While this is how I start one of my success articles, in this case I mean, you as a blogger.  I can not see you.  I can read your words, I can guess your particular inflections.  Perhaps I even guess what you look like, and what you sound like.

This is what your readers do.

Video blogging can help you get more traffic by giving readers a more natural representation of you.  Reading your words viewers may get a different feel of who you are than when they see you and hear you.   With video blogging they can hear your passion, they can know what excites you and they get to know you better.

Your picture tells them one part of a story.  They see you.  They see your single expression. Look at my image above.  When you see a picture you read the facial expression, the eyes, the smile, and maybe some body language.

A thousand words times thousand

With the video blog the readers see all of the above and hear your voice, your inflection, they see your body language and your nature. They hear where you get impassioned and where you think the emphasis is.  You nor them may be able to tell anyone why, but we are trained from birth to read the subtle signs of body language and these are seen in video blogging.

You can see a video below.   Please tell me what you think.

Hope you enjoy!

Live ♥ Laugh ♥ Love

MJ Schrader

PS I added a video to yesterday, I was out of town. Using Videos for Online Business Success

Tomorrow: Video Wednesday during a week about video blogging

As my schedule is tight, I want to give you an assignment.  This will help you get started with your video blogging by creating your first video.

You are going to create a video that defines you, your business or blog.   Come up with 10 terms related to what you do.  You probably only want to use 6 but you may need to have some replacements.

Now visit YouTube Search Stories. Type in your first term, choose the type of search you want it to do from the right hand side, web, images, blog, map,  etc…   It should show an image below so you can see what it will look like.  Alternatively click the eye to see.  Then keep adding up to 6 more terms.  The last term it will only show.  I ended mine with my name, so hopefully people will remember it. 

Click next and choose music.  The choices are some what limited, but you are getting a free video.  You also will be displayed for at least a little while on the search stories wall.  Once you upload the video you can embed it like I did below.  If you don’t know how to embed… wait until later in the week and I will show you.

Live ♥ Laugh ♥ Love

MJ Schrader

Some of you #Blog30 readers may not have online income yet.  Even if you just stumbled across this blog, you may be curious what can I do to earn income without a product.  This online income method works if you have a product or not!

Affiliate Income!

By being an affiliate, you can sell products sold by other people and businesses. Basically you are a salesperson for that company. When you sell products for that company you earn commission.

Advantages

Affiliate income has many advantages over traditional selling. While you do not earn the same income as the seller, you do not have to deal with all the problems. The seller has to keep physical goods somewhere, then ship them. In both digital and physical, the seller must worry about customer service. This means dealing with problems and frequently asked questions and more. If there are returns, the seller must be prepared for refunds.

Commission Income.

Commission depends on the item you are selling. Physical items may only have a 5% commission and yet 5% commission on a $2000 item is $100. On digital products it is very common to see 30 to 50%.

Would you like 60% income?

With the new Rockstar Education to Website Basics and WordPress Site Creation you can earn 60% commission!  This course teaches online beginners how to get a domain name, get hosting, create a WordPress website and set it up to their needs.  In 3 months they can have a Rockstar Website!

To earn $88 per sale just visit the Affiliate Program.

If you sell over 25 products your commission will be boosted by 5%  sell over 50 and your commission will go up by 10%.

Join today and start earning!

~ MJ Schrader

Do you have a blog?

No?  Then you may need help Picking a Blog Topic and Getting Content.   Please note there are Website Mistakes That Cost You Readers.   As a beginner you need to know  What Does Your Blog Need in Posts

Now for more experienced readers.

You should know what makes your blog voice unique.  If not you Finding Your USP should be your next focus.  Experienced or new, we all sometimes forget  Why is Content King?

If you are working a job, have kids or are going on vacation then Scheduling WordPress Posts will help.  You can write 2 or 3 or more posts a day and schedule the rest so you can have a post appearing if you are home or away.

How will I come up with so many posts?

You can have Easy Web Site Content.  The answer is amazingly simple, even better what if you could turn One Question Into Multiple Blog Posts and Content Creation.   Now do not be fooled not all your writing needs to be just about your topic, you will be surprised to learn What Should My Blog Posts be About?

Adding Outside Content

Perhaps writing tons of blog posts is not your thing  or you need some filler material on your vacations.  All you need to do is Find Articles on Ezine Articles once you find an article you like Adding an Ezine Article to Your Blog is an easy process.   Now before you obsess too much about Google Slaps and Duplicate Content my friend Sunbonnet Sue Busts the Duplicate Content Myth.

I certainly hope this odd little story will help all you bloggers in the newest blog challenge.

~ MJ Schrader

Recap

Enter your topic of choice in the search at the top of the page.  Add an author, quotes, or extra words as necessary.  Now what happens when you find an article you like?

Looking over an article

Click on an article title you like or click = Do it Right Now! Be Productive With a Prickly Pear. The byline (author’s name) is underneath the title. Below that the word count (419 words), should you need a particular size. Then you can view the summary by clicking that link or scroll down and read the full article. Near the bottom of the page are the various citations, MLA Style, APA style, and Chicago Style (not be confused with the pizza).

Choosing an article.

You decide this article is exactly what you need. If you are the bottom scroll back up to right below the article. Beneath the article is a gray box. Click an icon to share the article in that social media format. However since you are looking for content you are going to click “EzinePublisher.”

Now what?

You will see an article summary. A summary of TOS. Improbable phrases and improbable keywords (phrases and keywords unique to my article i.e. prickly pear.) Next is a text version of the article followed by an HTML version. Since you are adding this to your blog, you want HTML. It looks nicer. Below that is the Summary, Keywords and Article URL.

Adding to your Blog.

Click add posts. Where you enter your posts you will see a tab (on the right) that says Visual and another HTML. Click HTML. Click inside the HTML box on Ezine Articles. Press Ctrl+C, this will copy the article. Now back to your blog post. Inside the box click Ctrl+V, this will paste the article with the Author Resource Box and Article Source. Alternative you can use the mouse right click functions.

SEO

If you are using an SEO plugin or Thesis Theme (or other SEO theme), you have a few additional steps for SEO! (Search engine optimization). Copy the title into the title box. Then copy the summary which is below the HTML version, using above tips. You will paste this in the description or summary area of your post. Repeat with the keywords. And Badda Bing you have new content for the price of a few clicks of the mouse.

Hope this helps, and please comment with your ideas and suggestions!

~ MJ Schrader

Yesterday I discussed changing to Disqus. (unintended pun) Today is going to be how to switch to Disqus.

Set up Disqus

Visit Disqus.com You will need to register your site. You will be given a short name which you can edit but is unique to your blog. Now, since you probably want to manage your comments you will need to create your profile.

Settings

You can set up optional features for the way people can log in to comment on your blog. Media Attachment is automatically checked. Options are Facebook, OpenID, Twitter and Yahoo. These options also allow your commentators to display their comment on those sites. This allows for greater traffic. Checking the Akismet link will reduce spam. Reactions will add links to people recommending your post on Twitter, Friendfeed, Digg and many other sites. You can change these options later so do not worry.

Installation

Login to your WordPress. Scroll down to Plugins. Choose Add New and then type Disqus in your search. You want the Disqus Comment System. Click Install, again in the pop up and activate. You will see a must configure warning at the top of the page. Click the link. Use your Disqus login and then choose your short name you registered at Disqus. Now you have it installed.

Sync Comments

After installation it will take you to the Disqus comment page within your blog. This is the manage page, while is shows, you must manage at Disqus. This is a fault in Disqus, but it is still worth using. Click Advanced Options. You should have some long code in your API. Scroll down and export comments. This will sync your current comments with Disqus.

Back to Disqus.com

Choose overview from the link on the box on the right where your avatar image is. Next click comments. If you have more than one blog you will want to go to the right again and a little lower you will see “All Sites” choose which site on which you want to work. Here you can moderate comments, approve, delete etc. You could moderate all sites at once, but I prefer to know which comments are to which blog.

More Settings

Now choose the Settings tab in the left. If there is more than one blogger you will want to add them to the Moderator list. Next click to customization sub tab to change the appearance and layout. The general sub-tab will let you change the settings you used during the blog set up. Tools allows you to create a widget.

How is this easier?

While the initial set up is more work, after that you can just visit Disqus.com when you want. You can see comments on all blogs or one by one. You moderate your comments there, and with Disqus you have less moderation work to do. In addition with all the back traffic systems it helps build traffic to your website.

~ MJ Schrader

As you may have noticed I switched “mid” the 30 day blog challenge to the Disqus comment system. Ok, it was only 5 days in, but considering in the years that I have been using WordPress this is a major change.

What made me change?

Someone needed a plugin for a specific function. Being the WordPress Rockstar, I was asked what plugin was needed, and during that time I found several posts about Disqus. After a bit of research I decided to try it. Now I am changing all my blogs to the Disqus comment system.

What is Disqus?

Pronounced Discuss, Disqus is changing the way blog comment systems work. Actually according to their site they allow “you to add next-gen community management and social web integrations to any site on any platform.” This means that it allows more social interaction via comments. Social interaction allows for a community to grow which is of course good traffic for your website.

Reduce clutter with Disqus

Many bloggers use plugins such as Akismet to block spam. CommentLuv to give love to comments. Subscribe to Comments to keep updated. While all these plugins allow for greater communication with your readers, the more plugins you use the greater the chance of blog problems. With Disqus readers can like a comment, subscribe to comments, find out more information about a commenter, and subscribe to that person’s comments.

Why should you use Disqus?

Your readers can log in with Facebook or Twitter which will allow them to quickly repost their comment. Your blog will show on their Twitter or Facebook wall which will increase promotion of your blog. Readers can send their comments to other sites as well again increasing your publicity. And when your readers comment on another blog, if someone likes their comment they can see what other blogs that reader comments on, which includes yours, which is a great cross promotion for you. So the question may be why would you not try Disqus?

What is an easy to use website?

Among one of the easiest to use websites is WordPress.  The hardest part of it, is getting it loaded.  Now many website hosts have made that almost push button simple.  WordPress is versatile enough for use as sales letters, content management, and more.  Websites that have been around for years are now switching because of the low learning curve and the ability to change things quickly.

Are autoresponders important?

After your website is put together, you will want visitors to give you their names and email.  This helps you build a list of people who want more information from you.   Most websites offer a free ebook, mini course or something else to encourage people to sign.   When you have a list, you can email them when you add new material to your website, when you have information for them, or even when someone else has information that is related to why they joined your list.  

Do I need shopping cart?

You don’t need a shopping cart if you are not selling your own products.  Shopping cart services supply shopping cart or buy now buttons that you can add to your website.  When someone visits your website they can press the button to buy whatever you are offering.  Services that offer affiliates are better because affiliates will promote for you, and you pay them commission only based on their sales.

And when you combine them?

The website allows people to find you online.  You provide information that brings readers to your site. The autoresponder allows you to build an email list of people who want even more information like your website provides.  The shopping cart allows you to sell your own products to your email list and visitors of your website, affiliates can help.   

What if I don’t have a product?

Not having a product doesn’t mean you can’t make money.  You can be an affiliate, when you like a product you could review it on your website.  You could email your list and tell them about the great new thing that you tried. You add a short P.S. to the bottom of your emails or posts to mention something you liked.  When someone buys from your affiliate link you make commission.  This gives you a reason to like being online even more.

You can join the Rockstar Guide Books affiliate program by clicking here.

MJ Schrader

Rockstar Guide Books offers ebooks and videos that can help your business, just see the menu at the top.