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guest post by Kelly Diels

In November, I rebranded and relaunched my blog. I screwed up, I suffered, I sniffled, I refuted the advances of a pervy tech wizard. And I thought: I’d better track my results to see if this was worth it. This better have been worth it.

It was.

On November 10, my Alexa rank was 1,082,076.

Two months and one day later, it is 173,556.

So, in just two short months (and one day), I raised my Alexa rank by almost one million places.

In three months (in the screen shot above, look at the bottom right figure of 1,766,896), my Alexa rank increased by almost two million places.

How’d I do it? I’m so glad you asked.

Once you get past the first set of ingredients – have a seriously small and unpopular blog – the recipe is simple. It simply requires a ridiculous amount of work and a bit of creativity.

Still, I’ve itemized and analyzed what I did differently in the last two months just so I could whisper sexy blog secrets in your ear.

Here is a list of my torrid confessions.

1. Write unique stuff

Yes, this is just another way of saying “write great content! great content! great content!”. There’s a reason everyone says it, repeatedly: because it works.

I admit it. When I started blogging, I was a wannabe. I wanted to be Steve Pavlina, Darren Rowse or Yaro Starak.

Now, I just wannabe myself. I’m lit-on-fire for the written word, I have big, ballsy opinions, I’m in bed with surprise, and I love to love. That all shines through in my transparent and sometimes pulpy posts. I know the blogging and business-writing rules and alternate between obeying them and breaking them with abandon. It is roller coaster writing, to be sure, but it seems to be a ride with an lengthening line up.

The lesson: be you, write you, and write wild and free.

2. Get your great stuff out there

In two words: guest post.

I don’t have a commenting strategy – or maybe I do, but it goes like this: don’t really do it, unless profoundly moved or delighted by the post or am crushin’ on the writer and you know who you are – so guest posts are almost exclusively how I get in front of new audiences.

Guest posts bump up my traffic significantly. In the last two months, the single greatest driver of my traffic was, you guessed it, ProBlogger. There was even one day when I had two guest posts up on both ProBlogger and Write to Done.

That day was a good day.

(That day was the day I started making money – but that’s another post, entirely.)

You know who I blame for my promiscuous guest-posting?

Josh Hanagarne, World’s Strongest Librarian. He encouraged/pushed/nagged me to guest post, but I was too timid. (Really. I was scared. What if people said no? Rejection is not my thing.) When coaxing me to approach other bloggers failed, spectacularly, he took a new approach.

He demanded a guest post from me for his site. So I sent him one and his people loved me up. It was like rolling around in a meadow full of daisies and puppies and then a unicorn slid down a rainbow and gave me a cupcake. Magic.

Then, after more encouraging/pushing/nagging from Josh, I wrote a guest post for Darren Rowse at ProBlogger. Of course, I didn’t submit it for ten days until I got exasperated by my own cowardice, cursed myself out and straight-up courted that fearsome dragon – Rejection – by pressing send.

Darren accepted it in something like 15 minutes and made nice virtual noises. Later, he said he’d publish as much as I could send him. That was all I need to hear. I sent him A LOT.

Suddenly I had confidence and started sending pieces all over the place.

And my blog grew. So did my traffic.

The lesson? Guest posts work predictable magic on your blog. Go forth, guest post, bewitch and bedazzle.

And have big, strong, nagging friends.

3. Write more, more often

I used to post new pieces 1-3 times a week. Now I post 5-7 times a week. I’ve simply developed a habit of writing every night. It is sometimes painful, almost always exhausting, I’m wasting money on cable I never watch, Facebook misses me something fierce, and I have very nearly stopped dating.

(Very nearly. Not entirely. If I stopped dating, what would I write about? I romance in the name of research. THAT’S HOW MUCH I LOVE ALL OF YOU.)

And then there’s Twitter. I’ve written 322,560 words on Twitter, which is basically a novel in Tweets.

Oh. That just made me a little sad.

But other than that twinge – I could have written a novel in the time I spent Tweeting, oh yes that stings - I’m ecstatic. I’m having so much fun. I’m seeing results.

And my blog is growing.

The lesson? Don’t worry about statistics. Worry about quality.

I didn’t set out explicitly to raise my Alexa rank. I set out to improve my blog, light my writing on fire, and make a lil’ love to my people (and find more of them). And, as a result, my blog took off and took my Alexa rank with it.

You can do it, too. Please do.

And then tell me all about it on Twitter, where I still won’t be writing my novel.

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Kelly Diels is a wildly hireable freelance writer and the creator of Cleavage, a blog about three things we all want more of: sex, money and meaning.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Boost Your Alexa Ranking (by a MILLION Places!) in Two Months and One Day

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How to Boost Your Alexa Ranking (by a MILLION Places!) in Two Months and One Day

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. A blog alone, no matter how popular, isn’t enough to score you a book contract. It’s not quite that simple.

In other words, it doesn’t quite work the way it does on television.

“Did you hear that Random House gave me a million dollars for a book based on my blog?” chirps the hipster starlet as she emerges from a crowded Starbucks, caramel macchiato in hand. “And we’re working on the movie rights. Hey, let’s go for a ride in my Jag.”

But you already knew that real life is more complicated than a sit-com. So let’s talk about the critical role a blog does play in securing a book deal.

Here’s how it went down for me.

A book deal is made up of several moving parts

First, any successful book proposal needs a credible, straight-line, value-promising connection to a hungry target audience.

In other words, exactly the same kind of well-defined niche expertise that makes most blogs work.

Remember our sit-com blogger with the book deal? She got there because she’s oh-so-witty and wise. Think Carrie Bradshaw.

That’s not the real world. Unless your book is about collecting Manolo Blahniks, real-life book deals are about having something valuable to offer a reader, not how fabulous you are.

And because of that, you don’t need huge numbers to make it happen. What you do need is cachet within the niche you’ve defined.

Before my own deal, I’d assumed I would need a subscriber base big enough to fill the Rose Bowl. Why else would a publisher be interested?

And sure, a massive Feedburner number helps.

But in my case, my subscriber base today would fill the conference room at your average Marriott. Not that I’m complaining — after only six months it’s growing just fine, thanks.

But it does illuminate the point: Raw numbers aren’t as important as making a solid connection with a well-defined audience around a valuable niche topic.

My own blog-to-book deal

Before my site launched I was just a crusty old copywriter and a mid-list novelist who had almost, but not quite, hit it big. Not John Grisham big, more like Kyle Mills or Lisa Jackson kind of big.

There are lots of us in that category. Fiction has more near-misses than an American Idol audition.

Lucky for me, though, hardly any of those writers are blogging about it.

While teaching writing on the workshop circuit, I developed a proprietary story development model called The Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling.

My blog is about that well-defined niche, within the larger topic of writing. And without that angle, no matter how popular a blog I might build, there would be no book deal.

One quickly notices that my book deal isn’t about my brand as a fiction writer, which frankly has seen better days. It’s not even about my journey as a writing instructor.

It’s about my story development model. My niche expertise.

Neither my blog nor my forthcoming book are about me. Never have been. They’re about you, the writer with a dream.

In other words, people don’t come to my site (and they won’t read my book) because of my novels. They come because of their novels.

A platform is essential

Today, you need an “author platform” to successfully pitch a book to a publisher.

What’s an author platform? It’s how you’ll be doing the promotion for your book. Nine times out of ten, it means your blog.

No blog, no deal, unless you’ve got another great way to get the word out about your book. (For example, you’re a celebrity or a popular speaker.)

That wasn’t the case as little as two or three years ago.

These days, you don’t just pitch a detailed idea for a book. You also pitch the audience that’s going to buy that book. Not only does your platform provide a built-in group of buyers, it also shows the publisher that your ideas resonate with the audience you’ve defined.

The formula for a successful blog-to-book deal

Solid author platform plus unique value proposition equals marketable book. The formula is really that simple.

If both are in place, you don’t need to be a famous blogger with big numbers to score a book contract.

You just need to write a killer proposal, with a well-defined niche topic focusing on your audience, fortified by a successful author platform in the form of a growing blog.

This formula might not get a book publisher to throw sit-com dollars at you. But it gives you a much better chance than even the most fabulous designer wardrobe.

About the Author: Larry Brooks is the creator of Storyfix.com, an instructional resource for novelists and screenwriters. His book, The Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling, will be published by Writers Digest Books in early 2011.

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How My Blog Landed Me a Book Deal

I am a featured story in today’s 24 Hours Newspaper. If you live in the Vancouver area, you’ll be able to grab a copy at your local newsstand. If not, you can read the full article online by clicking the above picture. 24 Hours also filmed a video with me on tips to make money with Twitter. I’ve embedded the video at the bottom of this post.

How To Get Featured By Print Media

In the past month, I’ve been featured by the Vancouver Sun, the New York Times and now, 24 Hours. Every time I am featured by “old world media,” I get many emails asking how I did it. Rather than answering every single email, I’ve decided to write a post with my three-step method on getting some old world media love.

1 – Have a Story To Tell

The number one things that magazines and newspaper are looking for are stories. If you have a good story, you have a good chance at getting free press. The best place to tell your story in your about page. If you don’t have one, then you better make one. People visit a blog for the writer as much as the information. I visit Shoemoney not just because he tells me how to make money online but because he’s an interesting guy as well.

I was featured in Entrepreneur magazine a few years back because the editor downloaded and read my free eBook. What caught his eyes wasn’t the moneymaking techniques I wrote about. It was my story at the end of the book. You need a story.

2 – Start At Home

Generally, the bigger the news outlet, the easier it is for them to find content because they’re bombed with story ideas all the time from people or companies wanting to get coverage. Your best bet is to start at home with your local papers and magazines. Once you’ve been featured locally, you can leverage it to get featured nationally and internationally.

Send your local paper an email to the editor and tell them your story. Every editor loves a story about a local boy/girl doing good. I recommend you start with the biggest local newspaper instead of the smallest. It takes the same amount of effort talking to a 1 million circulation Vancouver Sun as it does for 10,000 circulation tab. Aim high locally to get maximum bang for the buck. Another reason for doing this is it makes it a lot easier to get coverage from the smaller papers once you’ve been featured in a big one. If the biggest paper in town says no, then move to the next biggest and so on. Starting from the top down is much better than going from the bottom up.

3 – It’s All About The Brand

In order to get tier 1 media coverage, you have to stand out from the 120+ million other blogs in the blogsphere. You can’t do that if you don’t have a brand. What makes your blog different from all the other? If you can’t answer that question, then you can forget about getting readers much less getting in a national magazine or major newspaper.

When you have a brand, you have an advantage over the blog next door. Even if the two of you write about the same thing, you will be the one who gets the press because you are a brand name while the other guy is a no name. At a minimum, building a brand means you must have your own domain name and custom blog design. Read my post on how to brand your blog for more tips.

You can be the most knowledgeable person in the world on a topic and the media won’t care because you have no brand and no story to tell. Those two items are the foundation on which on great press coverage is built on.

Continued here: 
In Today’s 24 Hours Newspaper – How To Get Featured By Print Media

In the darkest depths of winter, an evergreen is comforting. No matter how cold it gets, how much snow covers the ground, or how badly the family dinner turned out, those green branches are always there, offering beauty and reassurance.

Evergreen blog posts are just as valuable. We bookmark and read them over and over again to inspire us, comfort us, and remind us of the basics. We all have half a dozen favorites knocking around somewhere, and the popular blogs helpfully direct you to those posts time and again. They know that on your dark days, what you really want is the friendly comfort of an evergreen.

So why doesn’t your blog have any?

While some evergreen blog posts spring up out of nowhere, most of them require planning, effort, care trimming and maintenance. Your regular Tuesday post on freelance writing isn’t going to cut it. Sure, it’s useful, and yeah, it’s probably entertaining. But what makes it one of those posts that becomes an evergreen?

The evergreens we admire for their longevity

The most obvious way is to write about a topic that never gets old. These are cornerstone reference posts, like ‘10 Ways to Build a Better Blog.’ These posts are evergreen simply because people always need that information.

The good news is that evergreen reference posts are pretty straightforward to write. Do a step-by-step summary of how to do something from start to finish, and you’ve got yourself an evergreen post.

They’re also good for defining something that’s often mis-defined. For example, I have posts bookmarked in my ‘Evergreens’ folder on “What Marketing Really Is.” And I refer back to them often, because marketing is a slippery subject.

There are downsides to these types of evergreen posts. You’re up against a lot of competition, for one. There are already thousands of evergreen posts on building a better blog or providing better customer service. There’s probably an evergreen post on 10 Ways to Do Absolutely Any Topic Imaginable.

If you want your evergreen post to be the one that gets bookmarked, you’d better make it really, really good.

Which brings us to the second downside: Evergreen posts often require much more work than your standard post. You’ll probably wind up putting in at least 5 hours — and probably more like 15 — making sure everything is well-written, entertaining, compelling, and that you didn’t make any mistakes.

You might also be putting some extra hours into in-depth research if your evergreen post is on a topic that’s difficult to understand.

The evergreens we love for their emotion

When a writer goes off on a topic and comes out with a brilliant essay or a story you can’t take your eyes off of, that’s an evergreen post of emotion.

I’ve read great posts on topics like why writers are poor, why social media sucks, how to avoid destroying your family with your career, how to get things done if you’re a flake, and tons more. They’re usually born from the writer’s personal frustration or difficult experience, and they’re usually magnificently heart-rending.

That’s not enough, though. To write an evergreen post of emotion, you also need to have all your facts straight.

It’s not enough to go off on a huge rant about how writers aren’t paid enough. You need to do the research and see what they really are paid, from all angles, from every direction. You need to tell compelling stories about personal experiences and make reasoned arguments about why it isn’t fair.

You want a person to read your post and feel like you know exactly what they’re going through. You want them to gain insight and new ideas. You want them to come back and read it each time they’re feeling frustrated or upset. When they do, they’re going to feel a little bit better. Someone gets it. Someone has expressed their frustration in compelling, carefully reasoned ways.

The reason emotional evergreen posts are so popular is that when we’re upset, we don’t feel all that coherent. We want to bang our heads on the desk and scream and cry and punch things. But we also want someone else to get it so we don’t feel so alone.

Since we’re not feeling like we can explain ourselves very well, reading someone else’s post on the problem (and possibly the solution) makes us feel a little bit better.

Go grow yourself some evergreen

Try writing one of those two kinds of posts and make it evergreen. Expect to put some serious work into it, and don’t skimp on time. You want this to be the sum of your creativity and writing skills, an entertaining, well-spoken, thoroughly enjoyable piece that inspires.

It’s a hard thing to do, and you may need to re-write that post several times before you’re satisfied.

When you finish, though, you’ll be proud to post it up and send new readers to check out that evergreen post. You could even put a permanent link in your sidebar and keep it visible forever. It’s some of your best writing on a topic you’re passionate about.

And if you’ve done it right, you’ll know that many people will bookmark it and come back to it again and again, just to get that feeling of warmth and comfort that an evergreen always brings.

About the Author: For more feelings of warmth and comfort from someone who cares, head on over to James Chartrand’s blog at Men with Pens, where you’ll find plenty of evergreen posts full of insight for your freelance career. Even better, get free updates to Men with Pens via RSS or email.

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Get an Evergreen for Your Blog This Holiday Season

When screenwriter John August wrote that only non-writers get writer’s block, some readers whined (and personally attacked him).

“But getting blocked does happen to real writers!” they cried.

They cried because they wanted to be victims, instead of responsible for their writing blocks. They whined because it was easier and less scary than facing the facts.

But when your income depends on your ability to write, whining won’t get you anywhere. It will distract you from the golden opportunity that writer’s block always offers: greater clarity and confidence.

When you work it right, writer’s block is your secret weapon to becoming a better and more resilient writer. And when your ability to write is what pays the bills, that’s gold.

How writer’s block can give you more clarity

Writing flows when you are clear on what you need to say, and why you need to say it. Writing becomes a chore when you know what you need to say but are reluctant to do it. And it can dry up completely when you’re not so clear anymore.

Your clarity is directly linked to how convinced you are that you have something valuable to say — and that you can say it.

Both of these require courage to face the fear that any act of writing brings.

So use writer’s block as a signal to stop and reflect on what you fear and why, because if you don’t acknowledge the fear, you’ll never be able to face it. All it takes to move through fear is facing it, feeling it. Saying to yourself, “Okay, this is scary. But it still needs to be done.”

How to Start unblocking yourself

If you need some concrete steps to get started on identifying the fears related to your writer’s block, try the “clean-slate” exercise:

1. Take a blank sheet of paper and write down a one-line summary of what you think you’re supposed to be writing. Be as topic-specific and categorical as you can. Is it a book review, an online report, a sales page, a newsletter article?
2. Write down all the ideas and opinions about that topic that have been passed along to you by other people — things that you’ve read, heard, overheard, or even imagined. Don’t forget your parents, mentors, friends, role models. Record all those voices running around in your head and lay them out on the page.
3. Good. Now put that page aside because that’s not the one that’s going to turn your block into a weapon. (In fact, it’s the one that will keep you stuck.)
4. Get another blank sheet of paper.
5. Again, write down what you think you should be writing in the center of the page. Now, make sure you are alone in your room. There should be no one around to look over your shoulder, judge you, criticize you, or misunderstand you — in physical form or in your head. It’s important to maintain this solitude for the next step.
6. Dig deep into what you have to say, what you think, and what your opinion is, stripped away from all of those from the first sheet. Put it all out on the page, and take more pages if you need to. Remember, there is no one to judge you and your task is to write without any reference to the ideas or opinions from that first sheet, but write only from within you.

This second “clean-slate” page will reveal the true reason why you wanted to write in the first place.

It’s a safe place to get some clarity about what you need to say, without worrying about what anyone else will think. Going to that safe place gets you unstuck.

How writer’s block can boost your confidence

Each time you unblock yourself by writing despite your fears, it builds confidence. You realize, “Hey, I’ve got a lot to say! And I’ve got a unique position!”

You teach yourself that even though your job requires you to write to and for other people, you’re really doing it for yourself — whether for income, personal satisfaction, or even good conscience.

You also strengthen your writing so that nothing can faze it. You won’t get thrown off by anyone’s doubts (including your own), negative opinions, projections, or reservations about your ability to perform. Those will only cloud what you know you need to say.

Most important of all, you learn that writer’s block is all in the mind. That John’s whiny commentators missed out on a mother lode of resilience any writer would envy, because they ran away from writer’s block instead of picking it up as the weapon that it is.

To be a resilient and fierce writer, you need to write despite your fears. And you need signals, such as writer’s block, to help uncover your fears so you can face them.

Writer’s block can’t be separated from your doubt and fear. It’s something you are not a victim of, but responsible to. It can, and should, be faced head-on.

Preferably right now, if your next meal is waiting for that last page to get finished.

About the Author: Melissa Karnaze writes about the intelligence of emotions on Mindful Construct and Twitter.

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Why Writer’s Block is Your Secret Weapon

Since the very first blog, written around an ancient campfire somewhere in the moist foothills of Seattle, content has been crowned the undisputed king.

The king ruled over all that was written, be they blogs, articles, ads, fiction, or a killer love letter. All that was copy sat at the feet of the king.

Nothing succeeded without content. Writing without it was cast from the kingdom, banished as self-serving junk mail and the much-loathed “interruption marketing.”

But the king is dead.

Okay, not exactly dead, just appointed Prime Minister. Content still rules, but it’s from a more evolved perspective.

Long live the new king: context.

Because nothing sells, nothing works, without it.

The inherent power that is context

At the center of every effective piece of content is an agenda, an implied pitch residing at the heart of the content.

Content is the license, if you will, to move forward with the pitch. Valuable content gives you the right to go on to sell or promote something. It’s the embodiment of a noble premise — to receive you must first give.

You give with the hope that the prospect will stick around and finally buy something. And that is the context behind content marketing.

A commercial context doesn’t diminish the value of strong content. In fact, acknowledging your agenda can be a very smart strategy. It’s like saying, Here, I have a gift for you. Stick around. Because there’s even more where that came from.

Content creates value, and value builds trust. From trust springs the willingness to part with dollars in return for even more value.

The universal nature of context

Of course, context isn’t something we only find in commercial transactions. It’s the empowering juice of fiction, as well.

In the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s current flick, Inglorious Basterds, we see what would otherwise be an overly long, annoyingly irrelevant conversation between a Nazi officer and a terrified farmer.

Why is the farmer terrified? Why is the viewer hooked? Because of the context of the scene. Beneath every seemingly innocent line is a foreboding sense of dread.

Idle chit-chat about milk and neighbors form the content. Fear and unthinkable consequences form the context. Without the context, all you have is a rather dull conversation.

We know something really dramatic and truly horrifying is about to happen. Right after Tarantino teases and torments us into a frenzy of anticipation.

How does he do that? He has mastered the art of context in his scenes.

We copywriters should take note.

Context as strategy

Effective context doesn’t happen by accident. We need to consciously create it.

Context comes from the writer’s clarity about her goals, juxtaposed against the expectations and tolerances of the audience.

In the context of content marketing, first we deliver valuable content, free and clear. As a gift. As a solution. As narrative bricks and mortar. And in doing so we earn the reader’s trust.

Once we’re trusted, we are now able to expand on our own agenda. We get to talk more about the intended outcome of the piece. That outcome might be a sale, a subscription, or even conversion to a new idea.

In a blog, we set out to deliver value. In an ad, we pitch solutions and overcome objections. In fiction, we infuse scenes with anticipation and emotion.

And in each case, when we understand the context we’re working in, we achieve our goal.

And so, too, does the reader. Because their context isn’t what you’re selling, but what they’re seeking to take away from what you’ve written.

Long live the new king.

About the Author: Larry Brooks is a bestselling novelist and the creator of Storyfix.com, an instructional site for fiction writers and those who love them.

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Why Content is No Longer King (And Who’s Taking His Place)

Did you read lesson 1, lesson 2 and lesson 3 completely and downloaded the free membership software (SiteManPro) and installed your FTM site yet? If not, then go back and do that first. There is no point in continuing if you have not acted on the previous lessons yet. So, please go back and read and act on those lessons first.

Still here? OK, I assume that you have done everything that I asked you to do so far in this coaching. Let’s dive into our next important lesson…

Creating a Stream of Content

As the owner of an FTM site, content is your bread and butter. So long as you keep offering valuable information to your subscribers, they will happily keep handing over their hard-earned cash to you, month after month. But as the quality of your work starts to drop, so, too, will your earnings.

Creating a steady, ongoing stream of content for your site is no small task – but this is the one thing that you absolutely need to get 100% right or you can forget all about that dream of residual income.

The Importance of Planning

At the very beginning of this series, in the first lesson, I likened FTM sites to an online university degree, in that they teach you a complete content package over a defined period of time.

And as any graduate of a decent university will tell you, the key to progressing through your studies is to have a planned curriculum that gradually progresses from introductory-level courses all the way to expert classes and steadily builds and expands upon the content of previous courses.

In this respect, FTM sites are very similar – a good FTM site will cover beginner-level material first and gradually advance to more challenging topics, culminating in a complete package at the end of the course.

This makes content planning an element of paramount importance. You don’t want to jump the gun and skip right ahead to advanced stuff – after all, you have to account for all the beginners in your audience. But at the same time, you cannot afford to be seen milling about in the same place for too long and covering the same content over and over in different words – doing so will instantly convince your subscribers that you’ve run out of content and that now you’re simply regurgitating what you already know in a last-ditch effort to stop them from unsubscribing.

Creating an Effective Content Plan

The first step to planning your content is to define the duration of your course. Put the “fixed” into “fixed-term membership” – will your site last 12 months, 6 months or 3?

Next, you need to define your mission statement – at the end of the course, what do you want your subscribers to know and be able to do? Normally, this question should already be answered somewhere in your sales letter (after all, if you don’t know what you’re selling, you’re in serious trouble.

For example, if I had to write a mission statement for this coaching series, it would be something like this:

“To provide new marketers with all the required tools and knowledge to set up, market, monetize and manage their FTM site.”

The mission statement already tells us quite a few things:

• This coaching is aimed at beginner marketers who have never built an FTM site before
• This coaching seeks to cover the following topics:
• Technical set-up
• Marketing and promotion
• Monetization techniques
• Customer management methodologies

Once you have defined your mission statement, you will already have an outline of content that you need to cover, as exemplified by the bullet points above. For example, if you run an FTM site on underwater basket weaving (yes, I love this crazy example), here are some of the areas you might want to cover:

• Basket weaving techniques
• Tools for weaving a basket
• Underwater survival techniques (you don’t want your customers to drown and stop paying you, do you?)

As soon as you’ve defined the sub-topics that you need to discuss – think of them as core classes that constitute mandatory elements of your curriculum – you then need to define the order of precedence. Remember, ideally your lessons should build upon each other, which means that you need to provide a solid foundation first and then gradually elaborate upon it.

Once again, let’s take this course as an example. The first lesson discusses the basics of FTM sites – because if you’ve never worked with one before, then it’s probably the first thing you’ll want to know. The next lesson discusses the science of picking the right niche – because you can’t really set anything up until you’ve chosen a market for it.

The next lesson discusses the technical set-up – because once you’ve picked the market, what you’ll probably want to know is how to set everything up. The course then elaborates on creating content for the site (because once the technical side has been taken care of, you’ll want to have some content before you market it).

Can you see the logic behind it? When your content delivery is spread over a 12-month period, it is vitally important that it is structured in a way that subscribers can easily follow. After all, what are the odds that your customers will want to know how to monetize their site when they haven’t got the foggiest idea how to set the whole thing up in the first place?

Finally, once you have decided upon a delivery plan for your content, then – and only then, it’s time to get writing. When crafting your content, keep the following in mind – you want to have a steady stream of content on a weekly basis, as opposed to spikes that happen once a month. 12 pages of lessons delivered every week creates a lot more perceived value than a 48-page mammoth class sent out at the end of each month.

As such, do not hesitate to break your content down into easily digestible chunks. Aim for small weekly morsels of information rather than a mammoth meal every thirty days. Not only will you create additional perceived value, but you will also keep your customers engaged by giving them something new to do every week.

This, in fact, is one of the dangers of monthly delivery plans – all the excitement and enthusiasm will start to wane after the first few days. Before too long, your customers will start giving up on what they want to accomplish through their membership – and that means lost profits for you. A weekly stream of content creates the perception of activity and does not give your subscribers time to lose that spark of enthusiasm they get after each content delivery.

Writing Compelling Lessons

Lessons lie at the heart of your FTM site – they are the form in which you deliver value to your subscribers. So if there’s only one thing you were to get right about your FTM site, make sure that well-written, compelling, effective lessons is it!

The good news is – you can create interesting content, even if you are not a professional writer (I will cover a number of outsourcing strategies later in this chapter). Bottom line is, people are paying you money for information, not the quality of your writing – nobody cares that you’re not Charles Dickens so long as you can get the point across.

The single most important thing to remember about FTM lessons is that they need to be action-oriented. Every new weekly update you provide must give your readers steps that they need to take over the course of the week. Theoretical material is fine, but it should never constitute the majority of a lesson’s content (if you desperately feel the need to cover the theoretical basics, you’d be better served by offering it as separate bonus material – more on that later).

Here’s a simple litmus test to determine whether your lesson is action-oriented or not – after you’ve written it, ask yourself: upon reading this information, will the subscriber discover what steps they need to take next? Or will they understand why they should do things in a certain way? If the answer is the latter, then your lesson is not action-oriented enough and it’s time to get back to the drawing board.

There is a very simple reason for this seemingly undue emphasis on action – if you’re seeking to retain your members for the entire duration of the course, it is vitally important to keep them as engaged as possible. Your customers are far less likely to unsubscribe if every single week they have new steps to take, new techniques to implement and new strategies to follow. Giving concrete, solid, actionable information to your subscribers increases perceived value, improves customer engagement and lowers unsubscribe rates.

Since each of your lessons is unlikely to be longer than 10-15 pages, it is vitally important that you get to the point as quickly as possible and don’t waste time beating around the bush. For this reason, I suggest you always start your lesson with a page-long introductory section, where you explain to your readers what they’re about to learn.

On this note, let me add the following – keep the content of your lesson laser-focused on one topic. Do not make the mistake of covering additional content simply because you feel it is relevant – even if it is, you’re better off using this idea for future lessons rather than trying to cram all of it into one.

Developing Supplementary Content

Everyone loves free stuff. No, really – if you’re paying for something and you get something else on top of that for free, you will usually appreciate the gesture – even if the bonus material is little more than a 10-page handout covering major IM theories or a quick progress checklist related to the material provided during the course.

While some may think of supplementary content as optional, I strongly encourage you to make it a mandatory element of your FTM site. The reason – bonus material often massively increases the perceived value of your service, without major investments or expenses on your part. It’s a great way to show your subscribers that you care – and that you’re willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to overdeliver whenever possible.

Better still, you don’t have to do it regularly (since no one expects you to hand out free bonuses in the first place) – but writing up a quick free report once a month can do wonders for customer relations.

Here are some ideas on the type of bonus content you can provide:

PLR Articles

By far, this is the easiest method. If you’ve got it in you to write a whole 12-month course on a specific topic, then you certainly have the knowledge and the writing skill to bang out 10 quick, effective articles for your members (see the section on Article Marketing for more information on crafting winning articles that sell).

Most of your members are bound to appreciate the gesture, since it saves them the trouble of writing these articles yourself. Better still, they’re unlikely to take you more than a few hours to write – and if you really don’t feel inclined to do it yourself, you can easily hire a writer to get them done for you for only $5 a piece (check the Warrior Forum – the place is brimming with aspiring writers who will happily create quality content at very affordable rates).

Theoretical Frameworks

As mentioned earlier in this series, your lessons should be action-oriented. While theories certainly have their place in your course, they should never account for the majority of your lesson content.

This, as suggested previously, makes them a fantastic topic to discuss at length in your bonus content. Since bonus material is, by definition, optional, no one will fault you for spending too much time on theoretical information and not enough on hands-on material. Better still, you can easily relate it to the materials covered so far!

Checklists

For some strange reason, everyone loves checklists – and while I personally have never seen much value in them, I can understand how someone would find them helpful for organizing their thoughts and keeping track of their progress.

Since you are offering a lesson-based FTM, relevant checklists can be remarkably easy to create. Simply take the content of last month’s lessons, consider what steps subscribers are expected to take to implement it, write them down in MS Word, put it into PDF and voila – you’ve created a valuable bonus for your readers in about 20 minutes!

PLR Reports

PLR reports are a great tool for encouraging opt-ins to a mailing list. However, speaking from experience, I often find writing them to be even more frustrating that the main book.

This makes PLR reports a great offer for your subscribers. As usual, you can either outsource them or write them yourself. A report shouldn’t be more than 7-15 pages long (and if you’re feeling particularly generous, you can even hire someone to design an attractive e-cover for it). Such reports provide great value to your subscribers at relatively low cost to you.

SIDENOTE: Let me give you a nice resource where you can pick such plr products. In fact, this is the new marketplace that I started in collaboration with top authors and developers.

Go to http://www.NicheRat.com. Here, we’re building a marketplace of writers, authors, developers and coders who will create top quality content and products for people like you. You can take these products and use them to create your own products or you can simply use them as is and sell. The biggest advantage of this niche products marketplace is that every product is 100% original and is not going to be available elsewhere. And that means top quality product.

Currently, there is only handful of products, so if you do not find what you are looking for, just enter your email address on the home page and bookmark that site. We inform all subscribers every time we publish a new product.

Outsourcing Strategies

Let’s face it – sooner or later, you will find yourself with better things to do than write content on a weekly basis. Maybe you want to spend some time in the Caribbean enjoying the hard-earned profits from your FTM site, or maybe you’re just feeling burnt out after months and months of non-stop writing.

Luckily, I don’t think you need me to tell you that the Internet is full of inexpensive outsourcing options. Here are some to get you started:

• E-Lance
• Rent a Coder
• Warrior Forum
• SitePoint Marketplace
• Digital Point Forums

E-Lance and Rent a Coder are great for finding remarkably inexpensive writers. Because these sites operate on a bidding system where independent contractors bid on a project you post, a race to the bottom is inevitable. As a buyer, you will realize enormous savings simply by allowing interested contractors to outbid each other and offer the lowest price possible just to get your project.

Unfortunately, the old saying that you get what you pay for is all too relevant in these situations. Very often, you will find writers willing to produce 500 word articles for $1-2 each; in most cases, however, the quality of the end result will be horrific. It is not uncommon to receive work that is either not original and/or contains an overwhelming amount of grammar mistakes. In a lot of cases, these articles will be written by non-native speakers of English – and while I haven’t got a problem with that as such, it does become an issue when their limited command of English impacts the quality of the final product.

In contrast, Warrior Forum, SitePoint Marketplace and Digital Point all offer better quality writers – but at premium prices. Of these three, Digital Point offers the cheapest options (although quality often suffers as well).

Warrior Forum is, by far, the best place to look for writers and service providers – while you will pay premium price, you can’t beat the quality that comes with it. Considering how much money your site earns you every month, investing an extra $50 in a quality writer can be well worth it (remember, this content will be read by your paying customers!)

One other thing you need to keep in mind – never outsource urgent content (for example, if you haven’t got anything written for next week’s mailing, which is due in a few days). Things happen – writers disappear, submit low-quality content or produce work that’s different from what you expected. But the simple truth is, your members don’t care that you’re having outsourcing issues – they paid for weekly content, and weekly content they expect, by hook or by crook. So if you find yourself with a looming deadline, grab a mug of coffee and get writing – it’s better to spend a night creating winning content for your customers than invent excuses for not delivering information that your clients have paid for.

Furthermore, if you decide to play the outsourcing game, there is one thing you absolutely need to invest into – Copyscape.com. You never know when your writer decides to take a few shortcuts here and there – until, that is, you find yourself reading a cease & desist letter and facing a potential lawsuit for copyright infringement. Always use Copyscape to ensure that the content your ghostwriter submits is original – it’s pretty affordable, especially considering how much headache and legal fees it can save you in the long run.

Hiring a Ghostwriter

When hiring a ghostwriter, it is vitally important that they have the right experience for the job. Simply because they call themselves a writer doesn’t mean that they have what it takes to write, say, an e-book. If you need an article writer, ask them if they have any article writing experience and ask for references and testimonials; if you need a report writer, do the same.

For instance, I once hired a ghostwriter for a 40-page e-book. The person in question had works published in the offline world, was a poet and generally seemed like a wise investment.

Or so I thought. The final product was a book that was suited for offline publication, but not online distribution. It consisted of elaborate flowery prose, paragraphs that spanned pages and a multitude of ideas that, while briefly touched upon, were never properly discussed. In short, it was a disaster of monumental proportions – which is how I learned the painful lesson that just because someone can write doesn’t necessarily mean that they can produce quality online content.

Finally, when working with a ghostwriter, I find it helpful to be as specific as possible in terms of what I want the final project to look like. When I hire a ghostwriter, I usually provide them with a PDF file specifying the desired outline, formatting, typeface, font size and page count. Never make the mistake of simply asking for X number of pages – for all you know, you’ll end up with 40 pages in Verdana 14pt double-spaced (and with enormous margins as well!) If you want to control the length of the final product, ask for a specific word count instead.

With that said, if you’re working with a quality ghostwriter, it sometimes pays to let them have a bit of creative freedom. In fact, whenever I provide an outline to one of my writers, I always do it with the caveat that this is simply the content I would like to see included and that they are free to add their own research to it, so long as they cover everything specified in the outline.

Leveraging Feedback

As you will discover later in this coaching, providing too many avenues for two-way communication with your customers can actually be detrimental both to your profits and to your long-term customer relationship management efforts.

With that said, whenever you find yourself hard-pressed for new content, your existing subscribers are often one of the best sources of inspiration and ideas you will ever find.

In the final analysis, your site is all about creating value for your subscribers. Speaking from experience, however, I can tell you that, very often, it’s very difficult to step back and spot gaping holes in your content. Sometimes, you need an extra pair of eyes to take a good, hard look at what you’re offering and see where your content falls short.

And what better pair of eyes can you think of than people who have paid to access this information in the first place? Potentially, they’re your fiercest critics – and also your single biggest source of new ideas.

This is why I strongly recommend actively soliciting feedback from your existing subscribers. The simplest way to do it is to create a straightforward web form on your site and ask subscribers to use it if they have any suggestions on what they would like you to cover throughout the course.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to handle all the technicalities of setting up HTML-based pages, you can simply ask your subscribers to e-mail you with their suggestions. This, however, has the disadvantage of creating expectations of two-way communication (we will cover this in the “Coaching” section later in this course).

Furthermore, if you decide to offer a coaching service – as you most definitely should! – a great way to come up with new content ideas is to simply see what problems your customers are having and what questions they’re asking you. If you spot an issue that keeps coming up repeatedly, or a question that’s so out of the box that you had never thought of addressing it until you were confronted with it, then you pretty much have your content idea there and then.

Better still, since you’re providing a coaching service, you’ve probably already offered a solution to this problem. In other words, you’ve done all the research and created all the content you need to turn to produce a full-fledged lesson – now all you have to do is package it as a PDF file and list it for your subscribers to download!

This concludes this week’s lesson.

Again, if you haven’t read lesson 1, lesson 2 and lesson 3 , downloaded the SiteManPro and installed your FTM site yet, then go back and do that first. There is no point in continuing if you have not acted on the previous lessons yet. So, please go back and read them and act on those lessons.

SIDENOTE: Do not be a lazy person. Membership sites are lot of fun, plus lot of money. I have just launched my new membership site (but this time, not a FTM) at SiteJerk where I am providing written and video tutorials for web masters and small business owners. Since I have an extensive experience in using web based software, developing them, coding, programming, etc I am enjoying writing for SiteJerk. In other words, I am a living proof of everything I am teaching this coaching series. I just love membership sites.

As a launch special, first 500 members can sign up for just $4.99/mo. Go check it out. You will never want to cancel your subscription, and you will learn so many new technicalities in setting up a website.

Next Week – Marketing Your FTM Site

As an Internet Marketer, there is one simple truth that I am sure you already know – no matter how expertly written your copy is, how attractive your graphics are and how incredibly valuable your content is, none of this matters if you aren’t putting it in front of the right eyeballs.

This lesson, then, seeks to address this very issue. By the time you are done reading it, you will know all there is it to know about driving targeted traffic to your site and getting your first few subscribers.

And, better still, we are going to break with tradition here and start our examination of traffic methods by discussing a method that most beginner marketers are loathe to use…

Stay tuned!!

Discover the SECRETS I’ve Learned to go from zero a month to over $40,000 a month from blogging. Download Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com for FREE!

Read the rest here:
How To Start a Money Making Membership Site – Part 4