Posts Categorized: Blogging

4 Mistakes Just About Everyone Is Making Online

Posted on in Blogging, Social media

blogging-mistakes
Doesn’t that title seem alarmist?

Here is the  giant asterisk that should accompany it:
* And I was totally making these mistakes for years and only figured them out through working with hundreds of clients and I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about this so you can be smarter than me and not screw this up for years, too.

But that’s a pretty big asterisk, right?

If I’ve given your site a free once-over and sent you three suggestions (available to anyone on my list) or if you’ve purchased a Secret Weapon, there’s a good chance I’ve made these suggestions to you - because they’re super common! Thankfully, they only take a few minutes to fix. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can set aside a few minutes every day to work through your archives and tweak old posts or you can just do this for all your future posts!

1. No call-to-action on the About page
Call-to-action is copywriter speak for telling your readers what to do next. Your About page is your most visited page - the page people read before they hire you, buy your products, or sign up for your newsletter list. So shouldn’t we be telling them (politely) where they can buy our stuff, how they can work with us, how to sign up for our newsletter, and where they can find us on social media?

Here’s how I do it on my Yes & Yes About page:

Are you a yeasayer, a world-traveler or someone who needs helps making their online space amazing?
If you want, you can…
* Be friends on Facebook or Twitter (I promise to share photos of my cat in costume)
* Sign up for my non-annoying newsletters (Yes and Yes newsletter // Small Business newsletter)
* Buy a travel ebook to make your next trip waaaay more awesome (Adventures In Lady Travel // The Wanderlust Workbook)
* Book a Secret Weapon with me to shape up your online life
* Buy these jeans, this lipstick, these ballet flats, these packing cubes and thank me later

2. Not using  images in tweets
Did you know that image-based tweets are 94% (!!!) more likely to get retweeted? Crazy, right? I can certainly see this with my own tweets. (If you want to see how your tweets are performing, go to ads.twitter.com and click on ‘tweet activity.’)  Images should be 440×220 and you can even pre-schedule them with Tweetdeck!

Is it a hassle to create images specific to Twitter? Yes. Is it worth it? Toooootally. It’s particularly worth it for pretty, design-y posts like this or posts with titles too long for 140 characters.

3. Not making posts Pinterest-friendly
I only realized I needed to do this when Meg wrote this guest post for me! For a long time I ignored Pinterest because I couldn’t figure out how to “leverage it for my brand” (puke) but that’s sort of not the point. Even if you don’t use Pinterest, your readers probably do and they’ll be more likely to pin your posts if you’re using tall, long photos with appropriate title text. This is particularly important if you blog about food, fashion, DIYs, or design.

4. Not linking to older posts (or services or offerings) within blog posts
So many of us tuck a ‘hire me’ or ‘services’ tab into our menu bar and call it a day or we’ve got one of those archive widgets in the sidebar. But it’s a lot more engaging and clickable when we link to related posts within the text of a new post or write posts that relate to our newsletter opt-ins.

If you’re not sure how to work older posts into new posts in a natural-sounding, organic way just use ye olde P.S. trick. It’s an established (and crazy effective) copywriting trick to drive people towards your archives and it works a lot better than that those ‘related post’ plugins. You can see how I use it the P.S. trick here and the write-for-the-opt-in trick here.

What are some of the mistakes you made when you first started blogging? And if you’ve got a suggestions for how I could improve my site or blogging I’d love to hear it!

P.S. 6 more oddly obvious mistakes you might be making

photo by Daniel Novta // cc

9 Things You Should Read If You Take Your Blog/Business Seriously

Posted on in Blogging, Small business advice, Social media

internettshirt
hilarious shirt via Wild Republic Designs.

SUCH A GOOD IDEA! (all caps necessary) Tackle your passion project with the 90-90-1 rule:
For the next 90 days, devote the first 90 minutes of your work day to the one best opportunity in your life. Nothing else. Zero distractions. Just get that project done. Period.

I’ve pretty much given up on Facebook now, but if you haven’t, here’s how to see what is and isn’t working.

A checklist of 40 (!) things to consider before publishing a blog post.

How many of these do you do? 12 weekend habits of highly successful people.
Timothy Ferris: Don’t multi-task
Multi-tasking is so 2005. It may be tempting to maximize your weekend productivity by running on the treadmill while calling your mother and trolling your newsfeed, but successful people know that this just reduces efficiency and effectiveness. Instead, be present for each single activity. Ferris recommends a maximum of two goals or tasks per day to ensure productivity and accomplishments align.

Ever get a little annoyed when people want to ‘pick your brain’ (re: get free consulting from you)?
Now you can say no, gracefully.

Loved these five tips for new business 
Attract now, repel later.
As a new business, in the beginning it’s a good idea to stay open to different kinds of clients. Learn from each and build a solid financial cushion before specializing. Once you’ve passed the year mark, step back, reevaluate and decide who you’d like to attract more of. Focusing in on a particular niche will help you to position yourself as an expert and when you specialize, you’ll be able to charge more for your services.

Five really easy ways to make sure people open + read your email newsletter.

A good reminder when it comes to creativity: you’re a river, not a reservoir.
Be the river. Allow life, and people, and the universe to pour into you. And instead of worrying if you’ll ever get anything more, let it go, pay it forward, release it on into someone else’s life. Create the space for more to be poured into you!

If you’re a beauty, fashion, or design blogger you should really know about these 12 blogger blogger outreach programs.

And a few posts I wrote that you might have missed: How to blog if you don’t like writing and 6 oddly obvious mistakes you might be making online.

P.S. If you don’t want to miss any posts, jump on my list! I’ll give you two free ebooks as a thank you!

An I-can’t-believe-I-haven’t-been-doing-this Trick To Get More Out Of Your Guest Posts

Posted on in Bloggingand tagged with:

how-to-guest-post

A few months ago, the good people at Mind Body Green were kind enough to syndicate an old post of mine.
We edited it a bit, added a new, more engaging title and allofasudden 18,000+ people liked it on Facebook.

Amazing, right?!

And you know what I did to capitalize on all that traffic and all those new readers?
I blushed happily when people tweeted about it.
I bragged to my cat about it.
I looked through my archives and wondered what other posts I could repurpose.

Which is to say: I did nothing.

I did absolutely nothing to turn those tweeters and new readers into social media followers, newsletter subscribers, or clients.
18,000 people liked what I wrote and shared it with their friends and I did nooooothing with that.

You know what I should have done?
Created a page specifically for the the readers of Mind Body Green and linked to that page in my bio.

When you guest post for a high traffic website, you get a tiny slice of bio, 50ish words to convince those readers that you’re worth following. Do you point them towards your newsletter? Your huge Twitter following? That other applicable post? Your free ebook?

Yes.

You can do all that when you create a page, just for them, with all your best stuff and then link to this page-of-awesome in your guest post bio.
(You can see how I did that for my Mind Body Green readers here.)

What should you put on your specific-to-guest-posts page?

1. A greeting to your new readers
Readers will feel all warm and cozy and taken care of when you greet them. When you come to my house for dinner, I’m going to take your coat and pour you a nice glass of red. Do the same for your blog guests.

2. A selection of posts you think they’ll like
Based on the posts Mind Body Green publishes, I can surmise that their readers like life-y, inspirational, instructional posts. So I rounded up some of my best life-y, inspirational, instructional posts, made some pretty images for them and then linked the ish out of ’em.

If I was writing a guest post on a travel blog? I’ve obviously link to my best travel posts. You get the idea!

3. Links to your social media accounts
Because if they follow you on social media, they’re a million times more likely to see future posts and products. (Are we friends on Twitter? Or Instagram? I’d love it if we were!)

4. A signup for your newsletter
In a perfect world, you’d have real, actual sign up boxes in the post (rather than a link to a second page) but any mention of your list is better than nothing. Not sure if you need a newsletter? You probably do. Here’s why.

Clever, no? You can use this specific-to-readers page to capture readers when you buy ad space or link to it (rather than just your homepage) when you guest post!

P.S. If you’d like more awesome internet/creativity/business advice, I rounded up all my favorite resources here!

photo by JD Hancock // cc

How To Buy The Best Ad Space (And Make The Most Of It)

Posted on in Blogging, Small business advice

buy-the-best-ad-spaceSo you’re super serious about your site. You bought the domain name, you’ve got social media on lockdown, and you’re ready to buy ad space so you can piggyback off someone else’s traffic.

Awesome! But how does one make sure that’s money well spent?

I’m so glad you asked, friend.

1. Obviously, advertise on a site that’s read by your ideal customers and clients
If you sell artisan vinegars you should be advertising on a food blog, not a fashion blog. If you sell purses you should be advertising on a fashion blog, not an online marketing blog. If you’re a mommy blog, you probably don’t want to advertise on Rookie.  Generally speaking, lifestyle blogs are a decent fit for most products aimed at women and design blogs work for anything that’s style-y and homes-good-ish.

2. Look for (or ask for) testimonials from previous advertisers
What sort of traffic boost can you expect? How many new Twitter followers? How many new list signups? Hopefully, the site will post these sponsor testimonials (mine are here) and if they don’t make that information public, they should at least be able to tell you about an expected return on investment.

When possible looks for hard numbers. Things like “When I looked at site statistics for readers from Yes & Yes: the average (lovely) visitor from Y&Y stayed on my site for 3:22 minutes compared to an average 1:22, the bounce rate was 44% compared to the average 78%, and Y&Y was my second largest traffic source for the month.” Rather than “Sarah was really easy to work with!”

3. Find sites that will include you in an actual blog post
Now, this is the proverbial needle in the haystack but if you can find a high-traffic blog that includes sponsors in real, actual blog posts, I so encourage you to work with them. I am, of course, biased because I include my sponsors in blog posts but I also speak from experience.  I’ve purchased sidebar ad space and sidebar + included-in-a-post ad space and they can’t compare.

Most people read blogs in RSS feeds these days so they never even see the sidebar! I couldn’t in good conscience ask people to pay $80 a month for an ad tens of thousands of people weren’t seeing.

4. Link your ad to a list of freebies, your ‘best ofs’ or your newsletter signup
So you’ve purchased your ad space. Are you going to link it to your home page? I totally understand the inclination, but it’s actually a lot smarter to link to your ‘best ofs’ (here’s mine), your freebies (like Danielle does), or your newsletter signup (like Laura did with her Yes and Yes ad space). 

Your goal with your ad space is to begin a long, loving relationship with your new readers. You don’t want those new readers to pop over to your site, read half a post, and then leave, never to turn their thoughts in your direction again. You want them to take action - download something, sign up for something, follow you on social media so you can keep in touch with them.

If you’re suuuuper ambitious, you can even make a page that’s specific to the readers of the site where you’re advertising and make sure that page is optimized to appeal to those readers.

5. If your ad links to a blog post(s) make sure they’re optimized + as awesome as humanly possible
What does that mean?  Optimized blog posts
* include in-text links to related content
* are related to your services or offerings and link accordingly
* have gorgeous, Pinterest-friendly images (here’s how to make your images more pinnable)
* you’ve written alt text and title text for the images (it’s not that hard)
* maybe you’ve even used the P.S. trick

I realize this sounds like one metric ton of work but if you’re going to spend money on an ad, you might as well, you know, benefit from it. If you’re interested in buying ad space on Yes and Yes, you can check out my rates and info here - my sponsors love it and I have tons of repeat business! 

Tell me: what other sites do you know that include sponsors in actual posts? Where have you advertised?

P.S. If you know someone who’s bought ad space and been disappointed or is thinking of buying ad space for the holidays, send ’em a link to this post!

photo by  // cc

9 blog posts that will make your online space hum with awesomery

Posted on in Blogging

links for online businesses

Good reminders for those of us who work from home!
Get Out of Your House. The hardest part about working from home can be feeling a bit isolated from your community. So make it a point to get out a few times a week. I like meeting local clients and creative peers at my favorite coffee shop. I also like to get some fresh air with a morning walk before I begin my day. 

Hooooly useful. 50+ places to repurpose your content!

I’ve been busy circle-ifying headshots. Here’s how you can do it with Picmonkey - for free!

An insanely useful post from Paul Jarvis about how to grow your freelancing business. So much good stuff in there!
Start by getting into the head of the people you want to get hired by
Make a list of people that have hired freelancers that use the same skills as you have and have recently hired for it. Send them a quick email to see if you can ask them for their advice.

Would your blog posts be more engaging if you were using gifs? It’s easy to make your own with Giffysnap!

Have you ever failed at something? (Um, are you a human?) If you have, here’s how to get over it.

Before you contact a professional peer you haven’t talked to in ages and ask them to promote your stuff, read this.

I loved Jill’s post about how to get rich as a blogger.

A sneaky way to get more people to read what you write.

And some posts you might have missed: Collaborating your way to more traffic + clients and How to toot your own horn without being totally annoying.

Have you read or encountered anything super helpful lately? Leave links in the comments!

 photo by  //cc

6 Things Your WordPress Site Wants You To Do Every Month

Posted on in Blogging, Guest bloggers, Small business advice

This guest post comes to us from Norma Maxwell, founder and CEO of Connect Interactive, LLC, a digital creative agency that specializes in WordPress design, development and strategic online success building. Her passion is helping clients create a strategic online presence that not only connects with the right people, but resonates long after they have made their first contact. Connect with Norma on Twitter or Facebook. 

wordpress-updates

WordPress is like a car. It needs regular tuneups to keep running smoothly.

Having your own self-hosted WordPress website is a beautiful (and necessary) thing for any serious business owner or blogger. Unlike websites hosted on proprietary platforms owned and controlled by someone else, a self-hosted website is 100% owned and controlled by you.  It’s like the difference between owning your own car, or renting from someone else.  When you rent, you follow someone else’s (always changing) rules, and you pay a lot more money for the privilege.

But, just like owning a car, having a self-hosted WordPress website requires upkeep.  You keep the oil changed and schedule regular maintenance to make sure your car keeps running smoothly. In the same way, your website requires regular maintenance to make sure it stays up-to-date, secure, and runs like it should. You can change the oil and run the maintenance on your car yourself, or hire a mechanic to do it for you. Either way, you owe it to yourself to make sure your website stays secure and maintained, so you won’t find yourself broken down on the side of the Internet highway.

How to Keep Your WordPress Website Maintained + Safe

  1. Create a weekly or monthly (depending on how much content you stand to lose if you do it less often) complete backup of your WordPress database, images, and all content.
    You can do this by purchasing a backup plugin that will help you create the backup. I use the Backup Buddy plugin on my clients’ websites. Store the backups locally on your server and on a remote storage account (such as Amazon S3). Although some hosts offer backup plans, if something happens to their server, you’ll have a complete backup of your website stored elsewhere, which gives you peace-of-mind-just like keeping your important papers stored in a safety security box in a bank.
  2. Keep your WordPress software, themes and plugins updated.
    If you don’t, you run a real risk of your website getting hacked and infected with malware. Every time WordPress releases an update, it’s because the developers have discovered a vulnerability, or are making the software perform better in some way.  The same thing goes for themes and plugins you’re using on your site. You get an alert in your administration panel when an update has been released, and it’s a two-three click operation to update your software.  Whenever you log in, if you see a plugin, theme, or WordPress requires an update-just do it.
  3. Remove unused themes and plugins, and get rid of unnecessary plugins.
    Any extra software on your website creates risk. If you’re not using a theme, delete it.  Same thing goes for any disabled plugins on your site. If you have plugins installed on your site that aren’t absolutely necessary, get rid of them.Less is definitely more in this case because the most important thing you can do for your visitors is offer them a safe visit to your website, and maintaining a healthy, fast website is the best way you can do this for them. A bunch of plugins you don’t need = slow site performance. Slow site performance = lost visitors to your website and lost revenue for your business.There are thousands of plugins available for WordPress, but that doesn’t mean you should use them all!

    Any developer in the world can create a plugin which means the quality can vary a LOT.  Some plugins are great, and some not-so-much.  Check to make sure the plugins you use are supported and regularly updated by the developer.  Read user reviews to see if people are having positive results from the plugin.  You can find all this information on the WordPress.org page for that plugin (if the plugin you want to use isn’t listed there-it’s a red flag, so I would recommend you don’t use it).

  4. Perform regular security scans.
    Hackers are busier than ever wreaking havoc on innocent websites. It’s a fact of life that can’t be ignored because one malware infection can cause you to lose all of your website content, put your site visitors at risk, and potentially cause your website address to be blacklisted by Google. All of which would definitely NOT be good for business. You can monitor your WordPress website for malware by using a plugin like WordFence or setting up a subscription web service like Sucuri to make sure you’ll be notified of any vulnerabilities your site has immediately.
  5. I also recommend installing the iThemes Security plugin to give yourself an extra layer of protection against threat by hiding vital areas of your site, restricting access to important files, preventing brute-force login attempts, detecting any attack attempts, and notifying you by email if there are any issues with your site.
  6. Use a comment spam prevention plugin like Akismet to control comment spam.
    You can review any spam comments it catches in the admin section of your site.
  7. Create a secure username and password and change it regularly.
    A secure password is 18 characters long, and contains a combination of special characters, capital and lowercase letters, and numbers. You can use a free application like Passpack Desktop to help you generate secure passwords and store them securely in one place so you can always look them up when you need them.

I know it seems like a lot of work, and it does take some time, but if you take these steps, you’ll have a safe, secure website that runs like a charm and doesn’t stress you out.  Your website takes care of you in so many ways, so it makes sense that you need to take care of it to make sure it functions as it should.  If you’d rather have dental work than do this yourself, I have a Monthly Maintenance for WordPress package just for you.   I’ll take care of making sure your website is safe, secure, and running smoothly so you can focus on what you do best!

What updates do you run on your site? What are you favorite plugins? Tell us in the comments!

P.S. 7 ways to spring clean your blog and How to use Google Webmaster tools in a non-overwhelming way.

How To Host A Blog Crawl (spreadsheets! @mentions! organization!)

Posted on in Blogging

how-to-host-a-blog-crawl
If you’re just tuning in, dear reader, this is the last in a three-part series about hosting and coordinating your very own blog crawl. We’ve already covered why you’d want to do such a thing and how to find + woo people to take part in your adventures.

Today? Today, we discussing how one coordinates a jillion contributors, tweets, and guest posts without losing one’s mind. Here are five logistical things to consider while you’re making magic.

1. If your blog crawl is supporting a product launch, make sure your product sales page is live before the blog crawl starts
My blog crawl supported the launch of my Post College Survival Kit ecourse, so my sales page obviously needed to be up and ready when my contributors were posting and linking to me. This also means that I needed a permalink to that page waaaay before things went live. You’ll need to send your contributors a pre-written intro with links (that they can edit) well before the actual blog crawl starts.

Here’s what I sent my contributors:

Here’s an intro for the top of the post:
Notes To My Younger Self is helping spread the word about The Post College Survival Kit. We learned the hard way so you don’t have to! You don’t have to wait till your thirties for a better job, a cuter apartment, financial stability, better relationships + friendships. 

Of course, feel free to edit so it’s in your voice - all that’s really important is that it includes the link 😉

2. Create a big ol’ dorky spreadsheet for yourself
There’s a lot to remember and manage when you’re coordinating a blog crawl with 20+ contributors. I made myself a giant spreadsheet with columns devoted to who I approached, if they responded and how, which week they were scheduled to post, their email/url/twitter handle, and links to their post once it had gone live.

3. Make it easy for your contributors to promote each other’s work
At the end of each week, I’d send my contributors pre-written tweets linking to and promoting each other’s posts. I always made sure to point out that none of this was ‘required’ and they should feel free to write their own tweets and promote each other in a way that felt right. But most of us are busy and if I like you + trust you? I’ll probably be happy to tweet links to the smart, interesting people who are also involved in this project.

4. Ask your contributors to @mention you on social media when their post goes up so you can promote it
It’s hard to get 20 people to email you their blog posts ahead of time. It’s a lot easier to convince them to @mention you when a post goes up.

5. Make an ebook out of the blog crawl posts
Once your blog crawl has wound down, assemble all those amazing posts into a nicely designed ebook and give it to your contributors as a thank you. They can share it with their readers, use it to boost their own newsletter signups (like I did here and here) or just print it out and read it in bed with a glass of wine.

Of course (of course) I made just such a book out of all my contributors’ posts. You can get it (plus three of my most popular little ebooks) when you sign up for the Yes and Yes newsletter. (See what I did there?)

ntmysyoungerself

Whew! Are you completely overwhelmed with information? Convinced that your next launch needs a blog crawl? If you have any blog-crawl related questions burning a hole in your pocket, leave ’em in the comments!

photo by death to stock photo // cc

Finding The Right People For Your Blog Crawl (and keeping them + your readers happy)

Posted on in Blogging

Last week, we solved the mystery of what a blog crawl actually is and why you might want to host one. Today, we’re talking about finding + wooing the right contributors.

blog-crawl-contributors

So I’ve sold you on the idea of hosting a blog crawl.
Yes, it’s a bit of an undertaking.
Yes, it’ll increase your readership and traffic by leaps and bounds. And I can tell from all the way over here that you’re not someone who shies away from a little hard work.

The most important ingredient in your blog crawl pizza? All the outrageously awesome contributors, obviously. If no one’s partaking in your blog crawl, it becomes less ‘blog crawl’ more ‘me hopping in one place while my quads start to cramp.’  So let’s talk about how to find the right people for your blog crawl and  keeping them (and your readers) happy.

1. Approach people with whom you already have a relationship
This isn’t the time to email a huge blogger you’ve never talked to before. This is when you email that internet friend you’ve partnered with three other times. Or your designer. Or your client. Or your once-monthly coffee partner. When you’re putting together a blog crawl, you’re simultaneously asking people for a pretty significant favor and introducing them (with your endorsement) to your readers. You don’t want to take a chance on someone who will flake out or write something so deeply unlike you that your readers will question your judgement.

If you’re not sure how to go about befriending people on the internet, here’s a good start.

2. If you’re launching a product, partner with people whose audience would benefit from your product
If you’re blog crawling in promotion of a product launch, you (obviously) want to partner with people whose readership might like said product. My blog crawl was in promotion of The Post College Survival Kit, an ecourse designed to help 20-somethings navigate career, finances, dating, and domestic life after college.  So I left my fashion and food blogger friends out of it.

Before you invite someone to take part in your blog crawl consider their readership’s age, income, interests, and needs. If it doesn’t seem like a match for your product, keep moving.

3. Approach people who have a similarly-sized readership
As previously noted, this isn’t the time to email Jenna Marbles. Huge bloggers are less likely to partake in blog crawls and if you’ve got 6,000 Twitter followers (like me), someone with 38,000 followers isn’t really going to see a huge increase in traffic.

Reach out to people you know to have a readership that’s similar in size to yours. You can also use your blog crawl as an opportunity to point the internet in the direction of small, amazing, unsung bloggers. If you like someone and you know your readers will too, invite them. Period.

4. Make sure your contributors benefit from the blog crawl
Let’s make sure our blog crawls aren’t the internet equivalent of the friend who only calls when she needs a ride.  You can make your blog crawl extra beneficial to your contributors by tweeting each of their posts, sharing their posts in your newsletter, or aggregating their posts into one that you share on your own blog (like I did here).

5. Don’t ask your contributors to stick to a script
If you liked these bloggers enough to ask them to contribute to your crawl, surely you trust them to write their own stuff, yes? If you give them a pre-written intro, encourage them to edit it to fit their own voice. Don’t ‘require’ them to post a ‘badge’ or use graphics that don’t match their branding. Give them a loose outline of what you’re looking for in post (“300-500 words + helpful”) and let them create something that works for them + their readers.

6. Chose the right post topic
This, my friends, is the million dollar baby. When you’re asking your friends to write something for your blog crawl, consider topics that
a) compliments the subject of your blog or the product you’re launching
b) would be interesting/helpful to anyone who reads it - regardless of whose blog they usually read or if they’re the target market for your new product
c) is customizable to match your contributor’s voice/area of expertise

I chose ‘Notes To My Younger Self‘ because it’s something evvvvveryone can relate to and all my contributors could put their own spin on it. Rebecca McLoughlin put an interior decor spin on it. Braid Creative put a business spin on it.

Next week, I’m talking about the logistics + nitty gritty of running your blog crawl. Pre-scheduled emails! Spreadsheets! Auto responders!  If you don’t want to miss it, sign up for my newsletter and I’ll send it right to your inbox.

photo via death to stock photo // cc

What the eff is a blog crawl? And should you host one? (Only if you want more traffic + sales + subscribers)

Posted on in Blogging

blog-crawl

The first time someone asked me to be part of a blog crawl, my response was probably:
a) That sounds like a lot of work/vaguely annoying.
b) With a name like that, it can’t be good. Pleeeeezzze. My blog can hop, skip, and drop it like it’s hot. We do not ‘crawl’ in this house.

And then I got the eff over myself, took part in Molly Mahar’s ABCs of Self-Love blog crawl, gained heaps of new readers + boosted my mailing list by a bajillion. Which is how, dear readers, I discovered what a blog crawl was.

Merriam Webster style:
Blog crawl (n) 
A tool used to drive traffic from on blog to another. Contributors post on a specific topic, each linking back to a main page and also to each other. Online traffic flows between the main, host site to contributors and from contributor to contributor through blog posts and social media promotion.

If you’ve been following along on Yes and Yes as I’ve launched by latest ecourse The Post College Survival Kit, you’ve probably seen the blog crawl in action.

Is hosting a blog crawl a lot of work? Yes.
Will it pay off? Like, a lot? Also yes.

If I haven’t convinced you yet, here are four reasons you should consider putting together a blog crawl. 

1. It’ll bring you (and your contributors) lots of traffic
This only makes sense, right? When coordinated correctly, everyone involved in the blog crawl promotes each other’s work. That means heaps of talented, lovely people with clever, engaged followers linking to your stuff. Between everyone who took part in my blog crawl, we had a combined Twitter reach of 100,000+! So many exclamation points!

2. It’ll introduce your readers to other awesome people they should know about
When you (carefully, strategically, lovingly) chose the right contributors, you’ll be introducing your readers to hidden gems and new RSS feed favorites. Do you know a new or underappreciated blogger who writes about stuff your readers would love? Are you on a one-person mission to tell everyone about That One Blog? Well, you should obviously invite that blogger to take part.

I can’t speak for the rest of the internet, but I struggle to find blogs I really like and when I do find one? I’m going to read the archives till my eyeballs fall out and send the links to my friends. Really, a blog crawl is just a slightly more civilized version of that. It’s a win/win for everyone involved!

3. It’ll strengthen your relationship with your contributors
I’m a big fan of good karma and spreading good will + traffic all around the internet (one of the reasons behind my most popular weekly post). I will so, so happily lend a hand to any of my contributors. Need another pair of eyes to check out that new ebook? Sure! Just want to commiserate about writer’s block or snarky, anonymous comments? I’m there. And if I’ve got a client who needs what my contributors are selling - I’ll be sure to pass ’em along.

When you work on a project with anyone, you get to know them a little better and strengthen your friendships. And friendships are what make the world - online and off - go ’round. 

4. If you’re using a blog crawl to launch a product, it’ll increase your sales like whooooaaa
The most obvious benefit to blog crawling? You’ll bring in heaps more traffic, which will bring in heaps more sales. Instead of overwhelming my 6,000 Twitter followers with a million tweets about my product, my friends and contributors built up the buzz between their 100,000 followers. 8,700 + (!!!) people downloaded the free, 27-page sample of The Post College Survival Kit.  I gained 5-15 new Twitter followers every day of the blog crawl and I introduced contributors to my own 11,000+ readers and 4,000+ newsletter subscribers.

More importantly, my readers enjoyed the posts and other bloggers started writing their own ‘Notes To My Younger Self’ posts!

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Over the next two weeks I’ll be sharing all the behind the scenes, how-tos, and ‘best practices’ of creating and managing your own blog crawl. If you want to make sure you don’t miss out, sign up for my newsletter and I’ll drop all the goodies right into your inbox.

Have you ever been part of a blog crawl? Or hosted one? What worked? What didn’t?

P.S. Why having a personality on the internet is good for business + How to befriend bloggers

7 interesting, innovative blog posts ideas you haven’t seen a million times before

Posted on in Blogging

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It’s painfully easy to believe that there’s nothing new on the internet.
A vignette of adorable, striped clothing we can’t afford ? Seen it. 
A numbered list of ways you can improve something? I WRITE THOSE ALL THE TIME. 
Interviews? Dur. A bunch of curated links? Hell, I tell all my clients to do that (because those posts are incredibly effective.) 

But occasionally I stumble over something new and head-turning on the internet. Something that makes me think “Well, aren’t you clever?!  I think you might have just reinvented the wheel! Or at least framed something in a particularly awesome and new way.”

And then I add those blog posts to a folder titled ‘non-boring post inspiration.’

If you’re looking for a bit of motivation, or just some reassurance that blogging is more than product roundups and personal essays, look no further. Here are 7 I’ve-never-seen-that-before blog posts that might suit you and your blog, too.

1. Taking stock

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Posted by: Pip of Meet Me At Mike’s
Why it’s innovative: It’s community-building and meme-worthy. Lots of bloggers create posts that consist of their Instagram accounts or occasionally tell us what books they’re reading, but Pip’s 36-item list gives her readers an easy to digest but close look into her life - which readers usually love! It’s short, easy to read, and oddly fascinating. It’s also totally meme-worthy and I could see lots of other bloggers using this template and linking back to her.

Your spin on it: If you write a topic-specific blog you could create a list like this for you and your readers! If you’re food blogger it could be things like: currently eating, new recipe I’m trying, seasonal food I can’t wait to stock up on, latest kitchen purchase, cookbook I’m currently obsessed with, super unhealthy thing I love. You get the idea!

2. Links visually arranged by theme

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Posted by: Brittany of The House That Lars Built
Why it’s innovative: This is really just a link roundup (and you know how I feel about those) but it’s been framed in a fun, thematic way. Readers are much more likely to click on those links and showcasing other bloggers’ work in such a pretty, professional way is incredibly flattering.

Your spin on it: Wouldn’t this be a cute, click-catching way to arrange links for a topic-specific blog? If you’re a beauty blogger, you could round up DIY beauty treatments for hair, face, hands, and feet. If you’re a fashion blogger, you could round up accessories for head, ears, neck, wrists, and feet.

3. The world’s shortest, most engaging travel post

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Posted by: Amber of Code for Something
Why it’s innovative: It’s a short, engaging way to catalog memories of a specific time + place and share your travels (without boring your readers). If you’ve ever returned from a long, exciting trip and tried to tell your friends about it, you know that people have a verrrrrrry short attention span for travel stories. They weren’t there. They don’t care about squat toilets. The same goes for blog readers. They probably just want to see your photos and read the extremely abridged, bullet-pointed version of the trip. This post communicates novels of insight in just a few words.

Your spin on it: Tune into your senses when you’re someplace new. And then (succinctly) tell your readers about it.

4. A visual link roundup for an imaginary event

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Posted by: Kelly at Design Crush
Why it’s innovative: Again, it’s pretty much a link roundup, but it’s organized in a gorgeous way that’s helping readers accomplish something specific. Like, lots of readers probably saw this and thought “Oh, me too! I’ve been wanting to throw an appetizer party! And lo, now I have all the resources!”

Your spin on it: You could do this with just about anything - recipes, products, and resources that will help your readers plan an awesome camping trip. A roundup of useful things that would help someone with a cross-country move. A collection of things for new moms. Possibilities = endless.

5. 10-second video tour (using still photos) 

Posted by: Designsponge*
Why it’s innovative: We’ve all seen video tours of spaces or photo tours, but this is the first time I’ve seen still photos turned into a mini-video! It’s great for those of us with short attention spans and it’s a fantastic way to showcase something even if you’re not a super experienced videographer.

Your spin on it: The possibilities are endless: A tour of your space! Super simple DIYs! Recipes!

6. Audio-ified posts

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Posted by: Esme Wang
Why it’s innovative: Everyone and their brother has a podcast, but what about blog posts? If you’re an aural learner, dyslexic, or you like to cook and clean while absorbing lovely content, the audio versions of blog posts are super useful. It would be particularly fun to listen to blog posts read by your favorite bloggers who have regional accents!

Your spin on it: I’m not sure there’s a way to spin this - just give it a try! Maybe go through your archives, make audio versions of your best stuff, and then tell your Twitter friends to check out your new and improved blog posts.

7. Glorious promotional Instagram photos

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Posted by: Elise Blaha of Elise Joy
Why it’s innovative: Obviously, this isn’t so much a blog post as a way to promote blog posts - but it sure is clever, isn’t it? I’ve struggled to find ways to promote blog posts on Instagram, usually settling for one of the photos I use in the post. Which isn’t particularly engaging. This is so much more interesting!

Your take on it: Think about how you can use handwriting, actual photos, post its, tape, or even gift tags to create images that promote posts.

What are some of the most interesting, unusual blog posts you’ve seen lately? Leave links in the comments!

P.S. Did you know that when you sign up for my newsletter and send me your URL, I’ll give your site a once over and send you three, specific-to-you suggestions to make your online space more polished, trafficked, and money-making?

photo by death to stock photo