You know how sometimes you’re so blown away by the service you receive from a company, that you feel compelled to tell everyone about it?

Well, today I bought a suite of thirteen new professional WordPress themes from Simple Themes, but somehow managed to ‘break’ the first one I installed on a website I’m setting up for a new client.

I submitted a support ticket on the Simple Themes forum and left my office around 5pm.

In less than one hour, Casey from Simple Themes not only fixed what appears to have been an error on my side (a server issue – nothing to do with their theme which works perfectly), he also appears to have done additional work configuring the theme, adding images and extra plugins that make the theme sing.

I’m not used to that level of service from theme vendors. Like I say, I’m blown away (which is a phrase I don’t think I’ve ever used before!)

So, this is a BIG thank you to Casey from Simple Themes – fantastic WordPress themes and amazing service to go with it.

Ed.

I sometimes wonder how many of the programmes and tools I sell are actually used as intended.

So I’m over the moon when I find out someone is not just actually using one of my products, but has actually taken it a step further.

Cindy King very kindly reviewed my Blog Planner writing tool, and in the process explains how she uses it to strategically plan her creative writing and content creation, for not one but two blogs.

Check out Cindy’s article — there are some great tips and ideas if you ever suffer from writer’s block, or want to strategize how and WHY you create content for your blogs, articles and information products.

-Ed.

Thanks to everyone who commented about my latest blog design.

I’ve replied to everyone who commented by adding my own comments underneath theirs, but the last two comments raised critical issues so I think it’s best I blog about them — because they may affect you also, especially if you blog.

The first issue was one raised by Karin Hermans, who has quickly become my most prolific commentor on this blog.

As well as being an author of an excellent and highly original business book, which I will blog about soon, Karin also runs her own blog (or is that blogs).

So she knows a thing or two about blogging.

Which is why I took note when she mentioned she doesn’t like the fact my blog comments are moderated. (Which means they have to be privately ‘approved’ before they go public.)

Sometimes there can be quite a delay — more than a few hours — after people leave comments on this blog before they’re approved and appear. That can be frustrating for anyone who has taken time to comment.

However as Karin suspected, the main reason I choose to moderate is to ensure comment spam doesn’t automatically appear.

Anyone who has a blog will be all too aware of fake comments that are intended to promote certain ‘medical’ substances.

And then there are comments that say nothing more than “Nice site.” They don’t add any value to the topic being discussed, and are mostly submitted to get links back to the commentors own web site to help their search engine efforts. I get quite a few comments submitted like that, and they’re all filtered out and deleted.

Commenting on blogs to get back links is fine provided the comment adds something to the discussion.

I could simply allow comments to show immedaitely and then delete both kinds of spam later, but sometimes I don’t get to my blog for a few days or more — especially if auto-posting in advance — and the thought of torrents of spam appearing is not something I want on my mind.

To anyone who makes the effort to comment here — I do appreciate your comments and hope you accept my position on this.

The second comments about my blog was made by Cindy King, another top commentor and prolific blogger.

Cindy asked why my blog doesn’t have ‘URL friendly’ addresses. So instead of this blog post appearing as the following in the address bar at the top of the page…

http://www.edrivis.com/?p=320

It would instead appear as something like…

http://www.edrivis.com/spam-comments-SEA

The concept is that Google is more likely to favour my site if my URLs (web addresses) contain words rather than just numbers and codes — that it may rank me higher for those words.

Well the fact is this there was a time when this blog did use ‘search engine friendly’ urls.

However, a later became apparent Google changed their algorithm and no longer favoured keyword rich URLs — if my source was correct, then for a while they actually became a ‘negative ranking factor’ (meaning your hard won keyword rankings/search engine positions would start slipping if your site used search engine friendly URLs.)

So, I conformed, and changed my blog back to non-SEO friendly URLS.

And then… Google changed and once again started preferring search engine friendly URL’s like the ones Cindy suggests.

Confusing isn’t it! And that’s SEO for you!!

As an aside – I don’t think it’s ever clear cut which Google prefer at any one time — SEO friendly URLs or non-keyword rich style.. but check these guys out: Richard Lee and Fred Black. They both have first page Google.COM (USA) rankings on the keyword phrase ‘Internet Business’, which Google.com reports has more than 1 billion pages (or some crazy high number anyway).

And take have a look at what style of URL they use… interesting!

It seems the only reliable approach where SEO is concerned is… stick to the basics.

I mentioned some of the basic tenets of search engine optimisation in my book — like making sure your site has lots of regularly updated text that contains your chosen keywords, getting lots of other sites to link to yours and with links containing keyword phrases you want to be ranked for, and so on.

Beyond that… be prepared to chase your own tail if you start trying to ‘game’ Google.

-Ed.

P.S. And the real truth is I don’t much care for SEO (for my own web strategy – other businesses may differ its just a personal decision.) I allude to that in my book also. I find Pay Per Click, strategic alliances and print advertising a lot more predictable, and a lot less darn frustrating.

P.P.S. If you were wondering, S.E.A. = Search Engine Ambivalence.

When I first started blogging, there was a lot of virtual tumbleweed blowing across it. Some days my blog was only read by one person… me! That was quite disheartening, and made it hard to stay motivated (in fact for a while I simply gave up).

However, I thankfully discovered a number of powerful ways of getting people here, and today I want to share some of those with you.

First of all you must…

1. Accept subscribers.

Encouraging readers to return to your blog in future is one of the — if not the — most powerful ways of increasing blog readership. And the easiest tactic to encourage return visits is allow your visitors to subscribe, so they get e-mail reminders each time you add fresh blog content.

I use a service called AWeber (aff), which I have set up to automatically check my blog every hour of the day. If AWeber sees I’ve added a new blog post, they automatically send an e-mail to my subscribers to let them know about it.

Obviously when subscribers receive that e-mail, a lot of them click the link in it and come back to my blog.

This is great for them because they don’t need to remember my blog web address and keep checking my blog on the off-chance I’ve updated it. And as a result of that, I get a increasingly higher readership.

One more tip about offering blog subscription — usually it helps to offer an extra incentive for subscribers. For example on my blog anyone who signs up gets the first three chapters of my book, plus other valuable resources to go with it.

A strong incentive can more than double the rate at which people subscribe.

2. E-mail your existing list.

The first thing you should do when you launch your new blog is tell everyone you currently have permission to e-mail, and ask them to visit and subscribe.

It’s unlikely that all of the people on your e-mail list subscribe, so you also want to schedule occasional reminders to anyone who has not yet subscribed. Tell them what they’re missing out on — be specific.

• What do you blog about? (The subject matter.)
• Point out it’s totally free, even to subscribe.
• How will they benefit by subscribing?
• Mention the incentive(s) if you offer any.
• If an industry figurehead has endorsed your blog be sure to mention that!

3. Comment on other blogs & forums.

Commenting on other blogs is a powerful way of increasing readership of your own blog, because people who read your comments may end up clicking the link you give, and therefore end up on your blog.

The same applies for forums relevant to your industry.

If you spend time on there being helpful and answering people’s questions, people may spot and click the link in your signature, (which is the text that appears underneath your name whenever you post a comment).

4. Look for guest posting & interview opportunities.

Some blogs openly welcome guest posts — where you write and submit an article that is then published on the third party blog.

Also one tactic I’ve used which has increased my blog traffic is to respond to other bloggers who offer to be interviewed.

You simply email them some questions, they email back the answers and you publish the interview on your blog.

However, most times the other blogger will then link to your interview blog post (because it makes them look good) and at the same time a percentage of their blog readership will follow that link to read the interview on your blog… and your traffic spikes yet again.

5. Strategic Alliances.

I’ve formed a number of relationships with other professionals who are in the marketing sphere but who I don’t compete with.

Most of those professionals I’ve helped out in one way or another (like helping them get started blogging, or created landing pages and websites for them). In turn, they promote my blog to their list.

I’ve had a lot of traffic from referrals through strategic alliance referrals.

Who do you know who will promote your blog to their list — either for payment for each subscriber that produces, or simply in return for you helping them?

These are just a few tactics I and other professional bloggers use to increase our blog readership. Try them out for yourself and see what happens.

-Ed.

Ps. I’m running some major experiments on advertising my blog in traditional media (in the UK) over the next few months.

I’ll share the results and details of what I find works best as soon as I know more (and I’ve no doubt the traffic I generate from this latter type of activity will by far outstrip all of the above methods put together… so watch this space!)

If you follow my blog regularly you know I put a lot of emphasis on keeping your finger on the ‘digital pulse’ of your business by regularly reviewing online statistics.

Where a blog is concerned, there are two very important measurements:

1) The total number of people who visit and read it. (“Total Weekly/Monthly Unique Visitors”).

2) The number of people who are subscribed to blog announcements (for example using the box at the top right of this page).

The total number of unique visitors in any timeframe is useful, but that could also include people who landed on the blog, realised it wasn’t what they were looking for and then left immediately, never to return.

So of the two measurements, the number of subscribers is a critical metric.

It gives me an indication of regular readership.

It also represents the number of people who get notified when I announce new products and services, in addition to getting the free ongoing web marketing strategy blog updates.

However, there’s another critical subscriber statistic that I’ve been missing for a long time.

Until this morning I’ve not been able to tell how many people are subscribed to my RSS Feed.

If you don’t know what an RSS feed is I strongly urge you to find out… because it’s becoming increasingly important to offer RSS on any commercial web site, not just blogs.

I’ve written a short article on RSS that gives you the basics.

Thankfully, as from today I know exactly how many poeople are following my blog via RSS, and I’ve had a very pleasant surprise. I have a lot more readers than I realised.

I’m late to the party. If you’re currently blogging, but not tracking RSS readers, then I strongly recommend you do so. (Don’t leave it as long as I did!).

How to Track RSS Readers.

There are quite a few services that allow you to track RSS feeds, but I’ve opted for what appears to be the main one, ‘Feedburner’.

It only took me 15 minutes to setup Feedburner and add it to my WordPress blog, (the type of blog I recommend in my Ultimate Business Blogging home-study programme.)

1) Go to the Feedburner blog sign up page.

2) Scroll to the bottom of the page and type in the web address of your blog, then click next.

3) Follow the instructions. (If you want a step by step video of how to do the whole process, end to end, just add a comment to this post and I’ll create one for everyone to watch.)

If you’re starting out blogging, and think you only have a very low number of readers, try Feedburner. You may get a pleasant surprise on the actual number of people you’re blogging for.

-Ed.

A few weeks ago a lady requested a refund because she felt my Ultimate Business Blogging DVD programme “didn’t tell her how to make money blogging.”

(I recall it well, simply because I rarely receive refund requests.)

As per my policy on refunds, she was refunded immediately and politely, and we went our separate ways.

However, out of curiosity I had a quick look at her company web site, to see what she does.

I nearly fell off my chair when I saw that she’s a business/marketing consultant.

Now if she had been anything other than that, I could have accepted her not knowing that any method that allows ongoing, free, communication with prospects, and existing customers and clients is one of the most powerful tools any business could possibly wish for.

I’ve had a lot of feedback since it launched. A lot of people have told me the course revealed how blogging can attract and acquire new customers and clients, and also how it strengthens relationships with existing customers clients, thereby increasing lifetime value.

So when I saw what she did for a living, I was staggered — I just found it unbelievable she could think my course didn’t show how her business could benefit.

Do you realise it?

Blogging is one of the — if not THE — most powerful form of business communication ever invented.

In my new book I explain how blogging seamlessly merges front and back end marketing activities, whereas e-mail marketing can only be directed at the back end list of existing customers and clients, your blog can be seen and read by anyone including prospects, potential alliance partners and investors and so on.

In my mind, and from my last 12 months as a professional blogger, nothing touches it.

If you’re not blogging, you may want to add it to your 2008 marketing plan… then just watch what happens.

-Ed.

PS. If you have my blogging course I’d love to hear your opinion — did I make it clear enough in that course how blogging can benefit your business? I’d really appreciate your feedback, thanks.

Here are the highlights of my blogging activity over the last 31 days. If you’re new to my blog these hopefully give you an idea of what I do here. (And if you’ve been following my blog longer… we’ll soon be a month into 2008 — how’s your campaign testing going?)

2008 campaign testing.

Discipline: Number One Success Tool for 2008.

How to optimise a homepage.

Search Engine Success.

Green Screen Production.

-Ed.

Are you blogging yet? If not, you should consider it. Your business will benefit in more ways than you can imagine.

Here are just a few of those many benefits:

• Sales lead generation
• customer acquisition
• increased retention
• online networking
• automated e-mail marketing
• product update announcements
• special offers and promotions
• …and many more.

When you set up your blog, you need to implement systems that ensure readership continually increases.

One way is to give people the option to get short email reminders each time you add a new blog entry (i.e. so they can ‘subscribe’ to the blog and not miss any important postings.)

You can see my blog subscription form at the top right of this page (under my photo), and you may also see a ‘popup’, which is the form that slides down over the top of the page.

Both of those mechanisms allow people to susbcribe. But the latter mechanism, the popup, is very effective at getting people to subscribe, mainly because it’s so ‘interruptive’… you can’t miss it.

Unfortunately, this positive is also a negative.

Kill the popup!

The problem has been that once subscribed, (and maybe you are a subscriber), you’ve still been getting the popup each new day you visit.

I realise how annoying that has been, and I’ve been meaning to fix it for ages. Thankfully I have done now, thanks to fellow blogger Hill Robertson.

He’s created a simple, easy to follow online course that explains how to edit a WordPress blog, (which is the type of blog I use and recommend), so that the AWeber popup disappears once someone subscribes.

But if someone visits my blog today and leaves without subscribing, they will still see the popup in future. It’s simple yet effective.

I’ve implemented it, and from now on my subscribers will be able to visit this blog without seeing the annoying (but oh so effective) popup.

Thanks Hill!

-Ed.

PS. I hope the blogs I read on a daily basis kill their subscriber popups also. (And let’s spread the word!)

PPS. If you don’t blog, here are the three steps to get started:

1. Get a blog! I strongly recommend WordPress because it’s free, reliable and powerful. (My Ultimate Business Blogging home-study programme explains how (and why) to get started with it).

2. Then you need an AWeber account (aff.) which let’s you add a blog subscription facility in the way described above.

3. Finally… kill the popup (for subscribers) using Hill’s technique.

Then all that’s required is a strong and determined commitment to blog — as often as you can and to a very high standard. Easy!

PPPS. Technical Tip: You don’t need to read the following tip if you’re not already blogging (in the way recommended above) or are non-technical.

Hill’s technique works by creating a cookie immediately after subscription. Each time subscriber’s visit the blog thereafter, if the cookie exists the popup is blocked. It’s a great solution.

The only problem is that if the subscriber uses a different computer, or more likely, clears their browser cookies, they’ll start seeing the annoying popup again.

So I’ve made one small tweak — the link in my subscriber’s (AWeber blogcast) e-mail sends them first to a hidden page, the cookie is refreshed, then they’re redirected to my blog homepage to read the latest stuff.

And thus subscribers who visit my blog (by clicking the link in their reminder e-mail) will never again see “that bl**dy popup” as one of my subscribers referred to it when I met him at my last seminar

My first 24 hour special of 2008 ends in just a few hours time (at 4pm GMT).

At just over a tenner (after the 65% discount), The 2008 Blog Planner and 16 page booklet is the probably lowest priced item I’ll be offering on this blog all year. That may be inexpensive, but it’s certainly not ‘cheap’… it’s a valuable tool.

And the planner ties in perfectly with one of the tips I gave in my New Year’s Day blog post about discipline s the road to success.

The planner is the type of tool I mentioned you can use to reinforce the daily execution of any task in order to optimise results.

Of course in offering a daily Blog planner to my readers I’m inferring you need a blog because they’re good for business. I hope that’s obvious.

If you haven’t blogged for any length of time yet (or even at all) then how could you know whether it will improve your bottom line or not?

Well don’t take my word for it. Try blogging for a few months and measure the impact. (Here’s some great advice from business improvement expert Jim Sansi, on how to measure any business activity.)

What other tasks would change your business if you were able to perform them every day without fail. What sort of year would 2008 become?

-Ed.

PS. If you want the planner and 16 page advice packed user guide then act fast – I’m making the pack available at 65% discount off the normal retail price of £31.25 only until 4pm today.