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Just a quickie today … if you’re interested in seeing something specific explored or if you have a specific concern I can try to help you with, feel free to post it to twitter … just be sure to direct it to @fuelblogging so I see it.

One reason why bloggers have trouble thinking of what to create in terms of their content is because they shut themselves off from the single most obvious source of help at their disposal … their readership.

Just beacuse you’ve managed to build some influence and you’ve attracted an audience for your content doesn’t mean you have to pretend to know everything … you’re sure to hit the wall going that route. The key is to stay true to yourself and keep it real.

If you’re not sure what to create, ask your audience.

It’s one of the obvious solutions people often overlook because they feel they need to be the authority … and asking a question of their audience somehow reduces their reputation. It doesn’t. It reveals you’re human and humble enough to ask questions.

Do you regularly ask your audience, whether that includes a viewership or readership, questions regarding your niche? What type of questions do you ask?

image credit: puzzledmonkeydeau

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If you’re like a lot of bloggers, you might find it a bit difficult to create a consistent flow of content as a publisher, which, as we all know, might mean the difference between capturing a reader and losing a reader.

There are plenty of tricks and tips out there designed to help you think up new ideas and create content, but let’s take a step back — even before we get to the content creation process — and think about how we approach the content creation process … and most importantly, when we approach it.

Content Isn’t Just About What … It’s About When

The single most important thing you can do to overcome your lack of discipline or drive to publish content — even if you feel you’re passionate about the content — is to establish a publishing schedule. If you want to take blogging seriously and reach that next level, you need to step up your game and act like a pro.

Depending on how often you can or want to post, consider throwing a schedule together on paper or whiteboard and stick to it.

Dedicate your efforts to creating content for the week during the weekend. Get yourself ahead of schedule so you’re not frantically throwing content together at the last minute.

Set yourself to a schedule, whether it’s a post a day, three posts a week, two posts (as copyblogger did), or even one post a week. The key is to create exceptional content that gets noticed and provides value.

Set yourself up and hold yourself to it … this will help you overcome your own inner block and help you get to the next level.

How frequent do you post a week? How often would you like to post a week?

photo credit: Chad and Kellye

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A lot of stress is placed upon the actual content of a blog, which makes sense considering that’s what readers are looking for, but what about that little place just below the content of your post?

The post footer is where bloggers have the opportunity to turn a first-time visitor into a subscriber, customer, or friend depending on your goals.

While listing relevant content can lead to additional page views, it might be more beneficial to promote your newsletter, your ebook, or your subscription options — this can be especially helpful if you’re trying to set yourself apart from the rest of the voices in your niche.

Furthermore, with so many ebooks and courses and newsletters available, it’s important to think about how you can make this portion of your blog more interesting … more compelling to the reader.

Does your post footer stand out?

I’d love to open this up and explore the post footers in your blogs? What’s working and what isn’t?

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There’s no better place to get run over than in the middle of the road, so it’s crucial for bloggers to get over the fear of offending people and actually express their opinion.

If we can’t do that, then what’s the point of blogging anyway?

If we take the safe route and present an idea without a strong opinion alongside it, all our content is going to  sound the same … as we tip-toe around an issue, debate, or disagreement.

When creating content, express your opinion and stand by it.

This is the only way we’re going to create a more humanized web, rise above bland content farm quality articles, and connect with each other with the ability to agree to disagree.

photo credit: madnzany

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If you’re like many bloggers, you probably have a hard time coming up with content that’s both unique and helpful to your specific community. While it seems easy to address that which your community needs help, you think there’s a ton of other content already available; and though you know you have to be unique, you simply can’t put your thumb on what that means.

Approaching your content with these two goals in mind is great if it works for you … if it doesn’t work, you need to find an approach that does.

Movement on the Web

Something I’ve found rather helpful over the years is to try to create content that might inspire some sort of movement or change you would like to see in your community.

While this isn’t easy, it gives you another angle to think about when creating your content.

Be helpful. Be unique. Inspire movement.

For those thinking this all sounds a bit abstract, try to think about what you would like to see happen in your niche. What is it that keeps you blogging? What do you hope to achieve with your blog?

Create content that inspires some sort of movement in your reader. Once a reader finishes your content, they should be inspired to participate in the movement you’re advocating, whether it includes reducing spam and creating a cleaner web or expressing yourself and enabling the max amount of transparency possible.

As you might have seen with the content here so far, we’re trying to inspire movement toward the next level of community and connection online. Movements take time, but they’re possible when you have a voice … and that’s part of the reason blogging is so powerful — it gives everyone a voice.

What type of movement or change are you inspiring on your blog?

photo credit: ethanhickerson

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Whether you prefer the original, 70s version featuring Gene Wilder, or the Tim Burton version with an eerily-androgenous Johnny Depp, one thing is clear — there is plenty of blogging inspiration to be found within the walls of the fabled chocolate factory.

And today, we’re out to uncover them all.

Your blog isn’t all that different from the chocolate factory – both are busy churning out all manner of sweet treats for your customers. And both, as it turns out, can easily benefit from the creative genius of Willy Wonka.

Incorporate the Unexpected

“Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous!”

Wonka managed to bring an element of whimsy to all of his creations – a concept every blogger could do well to adopt. From the chocolate waterfall to the edible landscape, visitors to the factory were greeted with unexpected delights around every corner.

Has your blog become stale and predictable? It might be time to shake things up a bit. Draw some inspiration from an unexpected source, and offer your readers a fresh perspective. They’ll reward you with their loyalty.

Convey Your Personality & Embrace Eccentricity

“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”

Your blog should showcase your personality, and all that makes your voice unique. Wonka wasn’t afraid to tap into his eccentricities – and he understood the value that they lent to the creative process.

Your blog shouldn’t read like every other blog that serves your niche. Bring your unique perspective to the digital page, and inject life into your posts.

Maintain a Sense of Humor

“The suspense is terrible… I hope it’ll last.”

A sense of humor is a valuable asset that can help you weather the toughest of times. Perhaps you’ve set out to create an incredible new product, but it ends up turning your customers into gigantic blueberries. You could throw in the towel; or, you could simply juice the culprit and move on.

Every failure transports you one step closer to success.

Never Stop Learning

“Oh, you should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about.”

Of this you can be sure – the world around you is constantly changing. One of the best ways to use that change to your advantage is to embrace it. If you endeavor to learn something new every day, you’ll have a wealth of content to share with your readers. Don’t get hung up on trying to make every post earth-shattering – even small revelations such as time-savers and lifehacks can provide the perfect blog fodder.

Hard Work Breeds Success

“Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.”

Perhaps you’ve heard the quote attributed to legendary game show host Monty Hall, “Actually, I’m an overnight success, but it took twenty years.”

There are some big names out there touting the “internet lifestyle” by working just a few hours a week, and there is no disputing the appeal of that sentiment. What’s important to remember is that it takes time, determination and hard work to create a successful blog, and the more likely scenario is 15-hour days, at least at the beginning. The good news is that for those willing to battle the Whangdoodles, Hornswogglers, Snozzwangers and Vermicious Knids they encounter along the way, the rewards can be significant.

In the words of Wonka himself, “Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he’d ever wished for … he lived happily ever after.”

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Being a successful writer isn’t just about being able to produce copy. You can be incredibly eloquent, with the most interesting knowledge of a subject possible, yet without good editing nobody will want to read your work.

The internet may allow everybody the opportunity to express themselves, but it also fails to add quality control, leaving it up to the content creator to regulate themselves. Whether you are responsible for editing other people’s copy or just your own (often the most difficult) this guide aims to give some important tips to help you get the best from the material.

Detach Yourself

One of the biggest mistakes novice editors often make is to be too precious about the copy in front of them, particularly if it is their own. It is exceptionally rare that in a 300-word piece there won’t be at least one sentence you can delete in its entirety without losing any of the meaning or overall feel of the piece.

You may well have struggled and toiled over using the perfect language and constructing beautiful sentences, but however incredible the style, if you’re not saying anything with it then you should let it go. Most readers, particularly on-line, don’t have the patience to read more than about 300 words at one time, and if you’re not saying anything in that they will certainly abandon you.

Look for the Extraneous

Don’t just look to cut out whole sentences, watch out for individual words which are serving no purpose. There are many words we use as force of habit which, once recognised, can easily be dropped from copy.

For example, watch out for the word ‘that’; “There are many words that we use…” makes as much sense when said: “There are many words we use…” Other frequent unnecessary words include ‘which’, ‘new’ and ‘but’.

Forget the Meaning

As well as checking that a piece makes sense, your job as an editor is to spot any mistakes, however small, in spelling, punctuation or grammar.

The human mind being the complex machine it is, will often glaze over misspellings when they are placed within the context of a coherent sentence. To combat this try reading the piece backwards from the end, checking each word as you go. This way you can detach from the meaning entirely and focus on looking for those minor, yet important mistakes.

You should never rely entirely on a spellchecker – an automated programme won’t always be able to tell that you meant ‘too’ when you wrote ‘to’, or ‘which’ instead of ‘witch’.

Give Feedback

One of the most tiring things about editing copy is seeing the same mistakes appear time and again. This problem can be easily avoided if you have regular writers simply by giving feedback.

It’s all too easy to correct copy and publish it without saying anything to the author, but by taking five minutes to go through your changes with them you can save much more time in future editing. Apply the same principle to yourself and remember to study any common errors you find yourself making.

Always remember your decision is final and with good editing you can turn a good piece into a great one.

Picture by Nic’s events.

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The internet is a wonderful resource full of interesting facts and opinions which can aid research in all works of life. But when this information is editable by all how can you be sure that what you’re reading is the truth.

I’m not talking about identifying middle-aged men hanging around in chat rooms pretending to be 12-year-old girls, this is about verifying your sources before publishing a blog post.

Making a factual error may seem like a trifling matter, but the simplest piece of repeated misinformation could lead to any of the following:

• Damage to your reputation as a trustworthy source
• Perpetuation of untrue information
• Potential defamation of an individual or organisation possibly leading to an expensive libel claim

So whether you’re in it for the money or the morals it’s best to know that you can trust your sources. So here are a few top tips to make sure you don’t get caught out in your research.

What’s My Motivation?

When considering any source, whether online or elsewhere, always consider the person behind it. However much anybody claims to be neutral, every human being has opinions and these will cause biased within the way they present information.

Consider something like the history of slavery in the USA. A truly unbiased report would present merely the facts of the occurrences, but have you ever really read something around this subject which didn’t at some point make a moral judgement on the ethics of slavery? Even if it is just in reporting more on the view point of abolitionists than slave owners, there is still a biased there, whether it is correct or not.

Before you accept any information as fact, first consider the person behind it and their potential biased, then ask yourself if you can really trust what they have written.

Don’t Feed the Trolls

The internet has a special community which revels in the spread of misinformation – the trolls. The best way to avoid falling for a troll trap is to be aware of the websites they inhabit and be particularly cautious of any information from these.

Forums and chat rooms are easy targets for spreading misinformation, as an anonymous poster can start a rumour which can spread across an anonymous network at great speed until several sources seem to corroborate it.

Larger websites are not immune however. Comedian Bill Cosby has repeatedly had to refute rumours on Twitter suggesting that he has died. Rumours such as this start with a troll posting a blatant lie but are very soon just being spread by gullible people who heard them from ‘a friend of a friend’.

Cosby said that the death rumours have been unsurprisingly hurtful to his friends and family, so remember that what seems like harmless fun online can often have painful consequences for others.

Nobody is Infallible

With its insistence on numerous citations you may think that Wikipedia could provide a reliable source of factual information. However, with anybody able to sign up and edit articles it has generated numerous incidents of the spread of misinformation.

One of the favourite games of trolls on Wikipedia is to insert lies into entries likely to appear in current news events. When news broke that film director Blake Edwards had died at the end of 2010 his Wikipedia entry was quickly edited to include a flagrant lie claiming that he got his break working on Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds.

This ‘fact’ was subsequently reported in Edwards’ obituaries by ABC, The Sun, The Guardian and numerous online sites (showing them to also be less reliable than assumed). This in turn created a series of potential citations which could be added to the Wikipedia article, and out of nothing a ‘fact’ was born.

Trap Avoided

By now you may be thinking: “But how can I trust anything anybody says?” The harsh truth is that you can’t. But let’s not be too pessimistic about this – everybody has to pick and choose what they trust and there are certain ways you can avoid falling for the more blatant lies.

With Wikipedia the history tab for an article can be invaluable – look for small edits which aren’t necessarily backed up by citations. Explore other amendments the author has made on Wikipedia. If it doesn’t seem right it probably isn’t.

Look for the source. Just because something’s written down doesn’t make it true, even if it’s on the BBC website. Use upload times and searches to look for the first appearance of information online. Readers may appreciate you being first with the news, but they’ll appreciate a lot more if you’re second but with all the facts verified.

I don’t want to suggest that you turn into a paranoid maniac, scrawling ‘Trust Nobody’ all over your bedroom wall, just take a little extra time to think about who your sources are and maybe together we can make the web a more reliable place.

Picture by Juliano Coutinho.

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Did you know that the more times you visit Venice the more likely you are to buy cats?

Don’t believe me? Here’s a handy graph which shows the trend conclusively:

We can clearly see that if you have been to Venice three times in your life I could easily expect you to be the owner of three cats, on average.

Not convinced? Good for you, this is utter nonsense contrived from a peculiar and entirely coincidental trend amongst nine of my friends and obviously the two factors have no relation.

But what if I had started with a more plausible claim? What if I had said ‘the more times you go jogging every week the more times you are likely to have sex’? Or ‘the more of my amazing energy drink you consume the further you will be able to cycle’? Would you have been so fast to dismiss my ‘statistical evidence’ then?

Every day we are exposed to all manner of statistics, in adverts, blog posts and even the news, but how do we know what to trust? In this post I’ll be demonstrating some of the most common manipulations and misuses of mathematics which I in no way condone using yourself.

Dedicated followers of trends

Let’s look at my opening example graph again. As any fule kno a line going from bottom left to top right demonstrates progress, therefore I must have been correct.

One of the biggest weaknesses which bad maths preys upon is the basic elements which are drilled into every child’s mind as part of their primary education. Things like fractions, lines of best fit and averages are all recognisable to us, yet are mathematical enough in appearance to hold a certain level of authority when used in explanations.

In reality, it is a simple matter to create a correlation between any two sets of data. If I told you that there was a positive correlation between the amount of chocolate people eat and male pattern baldness this may sound conclusive, and I may even be telling the truth, but in reality the results could look like this:

If you can see a conclusive trend within that mess it may be time to seek professional help.

Size does matter

Another trick frequently employed by advertisers is to use small or biased sample populations when conducting ‘research’.

Of course nine out of ten people are going to say they are happy with your service if the only people you asked were frequently returning customers.

And let’s say I was a London bar owner who wanted to demonstrate that I have the hottest venue in town. If I ask one visitor to the city if they went to my bar during their stay and they say yes, then I have a 100% positive response rate. If the next person says no this drops to 50% and as my questioning continues it may well fall further.

As sample size increases the accuracy of your results does too, but when you only care about a positive conclusion and nobody is questioning your methods why wouldn’t you just stop at the first good result?

Get mean (or modal, or median)

Averages are a fantastic way to make outrageous claims sound scientifically sound purely through misinterpretation. One of their most useful attributes is that there are three different kinds, any of which can be served up under the umbrella term of ‘average’.

Take for example the following test scores for a class of students:

Now, if we wanted to give a quick summary of these results we could tell people the mean average, which is calculated by summing the results then dividing by the number of students. In this case we get 59.2.

However, if we were the teacher of the class we might want to impress some people with our results, so this would be a perfect opportunity to employ the mode average, which takes the result which there was the most of. In this case we get 98, a pretty impressive result and we can still call it the average!

Play the percentages

Finally, if all else fails why not use a few language tricks to make everything seem scientifically sound?

Some of the most flagrant misusers of mathematics are members of the cosmetics industry. A favourite of mine was the recent claim by a women’s shampoo brand that it reduces damaged hair by up to 90%. This statement is utterly true and totally meaningless at the same time, but who cares? It sounds impressive, and that’s what counts.

It is equally true that up to 80% of my body is made from super-strong stainless steel. However, I am not some kind of incredible cyborg from the future, in actuality I am absolutely 0% made up from super-strong stainless steel, but the important thing is that 0% is on the way up to 80%, so it all holds true.

Now, you could go away and use these tricks to make up your own misleading statistics and prove that you are popular with the entire population of Australia and am made of cotton candy, but I would rather you use these as a cautionary tale. Know your enemy, use mathematics sensibly and together we can make science sensible again.

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One sure sign of loose or disorganized writing is overuse of the word “but.” Just consider as an example: “The party out of power usually benefits from mid-term elections, but anti-incumbent sentiments can hurt them, too. In 1990, the opposition gained 20 seats, but three of their longest-serving leaders were defeated.”

How easy it is to kick “but” right out of such sentences. “Although the party out of power usually benefits from mid-term elections, anti-incumbent sentiments can hurt them, too. In 1990, when the opposition gained 20 seats, three of their longest-serving leaders were defeated.”

Here a But, There a But

“But” forces the reader to switch gears, cancel whatever has just been read, and prepare for contradiction. “I totally agree with that, but….” “Their music is awesome, but….”

Still, some bloggers pepper their posts with “but,” as if they can’t make up their minds. “I ordered the chicken dish on her recommendation, but it was overcooked and dry. But I did like the taste, so I didn’t complain.”

How much more clear the blogger’s point would be without any “buts” at all. “Even though the chicken dish I ordered on her recommendation was overcooked and dry, I did like the taste, so I didn’t complain.”

One “but” followed by another results in a reservation to a reservation or a contrast to a contrast. “The boots are expensive, but their quality is exceptional. But not too many people buy them.”

Again, tossing out the “buts” tightens the text. “Despite their exceptional quality, the boots are expensive and not too many people buy them.”

Alternatives Aplenty

One of the best ways to rid a blog post of “buts” is to use synonyms. In the examples above, “although,” “even though,” and “despite” were substituted. Other alternatives are “yet,” “still,” “though,” “albeit,” “nonetheless,” “nevertheless,” “even,” “in spite of,” “notwithstanding,” “to the contrary,” “counter,” “in contrast,” “on the other hand,” “other than,” “except,” and (cautiously, because it too is often overused) “however.”

In many cases, “but” can actually be replaced with “and” or a semicolon. For example, “The critics gave the film two thumbs up, but I gave it only one.” There is no contradiction in rewriting this as “The critics gave the film two thumbs up, and I gave it only one” or as “The critics gave the film two thumbs up; I gave it only one.”

One good writing exercise is to go back through some of your own blogs and see if you can eliminate every “but” you come across. Also, when you write new posts, see if you can budget just one “but” per 500 words.

Even More Buts

Another reason “buts” are so abused is their sheer variety. “But” is not only a conjunction used to connect phrases, it can also be other parts of speech. In the phrase “nothing but the best” it is a preposition. It can also be an adverb—“She is but a child.” And it even turns up as a relative pronoun now and then, as in “There is not a man but feels sorry for the flood victims.”

Common phrases such as “last but one” or “but for you” only add to the clutter of “buts” if care has not been take to weed out the conjunctions. “Buts” can be extremely versatile if applied judiciously. The key is to not overdo it. So blogger, watch your but!

photo credit

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Before you read any further, hear this: templates can kill your blog! What I mean is, if you find a simple formula to follow and never infuse personality and variety into your posts, your blog is going to stagnate. It can be, however, helpful to have a few frameworks to keep in mind to both simplify things as well as to remind you of some of the essential elements of an effective post. Here are five possible templates to have in your arsenal.

The Narrative Template

1. Title
2. Opening Thought
3. Multiple Paragraphs of a Single, Flowing Thought

The Well-Structured Template

1. Title
2. Proposition / Thesis
3. Introduction / Hook
4. Transitional Statement
5. Major Points with Elaborations
6. Conclusion and Wrap-up
7. Call to Action

The Seth Godin Template

1. Title
2. Deeply Profound Insight in one to three hundred words.

Seth's Genius

The Money-Making Template

1. Title
2. Advertisement
3. Halfway Relevant but Keyword-Stuffed Opening
4. Advertisement
5. A List With Affiliate Links
6. Pitch a Product
7. Another Advertisement
8. A Plug for Your Email Newsletter
9. Advertisement
10. Another Halfway-Relevant Paragraph
11. Call to Action
12. Call to More Action
13. A pop-up When the Reader Tries to Leave

Oh come on folks, lighten up…

The Copyblogger Template

1. Title
2. Deeply Profound Insight in one to three thousand words.

Simple enough? What’s your template?

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You can be into blogging to make money, to make waves, or to make a difference. The goal of your blog is really secondary to the one essential need that every blog has – readers. You’ve probably heard the philosophical (and rather dumb) question, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?” Well, if a blogger breaks a great story and nobody ever shows up to read it, does it matter?

Quantifying successful blogging is challenging. Some blogs that are highly successful in terms of influence can’t boast of large direct revenue while others that make a killing off of pay-per-click ads offer little real value to the world. And traffic alone isn’t always a great qualifier of successful blogging either. Analyzing traffic is tricky because the real story sometimes gets hidden beneath the numbers.

The real goal is readership. One devoted reader can be a more powerful ally than 100 random visitors. So the goal isn’t just to grab attention, but to stimulate real devotion. Great blogs rely on a great community of devoted, supportive fans.

How does a blogger build a community of truly devoted readers? The answer is simple, the execution is challenging – reach the heart. The reason you are loyal to certain brands has a lot more to do with your emotions than your mind. Daily, we make the choice to spend extra money on the things we value rather than going cheap because we’re emotionally devoted. So if you want to build a loyal, devoted readership, aim for the heart.

How do you engage the emotions to win the hearts of devoted readers?

1. Make people think… about themselves. Facts can be interesting, but facts that hit home are compelling. Human beings, by nature, are uncomfortable with change, but change we will when our emotions are involved. People don’t buckle up because they see a road sign – they do so because they’re in a fender bender that jolts them or they see a horrific accident.
2. Be a face and a name, not just a blog. What do Chris Brogan, Michael Hyatt, and Brian Solis all have in common? In addition to being successful bloggers who impact their respective industries, they each have an online persona that can be known in a unique way.
3. Push buttons. I heard a Christian minister say once that his role was to “comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” In many cases, our role as bloggers is to push buttons – to make people mad… or sad… or uncomfortable in some way.
4. Tell stories. Or at least make sure a story is told about you, your blog, or your brand. In fact, branding is often misunderstood as symbols, designs, and logos. But a brand is really the story associated with a person, product, or organization. It represents the emotional connection people associate with a name.
5. Do it all again. Making people laugh, or cry, or think just once is great, but we’re aiming for devoted readers, which can only be done when we communicate with the heart consistently and repetitively.

This is a partial list. I’ve gotten you started. Now help me out. How else do you gather a devoted community?

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I have used all of these at one point or another. And I will tell you that it is unrealistic to do exactly all 7 in each and every article. Try to follow 1-4 all the time while 5-7 are optional but helpful.

1. Attention Grabbing Headlines: if you don’t have an attention grabbing headline your article is dead in the water. How are people supposed to know how great your article is when they don’t notice it? The key to great headlines is in the interest of your readers. No interest no click through. So you have to ask yourself “what does my reader want?” In business blogging it is never about you. Focus on your readers and attract them with their interest. Your headlines have only a few seconds to grab them. Use action words to entice them. But make sure your vocabulary fits your niches interest.
2. Deliver in the body what your headline states: don’t you hate it when you click on a headline only to discover it didn’t deliver in the body of the article? You have to deliver in the body if you want people to take you seriously. After all you are blogging to convert your readers i.e. visitors into customers. I doubt they will buy anything from you if they can’t even trust you to deliver FREE information.
3. Your articles overall tone should be in alignment with the theme of your blog: That means that if your blogging about say email marketing because thats your focus. If your a humorous person then keep that same tone in your blog. As a marketer for 15 years I can attest to one key fact. And that is that some of the most powerful people in entertainment established their authority with humor. And their key to success was doing that consistently.
4. Cite your information with links to other authorities in your niche: want to establish an aura of confidence and authority? Start linking to others in your niche. As long as they are actually credible you have nothing to lose. I have shared over 10,000 sources in the last year and it has paid off. Trust me your readers will respect you for this strategy.
5. Speak the unpopular truth: Don’t be afraid to get controversial in your headlines and body. Sometime ago I posted a concern I had about a internet marketers ethics. I received a lot of attention and some flack about it but I stood strong. People trust people who share the truth. Especially when it doesnt benefit them to do so.
6. Offer specifically detailed information for FREE: When others are charging offer for FREE. Not all the time of course but regarding a specific subject say copywriting course or a email marketing program.
7. Offer a conclusion that invites inclusion (comments): I must admit I don’t always do this. But this is a very effective way to gain input on your blog and feedback. You will know it is really working well when ideas are generated from the comments. products and major sites have sprouted from comments. The results of course lend credit to you.

You need to get attention and deliver. You need to write in the same consistent tone. You need to cite your information to credible sources and don’t be afraid to be controversial. Offer high quality detail and invite inclusion in your constitution.

Execute 1-4 always and add 5-7 at least 50% of the time. Do that and your blog will prosper. These are just (7) ideas. What do you do to fuel your headlines, body, and blog?

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(Oh, I’m not yelling at you – I’m yelling at myself.)

Every day procrastination threatens to steal my dreams and erase any hope of ever achieving my goals.

I know this, but regardless of that knowledge there are still times when I’ll sit down to work on accomplishing goals and then the next thing I know, hours have passed and so many things are still left undone. How do I still manage to let the time slip away?

When I need to write, it seems like everything else is begging for my attention. I don’t know what it is, but everything else seems so much more interesting than using my brain to write a new blog post.

Seems like that’s the only time I actually feel like emptying out my inbox after months of letting both read and unread messages accumulate to an astronomical number.  It’s terrible, I know. It makes no sense.

When mindless activities like checking my email spam folder or compulsive stat checking become more interesting than writing, I know it’s time to do something.

At this point, you’re probably thinking…”therapy” or at least some other psycho analysis to prove that I’m safe to be around children, but I assure you, it’s just the evil procrastination demon trying to steal my success.

Well, I’ve got news for him, I’m not going to surrender that easily. I refuse to let the tempting allure of the internet keep me from the most important thing I must do for my blog.  Yes, it’s time to get off of the internet, exit out of the Reader, Twitter, Facebook and yes…exit out of the internet browser entirely.

When nothing else works to curb meaningless distractions that threaten to kill my blog, I have to totally shut down Firefox, Google Chrome or whatever other browser I might be using at the moment to avoid the temptation to check my email every time I get a notification.

I have to stop myself from rushing to respond to every tweet I see. Sometimes I have to slap my own hand whenever I get the urge to start reading every new blog update that pops into my reader (they always seem urgent until you read them).

It’s strange how the very activities that help me support my blog can become the very activities that threaten its survival. Social networking is wonderful, but if  social networking and promotional activities are allowed to get out of control, they’ll devour your whole day. It’s easy lose track of time and totally forget to write something new to promote. It can become a vicious cycle.

So until I get my writing for the day done, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to shut this thing down-…! (If I could reproduce that old tube television shutdown spark, I would paste that…here!)

So what do you do to force yourself to stay productive? How do you filter out all of the distractions?

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With an exception of those dedicated solely to audio and video, the heart of most blogs lie within the written content therein. The blogger’s ability to captivate their readers’ interest, and engage them through their written word can make or break his or her success—so in other words, if you’re a blogger, taking steps towards improving your writing ability is an essential move that you simply cannot afford to skip.

This article will explore the things you can do to improve your writing in general, as well as specific steps you can take to improve each individual article you write. After reading, I challenge you to go through your “already published” works to see if you can improve a thing… or two.

Your Daily Writing Quota

The first step to improving your writing is to write regularly. Nobody was born an awesome writer; they had to work at it, and so do you. A great way to accomplish this is to set a daily writing quota and make sure you meet it everyday. 100 words a day is a great starting point, and can work wonders for your writing ability over time.

That doesn’t mean you have to publish a new post everyday, but at least write in a journal, work on a draft post, or participate in some creative writing exercises. Whatever you do, write everyday and over the course of a year, you’ll be a much better writer than you are today—even if you’re already awesome at it.

Mary Jaksch wrote a pretty extensive list over at Copyblogger on becoming a better writer, which may be worth your while to check out if you want some more general advice. As for now, I’ll get on with the specifics…

Simple, Effective Outlining

Next I’ll cover the little gems that’ll make up a large majority of your blog posts: your individual articles. The easiest way to start a piece of writing is to begin with a general outline of the entire piece.

The first and last paragraphs (or mini-paragraphs) will obviously make up your introduction and conclusion, so what I’m really concerned about here is the “stuff” in between. Write down anywhere from two to four things that are related to your title and these will be the sub-points your article will cover (the main point being the title which should encompass the whole thing).

Ask yourself, what individual things need to be addressed to fulfill what the title of my article promises? That should provide a good starting point to coming up with good sub-headings for your article.

Get Your Ideas Down

From there, you’ll start by writing an introduction for what they can expect from the article—but don’t give away too much. It’s best to engage your readers by adding a little suspense to your introduction. Keep them guessing.

Next, simply go through your sub-points and elaborate on each one. This is what will make up the body of your article. The point here is to not worry so much about things like spelling and grammar and just get your ideas down. The beauty of having words on a screen (or page) is that they’re not going anywhere (granted you save often!), so you can always go back and fix the spelling and grammar later (which you WILL do).

Once you’ve fully elaborated on your sub-points and feel like the problem that your title imposed has been solved, write out a conclusion to your article and engage your readers one last time by asking them a thought-provoking question to encourage comments and discussion.

Congratulations! The “hard part” is over (mostly).

The Art of Formatting

This takes me to the next aspect of your writing that might not “make” your article all on its own, but it can certainly break it—and that is the presentation of your article via formatting. Fortunately, formatting is very simple, and taking the extra time to “discombobulate” your writing can mean the difference between your visitors staying to read what you have to say, or clicking away due to an overwhelm of TEXT-IN-FACE.

The easiest way to format your work is to turn the “sub-points” you made within your outline into short, consumable headings that encompass the sentences and paragraphs below them. Break your paragraphs into 1-3 sentence “chunks” (separated by blank lines) and make good use of bold and italic text to emphasize key points in your writing.

The bottom line is, formatting makes your content more readable. It’s an art, but that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. Think of it as art… in 2nd grade. Not so hard now is it?

Finalizing Your Work

This very last but crucial step is the icing on the cake, the tip of the iceberg, the polish on the shoe… whatever you want to call it; just know that it’s very important.

Once you’re done writing and formatting your article just the way you want it, you need to go back and proof-read it for spelling errors, grammar mistakes, sentences that just don’t make sense, etc. And then do it again until you feel like your article is perfect. If you’re really serious about producing the best quality article possible, you’ll set the whole thing aside and do this step over again later.

And that’s all there is to it! If you make a concerted effort to write everyday (100 words a day isn’t that much) and use the simple-but-effective article writing strategy I just described above, not only will your writing continuously improve on a regular basis, but you’ll be captivating your readers in a way that makes you stand out far above most bloggers—which is essential in today’s growing blogosphere.

Let’s Talk About You

What is YOUR current strategy for producing amazing content? How does it compare or contrast with what I just presented to you? There’s always room for improvement, so I encourage you to share your knowledge and opinions in the comments section below.