. The only bit of the automation is when the tweet is sent.

If you are happy to automate some of your Tweeting, Buffer App has its place.

Buffer App – Pricing Plans

I’ve been using the free version of Buffer App. It gives me the ability to add one Twitter account and one Facebook account. I can have a maximum of 10 tweets in my buffer.

There are two other paid plans that give you the ability to add more Twitter and Facebook accounts and have more space in your buffer. Whether you need these extra features depends on how you think you’ll use the Buffer App.

My advice is to start with the free version, get used to it and work out whether you need one of the premium versions.

And if you refer other uses to Buffer App, they give you one extra space in your buffer for each new user you refer. So use my link please!

Other Options

I mentioned earlier how I use TweetAdder for some of my automated tweets. It does the job, but doesn’t allow me to schedule specific times for the tweets to go out. It also does a bunch of things that Buffer doesn’t, so it’s not fair to compare the two.

Hootsuite is my main Twitter dashboard, and it gives me the ability to schedule tweets. The only problem is that it’s more complicated to do this than Buffer App. Buffer is set up to send tweets at the times I’ve pre-set. With Hootsuite I’ve got to enter the date and time in every time I want to schedule a tweet.

The concept of Buffer App is excellent. No-one wants to send out Tweets that don’t get seen, and Buffer App helps you increase the visibility and effectiveness of your tweets. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more companies copy the Buffer concept. I just mentioned Hootsuite – it’d be a relatively simple thing for them to add some customisable tweet schedules like buffer. Or alternatively, perhaps the Buffer App starts to talk directly with the other Twitter apps out there so the scheduling happens automatically.

My preference is to have all my tweeting done from one interface, so using Hootsuite, TweetAdder and Buffer App is not the ideal, but it gets the job done.

I’m convinced in the merits of using Twitter to connect with other bloggers and people who would be interested in the topics I write about. Buffer App is another tool that I can use to make sure I’m getting maximum leverage out of Twitter. Go ahead, sign up for the free plan and see what you think.

I’ve been spending a bit of time over the past couple of weeks planning my blog strategy for the next 12 months and I’ve been thinking about the concept of a BHAG – a Big Hairy Audacious Goal!

The term was first used by Jim Collins in his book Built To Last. It’s become more popular in the business world in recent years and is something worth thinking about when it comes to strategic planning for any business.

Wikipedia defines a BHAG in this way:

A BHAG encourages companies to define visionary goals that are more strategic and emotionally compelling.

In many cases a BHAG is a long term vision / goal but it can also apply to the shorter term.

BHAGs for Bloggers

Most bloggers have some goals for their blogs (at least I hope they do!). And as part of your business planning for your blog you’ve probably sat down this year and written down some goals you’d like to achieve.

Lets say you’ve been getting an average of 500 visitors a month to your blog. A simple (and achievable) goal could be to increase this amount to 600 visitors a month.  A BHAG is much bigger than that. A BHAG would be all about doubling your traffic – go to 1,000 visitors a month, or how about 2,000!

Another example could be newsletter sign-ups. Maybe you only get 10 people per month signing up to your newsletter (it could even be less for some people – don’t worry!). A simple, ‘safe’ goal would be to increase this figure by 20% or 30%. That’s achievable, realistic and possible – it meets all the criteria for a good goal.

But a BHAG takes this and smashes it! Why don’t you aim to double your newsletter sign-ups – go from 10 a month to 20. Or why not make a BHAG to go to 100 per month?

Can you see where I’m going here? A BHAG isn’t a normal goal – it’s a goal that will massively stretch you, but is still achievable.

One last example – revenue. Maybe you sell a few affiliate products (promoting other people’s products). Maybe you make $100 per month. A simple goal could be to make one or two extra sales a month and increase your revenue to $150 pm. A BHAG would be to increase it to $1,000 per month.

BHAG’s are scary things, but they’re great.

Why are BHAGs Great?

BHAGs force us to step outside our day-to-day business reality and dream a bit.

What if I could increase traffic to 2,000 people a month?

What if I could earn $1,000 per month?

A BHAG is all about helping you think about what could be, rather than what is currently happening.

The reality is that these things are possible. You can go from 500 – 2,000 visitors per month, it’s been done before.

Here’s the thing to realise with BHAGs:

The things you’ve been currently doing won’t be enough for you to achieve your BHAG – you’ll need to do things differently!

Think about that last line for a minute. Re-read it again and again. You need to change what you’re doing to achieve your BHAG.

Some Practical BHAG Examples

Now that I’ve got you thinking about BHAGs , here are some ideas that relate back to the three examples.

Traffic BHAG

• Guest posts work. Write guest posts for other bloggers and engage with their readers.
• Keyword research. Get a program like Market Samurai and do your keyword research. Find some keywords that you can rank well in and increase your organic search engine traffic.
• Improve your use of social media. Drive traffic to your site from Twitter and Facebook.
• Put your content elsewhere. Once you’ve written a blog article, submit it to article directories. Make a video about it and put it on You Tube. There are plenty of places to put your content.
• Write to your subscribers more.
• Write more content. Give readers more ways they can find your content.

Email Newsletter Conversions BHAG

• Let’s say that at the moment for every 100 visitors to your site, 2 of them subscribe to your newsletter. If you can double your traffic, you could double your subscribers every month.
• What about conversions? Could you increase that 2% sign up rate to 10%? How would you do that?
• Consider a plugin like Pop Up Domination which can boost conversion rates.

Increase Revenue BHAG

• Sell more of whatever you’re currently selling.
• Consider using Google AdWords and social media.
• Find other products to sell or promote.
• Promote more to your email list.
• Create your own product and sell it!

I bolded that last one because it’s so simple and easy to overlook, but the best way to achieve a revenue BHAG. Stop only selling other people’s products, take the time to create your own and get other people to sell that for you. If you do this, a BHAG of going from $100 to $1,000 (or more) per month is very achievable.

What’s Your BHAG?

I challenge you to think of one BHAG for 2012. What’s one thing related to your blog that would be amazing to achieve? Remember, don’t limit yourself by your current reality. The BHAG comes first, then you work to find the ways to make it happen.

Good luck in 2012. I’ve got a number of new articles I’ll be posting to help you achieve your BHAGs.

I love getting your comments. Let me know what you think about BHAGs – in fact share your 2012 BHAG in the comments below.

A while ago I discovered a great Firefox plugin called SEOQuake. I wrote an article about how to use SEO Quake to find high pagerank sites and it’s become one of the most popular articles on my site.

But lately, I’ve been having some trouble with SEOQuake.

It still does the basics well – it’ll show you a site’s pagerank, links to the domain etc. But it’s stopped sorting by pagerank.

One of the ways I like to use SEOQuake is outlined in my old blog post. I like to search in Google for sites on a topic (or pages in YouTube), and then sort the results by pagerank so I’m able to see all the high pagerank sites. I can then click on each link and leave a comment.

Lately, SEOQuake has stopped sorting by pagerank and I’ve noticed more people landing on my site because they’ve found my old article, and they’re looking for answers.

I sent an email off to the SEOQuake folks, and here’s their reply:

This is a known issue, due to a recent change Google has made in its results display pages.  We are working on a fix, and will have it out in the near future as an update.

It seems to be a problem with the way Google displays its results. Hopefully there’s a fix and an update soon, because this is one of the main features I love about SEOQuake.

I’ll keep you posted on when an update occurs. In the meantime, if you know of any other plugins that enable us to search by pagerank, leave a comment and let me know.

UPDATE : 23 December 2011. There’s an updated version of SeoQuake available and the problem is fixed! We can search by pagerank again.

photo credit: aussiegall

I read this great article today called ‘Cupcake Calamity‘ about a baker in the UK who had an offer in Groupon that worked a little too well!

Rachel Brown runs a business called Need A Cake that makes great looking cakes for all occasions. She wanted to grow her business, so decided to publish an offer on Groupon. This is where the trouble begins.

She offered a 75% discount on a box of her cupcakes – selling them for £6.50 instead of the usual price of £26. Here’s the problem – she was making a loss on every box she sold at the discounted price. The article I read said she was losing £2.50 per order.

As you can guess, she was swamped with orders and had to stop the Groupon deal once 8,500 orders were received. If you’re making a loss of £2.50 per order, that’s a lot of money you’ve just lost.

In addition, she had trouble keeping up with the demand and had to hire 25 extra staff to work around the clock making the cakes.

So, what can we learn from this story, and how does it apply to bloggers?

Lesson 1 – Understand your profit margins

Rachel seems to have understood that she was selling these boxes of cupcakes at a loss. I’ll cover the pros and cons of selling at a loss in the next point, but the important take-away here is that she knew what it cost her to produce her product.

The process of working out the true cost of a product can be a bit easier in a manufacturing environment like baking, where you’re very aware of the cost of the ingredients and the labour. It’s more difficult in blogging, where the cost is more time-based.

Whatever you do, make sure you’re aware of the importance of making a profit and understanding the true cost of your product.

photo credit: ms.Tea

Lesson 2 – Loss leaders are okay, but you need a strategy to make money

My local supermarket frequently has specials where it sells products at a loss. Why does it do this? To get people in the shop!

That’s the carrot they’re dangling in front of you to get you in their store. Once you’re in the store, you may buy the item that’s being sold at a loss, but you’ll probably buy more things that they’re making a nice profit on.

So, they’re happy to make a loss on one item because they know they offset that loss from the profits they make from other products.

They have a strategy to make money!

I have no idea why Rachel decided to sell her cupcakes at such a deep discount. I’m sure a 75% discount sounds great, but surely a 50% discount would also have been attractive, albeit to a smaller number of people.

What concerns me is that there appears to be no strategy in place to sell more products to these people at a profit.

You must have a strategic plan in your business that details how you will make money.

Lesson 3 – Build loyalty and repeat business

photo credit: scatteredView

From what I can understand, Rachel has no strategy to build loyalty from these customers.

The way I see it, she’s spent money to acquire these new customers, and at the moment she’s spent more than the profit she’s made from them. But that can change.

If you take a view of the lifetime value of a client, you’ll begin to understand that sometimes it’s ok to make an initial loss if that’s made up over the lifetime of a customer.

Rachel’s business has a great looking website and I understand these orders were lodged over the internet. The article says she sold 8,500 boxes of cupcakes, so now she has 8,500 email addresses from people who have bought once from her.

If I were her, I’d send an email up now saying thanks for your order. I’d then offer a follow up offer of 50% off the price of their next order. I’d be making a profit from this. The email costs nothing, unlike advertising through Groupon. The email is sent to hot prospects – people who’ve just made a purchase from you.

I’d then look to develop some sort of loyalty program – perhaps a discount after a certain number of purchases. Maybe she could use a Facebook page and feature pictures of her creations. What about a regular email newsletter that highlights her cakes and special offers?

The way I see it, she’s spent a significant amount of money on acquiring some new customers. Whilst she’s made a loss, she has the opportunity to increase the loyalty of these customers and make them into very profitable customers.

Lessons for Bloggers

You know that I’m passionate about helping bloggers turn their blogs from hobbies into businesses. To do that you need to think like a business.

• What are you currently doing that you’re making a loss on? For me, it’s writing articles like this that are free.
  
• Is there a strategy to make money? How will you make money from people attracted to ‘free’?
• If you make a mistake, how can you leverage it?

I’m interested in your feedback on this story. What other ways do you think Rachel can leverage this opportunity and begin to make money from it?

photo credit: clevercupcakes

This is a review of the Headway theme 3.0 – due to be released on November 25th 2011.  Headway 3.0 is a complete change to the Headway theme. The guys had already produced an innovative WordPress theme, now they’ve completely increased the functionality and the value this theme provides.

This blog uses Headway theme and I’ve been using it since it was released in 2009. I’ve mentioned in previous posts how easy Headway is to use, and how it gives you a lot of extra options.

As an example, I used to use one of the WordPress SEO plugins to help customise my post SEO. Once I started using Headway I could stop using the plugin because Headway gave me all those options.

The thing I like most about Headway theme is how easy it is to customise the look of my site. I’ve set up my own templates for blog posts, the main page and other pages. I’m not stuck with a standard look (like you are with other templates).

I’ve created pages that look completely different to other ones. For example if you subscribe to my email list, you’ll be taken to a download page. That page doesn’t have a sidebar so it looks different to the other pages. Was this hard to do? No. I simply took my standard template, removed the sidebar and extended the width of the content leaf.

So, what’s changing in Headway Theme 3.0?

I’ve been using the Beta version of Headway Theme 3.0 for the past month on a test site. Whilst I’m still getting used to it, it’s a huge step forward over version 2.0 (and I’m very happy with Headway 2.0!).

The main change is that they’ve moved to a grid system. In the past Headway has used content ‘leafs’. These leafs could be positioned on your page and would display text, pictures etc. With version 2.0, Headway introduced columns. This enabled you to position your leafs within a column structure – this was great and made positioning of leafs a lot better.

With Headway Theme 3.0, they’re introducing a grid system. This is so easy to use, and makes designing a site so easy.

With the Headway grid system, you simply click and draw your box on the grid, and then select the type of box you want – is it a header or navigation bar? Perhaps it’s content or a picture? It’s so simple to quickly position a bunch of boxes on your page.

Here’s a screenshot of the grid system found in Headway theme 3.0.

Headway Theme 3.0 showing the grid layout system

And once you’ve got that page looking the way you want it to, you can easily change the look of it. What fonts do you want to use? What about the font size? Header fonts and sizes? There’s so much that can easily be changed.

Make each page different in Headway 3.0

Sometimes you want your pages to look different. You may want a home page that’s got a lot of content summaries on it with the intention that readers click through to read full articles. That page will probably look different to your About page.

And maybe you want to produce a squeeze page. You probably don’t want a sidebar on that page, or any distracting navigation options. You probably just want a page full of text and images. It’s easy in Headway. Tick a couple of boxes to remove the header and navigation and the rest is easy.

How about the ability to customise individual blog posts? I haven’t looked deeply into this but it looks like a winner. You’ve probably got a few blog posts that get a lot of traffic. Maybe you could add some extra content boxes to this individual blog article – perhaps an affiliate offer or an extra sign up box. You can do this at the individual article level in Headway 3.0.

And of course there are the Headway ‘hooks’. These enable you to insert content in various locations throughout your pages. I’ve got my financial planning website and need to put a disclaimer under every article. I could include it when I write the article, but then it forms part of the article text. Instead, I include it as a hook. A while back the disclaimer needed to change. Instead of having to manually edit each article (over 50!) I simply changed the hook. It was a one minute job and instantly updated the disclaimer throughout my site.

Here’s a short video from the Headway developers showing some of the features of Headway Theme 3.0.

Headway Theme 3.0 Pricing

Headway Theme 3.0 is released on the 25th November. But you’ll need to buy it before then. Here’s why.

Up to now, Headway has operated on a once-only fee to purchase the theme. There’s a Personal option and a Developer’s option, but either way, there’s a one-off cost to purchase the theme. Once you’ve got your licence, you get unlimited support and access to their forums (which rock!), and upgrades for life.

Once Headway 3.0 is released, the pricing changes. To upgrade to a Developer’s licence will cost more, and they’re moving to an annual renewal fee to cover access to upgrades and support. The way I understand this, is that if you buy after the 25th and don’t pay the annual fee when it falls due, you won’t get any upgraded versions and won’t get any support.

So, if you’ve sitting on the fence about buying Headway theme, it’s time to make a decision.

If you purchase before Headway 3.0 is released on the 25th, you’ll be able to buy it under the ‘old’ pricing structure – a once only fee and access to upgrades and support for life. If you buy it on or after the 25th, you’ll be paying an yearly fee if you want upgrades (and you will want them!).

I’ve been very happy with Headway. I’ve learnt a lot about customising it with only a limited knowledge of CSS and HTML but even that’s not necessary to build a good looking site. The drag and drop concept allows you to build good looking sites without any programming knowledge.

Head over to the Headway site today and buy your copy before the 25th and beat the price rise.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below and I’ll answer them.

We all want more comments on our blogs but how do you encourage people to leave comments? I’ve recently started using the CommentLuv Premium plugin in my blog. I’ve seen it used on other blogs and jumped at the chance to get a copy during it’s recent 7 day pre-launch. I’ve now had a chance to use it so I’ll tell you what I think of it in this CommentLuv Premium review.

What Is CommentLuv Premium?

You may have seen the CommentLuv plugin on some sites over the past few years. It was a plugin that gave the commenter a link back to their most recent blog post. When you entered your blog’s URL as part of leaving a comment, the plugin would retrieve your RSS feed and place a link back to your most recent post, with the post title as the anchor text.

CommentLuv Premium takes it to the next level, and adds some features from the other plugins that the CommentLuv creators have made. When you purchase CommentLuv Premium, you get access to four plugins:

1. CommentLuv Premium
2. Twitterlink
3. GASP
4. Keyword Names

We’ll look at each one in more detail.

CommentLuv Premium – How it works

When you’ve installed the plugin, there’s a comprehensive dashboard that enables you to tweak it the way you want it.

You have the choice to use it on Posts, Pages, or both. At the moment I’ve only got it set up on my Posts, as I don’t have comments on Pages (easy to do this using the Headway Theme!).

You also have a couple of CommentLuv badges to use, and you can make them clickable with your affiliate link (you can see the example in the comments section below).

The rest of the options deal with the messages and enticements that people receive. It can get a bit complicated, but I’ll try and simplify it for this CommentLuv Premium review.

The free CommentLuv plugin shows the most recent blog post someone has made. The CommentLuv Premium plugin can be set up to give them 10 blog posts to chose from (or some more options if you’re a CommentLuv Premium owner).

It can be set up to automatically give new posters the choice of their last ten posts, or you can structure it that they need to have a certain number of approved posts before they get access to their last ten posts.

On Blogger Business Plan, I’ve got it set up so that when you have three approved comments, you’ll then get access to your last ten posts for every subsequent comment you leave. I’ve set it up like this because I want to reward people who keep visiting and commenting on my blog. If you’re new here, I wrote this post last week on how to set up a blog commenting system using Google Reader – you should read it and bookmark my blog!

So, if you’ve never left a comment here, CommentLuv will automatically post a link to your latest blog post when you leave a comment. Go ahead – try it. And as you’re doing it, you should see a message that tells you that you’ll get 10 posts to choose from once you’ve got three approved comments.

I can change these settings. If I wanted to make you have 10 approved comments before you get access to your last ten posts, that’s easy to change from the dashboard. If I wanted to change the text you see about how many blog posts you need to get approved, that’s also easy to change.

The next option is about whether those links are DoFollow links or not. Before you get the required number of approved comments, the links aren’t DoFollow. But once the 3 approved comments are in place, you can tick a box so all subsequent links are DoFollow links.

Get social with CommentLuv Premium

The next set of options are all about social networks. As a further enticement, you can give people another option to get ten recent posts to choose from when they leave a comment. If they +1 the post in Google, Re-Tweet it or ‘Like’ it on Facebook, this can also give them access to their last ten blog posts. This will over-ride the need to have a certain number of blog posts approved.

Once again, you can set this up so the links can be DoFollow or not. You can also customise the text around this area on the comment form. You can see this on my comments section. Go ahead – use these social enticements to see how they work and get ten posts to choose from in the process.

One of the other things I like about the social enticements is that if someone Tweets about your post, the tweet will include your Twitter username, and they will also get asked whether they want to start following you on Twitter.  This is a great bonus as people in their Twitter stream will see their tweet and possibly click on your name within that tweet to start following you.

The benefits of being a CommentLuv Premium owner

There are some extra benefits for those who own the plugin.

One is that ability to set up an ‘info box’ that tells people more about who you are and what you blog about. When you comment on someone else’s blog, people can hover their mouse over the link to your last blog post, and the info box will appear on the page. This box shows a picture of you, has a bit about you, and also shows links to more posts.

You have some choice in what displays here. You can show your five most recent posts, some of your favourite’s, or a mixture.

The ‘Favourites’ section is interesting. It allows you to pick five posts or pages from your site that will display in the info box. I’ve added my ‘About’ and ‘Subscribe’ pages as well as three other blog posts that I want to promote.

The plugin will also show some recent posts that you’ve commented on.

The idea of the Info Box is great – it’s a good way for people to find out more about you, and gives people more options of content to click on.

TwitterLink

TwitterLink is a separate plugin which is included in CommentLuv Premium. It’s quite simple – it allows people to include their Twitter username which will then appear as a clickable link on their comment. This is a great way to encourage people to follow each other on Twitter.

G.A.S.P.

No-one likes spam and one of the problems with the free CommentLuv plugin was that it seemed to attract spammers. It was simple to search for CommentLuv powered blogs and leave spammy comments in order to get a backlink with anchor text that in some cases was a DoFollow link.

The GASP plugin was built to counteract that. I’ve been using this plugin and had no problem with spam.

You’ll see in my comments section I’ve got the tick box that says ‘Confirm you are NOT a spammer’. You can change this text if you prefer to make it say something else.

CommentLuv also includes a hidden email field that can only be seen by spam bots. They’ll see this field and enter an email address. The plugin will then know that a spam bot has entered the comment, not a real person.

It’s simple, but it seems to work.

Keyword Names and CommentLuv

The final plugin is the Keyword Name plugin. This is an improvement from the KeywordLuv plugin.

It allows people to put keywords after their name when they comment.

You can adjust the rules around this – you nominate how many comments they need to have approved before this option is made available, how many keywords they can use, and whether they’re NoFollow or DoFollow links.

It’s very simple to set up, and is an additional incentive for people to comment – they get a backlink with pertinent anchor text.

CommentLuvPremium Review – Summary

I’ve found CommentLuv Premium to be very easy to use. I’ve noticed they’ve put out several updates over the past few weeks – always a good sign that they’re listening to feedback and trying to improve. I had to lodge a support ticket and they responded within 12 hours with a solution.

I’m using the plugin because I want to encourage more comments on my blog. I want people to feel that they’re getting something a bit more special than the usual backlink to their site. When you look over the comments section and see the latest blog post names, you may see something you like and click through. You’re probably more likely to do that when you can see the anchor text that CommentLuv provides.

It’s not for everyone. It works on blogs like this one, because most of the people who read it own blogs. They understand the benefits of links back to their own blogs and are more likely to comment.

I read one article from someone who uses this plugin on a blog in a completely different niche. Very few of their readers actually had web sites, so the plugin became more confusing to those commentators.

My advice is to think about your target market. If they have blogs and would like to get meaningful backlinks, then CommentLuv Premium will probably suit.

Hope you learnt a lot from the CommentLuv Premium review. The plugin is currently in pre-launch stage – you can register at the site to get access to it in a few days. And don’t forget to leave a comment below and see how it works!

In this article I’ll explain my strategy for commenting on blogs and how I use google reader to be more effective with my blog commenting.

Why bother commenting on blogs?

Early on in my blogging life I read about blog commenting. The original stuff I read talked about visiting other people’s blogs and leaving comments. There were two benefits:

1. You become a contributor to the conversation going on on another blog. It’s part of building a community and being social.
2. You get a link back to your site. This link may or may not carry some link juice (depending on whether the blog is a follow or no-follow blog), and some people will click on your link and actually visit your site. When you’re just starting out, any traffic is good traffic!

As I read more about internet marketing and blogging I came to the realisation that some people were commenting on blogs in a manner a bit different to how I was doing it. They were using automated tools to find blogs that allowed comments, and then they flooded them with spammy comments or comments that didn’t add any value – ‘nice post, well done!’

Now, there’s nothing illegal about doing this – I don’t think you’re breaking any laws, but it’s not something that I’m comfortable with.

I’ve been slack in blog commenting over the past few months but I’m starting to do more of it. I’m getting back in the habit of making an effort to comment on articles that I’m reading.

One of the things I’ve always found difficult to do is to keep track of when blogs put up a new article. I used to bookmark a bunch of sites in Firefox and visit them, but I’d frequently miss new articles or visit days late.

I tried following people on Twitter, and whilst this is a good way to keep track of things, sometimes they’d get lost in the Twitter stream. Also, a lot of bloggers (myself included) will Tweet about older blog articles so it can be difficult to determine if a tweet is about a new article or an old one.

The best way I’ve found to make my blog commenting focussed, is to use RSS feeds into Google reader.

Blog Commenting – google Reader

Google reader is one of many Google applications that I use. It’s a web based tool that I use to display all the RSS feeds that I subscribe to.

Whenever I find a blog that I like, I click on the ‘Subscribe To This Page’ link in Firefox. It them asks if I want to use Google for the feed – this is the option I select. It’ll then open up that feed within Google Reader.

The best way to use Google Reader is to set up multiple folders and place your feeds within those folders. This makes it easier to find the feeds you want.

I‘ve got one folder set up with all my favourite guitar site RSS feeds going into it. I can easily find this folder in Reader, and click from feed to feed reading my guitar news.

When it comes to blog commenting, I’ve done something similar. If I find a site that I want to comment on on a regular basis, I place it into a folder within Reader called ‘Blogs To Comment On’.

This is easy to do. When you’ve got the feed displayed within reader, click on the ‘Feed Settings’ button on the top of the feed box. This will open up a list of options, one of which will be to add the feed to a pre-existing folder, or to a new folder. Call you folder whatever you want to call it, as long as it makes sense to you.

The good thing about Reader, is that you can easily see if there’s new content to look at. On the screenshot above, you can see that there’s 6 new articles in the ‘Blogs to Comment On’ folder.

If I click on this and open it, it’ll list all the blogs, line by line and I’ll be able to see at a glance which ones have new content. From there, it’s simple. Click on the articles I want to leave comments on, open them up on the actual blog’s website, read the article and comment.

Using Google Alerts in Google Reader

Here’s another quick bonus tip!

I have a number of Google alerts set up. Want to know if people mention me, my business, or a couple of specific keywords I’m targeting. So I’ve set up Google alerts for these terms.

Instead of getting emails from Google alerts, I’ve set it up so the RSS feeds go into Google Reader, into a folder called ‘Google Alerts’. I can quickly see if there’s anything new to look at, and it easy to mark it all as read.

Blog Commenting with Google Reader – Your Thoughts

So this is how I do my commenting on blogs using Google reader and RSS feeds to make the process simpler.

What do you think. Is there a specific method you use to help with commenting on blogs? Could the method I’ve outlined work for you?

Leave a comment below (ironic, considering it’s an article about commenting!) and let me know what you think.

Years ago I remember hearing someone speak about marketing and the Wall of Black.

Chances are you’ve probably never heard of this concept, but once you learn about it you’ll notice it a whole lot more.

The Wall of What?

The person was speaking about Coke and how they market to their customers. He was saying that its Coke’s goal to have a Coke fridge full of Coke products on the wall directly opposite a shop’s doorway so the first thing you notice as you walk into the shop is the wall of black – a fridge full of Coke.

Once I heard about this I began to notice it in stores that I went into. If I went into a deli or takeaway shop the wall of black was usually there. Sometimes it wasn’t quite in line with the doorway, but it was usually pretty prominent in the store.

I never appreciated how competitive the soft drink market was until I learnt about the wall of black.

What Does Your Wall Look Like?

What does your wall look like?

In the blogging world, you have your own ‘wall of black’.

It’s your blog’s homepage.

In particular its the portion of your home page that’s visible when someone first lands on your page. It’s like when you walk into a shop – you don’t notice everything in the shop straight away, but you’ll notice the wall of black if it’s there.

When someone lands on your blog homepage, what do they notice?

How does it look? If I looked at the top part of your homepage (the bit above the fold), is it obvious what your blog is all about?

Does it look inviting and interesting? Is it easy for me to work out what to click on and to find things that interest me?

Think about when you go into a shop for the first time. You probably don’t know where things are or where to look, so having the store laid out in a logical manner is a good start, as are signs and posters advertising the products.

Building Your Wall of Black

Find some websites that you like reading and look at how they are laid out. What is above the fold on those sites? How is their navigation designed? Is it easy to work out where to go?

Now compare these sites to your site and decide on improvements you can make.

I think there are a couple of ‘essentials’ for a blogger’s wall of black.

• A very clear blog title and tag line. When I land on your blog for the first time, I want to know what it’s all about. I hope you’ve taken the time to think about your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – an elevator speech that sums up what you’re about. If you look at my blog, under the title it says ‘Helping you turn your blog into a business’. If you landed here for the first time, I think that line sums up what I’m about.
• Where do I go? Make sure your navigation menu is easy to understand. Don’t clutter it up too much, but make sure you use titles that are enticing and make me want to click on them. Writing this article has made me review my navigation menu and I’m planning on making some changes to it to simplify things.
• Sign me up. One of the first things a new visitor should see is the sign up box for your newsletter. Mail services like Aweber make it easy to design and install good looking sign up boxes.

You only get one chance to make a good first impression. What can you do today to improve the look of your blog?

Do you have a ‘wall of black’? What does yours look like?

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

Photo Credits : ReneS, Ali Burçin Titizel / Gti861

In this Easy WP SEO Review I’ll look at a new WordPress PlugIn called Easy WP SEO. This plugin is similar to SEOPressor and Scribe in that it helps you to optimize your posts as you’re writing them. It costs less than those other products and seems to do some things a little differently.

Easy WP SEO – What Does It Do?

Here's the score so far!

I’ll explain what this plugin does, and I’ll also show you screen shots as I go along so you can see how it helps me write articles.

The plugin helps you optimize your on-page SEO so your blog post has a better chance of ranking well. It prompts you to optimize your use of the keyword by using it in titles, headings etc. It analyses your post Meta – things like your description, tags etc – to make sure they’re focussed on your keywords and it also analyses your content so you can see how often you’re using the keyword, whether it’s bold or not etc.

I like to think that I know a bit about SEO, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m lazy when I’m writing posts. I just want to hit the ‘publish’ button and sometimes neglect the SEO aspects.

This plugin helps me get the SEO right by showing me what I need to change.

For this article, I’d like to rank well for the term ‘Easy WP SEO Review‘. On the screen shot to the left you can see that I’ve entered that phrase into the Easy WP SEO dashboard as my primary keyword. This dashboard appears to the right of my visual editor and is visible as I write.

So far, I’m doing OK. This screen shot was taken after I completed the first paragraph. The analysis tells me that my title contains my keyword, and it also begins with my keyword (extra SEO points!). In addition, the title contains at least 3 words.

Where I’m not scoring well, is in the length of my title. I’ve got over 66 characters. This is not good as usually Google only looks that the first 66 characters of a title. My title is ‘Easy WP SEO Review – Get Help With Your Blog’s SEO’ which is less than 66 characters (I know because I just counted them!), but WordPress also adds the name of my blog to my titles, so this would appear with ‘Bloggerbusinessplan.com’ as part of the title, pushing it over the character limit.

This isn’t a big problem to fix, as one of the cool features of Headway theme is the ability to change your title in the visual editor. All I need to do is copy the title from above into a field lower down in the visual editor, and it’ll update the blog title, removing the site name and bringing me back under the 66 character mark.

The other bit you can’t see on the screenshot is the URL tab. I’ve got a green tick because the URL contains the keyword – Easy WP SEO Review -  another big plus for on-page SEO.

Alright, time to save a draft and see if my score has improved.

Improving My Post Meta

It's getting better!

As you can see, my SEO score has improved, but my keyword density has decreased. This is because I’ve written more words, but haven’t used the phrase ‘Easy WP SEO Review‘ as much. I’ve never thought much about keyword density before using this plugin but now that I’m using the Easy WP SEO plugin I’ve become a lot more aware of it. The problem I have is the need for a balance between using your keyword in a natural way, and over-using it so your post becomes painful to read. It gets harder if your main keyword is a longer phase as well.

On the screenshot, I’ve switched tabs and I’m now showing the ‘Meta’ tab. I’ve got a bunch of red crosses here, but thankfully the things they’re showing are easy to fix.

Again, using Headway it’s very simple to update your description and keywords to include the keyword.

By default, WordPress will use the first 150 or so characters from your blog post as the description. I’ll head down below this window in WordPress and update my post description to make it less than 150 characters, but also to start with my keyword.

Here’s what I’ll amend the description to:

Easy WP SEO Review looking at a new WordPress PlugIn called Easy WP SEO. Similar to SEOPressor and Scribe but better value.

I’ll also update the keywords to include my Primary Keyword – ‘Easy WP SEO Review’.

Onto The Post Content

My score has improved, and now I’m looking at the ‘Content’ tab on the dashboard.

Over 80% now!

I’ve done ok on this section so far, with more green ticks than red crosses! I’ve found this tab to be useful in a lot of posts because it’s prompted me to concentrate on things I’d usually ignore. For example, I’d often not bother changing the ALT attribute on images that I’d include in posts. The Easy WP SEO Plugin reminds me of this and prompts me to do something about it. There is actually the option to make this happen automatically via the plugin. I’ve been doing it manually as I’ve been taking screen shots.

It also looks at whether you’ve made your keywords bold or italicized. Again, this was not something I used to do, but evidently it helps the ranking of your page. I’ve made it automated.

Other important things to make sure are that your keyword appears in the first 50-100 words of your post, and in the last 50-100 words. So I need to make sure I’m writing ‘Easy WP SEO Review’ towards the end of my post (did you see how I snuck it in there).

The two areas I’m not doing well in are the keyword density and having the keyword in an external link. I’m not too fussed about keyword density – I’m much happier being under the guidelines than over! The external linking I’ll fix later. It’s easy in a post like this – I’ll hyperlink the ‘Easy WP SEO Review’ text to link to the product sales page. Whilst that’s easy to do in a post like this, it’s harder when it’s not about a product.

Get Your Headings Right

The next bit to work on is my post headings. Ideally, you should have your H1 tags containing (and preferably beginning with your keyword) as well as your H2 and H3 tags. My H1 tag is the post title, so if you’ve made sure the title begins with the keyword you’ll get a tick here. At this stage I haven’t got any H2 tags (the usual headings) that contain my keyword. I’ll fix that at the end when I have a title called ‘Easy WP SEO Review Summary’. This will fit nicely at the end of the post.

I don’t use a lot of H3 tags. I don’t know how much of a difference this makes. I’m inclined to think that not using them at all is maybe a bit better than having H3 tags but not having one that says ‘Easy WP SEO Review’. If you’re reading this and you’re an expert in SEO and H3 tags, let us all know.

Can You Read This?

It's readable

Another tab calculates how readable your content is.

It uses a range of grading methods to assess your content and provide you with a score. I’m yet to score 100% in this section, but I like to make sure it’s showing a lot of green.

The user guide gives some more information on these different reading grades and provides links to wikipedia so you can find out more.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail in my Easy WP SEO Review on how the readability part works, but I do think it’s important to pay attention to this section. As I mentioned before, there’s no point cramming your keyword into your content in an unnatural way that makes the article difficult to read.

The Competition

There are already a couple of plugins out there that do a similar thing to Easy WP SEO.

Scribe has been out for a while and is popular and well liked. It’s priced on a monthly subscription and the cost depends on how many posts you write and analyze.

SEOPressor was released earlier this year (I think) and is another option. I haven’t used it, but have read a number of reviews on the product. People seem to like it and say that it helps them produce better optimized content. One main difference is that Easy WP SEO is almost half the price of SEOPressor. And the licence enables you to use it on an unlimited number of blogs that you own.

You can find out more about the differences on the sales page.

From a value point of view, Easy WP SEO appears to be the best option.

Using Easy WP SEO

It’s a WordPress plugin, so it’s easy to install. When you first install it you’ll be prompted for your email and serial number. You can then go through and set up some of the options. The User Guide is very good and helps you through the set-up.

I used it on a couple of existing posts on this web site and another one I own. I entered in the keyword and looked at ways I could improve the on-page SEO. I was surprised at how 10 minutes work could improve my SEO score on existing articles.

I’ve also used it as I’m writing new posts (like this one). It’s easier on posts where I have a defined keyword I’m targeting, like Easy WP SEO Review! Last night I was writing another post that’s not targeting any keyword, so it’s harder to use it in that situation.

Easy WP SEO Review Summary

This plugin does not guarantee you the number 1 position in search engines for your chosen keyword. And that’s a good thing, because there’s no magic formula when it comes to SEO.

What this plugin will do however, is get you focused on the on-page elements of SEO. You’ll be prompted to think more about what you’re writing and how you’re formatting things in order to better optimize your page. Hopefully, this will lead to better rankings.

Does it work? In my opinion, ‘yes’ it does. It’s made me think a lot more about what I’m writing, and it’s made me focus more on the on-page SEO elements that I can control. Ranking well is a marathon, not a sprint. None of us know exactly how the search engines work, and we all know that keyword stuffing leads to articles that are poorly written and hard to read – they’re not going to rank well either. This plugin helps you think about what you’re doing and provides a checklist of things to consider. You don’t have to do the things it suggests, but it is motivating to see your score improving as you’re writing.

Currently, Easy WP SEO is selling via a Warrior Special Offer (WSO) for $37 for a version that you can use on all your blogs. There’s also the option of a developer’s version if you’re planning on selling blogs. I believe the price will be increasing in a few weeks as the WSO ends.

I’ll be updating this Easy WP SEO Review as the price changes and as I write other articles about the plugin. Click here to be taken to the current sales page to learn more about the Easy WP SEO plugin.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

PS I got my score up to 91.30% – whoo hoo!

When it comes to marketing, you need to realise that you can’t please everyone. And if you’ve got a good idea of who your target market is, you may actually start to turn some people off. This isn’t a bad thing.

One of the things I like about blogging is that you get to share your opinion about things. You’re free to express yourself and talk about topics the way you see them. You don’t have an editor or boss telling you what you can or can’t say – you can say what you want.

But the flip side of this is that you’ll soon discover some people have different opinions to you. And sometimes these people read your blog. And sometimes they’ll leave comments that disagree with your point of view. Or they’ll send you an email telling you they don’t agree with something you’ve written. Or they’ll unsubscribe from your newsletter list.

I’ve learnt in business that you can’t please all the people all the time. And trying to please everyone generally results in you pleasing no-one and completely missing the mark.

Who have you annoyed lately?

So my theory is this – if you’re not annoying some people, your message isn’t clear enough.

Let me explain further.

Years ago I read a book called ‘The Brand Called You’ by a marketing consultant called Peter Montoya. His business did a lot of work with financial planners and I came across his material on the internet and got hold of a copy of his book.

I remember one quote from the book – good marketing attracts as well as repels.

Think about this for a minute. Good marketing will not only attract potential clients, but it will also stop some from buying from you.

Good marketing attracts as well as repels

Here are a few examples I’ve come across in recent years.

My idea of good music probably isn’t the same as yours

It's not my cup of tea!

I’m a guitarist and I have a pretty broad range of musical styles that I like. But there are some that I don’t like. It doesn’t mean that I hate them – it just means that I choose not to listen to them. I’m not a big fan of hard rock or heavy metal – one look at the CD covers or videos sometimes puts me off. But that’s ok, because I’m not their target market. And their target market probably loves the CD images and videos.

Its good marketing – it’s attracting and repelling.

I don’t like Big Brother

Here in Australia we used to have a reality TV show called Big Brother. There have also been numerous versions produced in different countries around the world.

I don’t like it. I’ve never understood the attraction of watching a bunch of 20 something’s sit around isolated in a house for weeks on end.

But I’m not the target market.

The show isn’t aimed at people like me. It’s aimed squarely at Generation Y. And they loved it (at least until the last few seasons when ratings dropped!).

Again, it’s good marketing. It attracts those who it wants to attract, and repels those, like me, who it’s not aimed at.

And whilst I think the producers would have loved to have more people like me watching it, it would have meant changing the format and in doing so they possibly would have lost some of their existing audience.

Marketing in the Blog World

I beg to differ

I’ve seen a number of bloggers who’ve written posts that attract some negative comments. They’ve lost readers over things that they’ve said or done.

The experienced ones realise that it’s just par for the course and accept it. The inexperienced ones take it personally.

Now, I’m not talking about people who leave rude or abusive comments. I’ve got no time for people like that. I’m talking about people who have a different opinion to you, and aren’t afraid to voice it.

I’ve written a number of articles about how I use Twitter. Part of my Twitter strategy involves automating some aspects of my account. Some people accept this, others are dead against it. That’s fine. We don’t all have to agree on everything. You’re free to choose which bits of my advice you want to follow. But those who want to automate aspects of their Twitter usage find my advice very helpful.

Attracting and Repelling

I’m not saying you need to make annoying people a big part of your marketing plan, but I am saying that if you’re not annoying some people you’re perhaps not delivering your message as effectively as possible.

You can't please everyone

Step one is to determine who your target market is. I’ll write more about this in coming weeks, but take some time to think about who your blog is aimed at, and the issues they face. Spend time working out exactly what problems of theirs you are able to solve, and craft your message around that.

Take more time to put together a profile of your ‘ideal reader’. How old are they? Are they male or female? What language do they speak? What keeps them awake at night?

Make this real to the point of giving them a name. Get a very clear picture of the type of person who will get the most value out of your services and advice.

In the financial planning world, we used to joke that our target market was ‘anyone who could fog a mirror’. That’s not very specific! Now our industry has progressed to the point where there are planners who only deal with business owners, or female managers. One planner I know deals solely with people who own large car dealerships. He won’t take on any of their staff as clients – he only wants to work with the owner.

By getting so specific, you can focus your message so powerfully that when someone in your target market hears it, they’re instantly attracted to it.

And in creating a compelling message, you’re also causing some people to self-select away from you. They might come to your blog, read a few articles and decide that it’s not for them. Good! Don’t ever get confused that more traffic to your blog is the key to success. It’s not. More targeted traffic is a step in the right direction, but traffic alone won’t guarantee success.

The more specific you can be, the more value your target market will see in your services.

Lessons from e-books

Let’s think about books for a minute. I’ve read a lot of discussions about whether e-books should be priced higher or lower than traditional ‘real’ books.

One side says that a self-published book can never be as good quality as a physical published book, therefore it shouldn’t sell for the same price.

There’s another way to look at this argument.

E-books are not the same as traditional books

Book publishers will only publish books they know they can sell. So rarely will they publish a book in a specific niche, because there may not be a huge demand for it.

I’ve read books on how to use Twitter that are 150 pages long and are so general in nature that they don’t teach much that’s helpful. By aiming at every type of Twitter user they’re giving out a lot of general information, but not a lot of specifics.

By way of contrast, I’ve read e-books about using Twitter that are only 30 pages long, but provide a lot more value because they’re written specifically for bloggers like me.

So why should they cost more?

Value.

It’s all about value.

• You’ll attract people to your message if it’s delivering something of value to them.
• Some people won’t see value in it. They’re not your target market.
• But for those who are your target market, your message can deliver huge value.

One of my consulting services is helping financial planners use the internet to attract and retain new clients. Can you see how specific it is?

If a financial planner comes to my site, they’re attracted to my message because it’s aimed at them.

If I wrote an e-book on how financial planners can use Twitter effectively, do you think they’d find it valuable? And how much could I sell that e-book for? Forget what it looks like or how many pages it is and focus instead on the value it provides.

The cool thing about my target market is that if a real estate agent comes to my website, whilst they’ll still get some value from my message, they’ll realise it’s not aimed at them. If I started changing my articles to also appeal to real estate agents, I’d reduce the value to my financial planning audience.

Over to you

What do you think about this idea of good marketing attracting and repelling people? Do you think it makes sense to appeal to a niche audience, or to try and appeal to everyone? Leave a comment below and let me know how you feel.

photo credit: sergis blog, notsogoodphotography, Adam J. Merton the half-blood prince Dawn Endico Ed Yourdon