Men With Pens

AUGUST 12, 2010

Today’s guest post comes to us from far, far away – at least, far away from where I live. This is one of the reasons I accepted Kwame’s post, by the way; he comes from Ghana. Isn’t that cool? What’s also cool are the 10 freelancer mistakes that follow – I bet most people are making at least one of them right now! Enjoy. Success, as defined by the Cambridge Advanced Learners dictionary, is “the achieving of the results wanted or hoped for&#.

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Freelance Finance Projects Education 97

ProBlogger

AUGUST 22, 2010

A Guest Post by The Blog Tyrant. photo credit: andronicusmax. World of Warcraft has over 11 million subscribers paying monthly fees. It is one of the most addictive video games of all time. In fact, there are several websites devoted to just helping people quit the game. There is even a “detox center&# in China that addicted kids are sent to. It is that bad.

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Blog Blogging Medical Website 49

Men With Pens

AUGUST 1, 2010

Everyone loves a good story. Stories draw us into our imaginations and make us feel like we’re right there watching the tale unfold before our very eyes. A story can stir our feelings and make us cry or burst out laughing. Because they’re so powerful, stories are very useful for copywriters. Good stories can move people to action. They can encourage sympathy and instigate donations.

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Storytelling Copy Writing Copywriter 80

Men With Pens

AUGUST 4, 2010

Seeing your name on top sites and in big publications is a pretty hot feeling. I know that feeling personally. And many freelance writers want to know how they can get their work right in the spotlight. Well, Kelly Watson’s here to tell you just how easy it is – and exactly how to get your work published by some really big names. Go for it! To date, I’ve had my work published twice by Forbes.com.

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Publisher Publishing Publishing Freelance 71

Speaker: Mike Rizzo, Founder & CEO, MarketingOps.com and Darrell Alfonso, Director of Marketing Strategy and Operations, Indeed.com

Though rarely in the spotlight, marketing operations are the backbone of the efficiency, scalability, and alignment that define top-performing marketing teams. In this exclusive webinar led by industry visionaries Mike Rizzo and Darrell Alfonso, we’re giving marketing operations the recognition they deserve! We will dive into the 7 P Model —a powerful framework designed to assess and optimize your marketing operations function.

Marketing

Men With Pens

AUGUST 29, 2010

“You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, Know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table. There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.&#. - Kenny Rogers, The Gambler. Do you hate to haggle? Do you find it insulting when someone asks you to lower your rates?

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IT Post 68

Men With Pens

AUGUST 26, 2010

I didn’t even know Jeremy’s name (let alone how to spell it, considering that the name usually ends in an “i&# where I live.). But when I saw his biz name, it all clicked into place – this was the nice guy who chatted with me on Twitter! Very cool. Also cool is the post he wrote about two types of business owners – and a pack of tips on how to avoid being the first type.

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Consulting Website Education Social Media 67

Men With Pens

AUGUST 22, 2010

A few days ago, Glenn Murray wrote a post for ProBlogger called Bloggers Versus Copywriters: 8 Reasons Why Bloggers Do It Better. Sly fox that he is, Glenn warned me the post was controversial, knowing full well I’d rise to the challenge of debate. He was chuckling over my impending comments, and I hadn’t even made any yet! Of course, comment I did.

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Copywriter Copywriting Blogger Copy 57

ProBlogger

AUGUST 24, 2010

Is your blogging getting a little dry? Perhaps it is time to become a bit more playful as a blogger. One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that the more I ‘play’ and experiment with my blog the more I learn that helps me to make my blog better. Experimentation helps you not only learn what works in the blogging medium – but also what works with your audience.

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Blogger Blog Blogging Communication 49

ProBlogger

AUGUST 4, 2010

Voice can give a blogger a serious edge. Your unique voice can set you apart from the competition, form a foundation for your brand, engender audience loyalty, and more. If you find it difficult to retain readers, and you’re confident of the quality and accuracy of the content you provide, you may need to work on your voice. What is Voice? Voice is the tone in which you present content.

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Consulting Publisher Publishing Publishing 48

ProBlogger

AUGUST 18, 2010

A Guest Post by Glenn Murray from Divine Write. It’s true. Bloggers do it better. The good ones do anyway. See for yourself: Choose a handful of your favorite blogs and a handful of static websites, and compare the writing. (TIP: Try to choose sites that look professionally designed, as they’re more likely to have professionally written copy.). Which ones grab you?

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Copywriter Copywriting Blogger IT 47

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

Join this brand new webinar with Tim Buteyn to learn how you can master the art of remote onboarding! By the end of this session, you'll understand how to: Craft a Tailored Onboarding Checklist 📝 Develop a comprehensive, customized checklist that ensures every new hire has a smooth transition into your company, no matter where they are in the world.

Communication

ProBlogger

AUGUST 16, 2010

Over the last month several hundred bloggers in the SitsGirls and TheBlogFrog communities have come together to tackle 31 Days to Build a Better Blog together. The 31 days are coming to an end this week and I’ve been so excited to see how working through the workbook as a large group has helped so many bloggers. Almost every day since the challenge started I’ve had participants tell me that their blogs have been growing as a result of participating.

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Blog Blogging Content Creation Concept 46

ProBlogger

AUGUST 31, 2010

Ever run out of things to write about on your blog? In this video screencast I want to show you how I came up with over 6000 ideas to write about on my blog using two tools – an Auto Responder (I use Aweber (aff)) and a Simple Survey. Setting this up took me all of 15 minutes work – after that it’s just been a matter of sitting back and watching the ideas roll in.

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Writing Blog Blogging Banking 46

ProBlogger

AUGUST 27, 2010

The most common question I’m asked lately seems to be: “How do you get so many things done?&#. To be perfectly honest – it’s a question I would never have anticipated anyone would ever ask of me – as I’ve mentioned here before, before I got into blogging I used to be quite… well… lazy. But since getting into blogging and starting my own business I have turned that around – at least on a work front (Mrs ProBlogger would still like me to do the

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Blog Blogging Blog Post IT 45

ProBlogger

AUGUST 9, 2010

A couple of months back I decided to start getting my video posts transcribed. A number of readers have enquired as to why I am doing this – here are the 3 main reasons I have my videos transcribed: 1. Accessibility. Not everyone is in a position to be able to consume video content. For some it is a technical issue – not everyone has access to broadband.

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Post Text Engineering SEO 43

Speaker: Michelle Garrett, PR Consultant, Author, Speaker

Yes - press releases are still relevant in the world of public relations! 🎯 Ever wondered how to write a compelling press release, or what are current best practices for pitching your news to earn media coverage? In this exclusive webinar with Michelle Garrett, PR Consultant, we’ll cover tips and advice to help you get the most out of each piece of news you pitch!

Writing

ProBlogger

AUGUST 11, 2010

Many times we see successful product launches being talked about and are so dazzled by the huge sales numbers and income generated but fail to see all the hard groundwork that has been done behind the scenes for months and years before the launch. Sometimes this is because those talking about their product launches don’t want those considering buying their ‘how to make money’ products to know its actually hard work and sometimes they do tell us but… well we only hear what

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Blogger Collaboration Ads Social Media 42

Men With Pens

AUGUST 15, 2010

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet. Short because I’m doing something I never, EVER do – I’m writing this post less than 12 hours before it goes live. That means it’s currently Sunday, which means it’s family day, which means I don’t really have the time to make this as great as I want it to be. But I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

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Post Freelance Blogger Brand 42

ProBlogger

AUGUST 29, 2010

A Guest post by Akila from The Road Forks. Last week, I had a revelation when, after spending ten minutes fiddling around with a VPN in Podunkville, China, I opened my email and found four link exchange requests, including one asking to exchange links with “The Toad Forks” rather than our website, The Road Forks. As I slammed my laptop lid down, I realized that link exchanges are the mosquitoes of the blogging world.

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Search Engine Optimization Social Media Engineering Blogger 42

ProBlogger

AUGUST 25, 2010

It has been a while since we had a survey on the topic of WordPress plugins so today I’d like to kick one off. What are your favourite FREE WordPress Plugins? Try to keep it to your top 5 so that things don’t get out of hand – but please share which free WordPress plugins are most useful to you in comments below. If you have some premium/paid ones that you want to suggest – please hold off on sharing those as I’ll run a post later in the week asking for your feedbac

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Blog Blogging IT Post 42

Speaker: Jesse Simms, VP at Giant Partners

This new, thought-provoking webinar will explore how even incremental efforts and investments in your data can have a tremendous impact on your direct mail and multi-channel marketing campaign results! Industry expert Jesse Simms, VP at Giant Partners, will share real-life case studies and best practices from client direct mail and digital campaigns where data modeling strategies pinpointed audience members, increasing their propensity to respond – and buy.

Audience

ProBlogger

AUGUST 1, 2010

Blogging is like life itself. . You get from it what you put into it. You can’t go it alone, success requires contact with, and some degree of acceptance and approval from, the outside world. Perserevence and maintainance are mandatory. Every day we are presented with lessons. Noticing and allowing them to chart the course going forward are part of the Success Equation. .

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Blogger IT Storytelling Writer 41

ProBlogger

AUGUST 17, 2010

Over the last few months I’ve been sharing a monthly breakdown of where my income comes from in the hope of illustrating some of the methods bloggers might like to look at when making money from blogging (see previous months linked to below). The month of July was the second month in a row where eBooks were the biggest money maker for me. Here’s a pie chart showing the percentage breakdowns.

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Blog Blogging Sales Advertising 41

ProBlogger

AUGUST 5, 2010

The first five articles in this series have made the case for some important concepts: treating content as an asset, seeing your posts as tools for meeting your (and of course your readers’ goals), and so on. The natural corollary to all this is the notion that while your blog is a content product, it’s just one of a number of channels through which you can put your content tools into action to promote the product itself.

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Content Promotion Consulting Concept 41

ProBlogger

AUGUST 20, 2010

Over in Third Tribe this week there was a discussion in the forum about using speaking opportunities at offline events to help grow your email newsletter list. Leon shared how he used MailChimp’s Chimpadeedee application to collect email addresses after a presentation. I’ve not used that app but it reminded me of a time that I did something similar when I was starting out 6 years ago at an event I spoke it.

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Speaker: Corey Daugherty, Head of Business Development at Flowcode & Georgette Malitsis, Senior Customer Success Manager, Enterprise at Flowcode

Let's explore the transformative power of QR codes in bridging offline and online marketing worlds. 📲 This new webinar featuring Corey Daugherty and Georgette Malitsis of Flowcode will dive into how innovative QR technology not only enhances traditional marketing strategies, but also drives meaningful customer engagement and analytics. Register today to gain practical knowledge on using QR codes to increase conversion rates, optimize customer journeys, and ultimately unlock a new realm o

Marketing

ProBlogger

AUGUST 8, 2010

Over the last week or so we’ve featured a series of posts here on ProBlogger that explore questions surrounding the theme of ‘content’ As the posts were spread out over 10 days I wanted to sum it all up with links all in the one place – so if you missed one – here they are! Source Quality Content… Continuously. Blog Content Strategy 101.

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Content Blog Blogging Writing 41

ProBlogger

AUGUST 14, 2010

This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts) – Darren. Think interviews are best left to Barbara Walters, news reporters, or magazine journalists? Think again. Conducting interviews for your blog helps create unique content, increases your blog’s authority, and adds an additional voice of expertise.

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Blogger Creativity Blog Blogging 40

ProBlogger

AUGUST 10, 2010

One week ago today in Melbourne the first ever ProBlogger training day took place. What started as a spur of the moment idea less than 4 weeks before ballooned into a very worthwhile experience. Originally I had thought it would just be a day for 10-15 bloggers gathering around a board room table talking about blogging – but it quickly turned into a sold out training day with 150 bloggers from around Australia (and one from New Zealand) packed into a hotel’s conference room to spend

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Blogger Copy Engagement Blog 40

ProBlogger

AUGUST 15, 2010

A few days back I shared a little analysis of my AdSense earnings as it related to sources of traffic and looked at how – for me – traffic from newsletters was actually the most valuable traffic that I get on my photography site. This dispelled the myth that loyal readers to your site become blind to ads and are not likely to click them – but I wanted to dig down a little deeper to look at the difference between first time visitors and repeat visitors and how they interact with

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Social Media Ads Media Blog 40

Speaker: Neal Boornazian, President and Nancy Harhut, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer - HBT Marketing

Direct mail has consistently remained a powerful tool in the marketer's arsenal, but in an age of digital dominance, its effectiveness hinges on the strategic integration of behavioral science. 💡 When you incorporate powerful behavioral science principles into your direct mail marketing strategies, you can prompt the hardwired decision-making shortcuts your audience relies on — and that automatically unlocks new avenues for engagement, conversion, and brand loyalty.

Engagement

ProBlogger

AUGUST 2, 2010

Copyright is the content producer’s constant companion. If you create content, you own it, and you want it to stay that way! At the same time, many bloggers link to, quote, and reference other peoples’ work. Understanding where the line of copyright falls is essential if you and your blog are to stay on the right side of the law. The Basics.

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Content Consulting Creativity Publisher 39

ProBlogger

AUGUST 4, 2010

You can’t ignore video. It’s everywhere online these days – but are you using it well? Youtube is one of the biggest search engines on the web, almost every product that is launched these days has accompanying videos from the product makers and bloggers are embracing it more and more as a way to communicate with their readers. The problem is that many bloggers don’t know where to start.

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Blog Blogging Blogger Text 39

ProBlogger

AUGUST 25, 2010

Eearlier in the week I asked readers to suggest their favourite free WordPress plugins. The response was great and I’ll pull together a compilation of the most mentioned ones in the coming weeks. However I’d also love to get your suggestions on the most useful Premium WordPress Plugin s. Over the last few years we’ve seen more and more premium (or paid) WordPress plugins released.

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Blogger Blog Blogging Post 39

ProBlogger

AUGUST 12, 2010

Each week I see multiple products launched targeting bloggers wanting to improve their blogs. I’ve tested many of them in my time and the reality is that most don’t deliver what they promise and I don’t promote them. However from time to time – some hit the mark and present unique and helpful information that delivers real value.

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Blog Blogging Copywriter Copywriting 39

Speaker: Jeff Tarran, COO, Gunderson Direct & Margaret Pepe, Executive Director of Product Management, U.S. Postal Service

Learn the secrets to direct mail success for growth marketers! Industry veterans Jeff Tarran and Margaret Pepe are here to delve into how direct mail has completely evolved in recent years, and has rightfully earned a seat at the table alongside the email and digital marketing plans of SMBs, enterprise companies, and agencies as they look into strategy for 2024 and beyond.

Marketing