Step by Step Blogging System

If you’re a blogger, your most common problem is likely not knowing what to write. You open your word processor or editor to find a blank canvas staring back at you, which causes the same thing to happen to your mind — it goes blank.
Week after week, you struggle to pull together coherent posts that are just this side of rambling, and in the back of your mind, you know that you’re not doing the best job of managing your blog to ensure that it helps you reach your goals.

The solution?
Develop a system around your blogging efforts. 
Here are the steps I took to create a system for producing and managing content for my own site.

About a month ago, I was approaching yet another week of blank canvases, so I set out to find a way to be more intentional and focused with my content. The first thing that came to mind was an editorial calendar. Big magazines and newspapers have used them since the dawn of the publishing industry, so I was fairly confident the solution would work for me, but I didn’t want to just throw together a calendar in spreadsheet form and think that all my problems would go away. I really wanted to approach this as a big magazine would, so I started by thinking in terms of a single magazine issue and how an editor might produce andmanage its content.

Step 1: Choose a Theme

If you think about a single magazine issue, there’s generally a theme to it, a common thread that ties together the articles within it, so that was my first step — develop a theme. I decided to have “focus months” on my site to guide the content for a given month. This would help me accomplish a couple of things. 
First, it would make my content more intentional. It would center my efforts around keywords and information that was relevant to my target audience.
Second, it would help me better anticipate the content I was going to create, which would allow me to line up guest experts and interviews that were relevant to the content.
I was immediately able to come up with themes for the next six months.

Step 2: Choose Your Sub-Topics

Once I had a theme in mind, I was able to think about sub-topics within that theme that would deepen my coverage of the content that month. At first, I just listed out the possibilities for sub-topics without thinking too much about them, and created a list of ten or twelve ideas. As I created the list, I noted possible guest experts who might provide greater insight into the sub-topics than I could provide on my own.

Step 3: Establish Your Schedule and Content Needs

With my topic and sub-topics ready, I had to decide on the frequency I would publish. I settled on publishing one content piece per day (could be an article, an audio piece, etc.). I decided to interview guest experts within the sub-topics and then spread out the content over the course of the month.

My plan would be to line up and interview guests the month before I intended to publish the content. That way, I would avoid last-minute scrambling to produce content and could instead focus on quality well in advance of publishing. This would also help when I got sick or took time off, since I would already have content on tap for the given week or month and could simply schedule it to be published (or, even better, hire someone else to do it for me).

I decided that the number of weeks there were in a given month would be the number of guest experts I would line up for that month (five weeks, five guest experts). And to make things simple, each guest expert would produce one week’s worth of content (five content pieces per guest).

My site has a mix of articles and audio, so I decided to do one-hour interviews with each guest (and then each interview would be divided into four shorter content pieces) and then have each guest contribute one article in addition to their interview. That made it really easy on my guests, since they only had to show up for a one-hour interview and create one article. Plus, that little bit of effort on their part would equate to weekly promotion for their businesses, since I would be spreading their content out over the course of the month.

The great thing for me was, instead of having twenty to twenty-five separate content pieces to create on my own in a given month, I would simply do four to five interviews (depending on the number of weeks that month) and knock out four content pieces in one hour. Of course, that meant a lot more planning on the front end, but then the actual content creation part would become very easy.

Step 4: Produce the Content

So, I knew how many guest experts I would have (the same as the number of weeks that month), and I knew how many content pieces I needed from each of guest (always five), so that let me know how many titles I had to create for the month.

Say, for instance, the month’s theme was “balance.” I knew I needed five content pieces, so I created five generic titles.
Stress-Reduction Tips
Personal Renewal
Food and Mood
Balancing Home and Work Life
Disconnecting from Technology

Then I could create more interesting titles from the generic ones:
60-Second Stress-Busting Techniques
The Importance of Personal Renewal
Is Food Affecting Your Mood?
Creative Ways to Balance Work and Home Life
Cut the Cord: How to Disconnect from the World

This part was surprisingly simple. While I normally could sit and ponder blog post titles for what seemed like hours, I was immediately able to think of several ideas when thinking about picking the brains of experts on a given topic.

Step 5: Create an Editorial Calendar

I had my theme, my sub-topics, and even the specific post titles for the content I wanted to create. All that was left to do was actually create the content, edit it, and publish it. That meant that I actually had to conduct the interviews and then lay out exactly when I was going to edit and publish the audio and articles contributed by the guests.

Why a System? Why Not Just Blog?

If you’re running a business blog, there’s generally an underlying purpose behind it. Maybe you want more clients or to create a fan base for an upcoming book. Whatever the case, there’s a reason that you blog, and the content you create should help you reach your end goal. By being more intentional and focused with your content, you’ll achieve greater success in a much shorter period of time and make sure that your content is, in fact, serving the audience it’s intended to serve.

My favorite things about having a system?
Content has become so much easier to create
My efforts are more focused and are helping me reach my goalsI’m more intentional when it comes to guests, which means greater cross-promotion, back links, and visibility with new audiences.
I’m no longer staring at a blank screen wondering what I’m going to write.

So, what’s your blogging system?
How are you staying on track and organized when it comes to your blogging efforts?

THIS IS THE BLOGGING SYSTEM!!

by amber singleton riviere
AUG. 26, 2010
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4 Steps to Monitize Your Blog

BY LEYL MASTER BLACK
Feb 09, 2013

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

While there are currently tens of millions of blogs worldwide, close to 60 million powered byWordPress alone, many bloggers are not yet monetizing their sites.

If you're one of these bloggers, a good place to start is with affiliate marketing: directing readers to a product or service in exchange for a commission on the sale (or other action) when it occurs. Connect Your Blog With Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr"If an individual is looking to monetize their blog, I would make a strong case for affiliate marketing as the best avenue for doing so," says Josh Waldron, founder of creative design firm Studio JWAL LLC.

 "Blogs with quality content attract loyal readers. Since readers benefit from the content offered, they grow to trust the authors of that content over time. Consequently, an author's blog posts are a logical place to promote relevant products and services without compromising the integrity of the content."

Here are four quick steps to monetizing your blog through affiliate marketing.

1. Choose Relevant Affiliate Programs

Affiliate ads pay per action, which means that readers will need to click on the ad and then either sign up or register for something, or make a purchase before you get paid for the action. The more relevant the ad is to your content, the higher the likelihood visitors will click on the ad and perform the desired action.

So, what type of affiliate program will provide the most relevant ads for your blog?

If you're focused on a particular topic, you will want to join affiliates specifically associated with your content. For example, if you have a photography site, you might apply to be an affiliate with a camera equipment dealer.

Many bloggers start with Amazon Associates since Amazon sells millions of diverse products that are likely to be a fit for most bloggers. Amazon pays commissions of 4% to 15%, depending on volume and product type.

To find other targeted affiliate programs, check out popular affiliate clearinghouse sites such as Commission Junction, LinkShare, and ShareASale. All three offer access to thousands of affiliate programs, but you must apply separately to each one.

While you should choose programs related to your content, you don't have to feel restricted to stick too closely to your niche, says marketing consultant Dennis Duty.

Think about what other types of products your audience might be interested in."Perhaps your Halo audience would enjoy other FPS games as well," says Duty.

2. Consider an Affiliate Aggregator Service

If your blog topics are more diverse, you might consider a program such as VigLink, which automates access to more than 30,000 affiliate programs and monetizes the links on your site for you.
For example, if a blogger is writing about a new pair of shoes they found on Zappos, instead of having to sign up with the Zappos affiliate program directly, they can work with VigLink, which will automatically append the affiliate code to the link and pay the blogger their earned commissions.
While VigLink typically keeps 25% for this service, the company claims that because of their size, they "often negotiate higher commissions that more than cover our share," says Oliver Deighton, vice president of marketing at VigLink.

In addition to automatically monetizing existing links, VigLink can also optionally insert new, ordinary links where none existed before.
For example, if a blogger mentions a product, brand or store, they don't have to worry about linking it themselves: VigLink will take care of that with its link insertion technology, which optimizes for both user experience and revenue.

"For most websites, link insertion lifts VigLink revenue by more than 90%," adds Deighton.Deighton notes that while any blogger can try VigLink, bloggers will find the most success if their content is geared toward commerce."Hobbies, fashion, tech gear, deals and savings are all topics that naturally lead to spending; religion, food, raising children are less ideal," adds Deighton.

3. Create Content That Sells

Many bloggers will actually write reviews of products with affiliate marketing in mind.

"The power of a blog is that it's easy to aggregate a lot of loyal fans for niche topics.
This lends itself to making recommendations and providing affiliate links to those recommendations," says Chris Conrey, a partner at digital marketing company Vuurr.com.

But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors, writes Lynn Truong, Editor-in-Chief of Wise Bread, a popular personal finance site.

"Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content," says Truong.

"Don't put up a list of your favorite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link and purchase the books just because you listed them. Take some time to write a detailed review, and use affiliate ads to point them in the right direction if they decide to act on your information."

4. Integrate Affiliate Links Appropriately

If you do add affiliate links to your site, make sure you maintain a balance between monetization and user experience, suggests web designer Kevin Spence.
One way to do this is to keep the majority of your content ad-free.

"What I would recommend to people is to think of 5-10 great pages that you could use to promote affiliate offers related to your niche. Then link to those money pages from your sidebar, footer or somewhere else that will give them a lot of visibility from the other pages on your site. Keep the rest of your site ad-free," says Spence.

"The goal is not to monetize every page, but for every page to be a potential gateway to monetization.

"More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum- How to Use Hashtags to Promote Your Small Business- 10 Things You Didn't Know About Yelp- How to Master Social Media Like a Famous ComedianPhoto courtesy of noqontrol via CompfightLEYL MASTER BLACKLeyl Master Black is a Senior Managing Director at Sparkpr, one of the world's top independent PR.

LEYL MASTER BLACK
Feb 09, 2013

Entrepreneurship & Small Business

As a Budding Entrepreneur, Where Do You Start?

Michael Skok -
LinkedIn Influencer13 Jun 2013

I am often asked by prospective entrepreneurs how I got started and what they might learn from it.
But my answer is: “Don’t follow me.” Follow your own path by finding a problem worth solving that you are uniquely qualified to solve* and can get passionate about. Then have the persistence and patience to pursue it.

Problems

Passion

Persistence

Patience

Problems

Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
The key is to look around and get in front of a mega-trend and then look to solve a major problem or issue in order to fully leverage that trend. The good news is we don’t lack for major trends represented by multiple, multi-billion-dollar underlying markets.

Take for example:
Living in a Resource Constrained World:
The world population will grow by nearly 30% in our lifetimes to 9 billion people. Population growth stresses natural resources and it will be compounded by economic development across Asia, India and Africa – areas that are already stressed from a resource standpoint and by consumption per capita that is forecast to grow more rapidly than population, further straining resources.

Using energy as a proxy for other resources – today, the United States consumes twice as much oil as China. But as China’s total energy demand surges 60% in the next 15 years, it will consume 70% more total energy than the US.
Note that India, Indonesia and Brazil (just to name a few) have higher rates of growth in per capita energy consumption than even China.

According to the International Energy Administration, $620 billion a year in oil and gas investments are required just to fill this demand.
Thus, game-changing innovation and entrepreneurship is mandatory in areas like: solar, access to hard-to-get resources and low-cost energy storage systems.
There are problems of equal magnitude in food, water, electronics and healthcare – terrific opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators.

Everything as a Service:
The “out-servicing” era:This is a revolutionary, highly-disruptive approach to technology and business models across multiple industries – all driven by software. Consider the post-PC era of tablets, mobile devices, and the “Internet of Things” – from cars to appliances to industrial equipment – that are connected to the cloud 24 x 7.
It will allow new entrepreneurs to zero in on their core value with laser precision – innovate there and outsource or as I call it “out-service” the rest.

It’s a major reason why the current $15 billion software-as-a-service revenue will leap to 10 times that as we move from discrete systems to continuous cloud services – another huge opportunity.

The Need To Scale Infrastructure:
In order to enable and support the “out-servicing” era, whether it’s cloud computing, big data or mobile, there’s an insatiable appetite for content and connectivity.
Today, there are about 9 billion mobile devices and that is forecast to grow to 50 billion connected devices in 2017.
In 2012, networks handled more mobile data traffic – than in all preceding years combined and yet it’s forecast to grow at a 66% compounded rate until 2020.
So, the opportunities to develop scalable, software-defined infrastructure, policy engines, data mining systems, content and applications from gaming, to education, medicine or wearable computers is huge going forward.
Know that along the way you will of course run into naysayers, challenges and even failure. To overcome those you will need a healthy dose of passion, persistence and patience.

Passion:
Pursue your passion, find your flow, trust your instincts.
In order to pursue these kinds of big problems, you will need to learn to tap your internal energy.
That energy may initially come from a basic need. For example, if you’re just starting out, it might be the need to pay off your student debt. And those needs are important if not critical.

But in time, I believe our passion is the sustainable source of positive energy.
If you’re not already aware of your passion, start by finding your flow.
Flow is literally that activity where you find yourself free flowing and lose track of time it’s so natural. Composers find it in music. Athletes find it competing.
Programmers find it coding. Where will you find yours? Here’s a paradox: you will only know when you find it because you will lose yourself in it. So it may take careful self-observation.

There’s a wonderful TED talk on this subject here.It can take time to find your true passion. Enjoy the journey, the exploration and the learning about yourself. As you navigate, you will build your compass that will help you find your true north, your true calling in life.
And precisely because you focused on and took time to find that passion, you will build the conviction and instinct to pursue it. And you will need that as many people and things may conspire to divert your flow.
Don’t let them; it will sap your energy. Eschew the cynics; find your own path to positive energy.

And always trust your gut instincts. They will ultimately serve you well, even though it may not be obvious at the time. Sometimes the hardest decisions are the best. And they may include what NOT to do. So often “less is more” in everything from products to life.
And in that vein, if the noise gets too great, keep taking things away until you find silence. Learn to meditate if necessary and in the peace, reconnect with your convictions. It is often in the pause or the gap that the “breakthrough thinking” has room to arise.

Persistence and Patience

Great entrepreneurs have a bias for action that’s admirable.
They get in the flow and focus on doing a few things well and build on success. They ask more questions than they answer, and they listen more than they talk. But even with all that it takes time to build something of impact and importance.
And while you may get lucky, luck is a poor basis to build a life on. By contrast, patience and persistence really do pay off.

On average in our business it takes 5-7 years to build a company of any significance. And typically even longer than that to build a sustainable, independent public company.

So, while I hope you’ll find a breakthrough to prove those averages wrong, be compassionate with yourself if you find it’s taking longer and proving harder than you thought.

In the immortal words of Winston Churchill “if you’re going through hell, keep going!”

Some of our greatest investments took longer and traveled more tortuous and twisted paths than we could ever have imagined but then ended up being bigger successes than we ever thought possible. If you can just get back in the flow and enjoy the ride, you may never want it to end and that’s the basis to build something really enduring.

Wishing you a life of entrepreneurship, passion and the persistence and patience to enjoy the journey!

*If you’re not sure what you are uniquely qualified to do or perhaps you are just starting out in life and have no experience, read this.

This column was originally published in Forbes.

Michael Skok is the creator of Startup Secrets. Held in conjunction with Harvard innovation lab, Startup Secrets is a series of workshops (taught by Michael) designed to create a framework for entrepreneurs to think through some of the key steps that could accelerate their success in starting a business.

MLM Top Earners Ranks Update March 2013 - Business For Home

Stephen Scott – The Team Building Project – Joins Empower Network

Ted Nuyten.
12 Jun 2013 

Stephen Scott is founder & CEO of The Team Building Project an organization with 36,000 members around the world.

The Team Building Project was conceived and developed by Stephen Scott, a proven Digital Marketing Expert with over 20 years of business development, web site design & architecture, database design, viral marketing, social networking and computer programming experience.

In addition, Stephen is considered a network marketing and MLM expert having successfully developed organizations in multiple countries.

Stephen: "Empower Network’s Viral Blogging System is the lucrative solution to a complicated online marketing world.

Empower Network offers world class marketing, business and life training from people who walk their talk and get results with what they teach.

The company also hosts one of the Internet’s largest publishing platforms and content networks for bloggers and content marketers.

The Empower Network provides several different products.

The first is the blogging platform and Fast Track training series.

The blog is set up instantly when you join and optimized, all you have to do is create content.

The blogging system comes with a series of eight Fast Track training videos.

Empower Network provides an in-depth explanation of how and why the blogging platform works.

Empower Network also covers some core business principles that will help in your new success blog. The blogging system and eight Fast Track videos are only $25 per month.

The second program is the audio series of interviews with industry experts is called the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle is a library of audios which feature a lot of good information from industry experts, the Empower Network founders and successful Empower Network team members.

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