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Last week I talked about a free report released by Brian Clark titled “Teaching Sells.” The report was in reality a promotional tool for the launch of his training program. This day the program was officially launched, and you can already enroll yourself.

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What is it all about, though? The objective is quite clear: to instruct people how to create, market and sell premium content online. The program is divided into 5 courses, and it has an initial duration of 3 months. Here is a description of each of the courses:

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1. How to Create Contest that Sells: this course will cover the selection of profitable topics and the content production.
\n2. How to Effectively Market Interactive Learning Environments: Brian is a master of on the internet marketing, so I assume he will be sharing his secrets on this part.
\n3. How to Create Killer Multimedia Content: this section is devoted to the use of multimedia tools and leveraging them to create interactive content.
\n4. Seven Profitable Business Models for Interactive Content Developers: for the pragmatical folks out there I am pretty sure this will be the most interesting part.
\n5. Building Membership Sites with Open Source and Low-Cost Software: all the tools and software that you will need to build your membership site.

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Brian granted me access to the program (hence the referral links), and I am nearly finished with the first course. The information is pretty solid, and I am definitely looking forward to the next courses and to apply all that in the near future.

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The cost of the program is $97 for the 3 months of training. All the 5 courses are included plus access to the Forums and extra materials. Do I think it is worth it? If you are planning to sell any kind of content on the web, totally.

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There is a 30-days money back guarantee, so you could not go wrong by enrolling and deciding for yourself. Just head to TeachingSells.com and check it out.

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© Daily Blog Tips – visit the site for more blog tips!

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If things keep at this pace I might rename this blog to Daily Google Tips. Over the last two weeks we have been speaking about Google every other day. This time it is the PageRank buzz again.

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Both Problogger and Copyblogger, two of the most popular blogs on the niche, announced that their PR dropped from 6 to 4. Previously other authority blogs confirmed that they lost PR, but the suspect was towards paid links. Given that Problogger and Copyblogger are not selling links, it might be just a readjustment on the PR scale.

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Some people are arguing that since the PR drop is not generalized, it must be a slap from Google due to practices that conflict with its guidelines. Andy Beard suggested that the sites that got penalized were either selling links or exchanging them inside big blog networks. This is a feasible explanation given that most of the Weblogs, Inc blogs (Engadget above all) were penalized, and they do not sell paid links either.

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Here is a list that I gathered with massive blogs that supposedly lost PR on this issue:

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• Engadget (from 7 to 5)

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• AutoBlog (from 6 to 4)

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• Problogger (from 6 to 4)

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• Copyblogger (from 6 to 4)

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• Search Engine Journal (from 7 to 4)

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• Quick Online Tips (from 6 to 3)

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• Search Engine Roundtable (from 7 to 4)

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• Blog Herald (from 6 to 4)

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• Weblog Tools Collection (from 6 to 4)

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• JohnTP (from 6 to 4)

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• Coolest Gadgets (from 5 to 3)

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• CyberNet News (from 6 to 4)

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Update: It looks like mainstream websites that were selling links were also penalized:

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• Washington Post (from 7 to 5)

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• Washington Times (from 6 to 4)

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• Charlotte Observer (from 6 to 4)

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• Forbes.com (from 7 to 5)

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• SFGate.com (from 7 to 5)

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• Sun Times (from 7 to 5)

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• New Scientist (from 7 to 5)

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• Seattle Times (from 6 to 4)

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Do you know any other huge websites that got hit? What do you think is the cause?

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© Daily Blog Tips – visit the site for more blog tips!

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This post is a following to “5 Reasons Why Viral Content is the New King“.

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Viral content, like a type of flu we might want to catch, spreads from person to person because it’s remarkable and, by its nature, asks to be talked about. More so than any other kind of content, viral posts will encourage social media success, inbound links, comments and suggestions.

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Viral content is powerful, and in this post, I want to show you how to tap into that power. When carefully executed, a viral post can help launch your blog’s growth into the stratosphere.

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Combine the following principles with a healthy dose of elbow grease and you might just create something remarkable!

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1. Get the headline right

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No, it doesn’t need to begin with a number, but the reason so many viral posts do begin with a number is that it’s a really easy way to communicate that “this content has value”. As much as some people grumble about numbered headlines, the list of Daily Blog Tips’ most popular posts on your right shows that they work, plain and simple. A comparison:

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Some Tips to Grow Your Blog Traffic
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\n89 Tips to Grow Your Blog Traffic

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The second headline is more clickable because you know you’ll be getting a lot of value from the content. The first headline, however, might contain only two or three tips. Also, the higher the number, the greater the chances that you’ve not seen each point before.

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That being said, you can communicate real value without using numbers. The best headlines rouse a reader’s curiosity, or promise value, and there are a lot of creative (text only) ways this can be done.

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2. Try tapping into buzz-worthy topics

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Content that speaks about what is currently being talked about tends to get talked about. Huh? Not pretty to state, but it’s true. Linking your niche to the current huge thing, whether it be Britney Spears’ downfall or Google’s on the web monopoly, is a tried and tested recipe for viral success.

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3. Try cramming lots of value into a small package

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If I give you a dollar a week for ten years, you’re not going to care so much. If I give the same amount of money to you in one lump sum of $520, you’re going to be impressed, and you’re probably going to tell your friends. The same principle applies to viral content. More value in one place means more impact.

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4. Learn from what works

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Head to your favorite A-list or B-list blog and take a look at their list of Most Popular Posts.

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Head to the front page of Digg, or del.icio.us, and note down the types of content you see there.

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Through both these exercises, it’s more than likely you’ll be met with an idea that can be readily applied to your niche.

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For example, let’s take a viral post from the sidebar on the right: 101 Blog Tips I Learned in 2006. What tips did you learn about your niche in 2007? Let’s say you blog about Italian food. 101 Italian Cooking Tips I Learned in 2007. Simple. Or SEO. 101 SEO Tips I Learned in 2007.

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You’re using a proven formula to produce a radically different article, and I bet both of those would have a good chance of going viral within their respective niche (and possibly outside it).

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5. Cut out the fat, and then some more

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Viral content never starts with a winding anecdote, or a long explanation. It ruthlessly cuts out the fluff and starts with what’s important: the value. If you do have a fluffy intro, you can bet visitors will scroll right past it.

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Any information that does not make your post easier to comprehend, or support your core message, needs to be cut, and cut without remorse. If you can make the same point in less words, do so.

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Social media is ideal characterized as a war for attention. You can’t waste a drop of it on the unimportant.

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6. Sew links into what you write

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Carefully chosen outbound links add depth and value to your text. The trackbacks and impressions they leave on other blogs will help get the viral snowball effect rolling.

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7. Spread the word

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Word of mouth always needs to begin somewhere, so it might as well be with you.

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Self-submission to social media will always be a controversial area, and it’s a debate I don’t want to step into here. Needless to state, if you like that route, you can start with that. If you don’t, you can pass the post along to social media friends, run it past a few blogging chums, and otherwise get it under the noses of people who’re likely to appreciate what you’ve done.\n

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© Daily Blog Tips – visit the site for more blog tips!

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Today I was doing a small research around the Internet to see how many people was scraping my articles. Needless to state there was a whole bunch of them. The interesting thing, however, was to discover that when I performed narrow search queries with sentences that were contained in my articles, Google would return the scraper site on top, and my original content on the supplemental results.

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For example, I searched for “the user should be able to see all the navigation options straight way”, quotation marks included to make it an exact match. That sentence was coming from my most popular article, 43 Web Design Mistakes You Should Avoid.

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Google found 1 page with that sentence, and it was a scraper site violating copyright. The original article was in the supplemental pages. The same pattern was found on pretty much all my popular articles.

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Maybe the deal was specific to my site, I thought, so I decided to test with some other authority blogs. Next I searched for “Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now”, which is a sentence coming from one of the most popular posts on Problogger, How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs. This time four results appeared, and all four of them were scraper sites. The original entry was on the third supplemental page.

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Finally I searched for “Instead of using the throwaway plastic utensils available at work”, which is coming from an article on LifeHacker. You can’t have much more authority than these guys, so this was the acid test. Guess what, once again Google returned 4 pages, and all of them were scraper sites.

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Try to perform a search for exact sentences coming from your popular articles. Are the scraper sites ranking above your original content? Do you know why Google behaves that way or how one could fix the problem?

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Update: Maybe it was not clear on the post, but this problem happens only when I search for exact sentences contained on the articles. If I search for one or two keywords related to the title they will still rank on the first page of results.\n

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© Daily Blog Tips – visit the site for more blog tips!

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The San Francisco Chronicle has nailed it: “Yes, some blogs are profitable – very profitable!”

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Hooray!

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Apart from the optimistic title, however, the article does a pretty good analysis of the blogosphere, highlighting both its strengths and weaknesses. Check this quotation:

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\nThe blogging world has tremendous strengths – original voices, provocative opinions, imagination and intimate knowledge of a variety of subjects. But it is also an industry struggling to mature, many observers argue. They state blogging companies must overcome the industry’s reputation as a sort of digital Wild West where anything goes, and confront such questions as conflicts of interest, product hype, bias and low standards of accuracy.

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Personally I believe that blogs will take off as soon as people stop seeing them as blogs. Quite counter-intuitive eh? Tell your dad or grandfather to visit TechCrunch (one of the profitable blogs mentioned on the article), and ask him what is it about. I am pretty sure he will say it is just a website about technology.

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That is the scenario we should be aiming for; where blogs become just another content management system. Not online diaries. Not a bunch of teenagers sharing their frivolous thoughts and experiences.

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The substance is already there. Just think about the large number of professional blogs that compete head to head with mainstream media.

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It is the perception, therefore, that has to change.

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© Daily Blog Tips – visit the site for more blog tips!

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• Evolution of Popular Blogs: The article compares the current design of some popular blogs with how they looks in the past. Daily Blog Tips was included.

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• Press Release Sites: Mashable compiled a list with more than 20 Press Release sites and services across the Internet.

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• Webmasters Survey: A List Apart conducted a survey with 33,000 webmasters. The topics ranged from salary levels to education to blogs.

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• Productivity Tools: Extensive list with tools that are supposed to boost your productivity, from email to instant messaging.

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• Separate the Trackbacks: Interesting post explaining how you can separate the trackbacks from the normal comments on your WordPress blog.

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© Daily Blog Tips – visit the site for more blog tips!

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