Blogging Experience

Your Guest Post was Rejected, What’s Next?

by Melvin · Jan 20, 2010

By now you probably already have learned that guest posting is a powerful way to drive crazy high quality traffic to your site. I’m not just talking about the hits here, I’m talking about traffic that could easily become one of your subscribers, more importantly your customers. Guest Posting really is going to do the job for your blog in terms of getting more publicity.

So because a lot of people already knew it and learned it’s benefits, it seems that every blogger in every corner is sitting, focusing and writing a guest post for the big blogs in their niche. But the question is, are they getting success by actually getting their post/s qualified? Or is it the owner of the other blog think their guest post suck?

Ok I will talk from experience here. Probably you have seen me and my blog on some other blogs having a guest post so it’s pretty obvious guest posting is my blog project since late last year. But I am going to confess that for every 5 guest posts I write, less than 50% gets accepted. For every 10, it’s just 4 and yeah it’s painful especially thinking about the time I spent writing and writing only for the author to say it has not met the qualifications. *sucks*

So that was my experience early this year when I was just totally new to guest posting. Obviously I have improved a lot but the question is what to do next when you get rejected? (ok, no list in this post guys!)

The answer is just keep on going. I know other people would say try to analyze, learn and improve but I think it’s just all about keeping on writing. I’d tell you’d be surprised on how just writing alone could unknowingly improve your way of writing. I love reading my old posts and it always amazes me how many stupid mistakes I have done before even though I (think) have a good english grammar (for someone who lives outside the US).

It’s ok to feel bad but that should never keep you from trying. Bloggers have different styles, so they also have different requirements, different take on whether the article is good or crap. If you’re guest posts got rejected then go ahead and submit it others. If its still discarded then don’t delete it from your hard drive. Even if it piles up there it’s still going to do you wonder by letting you become a better writer.

What do you think guys? I would really love to get your opinion about this topic.

The Big Glitch In Guest Posting

by Melvin · Jan 11, 2010

By now you probably have been already told that the quickest way for a brand new blog to get traffic and build some buzz is by doing guest posting. It doesn’t just apply to new blogs, it also applies to mid cap blogs like my blog and probably your blog. To sum it up, doing guest posts is vital in increasing your blog’s brand awareness.

Anyways, I’m always a good observant when it comes to the blogosphere and all the things that are currently happening in it. And one thing I noticed is that there is “somehow” a big glitch in guest posting (glitch means minor problem, adding the word big means it’s a big problem, lols!).

It usually happens like this. A famous blogger is entering a busy weekend thus no time for blogging. Then he would offer his readers to guest post. Lastly he would publish the said post. Where’s the problem? Well if you observe it’s not hard to figure out that the certain guest post SUCKS! In formal terms, it doesn’t meet the quality that the owner usually publishes. What the heck? How is that possible?

This is debatable and many will not agree with me. That happens simply because of the fact that the owner blogger is busy. When someone submits a guest article, the owner doesn’t really read it, he just skims at it! He just looks at the basic things, the grammar, spelling, if the sentence makes sense, if the paragraph is well done and etc. They don’t really analyze that much if it’s a generic boring article or a regurgitated concept. In the end they think like it’s better to post something than have nothing for your readers right? Wrong!

This is obviously a big glitch. It harms both blogs. No one will click on the link of the guest poster because the blog post sucks and on the other hand, the loyal readers of the famous blog would feel bad that the quality they used to see is not met. And worse, they might start lose your trust if you do it again and again. Reputation tarnished!

Guest posting is good, cool and nice. You reap both benefits. But if done like the way I mentioned above, it becomes a recipe for failure. This is my call both to guest posters and the blog owners. Be sure to do it right.

Do You Know You’re a Boring Blogger?

by Melvin · Jan 5, 2010

The number 1 advice people always say to you to succeed in blogging is that you need to create good and high quality content. So there ya go! Because of it you’re forced to write articles like a freelancer, you’re fed into acting like you need to be like Darren Rowse and stuffs. The end result, you become a boring blogger.

Most people get it wrong by thinking that writing top-notch content is all about the perfectness of the grammar, the formality of how words are written and just sounding absolutely professional. Believe me it’s not! The problem with most bloggers is that they try to be perfect and because of that, they sound like a robot. It’s just like reading an article in a monotonous tone. Try reading books in your school library and you’ll know what I mean.

Ironically sometimes, you don’t realize that you’re starting to bore your readers to death. Results? A decline from just about everything (readers, subscribers, traffic , etc). Anyways here I compiled a list why you might be or starting to become a boring blogger:

You sound like a lawyer – and you don’t need to. I don’t know but professional blogging for me is not really about being professional words-wise or with the proper grammar and stuffs. Pro Blogging is about treating blogging as a serious business. So if you’re a 15 year old kid who’s trying to sound like your teacher, then you’re not helping your blog.
Generic Articles – generic articles is a really big NO NO. Or at least minimize it. Generic articles is like the ones that has been tackled 300 million of times and you still tackled it and talked it in a none unique way. Articles like “how to earn money from blogging” or “Make Money By starting a blog”. You see, it’s hard not to regurgitate a topic. But you make it unique from the rest by adding something unique and breaking it down to more specific topics.
Transformed into a news site – Blogs like TechCrunch can certainly do this considering the audience that they have right now but smaller bloggers SHOULD NOT. I see a lot of bloggers just writing the same news on their blogs w/c really adds 0 value. Just because Dennis Yu is popular, does it mean you have to write about him too?
All Promotional stuffs – I guess we can blame a guy named John Chow for this? lols. It turns me off so much when I see someone promotes a product for the obvious sake of just earning a commission. How many times do you see someone make a clickbank product writeup and then recommend it to people w/o even him knowing what the product is really all about? Booooring stuff!

There’s nothing wrong in being quirky and putting some humor in your posts. At least in this way, you don’t get to have them have the impression that you’re a lame, boring blogger that makes “robot-ish” sounding articles. By not being that, you are easily separating yourself away from 70% of the bloggers. What do you think? Does this article make any sense to you?

5 Ways to Make Readers Visit Your Blog Again

by Melvin · Dec 4, 2009

In this post, Mikkel talks about 5 ways on how to make your readers visit your blog again for more.

Does your visitor count go from 5 to 51 in a day, and then on 7 the next day? That’s a quite clear sign that you don’t have loyal readers, those readers can be hard to get. I have compiled a list of methods on how to get readers to come back

Contest – Everybody loves contests, if a reader is competing in a contest of yours he will get back, if he win he might want to read the blog, because you are cool – and then your blog is (of course) delivering good content.When you are running a contest be sure to make the contest as relevant as possible, don’t go offer an Internet Marketing product if your blog is about dog training. If you don’t have a niche or can come up with anything you’d like to offer, then just offer a cash prize everybody loves cold cash.

Maybe you should held a contest every once in a month – which will make people come back = repeated traffic.

Offer White Papers – White papers are really good for attracting readers – especially repeated traffic, if you for an example release a new white paper every month people will get back to your blog to download the white paper.Be sure to use the white paper to link back to your blog – just try to make it as relevant as possible. Add links in the text. In that way you will make people come back to your blog and then they make that a habit, so they will return more often.
Update Your Blog – The probably easiest way (but yet the one that takes time) to make people come back and read your blog is to write new content. Readers don’t want to keep checking your blog for 3-4 days in a row to find a non-updated blog – at least write 5 articles in a week – the more the better. One article per day is okay, if the article is above 500 words. If it’s 250 word per post, try to publish 2 articles each day.
Be a Part of Another Community – If you are member of a forum and write more than one post each day, people will remember your name and blog – so they check it out, maybe they are going to be loyal readers sometime. It will make readers come back because they see your post and look at the signature. Which reminds them of the fantastic content you provide.Maybe leave some comments on another blog (in your niche) – write a thoughtful comment, which will lead them to click the link to the well written content on your blog. That would make a loyal reader, because he finds your blog through a comment on his blog (a good comment), which also shows that you care about other people than yourself.
Write Content That is Unique – Write content that makes people think: “This is a unique blog, I haven’t seen a post about this topic anywhere else. I want to subscribe.” Lots of blogs about blogging talks about the same. You have to stand out from the crowd to get people to even think about coming back.

This is guest blogged by Mikkel from DaneBlogger.com. Mikkel is a 14 year old kid from Denmark who’s been blogging since 2007.Feel free to subscribe to his feed.

Really Want To Make Money? – Find Your Strengths!

by Melvin · Nov 30, 2009

I remember when I was just getting started with my making money ventures I was like “I want to try this, want to try that and whatever”. My mentality was like I want to try everything so that when something fails, there’s still a good chance some of the methods I tried would work. Imagine if I would try 20 different money-making tactics, maybe at least 1 or 2 would succeed. Did I do the right thing? NO!

The Problem Noobs Encounter

When some new guy is entering the industry, you could easily expect that guy to be full of energy and enthusiasm. Or maybe inspiration for some people. Like my case, they jump into everything head first and has that aggressive mentality and “hail Mary please work” mindset. But it isn’t wrong right? The answer is YES and NO.

I’ve written a lot here in the blog about how people should TAKE ACTION and I know other million dozen bloggers say the same. It’s true, you won’t succeed reading for 10 years before acting. But the same can be also said to being too aggressive. I had this cousin who really wanted to jump into affiliate marketing and because she’s really wealthy, she dived into it without having any basic startup knowledge. The result was she lost a ton of money.

You know me, I really love to test, love to take advantage of “unheard” stuffs and just always think outside the box. But do bare in mind that I can already afford to fail given my experience with internet marketing. If you’re a noob, has no money and has that unnerving mindset then LISTEN. I know it’s cool to look real brave, its good for the ego for people to see you as a courageous newbie business person. But don’t be an idiot. Work your way up first before acting like you’ve done it already.

Finding Your Strengths

Just because you heard arbitrage is cool, doesn’t mean you have to go into it. I hear a lot of people saying “I heard this thing makes big money, I heard I could become a millionaire with this and that”. That’s exactly the no.1 recipe for failure.

If you really want to start making money, then start analyzing your strengths. Start planning the directions you’re going to take. Narrow down your huge options and think. I understand everyone wants to be that “entrepreneur”, a CEO-like business person who is at the top, foreseeing whats happening, getting the biggest money but you have to understand it’s not gonna happen. Successful freelancers remain as freelancers, graphic artists could never become programmers and bloggers as CEO is far-fetched.

What do you think? Do you think you’re playing the game using your strengths or playing it with others strength? Let me know by using the contact form below..

MelvinBlog 2.0 – The Scenes Behind It

by Melvin · Nov 24, 2009

By now you probably have realized that this blog has been sporting a new design and a completely different layout. And as always any change deserves an explanation. 😉 So in this post I would try to do an in-depth explanation about this new design and how it came out to look like this.

MelvinBlog’s New Design

I lied when I stated that the new design would probably be implemented next year. Anyways, obviously the new design uses a magazine template which enables easier navigation and making good use of spaces. At first I totally really oppose the use of magazine themes for this blog for some reasons but after seeking for professional advices, I just got myself convinced!

The theme I am specifically using is Colormatic Theme, a theme created by ThemeWars which is owned by the super popular Unique Blog Designs. As of course, there are many magazine-styled themes by other companies but I guess UBD has sold the concept of this theme well to me and so I did purchase the developer’s license.

Anyways, the one prop I always get from the former theme is that it looks really peaceful and tranquil. I guess people like the light colors of it and I, myself think that the blending of color on that theme was good. So basically what I did was to try to carry out as much color schemes/combination as possible and import it in the new theme.

Better Navigation

As you can see the homepage of the blog showcases not just the latest post but also the best posts from the blog. It has the featured content at the top most part and the recent blog posts at the left. I also have four sub footers in there in which I have difficulties filling up with.

The unique part of this theme is the built-in blog navigator widget, the social network in the sidebar and the recent tweets. Do take note that those are not plugins but built-in widgets that comes within the theme.

This is the first time I have had a list in the IM niche and although I am with Aweber for long, I never really intended to have one until I realized the need of it last month. And that was one reason the change of theme has become imminent.

So this current layout has basically met my plans with the newsletter placement and as you may notice it’s very very visible. Feel free to sign up in it (it’s free) and I am promising to over-deliver to you, giving out the best stuffs that I’ve never yet put up here. You might not want to miss that.

Better Ad Placements

The new theme benefits advertisers as well. All the ads are shown on EVERY page/post and it just means maximum exposure for them. It’s also taking lesser space now as opposed to before yet is more organized.

I don’t have any plans on increasing the number of ads/ad spots in this blog (yet) as this blog is not created solely for getting monetized. But I am planning to increase the price of the ad spots since the current price is the price for about 5-6 months and obviously the blog has grown a ton after that period.

The Sidebar, Testimonials and Facebook Fan My Blog

Well this theme is preloaded with 4-5 different layouts and this one I’m using has two sidebars in homepage and one in every page/post. Using the sidebars is so easy because it’s widgetized unlike my former team. And as you may notice different widgets show in different pages of the blog (I would talk that in my future posts).

There’s also that testimonial part in the latter part of the sidebar. These are testimonials from some of the loyal readers of this blog and if you feel you can add one, then please hit me up in the contact form.

The facebook fan my blog widget is one that’s been recently used by a lot of bloggers and have left me wondering “why not?” So currently all the fans are my friends and classmates and so if you’re a frequent reader and a subscriber here then why not give the author some kudos by hitting up the “become a fan” button? 🙂

Overall Feel and Your Suggestions

It actually took me close to one week to test different color schemes and layout before deciding to fully implement this one. My designers and I still had about 4-5 custom implementations to make this theme more enticing. We’re still waiting for something to finally put together all those piece. In the end I really feel it’s all worth it and I feel more excited than ever! It makes me want to go to every page of the blog and feel the new look of it.

I also think it’s time to say goodbye to the old theme. I really like it and I’ve told you that lots of times here. That greenish organic theme from PremiumThemes.Net made me good money, helped the blog grow and had its own ups and downs. I’m a guy who appreciates everything and here’s the final look the MelvinBlog V1 powered by Organic theme. Click for a larger look…

So now it’s your turn. I’ve asked some of my friends about the new design and now it’s time for you, my audience to speak out your mind and throw your suggestions and critique for this blog. I could very well appreciate each and every suggestion that I can get from you and let’s hope it’s a win-win situation for everyone here.

Personal Branding with Your Name and Photo

by Melvin · Nov 3, 2009

In this post, Antti Kokkonen talks about the benefits of using your personal name and photo in boosting your own personal brand)

Personal branding is about building up trust and establishing yourself as an authority, a source of valuable information. By being honest, being yourself and branding yourself as an expert in your niche, you’ll have something that cannot be taken away from you, a personal brand you can be proud of.

And the first step is to put your name out, so make sure your name is visible on your blog, your social media profiles, etc. I know, it might be scary to use your real name online, but think of it this way — would you trust and buy something from someone whose name you don’t know? I certainly wouldn’t.

The next step is to get an image that your name can be connected to. Logos are important for branding. Having a logo means you can utilize that logo everywhere. So if you like, you can get a logo designed (or design it yourself) for your blog.

But more importantly, for yourself, you really don’t have to design a logo, as there’s a good chance you already have one. Your photo! Choose one great photo of yourself and use the same photo as your avatar and profile picture in all the social network sites, like Twitter and Facebook, and also your blog! Not having your own photo in your blog is something that’s ridiculous. Of course it’s debatable since guys like Maki of DoshDosh.com don’t use one yet is considered an authority.

When you use your real name and photo on your blog and social media, you’ll start building an audience and a following for yourself, not just your blog, business or service. Your personal brand stays with you, even if you sell your business, your blog or start providing a new kind of service.

Using Real Name and Photo Builds Trust

When I see a blog or website with someones face on it, it’s immediately more interesting than a blog without one. I’m much more likely to subscribe to a blog which has a “face on it”. I don’t know, maybe it makes it all feel more honest. If I can’t find who is keeping the blog, I immediately become suspicious. And even more so, if I’m in the process of buying something from that person, or something he/she recommends.

I don’t know about you, but I think seven times before I buy anything from someone who I haven’t met or seen. That’s seven opportunities to convince myself not to buy from this stranger. And that’s seven opportunities for you to lose that sale. If you’re planning on selling anything online, keep that in mind.

Also, if I find a blog filled with great posts, I want to know more about the author, I want to know who he or she is. If I can’t find anything about the blogger, I’m gone. And I’m not alone on this, as your readers want to know you and get connected. Don’t disappoint them and make sure the links to your primary social media profiles are clearly visible.

By seeing your name and photo, people on your blog or social networks will know who they’re interacting with. They will know that this certain guy right here is not just a “fly- by night person”. Of course, there’s more to personal branding than just putting your name out there and using a real photo, but this is the first step you have to take.

Now it’s your turn! Are you in the process of building a personal brand? Do you use your real name and photo in your blog and in the social networks?

Antti Kokkonen has been hiding under an Internet alias “Zemalf” for many years, and you can find his not-always-so-focused blog about blogging, social media and Internet business at http://zemalf.com. To stay connected, go ahead follow Antti on Twitter.