Blogging – Page 3 – Nicole Munoz Consulting

How to Come Up With Blog Topics

Once you’ve had your blog for a time, coming up with new topics can be a challenge. After all, once you’ve written 50, 100, 200 posts or more, how on earth do you come out and say something new?

This challenge isn’t limited to long time bloggers either. New bloggers also struggle with coming up with topics that people want to read about.

So how do you do it? Just us one of these eight brainstorming tools below. These tools will help you come up with new ideas consistently, whether you’re just starting out or if you’ve been blogging for years.

#1: Scan RSS Feeds

Download an RSS feed client on your computer or in your smartphone. Then go on a subscribing spree. Subscribe to every blog feed you can find in your industry. Subscribe to at least ten different blogs.

Now anytime you run out of ideas, all you need to do is whip out your RSS reader. Read through some of the things other people are talking about and use it as inspiration.

Of course you should never directly copy someone else’s title. But feel free to use other people’s ideas as stepping stones. You can even steal an idea, as long as you don’t copy the actual words. Just make sure to add your own spin and link to the original source.

#2: Use Google Instant

Use Google’s Instant search tool to come up with ideas for what other people might be interested in. You can learn more about the tool here: http://www.google.com/instant

For example, let’s say you’re in the cooking niche. You could do something like:

Just change out different words and different wordings to come up with a variety of different potential keywords to target.

#3: Use Linkbait Generator

Linkbait Generator (http://linkbaitgenerator.com) is a unique online tool that allows you to create very creative and attention catching titles at the click of a button.

Note that some of these titles probably won’t make sense right out of the gate. Instead, use the ideas and words generated by linkbait generator to source your own title

For instance, typing in “find a job” might land you a headline something like this:

While you might not be able to use this headline on its own, you might instead turn it into something like: 7 Bizarre Ways Looking for a Job Can Get You Fired Instantly.

#4: Browse Old Magazines

If you’re in an industry that’s large enough to have magazines, subscribe to as many of the magazines in your field as you can. In a few months, you should have a big stack of magazines that you can use as idea fodder.

Also, many public libraries keep archived copies of newspapers and magazines. You can literally browse magazines from months or even years ago for free at many major libraries.

Go through these old magazines and look for ideas. Look for things they covered that nobody on the internet is covering.

Print articles often involve a lot more research to write than online content. Print content requires sources, quotes, statistics, verification, etc that online content just doesn’t need. The print world and the internet world are quite different. That’s why it often pays to look in the offline world for inspiration for your online content.

#5: Google Alerts

Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) is a free online system that will alert you by email whenever certain keywords or phrases appear in blogs or news articles. You can use Google Alerts to come up with topics in one or two ways.

First, you can use it as a constant stream of ideas. Just put relatively broad ideas in Google Alerts and set it to email you once a day. Every day, browse through the articles and see what ideas you come up with.

Another way to use Google Alerts is to use it to write cutting edge, timely articles. Use it to monitor your industry. Anytime something changes, anytime breaking news hits the net, anytime something controversial happens, you want to publish a piece of content within hours.

Often time’s the first person to publish content about something is the one who gets all the traffic.

#6: Invite Questions

If you’re having trouble coming up with new ideas, why not have your audience do it for you instead?

A lot of authors find that their best blog posts actually come from their audience rather than from their own minds. After all, if you’re trying to create content that your audience loves, who better to guide you than your audience?

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you know what your audience wants without asking. Also don’t make the mistake of thinking that what you want to express is always what your audience wants to know about.

Ask. Ask for questions and make blog posts out of them.

For example, Bryan of Panthers.com does this quite well. In addition to asking for questions, he actually outlines the kinds of questions he doesn’t want to receive (“can you get me an autograph?”) and helps guide his audience towards asking useful questions instead.

You can see more about this method: http://www.panthers.com/news/ask-bryan

#7: Critique an Idea, Business, Website, Video or Trend

Look for something outside of you site that you can give your opinion on. For example, you could critique a trend of thinking in your industry. You could critique a video that’s making the rounds. You could also ask your audience to send in their work for critique.

For example, Writerly Rejects creates a lot of content out of having writers send in their pitches for critique. They dissect the pros and cons of the writer’s pitch and use real world pitches to illustrate important lessons on their blog.

You can see this example in action at: http://www.writerlyrejects.blogspot.com/2012/07/pitch-critique-3-4.html

#8: Use Your Subconscious Mind

Your subconscious mind is far, far more powerful than your conscious mind. Your subconscious mind is the part of your mind that can read the thousands of different muscles on someone’s face to determine what they’re feeling. Your subconscious mind retains a copy of every experience you’ve ever had in your life. Your subconscious mind handles “intuition” by parsing data and ideas behind the scenes, working hard on problems without you ever knowing it.

One of the best ways to come up with new blog ideas is to harness the power of your subconscious mind. How do you do that? By thinking intensely about a subject, then completely letting it go.

Spend a bit of time thinking about your blog. Then, go for a walk. Or hit the gym. Or take a nice long bath. Relax and let your subconscious mind work on it. Then, when you come back to it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that ideas flow much more quickly. Alternatively, ideas might just hit you out of the blue as you’re relaxing.

Make sure you carry a notepad with you at all times so you can jot down these ideas. Ideas that aren’t written down are very frequently lost. Don’t overestimate your ability to remember an idea.

Armed with these eight idea-boosting tools, you’ll never have to worry about running out of ideas again. Find one or two tactics that work for you, then return to this list from time to time if you ever get stuck.

How to Come up with Great Blog Titles (with Examples)

by Nicole Munoz

Writing great blog subject lines is both an art and a science. On one hand, there are tons of writing principles you can employ to catch attention, to get people to read, to build connection and to stand out. On the other hand, the subject lines you write ultimately have to come from you. They have to stand out because they’re an expression of you and your brand.

The best way to learn how to write great blog titles isn’t to copy other people’s titles. Instead, use other people’s titles to learn what works. Then use those same principles to help guide you in writing your own titles.

With that in mind, here are ten blog subject line tips, along with examples to illustrate them.

Tip #1: Have a Clear Benefit

People should instantly understand why they should read your article just from the title. Vague and mysterious titles that don’t tell people why they should read are generally a bad idea.

Direct response marketers and newspapers have tested this principle time and again. Shocking titles, newsy titles, curiosity titles and other types of titles that don’t have a benefit in them almost always get lower readership than titles that imply a benefit to the reader.

For example, users who see this About.com article will clearly know that they’ll learn how to improve their credit score, just by reading the title:

Source: http://credit.about.com/od/creditrepair/tp/improvecredit.htm

Tip #2: Add a Power Word

A power word is a word that adds emotional punch to your title. Sometimes all you need to turn an otherwise dull title into an eye catching title is a power word.

Take this article from Problogger for example. Without the power word, the title would just be “The Secret to Happy Blogging.” A nice benefit, sure, but nothing to write home about.

But with the power word added in, the title now has some real juice. Most bloggers would have a hard time seeing a title like the one below without clicking on it, even if just out of curiosity.

Source: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2012/08/29/the-secret-to-crazy-happy-blogging/

Tip #3: Use Numbers – And Use Big Ones!

People love numbers. Posts with numbers tend to get more clicks. Why? Because numbers are specific and tells people how much information they’re about to get. It suggests that they’re about to learn several things, rather than just one.

Large numbers in particular suggest that people are about to learn a lot of ways to solve a problem in their life.

Take James Altucher’s post on being an entrepreneur for example. If the title were just “Rules for Being an Entrepreneur,” it’d sound pretty dull. But the title “100 Rules for Being an Entrepreneur” sounds infinitely more interesting.

Source: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/04/the-100-rules-for-being-an-entrepreneur/

Tip #4: Boldly Add Your Personality

There are enough “me too” blogs on the web. Why not really let your personality shine on your blog for a change?

People who really let themselves out on their blogs tend to stand out. They tend to draw a crowd. People will often come to read your posts not because they need to learn what you’re teaching, but simply because they want to get a dose of your personality.

Take “The Middle Finger Project” for example. Just one glance at the website’s header image and you know you’re in for an interesting read. Every post title on the blog is similarly interesting and attention catching.

Source: http://www.themiddlefingerproject.org/blog/

Tip #5: Be Controversial

Say something that shocks your audience a little. Say something that gets people a little riled up, or a little defensive. Say something that risks alienating a small part of your audience. Do so while taking a stance for something you believe in.

Be controversial. When you go against the curve, people listen.

Take the post below from The Life Design Project. The title proudly proclaims: “If You’re Not Embarrassed By Your Product, You’re Late.” The premise of the post is to get people to just launch a product, instead of getting it perfect.

There were a ton of different ways he could have worded his title. He deliberately chose a title that could make people a little defensive. And it works. It catches attention.

Source: http://thelifedesignproject.com/

Tip #6: Put Relevant Information First

This tip is especially important for longer titles. Put the most important parts of your title first.

Eye tracking studies have shown that people don’t read websites. Instead, they scan along the left hand side of the page, occasionally flicking their eyes to the right.

In other words, people scan sites, look for things that are interesting, then read quickly to see if they’re actually interested. If so, they click to learn more. If you aren’t catching their attention in the first few words, there’s a good chance you’ve lost them for good.

Take the title below for example. Instead of starting the post with “How to launch a successful e-commerce site,” he chose to lead with the “$10K/mo” benefit statement. Why? Because it’s more attention catching and people care about it more.

It’s a long title. Leading with the $10K/mo will get him a lot more clicks. It’s the most relevant piece of information. Do the same with your posts – Lead with the most important bits of information.

Source: http://www.thrillingheroics.com/10k-ecommerce-website-lifestyle-business

Tip #7: Pose a Question

Asking your audience a question is one of the best ways to get a ton of comments. It helps you build more of a relationship with your audience by making your blog a two-way communication channel.

You can use this as a one-time title for a specific post, or you can make a habit of asking your audience questions every month or so.

For example, in the post below, AskMen asked their male audience for questions that they’ve always wanted to ask women. It generated a lot of great discussion, as well as great content.

Source: http://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice_600/671_ask-women.html

Tip #8: Try Going Negative

You don’t always have to promise a positive benefit. Another avenue you could take it to help people avoid something they don’t want in their lives instead.

Talk about common mistakes. Talk about pitfalls. Look into how you can catch attention by addressing the don’ts instead of the do’s.

For example, from the “I Want Six Packs” blog:

Source: http://iwantsixpackabs.wordpress.com/

Tip #9: Use the Right Amount of Jargon

What’s the right amount of jargon?

If you use too much jargon, people might have a hard time understanding you. Newbies who’re new to your industry but still fall into your target market could get turned off.

On the other hand, using jargon allows you to speak in the same language as your market. People feel like you’re on the same side. Jargon also often allows you to get more specific than if you had to use generic words.

Though not a blog post, this classic John Carlton ad illustrates it perfectly. To a non-golfer, this headline makes no sense. To even an amateur golfer, this ad has an incredibly appealing promise. It doesn’t use so much jargon as to turn people off. Instead, golfers feel like they’re speaking the same language.

Source: http://startbydoing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/oneleggolfer.jpg

Tip #10: Give Real World Data

People love getting real world data. If you’re in the health niche, share your exact meal plans and your before and after photos. If you run a blog about stock trading, share your actual trades and what the results were.

When you give real world data, people get more of a sense of what it’s like to be you. It also seems more tangible than just tips or lessons extrapolated from your experiences. It also helps build your credibility, by showing people that you’ve actually done what you’re talking about.

For example, in the post below, Nerdy Nomad shows exactly what she earned in a month and how she earned it:

Source: http://www.nerdynomad.com/2012/08/05/july-2012-earnings-spending-report/

These ten blog title tips will help you write titles that get people to pay attention, titles that get your audience excited and titles that help you stand out from the noise.

Get Started With Facebook Comments For WordPress

by Nicole Munoz

Facebook comments for WordPress allows you to put a Facebook comment box and a Facebook like box directly on your blog. Setting it up involves creating an app developer account, which can seem a little daunting at first, but really isn’t all that complicated.

Here’s how to setup Facebook Comments for WordPress.

Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin

Search for the plugin under “Add New” in the “Plugins” tab. Install the plugin.

Activate the plugin.

Step 2: Creating a Facebook Developer Account

Click on “set your application ID and secret now” in the link that appears after activating the plugin.

Click on “Create a Facebook App.”

You’ll be prompted by Facebook to allow it to access your account. Click “Allow.”

Step 3: Creating a New App

Once signed into Facebook Developer, click “Create New App.”

Give your app a name. The public won’t actually see this, so it doesn’t matter all that much.

Click on “Web” in the left hand side navigation.

Enter the URL of the website you want your Facebook comments to show up on.

Upon hitting save changes, your Application ID and Application Secret will be displayed. Copy these.

Step 4: Entering Your Application ID

Go back into the settings for Facebook Comments. Paste your Application ID and Application Secret into their appropriate fields.

If you hit “Update” now, Facebook Comments for WordPress will go live.

Here are a few more important things to set before finishing up the installation.

Step 5: Basic Settings

Setup your basic settings, such as whether you want to display comments on blog posts (as opposed to just “Like,”) whether you want to count WordPress comments and Facebook comments together and such.

Step 6: Like Button Settings

Setup how the “Like” button on your site should look.

Step 7: Comments Box Settings

Under “Comments Box Settings” there are a few more settings you can set, such as how long the box is and whether to show only on pages, posts or both.

Once you’ve setup everything the way you want it, click “Update” and check your website to see how it looks. Congratulations! You’ve setup Facebook Comments for WordPress, which allows you to “Like” and “Comment” with Facebook’s system integrated into your blog.

Get Started With LiveFyre

by Nicole Munoz

LiveFyre is a blog commenting system that allows you to integrate social media with your blog’s comments. People will be able to sign into their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google ID accounts to post comments. They can also “like” or “share” your comments using their Facebook accounts and can also follow you using the same accounts.

Basically, LiveFyre uses existing social media logins and allows you to post to social media from your blog’s commenting system.

Here’s how to use LiveFyre.

Step 1: Install LiveFyre

Go to your plugins panel, click “Add New,” find LiveFyre and click “Install Now.”

Click “Activate Plugin” when it’s installed.

Step 2: Creating Your LiveFyre Account

In order to use LiveFyre, you’ll first need to create an account. You’ll be prompted to “confirm your blog configuration” after installing the plugin, which basically just means they want you to create an account.

Click the link that shows up after installing the plugin.

Click on “Create New account.”

Enter the login details for your account.

Upon creating your account, you’ll need to go back into your blog, click the “confirm” link again and sign in.

LiveFyre will then import all your existing contacts.

Once finished, all the old comments on your blog will be imported into LiveFyre.

Step 3: Using LiveFyre

All the comment boxes on your site will now turn into LiveFyre comment boxes.

To post a comment, just type in your comment as usual. When you click “Post comment as” however, you’ll need to sign into a social networking ID before you can post the comment. This will allow people to post with their real identities, connect with friends as well as reduce spam on your system.

This is what the login screen looks like:

In order to follow a conversation, or to post to Twitter or Facebook, they’ll also have to sign in with those IDs respectively.
That’s how to install LiveFyre, create a LiveFyre account, use the commenting system and link it to an existing social network.

Get Started With Intense Debate

by Nicole Munoz

Intense Debate is a WordPress plugin designed to facilitate active discussion and, well, debates. By default, anyone who posts a comment will be subscribed to receive emails about future comments (easy to turn off if you don’t want to.) It utilizes threaded discussions, so anyone can reply to the whole topic or to an individual poster.

Here’s how to sign up for and use Intense Debate.

Step 1: Join Intense Debate

Go to: http://intensedebate.com/signup

Fill out the form to start the signup process. Make sure to check the “I want to install IntenseDebate on my blog or site” box.

You’ll need to verify your email address. Click the link emailed to you, which will then return you to the IntenseDebate site to continue the setup process.

Enter the address of the blog you intend to setup.

Click the “Wordpress” button.

That’s all the installation you need to do on Intense Debate’s site. Next is setting up your WordPress blog.

Step 2: Install and Activate

Find the Intense Debate plugin using the plugin search at Plugins > Add New in the left hand side menu bar. Click “Install Now.”

Then click “Activate Plugin.”

Step 3: Setting Up Intense Debate on Your Blog

Intense Debate won’t immediately take you over to the setup procedure when you activate the plugin, so you’ll have to find the plugin in your “Settings” menu.

Enter the login details from the signup process in the beginning.

Step 4: Importing Your Comments

If you want to import all your previous comments from your blog into Intense Debate, click “Start Importing Comments” on the next screen.

If you import all your comments, you’ll need to wait a few hours for Intense Debate’s servers to index all of them.

If you don’t want to index comments, just click “Skip Import.”

After the import process, you’ll see the successful installation screen.

Step 5: How to Use Intense Debate

To post a comment, just type a comment in the box and click “Submit Comment.”

By default, Intense Debate will subscribe you to all the replies to your comment. This is designed to help get people back to your site more often and get people more engaged.

But if you want to change your subscription options, just click the dropdown menu before hitting submit. You can choose to get no notifications at all, or get notifications for every single comment.

To reply to a specific post rather than posting a brand new comment, click “Reply” under any comment.

This will start a threaded discussion. Anyone can respond to your message or the original poster and “talk” to you directly, rather than post to the whole thread.

Anyone subscribed to the discussion will also get notifications, which will likely spawn even more replies and more conversation.

Here’s a brief example of a threaded conversation.

Congratulations! You’ve setup Intense Debate, both on the Intense Debate site and yours. You’ve imported your old comments and learned the basics of how to use the threading and subscription system.

Get started with Disqus

by Nicole Munoz

Disqus is a blog commenting platform that’s used on hundreds of thousands of blogs. Its top features include threaded comments, so people can reply directly to someone else’s comment directly rather than all comments in general. You can also reply by logging into a social media ID, like Facebook or Twitter.

You can also use Disqus’s notification system to let people know when they’ve got a response to a comment. They can reply to the comment right in the email response.

Here’s how to sign up for and use Disqus.

Step 1: Sign Up for a Disqus Account

Go to: http://disqus.com/profile/signup/

You’ll see the signup page. Choose to sign up with either your Facebook, Twitter, Google account or an email address.

Fill out the sign up form, or fill out the connect authentication.

Step 2: Adding Your Website

Once you’re logged into your account, click “Add” under “Your Sites” to add your blog to your profile.

Fill out your website’s basic information.

Click “Continue.” Here you will get to choose your platform.

At this point, your site’s profile is setup on Disqus. The next step is to setup Disqus on your blog. You will setup instructions depending on the platform of your choice. If you choose WordPress, this is what you will get.

Step 3: Installing Disqus on Your Blog

Go to “Plugins” and “Add New.” Search for Disqus, then click “Install Now.”

Click “Activate Plugin.”

You’ll be asked to configure the plugin. Click the link.

Enter your username and password that you chose on the Disqus site.

Select the website profile you want to use. Assuming you just setup one site, there’ll only be one option.

When you hit next, the installation process is complete and Disqus will be running on your blog.

Step 4: Using the Disqus System

To make a comment, just type in a comment as you would in any other system.

Click the “Like” button to like a post. You’ll also be able to share the post on Facebook or Twitter if you choose.

To add an image to a post, just click the “+ Image” button. A file selection box will pop up and Disqus will automatically resize the image to fit its format.

To reply to a specific comment rather than the whole thread, click the “reply” button below every comment.

This allows people to reply to specific replies and create whole sub-discussions in an orderly manner. Here’s what an original post and two replies looks like.

You can subscribe to receive all future comments by email or RSS. Just click on either button on the bottom of the Disqus box.

You’ll see a confirmation box.

Congratulations! You’ve learned how to setup a Disqus membership, how to add it to your site and how to use the plugin to post comments, reply to specific comments, post images, like and share on social media as well as how to subscribe by email or RSS.

Adding Social Media Updates to Your Blog

by Nicole Munoz

One of the best ways to add some spice to your website is to add in a social media feed. Your social media feed will help feed the content and updates that you’re posting through social media into your main blog.

The feed will appear as a widget that displays on the side of your screen. You can generally choose how big or small you want the feed to be, so you can customize how much attention to direct to the feed.

Here’s how to add social media updates to your blog.

Twitter Widget

To get started, go to the Twitter widget section.

https://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets

Click on “Create new.”

Then choose the “User Timeline”.

Enter the username that you want to generate a feed for. This can be your own username or someone else’s.

A preview of the feed will appear on the right. Once the feed looks right to you, just click “Create Widget” to copy and paste the code onto your website.

Facebook Widget

To access Facebook’s activity feed, go to:

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/

Then click on “Activity Feed.”

Scroll down, then type in the domain of the site whose feed you want to display. The feed on the right will show you what your feed will look like.

Click “Get Code” on the bottom once you’re ready to post it to your website.

Google+

Google+ doesn’t have a built-in widget creator. However, there are several outside tools you can use to add this functionality.

These options include:
Widgetplus.com
Widgplus.com
Wordpress Plugin

Here’s how Widgplus widget looks. You can access it here:

http://widgplus.com/

Start by entering your Google ID. This is the string of numbers you see in your URL when you access your own profile.

Then specify the settings you want to use to generate the Widget’s feed.

The embed code will be displayed above the customization box. Copy and paste it onto your server.

Adding a Pinterest Widget

Pinterest doesn’t have a built-in widget system. However, there are a number of different WordPress plugins you can use to create a Pinterest widget on your WordPress blog.

To get started, go to your plugins search field and type in “Pinterest widget.”

The most popular and highly rated one at the time of writing is the “Pinterest Pinboard Widget.” Choose one plugin and install then activate it.

Then go into your WordPress widgets (under “Appearance”) and drag and drop the widget. Then configure the widget to look exactly as you want it to.

Your Pinterest widget will now appear in your sidebar!

Adding a social media widget to your site can really help add interactivity and help cultivate a sense of consistency within your brand. It’ll help join your social media site and your website together into one community. If you’re going to take the time to build up content in social media, why not link it up to your main site?

Importance of Pinging Your Blog

by Nicole Munoz

Up until recently, most people wouldn’t be able to discern the meaning of the word Ping if not related to Ping Pong. But now, with the ever advancing technology of the internet, Pinging is an everyday occurrence.

Remember that old movie with Kevin Costner, Field of Dreams? Probably the most famous line of the movie was “If you build it, he will come”. So famous is that line, in fact, that it has been used all over the world in all sorts of situations. While many mistakenly thought that they could build a website with a great product or service and “they would come”, they quickly found out that ecommerce just doesn’t work that way. Pinging can help change all that.

Here’s how it usually happens: Mr. Entrepreneur delves eagerly into the fascinating ecommerce world after searching high and low for the right product to sell or service to offer; After the product is in place, Mr. Entrepreneur builds a pimped out website with graphics and images that will attract the customer, maybe he even writes a few articles and places them on distribution sites or creates a blog that he posts to every week. He then sits back and waits for them to come. In doing all of the work to increase web traffic, what Mr. Entrepreneur misses is the key factor of HOW. How do they know to come if they aren’t told where to go? They will only come if you tell them to! Pinging takes care of that.

According to Wikipedia, Pinging is described as “In blogging, ping is an XML-RPC-based push mechanism by which a weblog notifies a server that its content has been updated.” You’ve got to love layman’s terms for describing a high tech process! The inner workings of pinging are not what is really important to an ecommerce business; what IS important is that it works; and by that, Mr. Entrepreneur earns business.

As a website owner, you are the CEO of your own business – the driver of your own destiny. Your most valuable asset in building your business is your time. You have spent that time choosing a product or perfecting your service. You have spent it in learning the basics of web development and in hiring a team of professionals to handle tasks you are not skilled at. Because you have spent your most valuable commodity getting your business going, it is pretty clear that you desire success as the end result. Without employing the power of the Ping, you may be missing the big boat. What pinging does is gets the word out that your marketing avenue, typically a blog, has updated.

There are multiple services that can ping a blog. Instead of spending your time, your greatest asset, to find out how and what and where to ping, contact the professionals at StartRankingNow and have them take care of the service for you. Not only can they ping your blogs to the most used sites; they can even write the blogs for you! Those who are serious about increasing web traffic will be pinging. Otherwise, they simply are not making the most of the marketing opportunities available.