If you think you’re good at writing then there are thousands of individuals and companies willing to pay you for your skills. In this article I will be giving you a few tips to help you get people to pay you to write.

It is important that you know that some of the tips in this article take time to deliver results, and some can give you results almost instantly. Either ways, one thing remains for sure, the more effort you put in, the more results you are likely to get.

Focus on Building an Audience

The first step you should take when it comes to getting people to pay you for your writing is to build an audience. Without an audience, you will hardly be able to make enough money to sustain yourself, and it will be difficult to build a long term business.

By having an audience you will have cultivated a user base that love your work and making money from your efforts will be extremely easy as a result. One of the best ways to build a base and cultivate an audience is by having a blog. People will be able to find you and reference your content through your blog, and over time you will also be ranked in the search engines thereby leading to more traffic to your content.

You should know that building a blog is only one part of the equation, and that after building a blog you still have to focus on marketing yourself. I can easily list a few blog marketing techniques below, but nothing can beat the years of experience of numerous successful writers and bloggers, so make sure you check the marketing section of this blog for some tips to help you out.

Once you’ve been able to build an audience, the tips below will help you get great results.

Offer Your Services as a Freelance Writer

If you’re very confident about your writing skills you can also get people to hire you for basic writing jobs, or for more advanced copywriting jobs. Since you already have a blog and a reader base that loves your content, all you need to do is advertise your writing services, and you will get enough people to hire you.

The key to being successful as a freelance writer is to market yourself a lot, and to also work on constantly improving on your current skills and learning new skills.

Create an eBook Guide

Another step you should take once you’ve been able to cultivate an audience that loves your work is to create an eBook guide that solves a problem, and then sell the guide to your readers. If you lookout carefully, your readers have a lot of problems that needs a solution, and you can get paid for your skills by creating a guide that helps them solve these problems.

You need to realize that launching a guide alone won’t do the trick; you also have to constantly work on marketing yourself.

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Being a successful blogger will to a great extent be determined by your writing. Is your writing full of grammatical errors, or is it written with such great passion and experience that anyone who reads it is moved by it?

While it is easy to just write crap content, slap a few guest posts on other blogs in your field and expect the traffic to come; ultimately, it is your writing that will determine whether your visitors will stick to become readers, or not. In this article, I will be giving you a few tips to help you improve your writing as a blogger.

Only Write What You’re Knowledgeable About

You’ve heard the saying that experience is the best teacher several times, and if you’ve taken your time to study people you will know that they are only willing to learn from the best. There is so much mediocrity and noise circulating the blogosphere today that people are tired of reading from just anybody. There is so much noise out there today that your readers don’t know who to trust, and the only way to prove to them that you’re that person they should trust is by giving the best of your content; and, fortunately, the only way to give your best is by talking only about what you’re knowledgeable about.

Your readers will be happier to read about your experience than to be reading theories from you, and how you address that can mean the difference between your success and failure as a blogger.

The number one key to improving your writing and being a better blogger is to only write on a subject you’re knowledgeable about. Don’t just write anything for the sake of the traffic. Write because you know your stuff, and people will respect you for it.

Read Your Way to Better Writing

Just take a look at the mediocre content circulating the web today, and it will only take a few thoughts for you to understand the reason for that; people are tired of reading and learning from others. They only want to create; and since they don’t have the experience the content they create will be flawed.

Try to be reading articles created by top bloggers and thought leaders in your niche, and always be on the lookout for what they do to make their writing a success. Also, always make sure you read articles and books that can help you improve your grammar and use of the English language, and you will be amazed at how much progress you can make within a short time.

Write, Write and Write

Yes, you can’t be a genius writer from day one, but that doesn’t mean you should be afraid of writing altogether. You can only get better as a writer by practicing, so try to allay your fears and start writing.

Your writing will surely be flawed at first, and there will be people who will criticize you along the way, but the only way you can get better is by writing and writing again. Over time, you will be able to refine your writing and get better, and your readers will end up seeing you for who you really are.

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Onibalusi Bamidele has also covered this in his post about bloggers block.

One tip for writer’s block that I’ve shared, and so have others, is to jump-start a writing session. Sometimes, you don’t have true writer’s block; you just need something to set off a little spark. I do this quite often. One of my recent posts here at Blogging Tips was simply a little comment about giving that sparked me to write something about it.

Now there’s a new solution. I think this one is absolutely brilliant.  A (new) friend of mine, Peggy Baron, recently came up with a nifty little trick to help you get over writer’s block. It’s called Easy Article Starters. These are simply little sparks to get you writing. I tried them out and like I said, they are simply brilliant. You can view an article I wrote about having a mentor.

How Does This Solve Writer’s Block?

Peggy has created  title ideas, written a short intro that you can use or rewrite, and added highlight points you can cover in the article you’re writing. She also gives you a suggestion for a conclusion too. One article starter alone can generate ideas for several blog posts or articles. Her packs come with a ton of different ideas.

These are not PLR. These are article starters. When you’re done you will have a completely unique article. These are also great to use if you hire writers for your content. You can give them a pack of starters and let them write a ton of articles for each one.

You can grab a pack of 3 that she offers as a gift so you can try them out. This is what I used for my post. I wanted you to be able to see it in action and see how easy it is.

If you like that and think it’s something that you can benefit from, you can order as many packs as you’d like. She has several niches to choose from. These have been a big hit since Google’s last slap to websites. These little sparks can relieve your anxiety about duplicate content, getting slapped by Google and are a great time-saver. I’ve often suggested that you browse the Internet looking for ideas. With article starters you don’t have to do that. It’s already done for you.

Save yourself time and frustration and get over that writer’s block!

image credit: http://bringyourownbone.wordpress.com/

Snippets – If you write a lot of lists or how to tips, you can break it down into little snippets to use at tweets on twitter or status content on other social media sites. Simply add a link at the end so your followers can go read the rest of the content.

Compilations – Gather up several articles of the same content, compile it into small ebooks and give it away for free. People love free content and they love having a file they can read in one sitting instead of searching your blog for related content. Make this easy for them by offering a collection of content.

Newsletters – You can either create your own newsletter and use older posts as content or share some of your content as guest articles in someone else’s newsletter. This way you can reach more potential customers and get more traffic to your blog.

Ask Questions – Use social media to ask a question and add a link to the content with the answers.

Rewrites – We’ve covered this one before but it’s a great way to expand your content. If you have some great articles on your site you can rewrite them to share on article directories or in newsletters.

Plan – I’ve also discussed using a content planning strategy. This will help you use your content more wisely and repurpose it. You know your site needs fresh content, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend all of your time writing from scratch. Start utilizing rewrites and repurposing your content so you can make it go farther.

Link List – You already have several articles or blog posts about your niche. Create a post of links to those articles. This helps people find related posts and you get to choose which articles you’d like to share in the post. It may seem like a quick and easy way to create a new blog post, and it can be, but it does take time to gather up all those links.

Brainstorm – Spend some time each week or each month and brainstorm ways that you can maximize your content and make each piece of content do more for you. It’s a shame to write new material all the time and let your older content go stale. Freshen up your old material and bring it back to life. Keep it in the public eye to get more traffic and gain more followers.

The Very First Things That You Must Know about Blogging  

There are a few essential things that you must understand about creating and running a blog. It is fundamental to know that you can create a blog within 15 minutes. This is possible as most services that ensure webhosting also deliver different tools that can help you to create your blog. Due to these tools, the entire process of designing a new blog is very easy. Furthermore, there are different free templates, which can help you to create a blog with a truly professional look.  Best of all, most of them are 100% FREE.

The Most Important Blogging Tips That Can Help You to Run Your Blog Professionally

After creating your blog, there are a few essential things that you must do. In order to help you with these, the following paragraphs present several blogging tips that can literally guide you towards the professional way to blog.

• Use Widgets: You are able to find numerous free widgets which you can add to your blog. You can use these tools to permit your visitors to post comments with regard to your blog posts. This thing will keep your blog very busy, which is auspicious for your search engine ranking.

• Monetize Your Blog: It is also very important to monetize your blog. You can spot a few monetization programs that you can find online, such as Google AdSense. In addition, you can also get affiliate marketing programs and add them to your blog. However, while doing all these, make sure that you concentrate on a specific niche so that your blog is really going to have a professional look.

• Add Feed Burner: The Feed Burner is an auto responder that sends your posts to subscribers. However, if you can afford a paid auto responder, you should definitely get such a tool. The reason for this is mainly because the free tools are not as good.

• Sell Space: If you have a decent number of visitors, you can try to sell advert spaces. In addition, different companies are willing to pay you money to post different articles, which recommend their businesses. You can find such requests as pay-per-post programs.

• Massive Traffic: In order to direct massive traffic towards you blog, you have to post some good quality content on your blog. Additionally, you should submit different articles to directories, while using social media websites and forums to present your blog. Another thing that you can do is to post comments and add links on different blogs with high traffic. In return, you can do the same thing for the correspondent blogs. This way, you can increase your ranking on different search engines.

These days, you can find many other blogging tips that can help you to run your blog in a professional way. The most important thing that relates to this post is the fact that you CAN make some nice money by simply running a blog within your favorite niche.  If you have questions or need some advice, leave your comment below and I’ll try and follow up to every blogging tips questions you put up!

In Free, Anderson breaks down the priceless economy into six broad categories, demonstrating how to make money in each:

- “Freemium”: Free Web software and services, and some content, to users of the basic version. (Think Flickr and the $25-a-year Flickr Pro.)

- Advertising: Free content, services, and software to an audience that advertisers will pay to reach.

- Cross-subsidies: Give away any product that entices customers to pay for something else. Example: It’s a free second-gen Wii! But only if you buy the deluxe version of Rock Band.

- Zero marginal cost: Anything that can be distributed without an appreciable cost to anyone, like online music.

- Labor exchange: Performing tasks to gain access to “free” sites and services.

- Gift economy: From Freecycle (free secondhand goods) to Wikipedia, money isn’t the only motivator.

Always give Away Something FREE

Your readers want to know that you care about them, so why not give them something free.  Not only does this show your reader that you’re giving them something free that has taken you a lot of time and effort, you also show them that you care about them.  This will inspire trust. This will give you more credibility.  This will break down the barrier that is between you and their information to re-market to them.

How Does Free Work?

Free breaks down the barrier between you and your readers.  If you are selling an eBook and you charge even $.01 you may get a small percentage of readers to purchase your product. But if you give it away for free you will quickly see that your numbers will increase, you’ll get more subscribers, and your blog will be more popular. People love something free, they don’t even think about it.  It makes it so they don’t have to think about the decision; it’s free, why not?

What Do I Give Away For Free?

Give away anything and everything. Just kidding, don’t get yourself into trouble.  I would personally go with what Zac Johnson, John Chow, and many others have done in the blogging space and give away an eBook.  An eBook is a great way to gain your readers trust while getting them to subscribe to your blog.  Use a service like aWeber to keep track and distribute your eBook.  It will keep track of your readers and let you email market to them in the future.  This will allow you to make money off your readers in the long run and keep them coming back to your blog consistently.  Make sure when you’re giving away something free that you don’t give away crap.  Giving away something free that is horrible will cause a bad taste in your readerships mouth.  Bad press travels much more quickly then good press.  If you put something crappy together and give it away for free it will damage your reputation.

I encourage all of you to read Chris Anderson’s book “Free – The Future of A Radical Price”  It will change your world and help you to understand free a lot more than you think.  It will help you realize how Google can give away 99.999% of it’s products for FREE and still make Billions Profit each year.  Please let me know below if you have read the book or have any questions.  I would love to help you out with and Blogging Tips that I have!

Example:
==> 7 easy ways to cut your costs
That doesn’t really grab a persons attention. A better way to write it is:
==> 7 Easy Ways to Cut Your Costs
This headline stands out and is more likely to grab the readers attention.

Can we improve this headline? Where are we cutting costs? Is it in business? Grocery shopping? Vacation costs?

Let’s pretend your reader is searching through RSS feeds. She’s trying to save money. Your site is all about saving money, but you have some other headlines to compete with.

The reader is skimming through the headlines. She finds:

• Cut Your Grocery Costs
• Save Money on Your Next Grocery Bill
• Spend Less Money on Food
• Cut Weekly Food Costs

Those may be interesting titles, but then she finds your headline and it states:

==> 7 Easy Ways to Save Money and Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half

This one is more likely to grab her attention. Why? Because you’ve told her it’s easy. People like easy. You’ve told her you’re going to save her money, which is what she’s looking for and you’re going to help her cut her food bill in half. This is a big plus. Saving money is one thing, but cutting the bill in half is better. However, if you use a headline like this you need to deliver on the promise. Never mislead a reader unless it serves a purpose.

That’s a pretty good headline, but we can also add some emotional pain if we want to. People are generally looking for solutions because they are in some kind of painful situation, including financial pain. In this case we could expand that headline even more:

Another thing to remember is your target audience. In my example I used ‘she’ instead of a generalization like ‘they’ or ‘the reader’. Why?

Because it’s easier to write for one person than it is to write for a crowd. If you target one person and speak to that one person, you will actually reach more people. Thinking about everyone in your target audience can also be overwhelming. What can you possibly say to all of those people? Instead, pick one person in your target audience and write to that person. It becomes much easier when you focus on one person.

There are many ways to grab a reader’s attention, but if you spend a little more time working on your title or headline, you’ll get a better response rate than you would with generic headlines.
Spend time each day writing out headlines. This will improve your skills and it also prepares your mind to start thinking more about headlines. Before long, it’ll be a breeze to come up with a great title.

For more tips on writing headlines, read this attention grabbing post and this one about sexy content.

For many people, blogging represents a steady source of income. However, this activity can easily bring along not only a nice monthly income but also a great reputation. In this post we will go over thing that you should do to help you achieve online success, while making good money doing it. However, if you want to get some truly amazing results, you must consider a few important tips to help you become everything you possibly can.

The Most Important Tips for Successful Blogging

The most important element, which can help you become successful and earn money, is the traffic towards your blog.  Getting traffic and knowing things about your traffic will play a vital role. The more visitors you have, the better it is for your income and reputation. Furthermore, if you are able to write interesting posts in a truly unique manner, you can make a name among the other bloggers. Gaining a good online reputation will bring along important benefits to online success. But, in order to achieve this you must take into account the following tips:

• Time Management: Management of your time represents a very important aspect in the online world. Posting some truly interesting and high quality content on your blog, including posts, videos, and feedback becomes very time consuming and you can only do so much of it. Additionally, social media marketing and link building also require a lot of time. Thus, making a daily plan of attack can help you divide your time efficiently. If I have a plan, I find that I make better use of my time everyday. First step to doing this is to realize that your blog just like a full time job.  You have to put in daily work and work overtime some days to make it work.  I personally use Basecamp to organize my life and assign myself things to do.  It’s a little bit pricey ($100/month) but if you have people working with you it’s a great way to keep track of everything and assign yourself things to do, then mark them off.  Great for keeping track of clients as well!

• Build a List: Another thing that you must do is to build a list. This aspect is very essential especially because the list can easily help you double your profits. Building a list will enable you to properly communicate your readers whenever you need to. When you have a list you can send offers that will help your readers out while making money if they buy it.  We recommend aWeber for managing your lists.

• Build the Relationship: Keep in mind that building a relationship with your readers is the key to your success. Your readers and website visitors are who is going to be buying your products, reading your posts, telling other people about your site.  You must build this relationship, get to know them. You need to give them your attention. Most people want to know that someone actually listens to what they are saying and cares about them as a person. In order to build a strong relationship with your readers, you should start discussing their problems and help them find solutions to help them solve all those problems.

• Choose a Niche: This is the very first thing that you must do prior to creating your blog. In order to achieve some amazing results, you have to know what you want to write about. Furthermore, try to find a topic that is not very competitive but still has a lot to offer.  Make sure that you are passionate about this topic or you’ll blog for a couple months and get sick of it and quit.  Readers can always tell if you are passionate about something, it will show in your writing.

While considering all the topics above, keep in mind that blogging will take time and patience. Blogging can allow you to supplement some or all of your income from money you make on your blog. You can earn good money, become popular and even build a serious business. But until you can reap the benefits of this activity, be ready to put in a lot of time, dedication, and a lot of hard work!

You can write content that “drives” traffic.

There are very few words that can deeply affect the emotions of a blogger and one of those few words is the word “traffic”. The unfortunate thing is that when it comes to getting traffic to our blogs we’re all used to the idea of using tactics, with little concern for the kind of content we create.

In my experience the best way you can generate traffic to your blog isn’t by guest blogging, it isn’t by blog commenting but it is by something I call “writing for traffic“. If you’re ready to start writing for traffic then read below to get a few tips to help you write content that drives traffic.

Only Write Content that Benefits Your Readers

If you’ve been in business for more than a few days now then you will have heard the phrase “benefits sells, not features” at least twice, and that statement can’t be far from the truth.

It doesn’t matter how great your article is. It doesn’t matter how many points it contains and it doesn’t matter how many features your article has or how many reasons you give to your readers to make them read it. Ultimately, there is only one thing that matters and that makes your readers decide to even click to read your content – that one thing is the “benefiting factor” they perceive in it.

Let Your Headline Stand Out

In case you don’t know yet, I follow only 51 people on Twitter and I see hundreds of post titles in my Twitter stream alone everyday, I’m subscribed to almost 50 blogs via RSS and I also follow people via Facebook. There is just too much content out there than I can read and to make me a reader you need me to read your content.

If you really want to write content that drives traffic then you need to start spending more time on writing great headlines that stand out. Having the perfect headline not only entices a lot of people to click to read your article, it also results in more retweets and shares which results in more people seeing it and more people sharing it.

Write List Posts

Old advice, eh? But it works!

In fact, I have written 2 great list posts this month already and both have been viewed by thousands of people.

List posts will always work, as long as you follow my formula to writing it.

Be Smart With Your Title: I know I made a point about having the right title above, but it is very important to pay more attention to it here if you really want your list post to go viral. Don’t just write a list post titled 10 ways to be a better blogger. A lot of people have read countless articles on being a better blogger so there’s little to no chance they will pay attention to it but by having a title like “10 little known ways to be a better blogger” or “10 outstandingly effective ways to be a better blogger” you will be able to get more people to read your list posts.

One thing about my examples though is the use of “key words”. These key words, if used effectively can make a huge difference in people reading your articles or not and a great example of key words in the titles used as examples are “outstandingly effective” and “little known”. You also need to make sure your article delivers on the promises of your headline – don’t tell people you’re giving them little known ways to do something and then give them common tips. The more unique your articles are and the more you over deliver, the more traffic you will be able to get to your list posts.

Format Your Articles with Eye Catching Images: Another tactic I have noticed works well with list posts is the use of effective, eye catching images in the article. The more attractive your images are, the more results you can get from using them.

You should also know that an image speaks a thousand words so don’t for once underestimate the importance of using an image in your article. It doesn’t matter if it took you 30 minutes or 1 hour to find the right images, you will be very happy you spent that time choosing the right images.

Tell People to Share It!

If it is great content people will share it, right?

What if they don’t?

This is something especially important depending on your niche. Sometimes we enjoy an article so much that by thinking about taking action on it we forget to share it. A little reminder to share your post might make a whole lot of difference in whether it drives traffic or not. Make sure you have a clear call to action encouraging people to spread the word about your blog post so that others will benefit.

It is also very important to be careful with how you tell people to share your articles. If you tell them to share every single article you write then it would soon become a common thing and they will start giving your call to actions less attention.

Image Credit

You could hire someone to come up with ideas for you. You can even hire someone to write the content for you or you can purchase PLR content or grab a reprint article from one of the many article directories.

But, if you’re a savvy marketer, you want your own unique ideas and content that relates to you and your niche.

One great way to get attention grabbing topics is to check out magazine covers. If you don’t have any magazines, just go to your local store and check out the whole magazine section. There are tons of ideas there.

Pay attention to how they do the headlines and see what you can adapt to your niche.

For example, you can fill in the blanks of these types of headlines. And it can be any industry type magazine; health, fitness, business, crafts, etc.

Be sure to take pen and paper with you or use the notepad feature on your smart phone.

Here are a few headlines I found in Women’s Heath and Inc., along with some suggestions: Original headline is in bold. I looked at less than 10 magazine covers to get these.

*How to Find the Perfect Fragrance

=>How to Find the Perfect Webhost

=>How to Find the Perfect Affiliate Program

=>How to Find the Perfect___________

*Makeup & Hair Tricks From Top Pros

=>Traffic Tips From Top Pros

=>Backlinking Tips From Top Pros

=>List Building Tips From Top Pros

*End Stress Instantly

=>End Traffic Worries Instantly

=>End Social Networking Worries Instantly

=>End Procrastination Instantly

*Boost Your Bliss – New Ways to Escape Stress

=>Boost Your Sales – New Ways to Convert Readers into Buyers

=>Boost Your Traffic – New Ways to Get People to Your Site

=>Boost Your Image – New Ways to Brand Yourself

*Easy Steps to a Lean, Sexy Belly

=>Easy Steps to a Lean, Sexy Blog

=>Easy Steps to a Lean List That Rakes in the Money

*Get More Out of Your 24

=>Get More Out of Your Traffic

=>Get More Out of Your Blog

=>Get More Out of Article Marketing

=>Get More Out of Affiliate Marketing

*Six Ways to Save the World

=>Six Ways to Save Your Blog

=>Six Ways to Save Your Market

=>Six Ways to Save Your Brand

*How to be an Extraordinary Leader

=>How to be an Extraordinary Marketer

=>How to be an Extraordinary Blogger

=>How to be an Extraordinary Writer

=>How to be an Extraordinary Affiliate Marketer

=>How to be an Extraordinary Entreprenuer

*The Kid CEO Behind Tumblr

=>The ___CEO Behind ______

=>The _____Strategy Behind_______

*One Big, Scary Business Lesson

=>One Big, Scary Marketing Lesson

=>One Big, Scary Blogging Lesson

*How to Network Your Way to Fame & Fortune

=>How to Promote Your Way to Fame & Fortune

=>How to Market Your Way to Fame & Fortune

=>How to Promote Your Way to Bigger Sales

=>How to Market Your Way to Bigger Sales

*King of the Online Sellers

=>King of the Online Entrepreneurs

=>King of the Online Marketers

=> King of Online Traffic

*Crazy in Love

=>Crazy in Business

=>Crazy in Marketing

=>Crazy in Sales

=>Crazy Ways to Make More Sales

=>Crazy Ways to Get More Traffic

Even More Content Ideas:

=>Get Off Your Butt and Get Some Traffic

=>Get Off Your Butt and Build Your List

=>Get Off Your Butt and Get Social

=>Get Off Your Butt and Learn Article Marketing

=>Get Off Your Butt and Learn Affiliate Marketing

=>Affiliate Marketing Bootcamp – Let’s Kick Some Butt

=>Article Marketing Bootcamp -Let’s Kick Some Butt

Butt kicking, boot camp headlines work exceptionally well in the health and fitness industry, and there’s no reason they can’t work in any other market.

Once you’ve grabbed some headlines that caught your attention, replace the keywords with your own. You can get dozens of fill in the blank style headlines at the magazine rack.

Where Else Can I Get Great Content Ideas?

Go spend some time on social networks. Find out what everyone else is talking about and see if you can relate it to your niche.

You can also read industry blogs and write about things you either agree with or disagree with.

Be sure to read the comments too. You can always find a diverse group of opinions there.

Go through your own blog archives. Are there posts you can update? How about creating a new post and linking to several of your best posts from last year. People often miss the archives and there’s some great content buried in the past.

Read some product descriptions. These can be digital products, sales pages of your favorite marketers, product descriptions at Amazon, etc.

You can get ideas from reading packages too. Lays potato chips has a motto of, “Betcha can’t eat just one.” You can relate that to ebook addictions or marketing addictions. Yes, we all have them. “Betch’ Can’t Read Just One.”

Lists are always good. In fact, many people use lists when they can’t think of anything else to write. Most people do lists of five, seven or ten things. You can make a massive list. Challenge yourself to see how big of a list you can create. That’ll get your creative juices flowing.

Go for a drive and read billboards and road signs. What catches your attention? Can you relate it to your market?

There are literally content ideas everywhere, waiting for you to discover them. Sometimes it takes a little creativity and some inspiration, but the possibilities are really endless.

For more tips, read my attention grabbing post.

You see, I’m typically an average reader searching the Internet. I can be easily distracted from what I was really looking for and the thing that distracts me, and all readers, is the headline. How compelling is your headline, the title of your blog post. Does it grab attention or is it just vague and general?

As I was looking for older content to share in the archives, these titles caught my attention. For one thing they are catchy and for another they all relate to what Blogging Tips is about in some way or another. This site is about great blogging tactics, writing tips, making money and to a lesser degree it’s about staying motivated too.

So let’s look at some of things that may catch your reader’s attention when they are surfing for information.

Generally when people are doing a random search, looking for inspiration of their own, a title like “Following Your Dreams from Conception to Fulfillment” will grab their attention. This post was written by Donny Gamble and has a nice surprise for you inside. Not only that, it has some great tips for reaching your goals.

Another great headline that caught my attention, and usually will catch another blogger’s attention is “37 Ways to Find Inspiration for Blog Posts.” We’re all looking for blog inspirations and something to write about that grabs a reader’s attention. Ben Spark put together a really great list to help inspire you to find great topics for your blog.

We all want links back to our website. I’m sure it’s something we all search for on a regular basis. In fact, the term link bait has been showing up in several of my searches recently, so “5 Steps to Write a Link Bait Post” by Jonathan Bailey definitely caught my attention.

“7 Legit Ways To Make Money On Twitter” by Charnita Fance was a great title for those who are looking to make money online and also looking for another stream of income. And since Twitter is a hot topic and one of the main social networking sites, this type of headline will really pull someone in.

A lot of people are looking into affiliate marketing. A title like, “Newbie Affiliates: How to Choose Affiliate Products to Market,” is a great attention grabber. Here, Yuwanda Black also gives some great tips for beginners but also discusses her personal success and staying true to herself while promoting other products.

And while we’re on the topic of affiliate sales, Kevin Muldoon gives some great information on how some marketing tactics aren’t the best way to go. This title can grab two types of readers, those who mislead their readers and those who are looking to avoid that kind of method. However, when you read the title, “Misleading Visitors To Generate Affiliate Sales,” you aren’t really sure where this is going. That can be a good thing. Kevin is an upstanding guy and would never mislead anyone for a sale. He does know how to write an attention grabbing headline though.

When you need to create a great title or find inspiration for a good blog post, going through the archives of your site or another great site is a fabulous way to get a ton of ideas.

Also, if you’re looking through your own archives, why not pull some of that older content into a link list like this one. People love lists and they love finding more content to read. This type of blog post kills two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Now back to the title of this post, “Can You Grab My Attention?” I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section. Yes, it could be a test. J

It may seem like you need a ton of content to reach your goals, but each piece of content can be repurposed and used for another goal.

All it takes is a few rewrites to avoid duplicate content. You can write an article for an article directory, get it posted for a backlink to your site and then you can do a few edits and publish it on your site. You may want to expand on it so when a reader visits your site from an article directory so they get a little more information than the original.

Another way to repurpose content is to create a small report from several older blog posts. Go through the categories and see how many articles relate to the same topic and then put them all together as a free report to give away. Since you’ll be going through older posts to reuse them, there may be additions you’d like to make in the report. You can add to the content with fresh ideas and do a few rewrites.

You can give that away to your readers, to your list or use to start a new targeted list.

Another way to repurpose content is to create video or audios from the material. Dig up some older material, just like you were going to create a report, but use it to create a video or a podcast instead. Audio content is extremely popular because people can download the files to their ipod or smart phone and listen while they do other things.

If video or audio isn’t on your list of favorite things to do you can use the content to create an ecourse or even a Squidoo lens where you can offer related affiliate products. This can also create another stream of income for you and it’s another source of backlinks. Look for

Amazon products that relate to your niche and suggest those items to the readers. You can also use other affiliate programs within a Squidoo lens too.

If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, chances are you have a lot of great content already written. Going back through that content to reuse it for another purpose or as a new product or ecourse is a great way to save time, especially when you can’t think of what to write next. Plus it also keeps your content fresh and gives it new life. Sometimes older content isn’t found on your blog because it’s buried way back in the archives. This is great material to freshen up, use over and make it easier for the readers to find.

Writing and keeping new content on your site doesn’t have to be difficult and it doesn’t have to be time consuming. Spend a day looking through your old content and see if you can bring new life to it.

Do you reuse and repurpose your content? What are some ways you’ve given new life to old content?

Many of the guru’s tell you to fill your site or blog with content, and you should, but everything you write and post should have an end goal in mind. Even the content you write to distribute at article directories or as guest blog posts needs to have a goal.

The goal of writing content for article directories or guest blogging is generally done to get more traffic to your site. That’s pretty much a given or you wouldn’t do it. Once the visitor gets to your site the content there should have a goal too.

The goal could be to keep the reader there longer, or to sign up for your mailing list, or to give value to the reader. It could also be to introduce yourself as an expert to new readers. There are many purposes your content can have, but we’re going to cover the main three.

SEO

Feeding the search engines is a good goal for some of your content because it helps ensure that your site is found when people are looking for something specific. Some of your content needs the purpose of just driving search traffic to your site.

Take the time to plan some monthly content that uses your keywords. At least one piece of content each week should be search engine food, but also make sure it’s relevant and valuable.

Establish Authority

Several pieces of your weekly content should establish you as an authority in your niche. You want this content to be as informative as possible so when the reader does leave your site, they leave knowing more than when they arrived. Even if it’s something they already knew, you want them to see you as an expert so they’ll come back to learn other stuff from you.

Build Relationships

SEO and showing yourself as an expert is really important. However, if you don’t spend a good deal of your time building relationships with your readers, the other two won’t matter. Many readers are starting to get turned off by impersonal experiences. They want to see the person behind the website, they want to interact with that person and have their questions answered.

Spend some time writing content that will help build relationships with your readers and subscribers. Encourage them to leave comments or ask questions, and then follow through with replying to as many as you can. You can’t reply to every single comment, but do comment back on the important ones.

When you give each piece of content a goal it actually works harder for you. And the main goal of content is to have it work for you. And don’t forget that your content can have more than one goal.

What are some ways that you get your content to work for you? Do you give each piece a purpose? Do you plan out your content goals each month?

image credit: skwar

Here’s some quick writing tips to help you improve your writing skills.

Look at a picture and describe it. Try to use as many of the senses as you can; taste, smell, sight, sound, touch. Does the picture make you think of a certain sound or taste? Does it have aspects that look soft, fluffy or hard and cold? How would those aspects feel if you could touch them?

This exercise helps you develop the skill of using more descriptive language in your writing. You may not be a fiction writer but using fiction techniques can improve your writing skills.

Read a lot of sales copy. If you’re running a blog or online business you may already be doing this, but are you skimming the material for the benefits or are you really studying the material? What does the sales page begin with? How is it laid out for listing the problem? Does it highlight the solutions contained in the product that’s for sale? Does it compel you to want to buy? If so, then pay close attention to why it’s effective sales copy and start using that in your own sales pages.

Rewrite someone else’s sales copy. This tip is a little like the tip above except you’re going to take a section or several sections of a sales page and rewrite it. Change the wording, change the order of the listed items. Try to find better descriptive words than the ones the writer used.

Rewrite a paragraph of fiction. Yes, we’re back to the fiction thing, but writing is writing. If you improve in one area you will improve in another area. Take a paragraph of fiction and rewrite it. Change it up like you did with the sales copy. Find similar descriptive words to describe what the writer is trying to make you see or feel.

Read the dictionary. This is something not many people do, but it’s a great way to expand your vocabulary so you can write better descriptions. Having a large vocabulary will not only improve your writing but it will also help you out when you run across new words.

Writing is something practically anyone can learn and learn to do better. Not everyone can draw, paint or play a musical instrument, but anyone can learn to write. It takes practice. The more you write the better you’ll get at it. Writing “out of the box” so to speak will help improve your overall writing skills too. Don’t limit yourself to your comfort zone–get out of and improve your writing skills. Your readers will thank you and want to read more from you.

Remember in school when you had to write reports and you thought there was no way you’d ever need that knowledge in life. In fact, some of us thought it was downright useless. But later you discover you can make money online by writing and selling special reports and all of a sudden you wish you’d paid more attention in school because you really did need that knowledge.

There are many types of reports and each has its own structure depending on the information that needs to be relayed and who the report is for. Certain government reports have a structure they follow while corporate reports follow different structures. Often times the structure of the report is determined by the type; there’s project reports, financial reports, white papers, analysis reports, empirical, progress and even proposals.

We won’t go into all of those. We’ll simply outline the best way to format a report for readers online who are searching for information. Following a basic format, while giving useful information, will ensure you many return customers.

The first thing your report needs is an introduction. There’s a structure in public speaking that works very well with a report structure as well.

1. Tell them what you’re going to tell them.

2. Tell them.

3. Tell them what you told them.

In your introduction you will simply highlight the key points of the report. You will tell them what you’re going to tell them. This is where you mention the problem you’re addressing and offer solutions. This is just a very brief synopsis.

In section two you will outline the problem. Remind them why they bought the report–the problems they’re trying to solve. Maybe it’s a report on affiliate marketing or traffic conversions.

In section three give them the solutions to their problem. Tell them how they can get more traffic or make more sales in affiliate marketing. Solve their problem. This is the main reason they bought your report–to get solutions to their problems.

In section four explain the benefits of the solutions you’ve just given them. Get them excited about the possibility of reaping the rewards.

The fifth and final section is the conclusion. This is simply a recap of the whole shebang. Highlight the main points. Tell them what you told them.

To recap the structure of a public speech/written report analogy:

1. Tell them what you’re going to tell them. (Introduction)

2. Tell them. (Sections 2, 3 and 4)

3. Tell them what you told them. (Conclusion)

Any time you’re stumped on how to write a report, you can follow a simple outline. This helps organize your material before you start writing.

1. Introduction.
A.Highlights.

2. Problems.
A. First problem.
B. Second problem.
C. Third problem.

3. Solutions.
A. Solution to problem one.
B. Solution to problem two.
C. Solution to problem three.

4. Benefits.
A. Benefits of solution one.
B. Benefits of solution two.
C. Benefits of solution three.

5. Conclusion – Wrap it all up into a simple paragraph or two.

Following a simple outline format like the one above will give you the advantage of creating better reports for your readers and customers. They will appreciate a well thought-out and well laid-out plan.