The First Thing To Do After You Publish Your Post

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Contact 1-2-3 bloggers and simply send them a short to the point email:

Hi _____,

Here is a post your blog readers might like:

<Post Title>
http://www.yourdomain.com/post-name/

kind regards,
<Your Name>

Many bloggers make a “link love” post once a week or so - where they share links to good articles they’ve read.A  They may add your blog post to that list if your post is good.

It hardly takes 5 minutes to shoot off 3 emails after you make a new post.A  And it could lead to a few 100 people stumbling across your blog!

Action Summary:

• A As you read various blogs, make your own list of the blogs that make “link love” posts.
• Then every time you make a new post, select 2 to 3 bloggers from that list and send them a short 2 line email.

Book Review: The 4 - Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

What Nicolas Darvas did for stock investors, Timothy Ferriss does for entrepreneurs - especially online entrepreneurs.

In his book “How I made 2 million in the stock market” - Nicolas Darvas writes about how he went on a world tour and yet turned $25,000 in $2,000,000 within 18 months by playing the stock market. In a similar vein, Timothy Ferriss explains how he went on a 15 month vacation, worked just 4 hours a week - and yet made $40,000 per month selling a health product online.

One of my favourite quotes is by a not-so-well-known Texas oil tycoon:

“Success requires two things and two things only.

1. You must know exactly what you want. Most people never make this decision.

2. You must determine the price that you will have to pay to achieve it and then get busy paying that price.”

- H.L. Hunt (Texas Oil tycoon)

Ferriss expands on that success secret in his book. He provides us with the DEAL Formula.

Dreamlining
Eliminate
Automate
Liberate

Dreamlining: Ferriss shows us how he charts his wants and needs. And more importantly, figuring out how much all of it will cost per month. He divides the dreamlining process into 3 parts:

• What I want to Have in __ months.
• What I want to Be in __ months.
• What I want to Do in __ months.

Its a very comprehensive way of charting your goals. You can check an online example of Dreamlining here (pdf format).

Eliminate: In my opinion, this section of his book is the best section. Although you may know all the theories of productivity, Ferriss brings it all together. And provides us with some nifty tips in eliminating time wasting and unproductive tasks.

• Remember the 80:20 principle. 80% of results come from 20% of effort. So focus on the 20% to work less yet earn the same.
• 80% of complaints come from 20% of clients. Can you fire these 20% trouble clients that waste your time and fry your head?
• Limit your timeline per task. Have strict deadlines and you won’t spend your time wasting on frivolous tasks.
• Do not multi-task.
• Read less.
• Don’t let others interrupt you while you are working.

Automate: This section talks about how can you start a new side business. And automate it so that it earns more than you earn right now - without you having to spend a lot of time on it. At the end of the chapter in this section, Ferriss gives us a list of tools and resources that encapsulates almost everything you may need to get done to run your online business. This section is a bit of a let down though. Because it just gives us a couple of examples. And doesn’t talk about a lot of things that can go wrong.

The whole idea is: find a product with 8-10x profit margin. And start selling it online. Hire people to promote your website and to take care of the order processing and shipping. But there is not a lot of detail to go with it. You will have to find other sources to fill in the gaps. (This blog is a good place to start with.)

Even though this is not my favourite part of the book, this is the most talked about part of the book. Because Ferriss talks a lot about outsourcing. Finding cheap labour in developing nations (India) and outsourcing your work over there.

Liberate: This section of the book is sprinkled with idea, tools and resources that you can use to quit working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. And take several mini-vacations every year while you are young. If you are interested in mobile-living, you will love this section of the book.

It gives you some tips that you can use to quit working 9-to-5. Even if you work for someone else. The good thing is Ferriss gives you entire dialogues and phrases you can use to convince your boss and reduce the time you spend in an office!

Book Score:

Ease of Reading: 9/10
Ideation: 7/10
Practical Knowledge: 9/10
Worth The Price: 9/10
Overall Score: 8.5/10

Even though this book leaves a few gaps - and I don’t think very many people will be able to start working just 4 hours a week after reading this book alone, it is a worthy read. And it is very inspirational too: knowing that it can be done and reading about some one who has done it.

People who have already read a few self help and productivity books before may not find a lot of new ideas in this book. But the book compiles a lot of useful ideas together and is an excellent summary. I heartily recommend it.

House Cleaning

Why haven’t I been blogging everyday this week?

1. The theme of this blog is more or less working smooth - from usability point of view.A  But it doesn’t look too sharp.A  I’ve been working on some modifications to make this blog look exceptional.

2. The buy-me-a-beer plugin has now been updated to support currencies.A  If you want to make sure that people pay you using a currency of your choice, then please download the new version.

3. We’re working on a new affiliate program for this blog.A  Once that is ready,A  the first Blog Clout report (which is long overdue) will be released to the public.

4.A  We’re also testing a StumbleUpon.com widget that should blow your blog traffic away!A  Not yet sure if that widget will be released widely however - because its grey hat.

5.A  Working on a few more reports and one special newsletter for you.A  Lots happening in the Blog Clout Labs!

Link Clout # 7

1. What Makes People Buy?

2. From Idea to Profit - a case study of how one marketer took his idea and created a profitable site around it.

3. Marketing Playbook - you can now read this excellent book for free online.

—

A blog post written by yours truly on another blog:

5 Networking Ideas for Work-At-Home Entrepreneurs

Negative Writing Triples Your Traffic

Lets talk about the no.1 searched person of all time: Paris Hilton.

1. When Paris Hilton was sentenced to serve 45 days in prison, one of her fans started an online petition to Free Paris Hilton.

2. At the same time, an entrepreneur started a petition website of his own: Jail Paris Hilton.

3. The results? The Jail Paris Hilton petition got more than three times as many names as the Free Paris Hilton petition!

a_?Nothing travels faster than light, with the possible exception of bad news, which follows its own rulesa_? - Douglas Adams

One sure fire way of attracting more traffic to your blog is by writing posts with a negative point of view. Open any newspaper and you’ll see that the top headline is almost always negative.

Negativity spreads. How can you use it to win people’s attention and get others to link back to you?

De-construction 1: At the time of writing this, the top 2 headlines on Digg.com are:

i. In case you weren’t really sure AT&T really is spying on you
ii. 6G iPod UI video: Apple’s new interface?…Apple Legal Department Involved!

De-construction 2: My title for the blog post where I review MyBlogLog is “Removing MyBlogLog Increases Adsense Earnings!” If you read the post, you’ll see that there are 3 bullet points both for and against MyBlogLog. But by using a negative title, more people linked to the post and commented on it.

De-construction 3: Read this blog post: The Three Little Blogs: A Cautionary Tale. It was linked by several bloggers within a short span of time. It was one of the hottest blog post of last week. Do you think that that post would have spread like wild fire without the negative slant and linking “big bad blog” to JohnChow.com?

Action Summary:

Try to give a negative angle to your writing whenever you can and more people will talk about your blog posts.

Marketing Hotsheet: Office Marketing

Some of you know that I also publish a premium newsletter at MarketingHotsheet.com

The latest issue of Marketing Hotsheet was published today. Because I don’t have much time to write or polish a blog post today, I’ll publish one of the marketing case studies from the latest issue:

Office Marketing

Dan Kennedy is one of the most famous marketing consultants. One day, an accountant came to him for advice. And Dan Kennedy shared his office environment tactic with the accountant.

Dan Kennedy first asked the accountant to define what he wanted his clients who visited his office to do. The accountant listed 3 things:

1. Learn how to get well organized financially

2. Learn how to work with the accountant to stay that way

3. Refer more clients to him

Kennedy than asked the accountant to make sure that everything in his office and waiting room led to one of those 3 things.

• The accountant replaced magazines in the waiting room with educational literature

• He replaced the soothing background music with a looping video on financial and estate planning

• And he removed the colourful paintings from the walls and replaced them with relevant posters and signs a_” one of which asked for referrals!

The accountant did nothing else except change his office environment. And the results were phenomenal. His revenue per client increased by a whooping 30%! And the accountant also doubled his client base because of referrals within a year!

Action Summary:

• Define what you want your clients to do. Then make sure everything in your office and on your website and in your sales pieces points towards those things.
• Replace magazines and music in your waiting room with educational literature and videos.
• Make sure you remind your current clients to refer their friends to you.
• If you run a business and are interested in attracting more clients, then head over to MarketingHotsheet.com and subscribe.

Removing MyBlogLog Increases Adsense Earnings!

A snapshot of the MyBlogLog widget

I recently removed the MyBlogLog widget from this blog. Why? Because after 15 days of testing, my statistics showed that MyBlogLog reduces your blog earnings!

Lets take a more detailed glance at MyBlogLog Pros and Cons…

MyBlogLog Pros:

1. It makes your blog look busy. Popular even.

2. It could generate a quite a bit of traffic to your blog if your blog makes it to their “Hot Community” section. However, the chances of this happening are quite slim - especially if your blog is not already popular.

3. The best advantage of MyBlogLog is that it is a conversation starter! You can see who visited your blog. And if you see a popular person on your bloglog, you can send them a quick note thanking them to visit - and start a conversation!

(Contrary to MyBlogLog’s official selling point, MyBlogLog widgets don’t make good community builders. Because there is really no way for you to keep in touch with your MyBlogLog blog community. And no pain for your community members to leave your community.)

MyBlogLog Cons:

1. It makes your blog load slowly. Showing images of 12-15 people takes quite a long time.

2. It provides absolutely no advantage to your blog readers.

3. It decreases the click through rate for links placed near the MyBlogLog widget.

MyBlogLog helps the blogger more than it helps the blog readers. Its more of a fashion badge that serves little purpose. And so I decided to remove the MyBlogLog widget from this blog… at least for a little while.

Since I removed the widget, the click through rate for the Adsense ads shown in the sidebar has more than doubled!

I may bring the widget back for more testing. But I’ll never place it in the sidebar again. Where 99% of the bloggers place it. If I do test it out again, I’ll only place them in my blog footers. Making sure that their slow loading time doesn’t affect my blog readers. While providing me the advantage of starting conversations with a few of my blog readers.

Action Summary:

• MyBlogLog widget is not the best use of your blog theme real estate. You may want to remove it.

• If you do keep them, make sure you place the widget at the bottom of your blog where it doesn’t interfere with your blog readers.

Cool Tool: Browser Shots - Test Your Blog Design in Different Browsers

Do you know if your blog looks OK in all the various different browsers?

A couple of days back, I received a phone call early in the morning from some one who complained that one of my websites didn’t show up well in his browser.A  He used a computer with Linux on it and had a browser that I’d never even heard the name of. There was no way for me to know what the error was.

So I did some Googling and came up with a solution.A  BrowserShots.org!

This is a nifty website that allows you to test your blog or website and see how it looks in various different browsers - without you having to download those browsers on your own computer!

Action Summary:

1. Go to BrowserShots.org and submit your blog URI

2.A  Make sure you select “4 Hours” from the drop-down list under “Maximum Wait”

3. Bookmark the page you are forwarded to.A  And visit it after 3 hours of submission - but before 4 hours.

Jose & Carlos Teach a Lesson: Find What Your Audience Wants

Jose and Carlos are panhandling at the freeway off ramp each holding a sign.A  Jose drives a Mercedes, lives in a mortgage free house and has a lot of money to spend.Carlos only brings in 2 to 3 dollars a day. Carlos asks Jose how he can bring home a suitcase full of $10 bills everyday.

Jose says, a_?Look at your sign, then look at mine.a_?

Carlosa_T sign reads:

a_?I have no work, a wife & 6 kids to support.a_?

Carlos then looks at Josea_Ts sign:

a_?I only need another $10.00 to move back to Mexico.a_?

This above joke hits the mark like no thesis ever can: Focus On Your Audience & Their Wants!A  Or else you’ll struggle.

Action Summary:

• Find out what your target audience wants.A  And then give them that.
• Go over your “About Us” page and count how many times you’ve written “I” or “Me” or “Our” vs “You.”
• If your aim is to grow your blog into a business (rather than just maintaining it as a personal diary) - then let your blog be about your readers.A  Not about you.

Jack Welch’s Strategy to Blog Reading (The Solution to Information Overload)

Jack Welch: What can he teach you about blog reading and writing?

1.

Jack Welch is the famous Ex-CEO of GE. Under his reign of 20 years, GE went from a $14 billion in 1981 to close to $400 billion! Because of this stellar performance, Jack Welch is known as the “best manager of the century”!

Because of Welch, many management ideas like “Six Sigma” became popular. But one of Welch’s most controversial ideas was the most important pillar in GE’s exponential growth. What was that idea?

Fire The Bottom 10% of Employees

Welch bought about a culture of tracking the performance of all GE employees. And every year, the employees who made the bottom 10% were let go. Very soon, GE was left with the smartest people working for them. After a few sessions of firings, even the bottom 10% of GE was better than the top 10% of other companies!

2.

“As you read, so will you write.”
- Roy H. Williams

Does it surprise you to know that each and every popular writer is an avid reader? From Stephen King to Isaac Asimov to Roy H. Williams - all of them were voracious readers. Read well and you will write well.

But today, most people are overwhelmed with the quantity of reading. People have 200 books in their wishlists. And 150 RSS feeds in their RSS readers.

How To Go From Quantity Reading to Quality Reading?

So what should you do to read less but read well? What can you do to not be overwhelmed by the number of things you have to read? Simple: use Jack Welch’s strategy!

Fire the Bottom 10% of Your RSS Feeds!

Get rid of the bottom 10% of your RSS feeds. Do this every month until you are left with less than 20 feeds! And every time you feel like adding a new RSS feed to your feed reader, make sure you delete one RSS feed before adding a new one.

3.

But What If I Miss the Newest Big Thing?

People fear that getting rid of information equals to them missing important news. But those fears are baseless. Because if something is really news worthy, more than one person will talk about it. And you will hear about it.

Your success doesn’t depend on being the first one to know the news. Instead, it depends on your ability to focus on the quality stuff only.

By restricting your RSS feeds, you not only gain time to do more important things, but you also create a quality filter: only useful things will cross your desk.

A-Pile vs B-Pile of Reading

If you are still hesitant, you can do this: create two accounts with your RSS feed reading website. Save only the best 20 feeds in one account: your A-Pile. And store all the other mediocre ones in the B-Pile. Spend time reading the A-Pile everyday. And spend time on the B-Pile only when you have time.

You’ll soon find that your B-Pile is close to worthless. After some time, you’ll spend less than 60 minutes a week going through your B-Pile - even if it has 150 feeds!

Action Summary:

• Reduce the number of RSS feeds you read everyday. A good manage-able number is to limit them to 20.
• Delete at least 10% of your RSS feeds today. And repeat the deletion every month until you are left with 20.
• Before adding a new RSS feed, delete an old feed! This way, you’ll only add a feed that is of top quality. And your overall quality of reading will improve tremendously!