Naturally, everything follows a pattern. If you read about fractals, you will find that they appear on tree leaves, broccoli and so on.

As you can imagine, people’s behavior DOES follow a pattern too, and you can see this fact by analyzing a group of people… If you are a leader, you should know that usually the people you speak to tend to follow a kind of line, or at least most of them…

The thing become interesting when you find persons who stand out from the crowd! So then, by analyzing this kind of people – aka freaks – you can actually know more about what is happening in the environment and so then, improve it.

Have you seen bloggers changing their theme from time to time? may be the sidebar or the position of the links? Well, this is because they probably would be using heatmaps in order to study the behavior of the people who visit their blogs.

How a heatmap looks like?

A heatmap shows you where the visitors have been clicking on your website. With this awesome tool you can test the position of your ads, may be icon alternatives for subscribing to your blog etc etc… Use your imagination! This can be used when you need an input from your visitors, without letting them know.

One of the purposes I use heatmaps for is to analyze which landing page  “looks” – aka sells – better. Remember that your audience will probably think different than you, so don’t make any suppositions because you don’t know how they will react to certain graphic.

So as you can see, this is perfect for split tests among landing pages, which I will be talking about in future posts.

The Tool

To run heatmaps, I use the services of Crazy Egg. There should be lots of web services out there, but I like this one. So try it by yourself and tell me what do you think about it! It’s pretty easy to use, you just need to upload a script to your website and walah! – you will be catching every single click made on your website.

Input request - Are you using heatmaps? What for? Share what you know about this topic!

For any blogger is pretty important to have subscribers. Who would like to write when nobody reads the content? I’m sure not you… By increasing the amount of subscribers of your blog, you create certain loyalty between you and yours readers. That sense of loyalty will attract them each time you write a new blog post.

Once you have hundreds of subscribers it becomes easier, but how do you get your first 100 subscribers? And even more important, how do you keep attracting more and more people to your blog?

Now I’m going to list the most common things you can do in order to boost that RSS counter:

• Be persistent: The best way to attract loyal readers when you create a new blog is being persistent. Writing new content as fast as you can will be key to succeed. At least during the first 2 or 3 months of blogging you need to write new content constantly, lets say 5 posts a week. By doing that, people will note your dedication and will start following you.
• Write good content: This has a much to do with the first point. You can write 5 posts a day if you want, but if they say nothing interesting you will lose credibility and potential readers. Remember, is better quality than quantity. If you can only write 2 or 3 posts a week is fine, but make them bloody good!
• Socialize: This is the key of blogging. You have to socialize with other bloggers in your niche in order to know who your neighbors are. This way, you could be linked by them in link sharing posts for example, giving you exposure in front their readers… Also, using services like Twitter or StumbleUpon can expand your brand as you can’t imagine, attracting several people to your blog.
• Comment in other blogs: This is part of socializing. If you comment in other blogs with certain periodicity, you will attract people’s attention and they will visit your blog to know who you are and what you do. Of course, remember to leave good comments and not just a “good post”.
• Make blog contests: This is a well known blackhat trick. Contests are loved by everybody, who doesn’t like to win something for free? This is excellent to attract new readers and increase your readers, especially if you promote it well… I really recommend you to read this article in order to know more details about this matter.
• Write guest posts: Like the last point, you can do this when you have certain credibility on the web. By writing articles in other blogs related to yours can really boost your entire blog. Imagine that you post something in a blog with 500 readers, and lets say that just 200 know about your blog. The other 300 subscribers will visit your blog at least once to see what you write, with good chances to become loyal readers. Just remember, prepare and publish a punch of good posts on your homepage before writing the guest post to cause a better impression.

In addition of those 6 ways there are others that you will discover with the passing of time, they’re somewhat intuitive. Also remember to be patient, you won’t get 100 readers in a single day, increasing the subscribers of your blog is like a marathon…

Well I talked enough for now, I would love to know your techniques to increase your RSS subscribers, so feel free to drop me a comment for sharing your tips!

Hello friends, it’s me Tamal to serve you again on MrJavo.com. On this post, I’d like to go on a deeper topic in blogging. Can you become an outstanding blogger? There are thousands of blogs online and everyday lots of new people starts to blog. No one can say that I’m an outstanding blogger, the audience has to make the choice.

The key things that we chase forever in blogging are money, traffic, fame and popularity. But why you’re missing the core element? Outstanding bloggers with a unique point of view produces different articles. Everyone loves to read from them and advertisers want to put their ads on their site. At the same way, you’ll see the same old blog posts in every blogs, but there are only few blogs that you love to go back again and again because they have something different.

So how do I know if my blog is outstanding?

The answer will come if you look at your blog from a reader’s point of view. For few minutes, forget that this is your blog and try to solve these questions,

1. Do you think this post will help you?

Read your latest post and try to think how this post can help you. Is this post includes real informations or some guesses? Is this a basic concept what everyone knows or something that is well researched? Tutorial type posts and those post which have practical experiences, goes well. Most of the bloggers write for their own benefit, because they want to keep the blog updated and to increase the post count. If you write an article that really values your reader, then it’ll help you too!

2. Do you think it’s a well researched post?

Your readers are not fools. They are bloggers or active blog readers. They can say how much time and effort you’ve spent while writing this post. They can tell it with the writing structure, is this blogger a professional or a newbie? Spelling and grammar errors can tell your readers that all you wanted to do is to update your blog, not wanted to add a value. Well researched posts don’t go well and only few people promote it with social media.

3. Do you think this is worth leaving a comment?

There are some strategies to engage your readers. Adding some questions on the end of your post makes them comment. A blog is a two way communication tool. When you’ll post, others can post comments on it. Most people write articles, as they are writing for the newspaper or for a book. Try to leave some personal message asking to post suggestions or more related informations on this topic. This will help you to attract more comments on your blog.

4. Do you think this post deserves to be in your bookmarks?

More people bookmarking your site mean more success for your blog. If you add valued content and a personal touch on your posts, they will love to add it on their bookmarks. Now I use StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious and Twitter, but it doesn’t means my readers have to use them too. By asking them with a message, “Please do bookmark this post with your favorite site” will inspire them to bookmark it with the site of their choice.

5. Do you want to come back again on this blog?

This is the last point you should figure out as a reader. Is this site a niche site? Did I found what I was looking for? Is the author response to their readers? Do the updates are regular with useful informations? Should I subscribe to this blog? etc. This will determine if your new reader will convert into your subscriber, supporter and come back again or not? This is the final question which will make you feel if you’re blogging in the right way or wrong?

You are the judge of your blog

Blogging is independent and you will judge yourself and your blog. Don’t listen to anybody, just listen to your self and you know better what will make you an outstanding blogger.

Have your say

• Do you think solving these questions will improve your blogging?
• Do you want to be an outstanding blogger?
• What more could be added on this post?

Please leave a reply; I’m ready to join the discussion!

Two days ago, I was checking my feedburner stats when I saw a notification, offering me to move my feeds to my Google Account. As you may know, Google bought Feedburner on January of the last year, and since then they have been improving the platform…

In order to have all my accounts under control, Google offered me to move my feeds from feedburner.com to feedburner.google.com, and this way I could have everything integrated with my Google account.

Moving My Feeds

I accepted the invitation and I moved my feeds. The proccess was quite fast and I got my feeds into my Google account in 5~10 minutes… So what’s the big problem? Suddenly, my counter dropped from 460 to 350 – this means that I lost more than 100 subscribers in a single day, which is absurd.

If you are a feedburner user, you should have experimented these single day-drops in your counter with certain periodicity, it’s like a bug which is fixed the next day without problems, it’s kinda normal…

This time is different. Instead 1 day-drop, I have 2 days (and may be more) with a wrong counter… Are you experimenting the same issue or is just me? Is it related with the migration or not?

I’m very wondered about it, if you know anything about it I would like you to let me know…

One thing that keeps your readers coming back to your blog again and again is fresh new articles. This is the hardest part of blogging, searching for great quality article ideas. Most of the time bloggers get frustrated and then they write: “What to do when you got nothing to blog about” -type articles. On this article, I’ll focus on some the tips to recycle your blog articles.

By the way, I’m Tamal Anwar from BlogKori.com and I help new bloggers how to create a successful blog. I volunteered on MrJavo to write a guest post. If you all liked it, then I’ll write more for you.

If you take a closer look at the blogsphere, then you’ll see that everyone’s talking about the same thing all over again. How to start a blog, how to earn, how to use social media and what ever… You love the article on the same subject because this is a better version with more informations. Now if you take that concept in your blog, then you can easily create fresh articles regularly. Here are some tips to recycle your blog articles:

Create an advanced version of your article

This is one of the coolest ways to create a new article out of your old one. Just take those points and expand it. Add some more information and contents and you have an advanced version of that article. You can also mention that, this is an advanced version of this one, so your readers will check the old article too. Please note that, you should not re-publish that same article with minor changes, you have to create a whole new article.

Remake an idea

You just finished reading an interesting article form another blog like from MrJavo. Now you can take that idea to remake an article for your blog. You have to add and remove some of the points and create a better article for your blog. To be professional, mention the original article and say that, this article is an inspiration from this one. This way your readers will know that you’re not stealing an idea. When the author from that blog will know about it, he might get interested in your blog too.

Create a series

You can use some of your best articles for a new one. When you noticed that this article got popular, then you can expand it just like a gum. Add some more info and work on that topic. You’ll create some more ideas for that series and your readers will love to read it because the first one was their favorite.

Article collection

Create a list of some of the greatest articles from your blog or from other blogs. This list is not an article but still it’ll become so much popular because of those resources. One of my friends Darrel from Pliggs.com has created a list of Stumble Upon tutorials. In that list he collected some useful article links from the world’s greatest blogs. The article got popular on the web, although it’s not an actual article.

Write about an old topic

Where people are talking about Twitter and micro blogging, you can stand out by writing about digg or facebook for traffic. Now if you want to make that article to count, you have to create a well researched article, or else people will say, “Oh Digg? We know about that!” Create a great article with an old flavor, your readers will love to read and share it.

Create an ebook

Marketers create ebooks to promote their product. You can create ebooks to promote your blog. You don’t have to create new articles; you can create an ebook from your older articles. For an example, I have created an ebook, “Make a killer living with PayPerPost” -I’m giving it for free to my readers as a source of viral promotion and making them interested. You can also find a copy in my blog.

What do you think?

• Will these tips help you on writing better articles for your blog?

• How do you find new and updated ideas to blog about?

• Did I miss anything?

Leave a comment with your response and let the discussion started!

Photo by Jacob Bøtter

In the last weeks I have received a big quantity of emails from people who is wondered about How to make money through blogging. I was analizing the content of this and similar blogs about this matter and I think the information is not arriving very well to that people who is starting in this lifestyle.

Making money by blogging is not so easy as many people say. In fact, it could be a hard task, and also it depends of the niche. First of all, it is very important to understand that the more people you have, the more money you earn – that’s a fact. Money is on masses, and if you want to earn big sums of money you should have many people following you, otherwise how do you expect to earn money from?. Tip 1: Traffic is key

The first thing many newbies think about making money with their blogs is Google Adsense. I must to say that you won’t earn a penny if your website doesn’t get enough traffic. So no matter how relevant the ads could be, if you don’t drive enough people to your website you will be wasting your time. Tip 2: Advertising does not work without people clicking on it

Another way to make monney with your blog is to sell ad spaces on it, i.e. 125x125px banners or textlinks. You can earn money by exposing other people’s services/products… Wait a minute! did I say services/products? Tip 3: You can make money by selling your own stuff: services, products, resources

There are other ways to make money online but you need to realize the idea of this post.

Is it possible to make money blogging?

Well, the answer to that question is quite simple, IT IS NOT. It is not possible to make money by blogging simply because Blogging cannot generate money by itself! Blogging is a medium, a path between you and an audience who is mainly looking for information and probably for products or services.

You need to devise something to generate money with: it could be a software, a service, a book, a clip of audio… And after then, you could use your blog in order to promote and inform the people about what you offer.

So why people say that they make money Blogging? I think they are not expressing the idea so well, they should be referring that they make money through blogging, or with the help of, using a blog.

Conclusion

Photo by jenn_jenn

To make money “blogging”, you need to have something to sell. It could be whatever you want, in my case i’m involved with web design services, private sales (advertising), text link ads, SEO consulting and affiliate marketing.

When you have something to sell, you need to attract customers by driving traffic to your blog. To learn more about this topic, you can take a look into my Boost Traffic category.

One more thing, and probably the most important lesson of this topic. You need to be patient! It’s very difficult to see good results in a week, so you should have the patience to wait a couple of time until being successful!

What about you? How you do make money through your blog?