People ask why I give away so much free information. Fact is … free sells!

Last week I put out a free report called “102 Proven Headline Formulas“.

I did not put that report out to get sales, and there was no sale call to action. The goal of the free report was to build visibility, some links to gain a start in search, and build some authority. Through reciprocation I expected to get some opt-ins, which was designed to help me get feedback about what people want to know about social media. You can see the question mechanism on the homepage here.

So I did not set out to make sales and there were no sales lead mechanisms in the campaign. A strange thing happened though.

Leads happened.

Sales came through, both for my Authority Blogger Course and for my consulting.

Sales From Free

The reasons for this are simple:

• The more visibility you get, the more chance you have of making sales, even without directly making a pitch
• My sales pages are linked from my content pages in sidebars, and related articles
• Product landing pages are optimized (to varying degrees!) to make best of any traffic that they do receive
• Social proof is powerful – some top names retweeted my report
• The report itself is from my Authority Blogger Course so works as a free sample, without directly driving people to that destination explicitly

The lesson is clear.

If you want to sell, put out some great free stuff and help it spread!

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Since I submitted the list of top 50 SEO blogs from blog rank to sphinn, I received a large number of emails asking me how does blog rank determines the ultimate rank calculation. So, here is the answer. 

Currently, blog rank indexes and collects data for about to 20,000 blogs. You might notice that not all of these blog are displayed in the system. We wanted to work out more issues with algorithm before releasing more blogs. We currently use over 20+ different factors in determining the ultimate rank logic. Some of these factors include [this is by no means is a comprehensive list]:

1. RSS membership

2. Yahoo incoming links

3. Yahoo indexed pages

4. Google indexed pages

5. Google PR

6. Monthly visitors

7. Pages per visit

8. Link to page ratio

9. Compete Alexa,and Technorati ranking

12. social sites popularity (Digg first page stories, Stumbleupon reviews, Delicious bookmarks, Redditt, Propeller and mixx)

The factors of course are not all given the same weight. Factors which can be manipulated such as, incoming links and pages indexed by Google or Yahoo, have less weight compared to factors such as, pages per visit or RSS membership. Additionally, each blog receives different weight for the above factors depending on the category it is listed in, because it is measured against all the blogs in that particular category. For example, if a blog is listed under two categories: social media and blogging, it will most likely receive different points for RSS membership, Digg first page stories, Compete Ranking, etc in these two different categories.

Finally, batch data updates run for blog rank on daily basis. While we continue to tweak the ranking logic, we do not edit the ranking for any of the categories manually.

I am in the process of collecting all the questions I receive regularly for blog rank to create a FAQ. Please feel free to leave a comment here or drop me an email khalid at invesp dot com

© 2006-20010 Invesp

I am pleased to announce Invesp’s new application blogRank.

The application was inspired by a post I wrote few months ago, listing the SEO blogs. As bloggers, we always wonder how to measure our own progress and success. Different bloggers use different metrics. Many rely on RSS membership but I have seen blogs with thousands of RSS subscribers that hardly send any traffic to a blog they link to. Others such as Technorati rely on the number of links but we all know how links can be easily manipulated. Although numerous blog ranking systems exist based on different factors most seem to suffer in varying degrees from credibility/measurability issues. blogRank solves many of these issues by using a mathematical model to provide the ultimate ranks for blogs in a certain category.

For bloggers, blogRank shows you how well your blog compares to other blogs in your niche. The tool displays the top blogs in many categories. The final number of categories we will have in the tool is close to 500.

In its first release, blogRank will provide the top blogs in the following top level categories:

• Art & Literature
• Business & Money
• Computing & Internet
• History & Religion
• Interests
• Life & People

How does blog Rank work?

We collect data on over 30,000 blogs including:

• RSS membership
• Number of pages indexed by Google and Yahoo
• Number of incoming links via Yahoo
• External sites ranking (Technorati, Compete, Alexa)
• Monthly visitors
• Social sites interaction (Digg, SU, Reddit, Propeller, etc)

For each of these data points, blog Rank shows how blogs in a particular category rank. More importantly, blogRank uses a combination of all of the above factors to display the ultimate rank for blogs in each category.

Is  ChrisBrogan.com more powerful than Copyblogger?

If you look in the blogging category, you will notice that the 2nd blog ranked in that category is ChrisBrogan.com and the third is Copyblogger.

You may or may not agree with this ranking. We continue to work on the ultimate rank algorithm and collect more data every day. Of course, not all factors are assigned the same weight. Those which can be manipulated carry less weight in our ultimate rank calculation.

I expect the list of blogs indexed by blogRank to double over the next few months as bloggers add their blogs to the list. Well, take the tool for spin and let me know what you think!

© 2006-20010 Invesp

I got an email earlier today from a marketing company announcing an upcoming webinar on the topic of blogging for business:

I initially thought to myself that the webinar is just about 4 or 5 years late. Don’t most business understand the value of a blog at this point?

The answer is most likely no.

There are too many business that do not blog, do not care for blogging and do not consider it a real marketing technique. Okay, so maybe the marketing company did a poor job targeting/segmenting their email list. So, they are a little lazy. I can live with that. 

The one part of the email that irked is the last bullet point:

Why blogs are an affordable, easy-to-manage marketing strategy that help you acquire new business

That might have been the case a while back, but the truth is that blogs require considerable effort, time and resource commitment both on the blog and off the blog. As more blogs come to existence, content as a marketing strategy becomes more difficult and more crowded.

I recently had a conversation with a client who was thinking about starting a blog as a way to attract organic traffic to his site. Here are few thoughts from that conversation:

There are usually two main goals for a blog:

• Drive a number of backlinks to the blog/site which increases the domain authority/trust.
• Establish a community around your brand.

While a successful blog is very rewarding, it takes a while (6 months if not more) to get a blog to the successful stage. The time spent on the blog is split between 50% on the blog itself and the other 50% is actually on activities outside of blog. Outside activities include commenting on other blogs, writing guest posts, and communicating with others who are interested in the topic of the blog.

A good blog should have a minimum of 2 posts per week. Having 3 or 4 posts per week will be better. We usually expect a blog to take around 15-20 hours of work per week. Having a dedicated writer will make things a lot easier. but of course with a dedicated writer, there are yet additional costs you have to worry about.

What do you think? Am I correct in thinking that blogging is not as easy as many claim it to be? Do you think that starting a blog can still help generate traffic to an ecommerce site? Have you had any success creating a blog for an ecommerce store?

© 2006-20010 Invesp

There are other ways to define social media but looking at the current situation the title might as well be the best fit. If you are an active social media user you must have seen the most talked about sites getting a little crazier day by day. First, as usual Digg and second Reddit. StumbleUpon usually seems to stay out of trouble but it also has one of the best algorithms as it is the hardest to game. Anyways, if you haven’t been keeping up with the social media scene lately, I would have to say you have been missing out on a lot of crazy stuff. In this post I will try and link to all the things that have been going on lately in terms of Digg and Reddit and some changes that StumbleUpon has implemented (certainly a good move from them).

Digg : The Craziest Monkey of All

First and foremost the sheer amount of users that has been banned on digg is mind boggling. The number when I last looked was 80 and I am sure it has increased by a few by now. If you would like to take a look at people who have been banned on digg please follow this link : Banned Digg Users. Names that have been crossed out are the ones that have been banned by ever changing Digg administration. The banning saga that is going on on Digg has been covered by notable blogs such as TechCrunch. While cleaning out Digg banned one of the most influential and prominent user, Zaibatsu. This one user’s banning has been nothing but a major hurricane within the digg community and entire web. If you would like to read a little more on this here is a piece from ReadWriteWeb, another popular blog. Zaibatsu has been an active member from the start and the reason of his banning still seems to bother most users within the digg community.

Another banning that got most people talking about Digg’s internal system and their way of handling things is when they banned Diggboss. Diggboss created a script that would allow users to see whether or not their mutual friends have been digging their submissions. Another important and very helpful aspect of this script was that it would allow you to send shouts to people that you want without having to manually do much work. For example, you could choose to shout a submission to friends that have not yet dugg your submission. All this without having to really go through “who dugg?” list.

As you already know Diggboss has been banned from digg. The reason was simple : he created the script. I have talked with him on IM and such and as far as I know he wasn’t using any scripts at the moment. So the sole ground for his banning was the fact that he created a script. Seems a little unfair. Here is a piece where diggboss talks a little more about the whole deal Digg Banning : Interview With Diggboss.

If you would like to check out the app that got diggboss banned please click on this link Check Friends. The app currently seems to be down and there seems to be some clarification and an email written to the digg support from diggboss. Give it a look.

Reddit : The Crazy Monkey

It seems like reddit users have a long rivalry with digg users. There has been a lot going on within the reddit community in regards to digg users coming within their territory and wrecking it. Reddit users seem to claim that digg users are using reddit to spam and are actually wrecking the quality of site as they did with Digg. Is there truth to this? May be. But I could vouch for all the users on digg that no one is trying to go on reddit just for the sake of wrecking it. Social Media is simply seen by most as traffic generating tool and with social media profiles being one of the best way to personally brand yourself on the web, people are trying to diversify their efforts. There was a huge backlash by reddit community about a week and a half ago and some users even took the time to list names of people and sites that they thought were spammers. Here is list that was put together by one reddit user which shows “spammers” and “spammy sites.” The snapshot below shows whatever I could capture,

If you are an active digg user you will realize that most of the names that are labeled as spammers happen to be digg users. Of course since the community was targeting digg community. Here is the link to this entire ordeal if you would like to read a little and see the Reddit crowd going a little off the hook and losing their self control Reddit Goes Crazy ( Please go through the comments to get the full scoop ).

As you can see Digg and Reddit has been taking a lot of heat and there seems to have been a never ending war started between diggers and redditers. Personally, I care less about these whining as it does nothing but creates chaos within the social media scene.

StumbleUpon : The Clever Fox

StumbleUpon is one of those awesome sites that seems to lay low most of the time. StumbleUpon recently implemented some changes which makes the service even more appealing and easier to use. The recent changes might also support the rumors that have been flying around that Ebay is trying to sell StumbleUpon. They haven’t been able to really do anything with SU’s services in terms of integrating it to their auction business. Some of the changes that have been implemented by StumbleUpon are :

1. “Friends Add” Messages : In the past the only way for you to know if anyone has added you was by looking at your fans numbers ( now called subscribers ). But now everytime someone adds you, you get a message which definitely is a handy way to handle things.

   

2. Shows how compatible you are with other user before you add them in terms of what you and the other user likes.

   

3. Warns you if you are adding friends too fast.
   

I am certainly down for the new changes that StumbleUpon has recently made. Among all these sites SU seems to be playing good and I think one of the main reasons it has been so awesome is because practically it is almost impossible to game StumbleUpon unless you know some secret code that no one else has cracked.

I hope this post was able to give you some insight on what is going on with the Top 3 dogs in social media scene. I can guarantee one thing that Digg and Reddit will keep growing despite the arguments set forward by Reddit community and actions taken by Digg’s administration.

But you know what they say : when two monkeys fight, the one that benefits is the fox that has been waiting for the monkeys to get tired and give up. StumbleUpon certainly seems to be the fox in this case.

One more thing on Digg before I end this post. There is a lot of talks going on regarding “blind digging” as well. So if you would like to see who diggs blindly and to what extent here is what they call ” The Blind Diggers Wall of Shame.”

© 2006-20010 Invesp

With companies of all sizes cramming into the blogoshpher bubble like circus clowns in a VW bug, the results are just about as frightening — although, nothing is a freaky as a clown, let alone tons of clowns. (Shudder.)

Kidding aside, the threat these poor excuses for blogs pose to the more serious in the sector is real. It seems that so many late-to-the-game corporate blogs just want to look like they have content, so they flood their feed with PR and poorly constructed ad copy.

By clogging the search engines with 1,000’s of stripped-down press releases, these PR-churns mess with their own ability to succeed (assuming they offer content on anything other than clowns). That’s right, filling the void with noise ends up drowning everything out.

So how can the corporate machine wise-up and kick the lackluster habits?

With content, of course!

The minds over at Buildify came up with a couple of suggestions for getting rid of ad copy and fake bloggers, and I couldn’t agree more. Cut the posers out and add a little meat to the flimsy ad copy.

But is hiding the ads behind information going to clean up the mess on the search engines, or just confuse everyone more? My vote, as it is with most things having to do with social choices, is that the masses will still miss the point and the companies will keep churning out the posts, but now with more fat.

For that reason, corporate bloggers need to take some time with the blogging basics — a visit to Problogger or CopyBlogger wouldn’t kill them — and start pulling back. It’s a simple game of quality over quantity, and of course, making lists.

Two more tips:

1) Scale back

For starters, do we need to know about every digital frame on the market? Wouldn’t we just do a Google search if we did? If the corporate goal is to have the most posts at the end of the day, then I’m wrong. But if the goal is moving product, then talking about the stuff we already know they make is silly. We’re on their blog, after all!

More than anything, though, clogging everyone’s google reader with 5oo new posts — not one of which is worth reading — is the fastest was to cut your subscription numbers. Clean up or get cleared out.

2) Make friends with stuff

We’ve all experienced that moment when you meet a new person and like John Cusack and the girl from the Cosby Show in High Fedelity, you have a great “stuff date.” Companies take notice, if your customers like your product, it just so happens you might have more in common than you think. Hip-up those corporate blogs with notes and reviews on stuff your customers might like. For instance, a sneaker company blog could talk about music or sports (as they relate to sneakers, sure). It’s the company blog, shouldn’t it reflect the personality the company wants to have?

In other words, take your blog somewhere. Anywhere. Form a blog community and watch it grow, just like successful marketers have done with communities around products in the real world.

Those are my two cents, and two tips. Now, readers, what are your favorite corporate blogs? And, more importantly, let’s embarrass the posers. Where can we go to see some real corporate blog train wrecks?

Note from Khalid: this post was written by Andew Nealon. He will be joining our blogging team soon

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Any blogger or site owner wants to have a significant subscriber base.

This is a key to online success. It means you have a large group of people who want to hear from you regularly. A captive audience if you like.

The challenges are obvious, especially considering the amount of noise and online competition we face as web publishers.

How can we overcome these obstacles?

Once you have attracted people to your site, there are then two main challenges:

1. Getting people to sign up
2. Keeping people subscribed

The first is what most people focus on while the latter is in many cases more significant to your long term success.

I can see why people focus on the initial conversion from visitor into subscriber. That is the “sale”, the “win”, and the statisfying “ka-ching”. Seeing your subscriber count boost is incredibly gratifying, it gives you a feeling of validation.

We set up incentives, such as a free download (you can see an example right on this page), or an exciting prize draw with attractive rewards like on my own site.

What tends to happen after the initial spike though is you see the inevitable drop-off.

This is because what brings people to subscribe is very often not the tactic that will keep people on board. We call this “churn”, your subscriptions become a revolving door where you lose as many people as you gain.

A certain amount of churn is inevitable, I see more people leave my subscription than many people gain and if I focused on this statistic too much I would get demoralised. The key is to work out why people leave and why people stay.

People stay because:

1. Valuable content
2. Anticipation

People leave because:

1. Lack of relevance (to them)
2. Changing priorities
3. Annoyance

So the main way you can keep people involved is to deliver lots of valuable and relevant content, while telegraphing lots more future goodies to come. Series posts are an excellent way to do both.

As for stopping people leaving, you need to get people to tell you why they unsubscribe and keep on top of the things you can control. Keeping happy subscribers is as much about customer service as it is content.

On my own blog I use Aweber for email subscriptions (I explain why I use Aweber for blog email here) and I get notifications when people unsubscribe. They tell me that daily emails are too often, so I set up a weekly option. They tell me they don’t like excerpts, so I try to remember to put the full HTML into the excerpt field so email subscribers get the full article (I don’t always manage to copy and paste before the email goes out but I am getting better!).

So bottom line:

1. Provide an Incentive
2. Constant Valuable content
3. Build Anticipation
4. Interact and Engage
5. Monitor Unsubscribes

Do all these things and you will see your subscriber base grow and grow!

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Content is King!

The statement above has become the holy grail of blogging. No matter what we do content still is and will forever be the main catalyst to drive your blog to success. Without an eye catching, attention grabbing content it is hard to persuade readers to “hang” around your blog and compel them to subscribe. We have all seen blogs that have been launched around the same time but one hits the rock bottom whereas the other reaches the heights of success. They both might be expert in the same field, but one rises and the other fails. The reason can be summed up in one sentence : Expertise and content alone will not do the magic, it’s the presentation, the ability to create curiosity, the desirability factor that does the magic!

There are some strategies most popular bloggers have followed which has driven them to success and popularity. They have tactically applied their strategies to elevate their content to take their blogs to the next level and set themselves apart from the rest. Here are 5 proven ways that will certainly help you elevate your content and help you eliminate the “i am lost among millions of blogs” feeling.

Title Optimization – Unique or Redundant?

Let’s start this section with comparison among hypothetical titles

Assume that all three titles contain the same content. If you were browsing the web and came across these three titles which one would you be most likely to click? First one! The point of this quick experiment is to show that your content might be the best out there, but your title is the key to lure visitors and turn them into dedicated readers. Without an effective title it is hard to gain attention. Your title plays a very significant role in creating your content. To tell you the truth, your title is what makes your article interesting. It should create curiosity, grab attention and compel visitors to read what you have got to say.

Optimize your title and see the difference. Be it Social Media crowd or Search Engine traffic, your content will rise simply because of a title that has been optimized to grab attention.

Traditional media has followed this method for years to sell information to their users, go ahead grab a newspaper and glance through the titles on the front page.You will see exactly how effective and important title optimization is.

Content Delivery – Solid Block of Text or Content Breakdown?

This is probably the biggest mistake most bloggers make. Your content might be full of information but a solid block of text eliminates the luxury of “scan now, read later” ability. Your readers might be students running late for a class or businessmen reading your article while waiting for their next meeting. These busy individuals need to be able to quick scan your articles and get a feel of what the article is about. Your content title should lure them in but your content presentation should make them come back for more.

Avoid creating a solid block of text while writing content. Divide your content into a number of groups “( subheading ) so it is easier for individuals to quick scan and get the message. If you look at this post itself, you can see there are 5 subheadings and each subheading talks about a different aspect of elevating your content. If you are a busy individual reading this article, it will allow you to quick glance at the subheadings and see what the article is trying to convey. And if it is something that you find valuable ( which I hope you do ), you will be able to visit later and read the content to it’s full.

Breaking down your content allows your readers to scan,analyze and hopefully come back later at their own leisure to gain some more insight from your article.

Eliminate Distractions – Attention or Clicks?

Money from blogging – we all want it but only few make it! The simple reasoning behind this is due to the fact that most bloggers get too desperate too early. Take a moment and do a quick experiment. Look at some of the blogs that you read most often and analyze how many of them run advertisements or animations and such within their content. I am sure you won’t find too many. We are bombarded with advertisements everywhere we go. The last place anyone wants to see an advertisement is between a content they are enjoying.

Let’s take a TV show for an example. You are watching a game show and you are all into it. The show is almost over and the winner is about to be announced. You are biting your fingernails, clinching your fist waiting to see if your favorite team is going to win. Right then the host says “And the winner is” and BOOM… there comes the commercial. You know the feeling. It distracts you and you might as well walk off.

Take the above example and relate it directly to a blog. Would you want to see a solid block of “adsense” in between an article that you are so into? Definitely not. If you don’t like it don’t do it to your readers. A couple bucks from advertisements within your content might satisfy the hunger for now, but in the long run it will hurt your credibility and audience.

Avoid distraction and let the content flow. Give your readers what they came for -Information without distraction.

Image Choice – For The Sake of it or One That Compliments The Content?

We like what we see. Although your visitors come to read your content, you need to realize that we are all visual beings. We like what we see. I personally think each and every content on any blog is incomplete without an image that compliments the article. You have heard the saying “Icing on the cake,” well, that’s exactly what an image does to your content - it gives your content the added benefit by making it visually appealing.

When choosing an image, make sure to add one that actually compliments the article. If your content deals with ad campaigns, add an image of a successful ad campaign. This allows your readers to entertain their eyes by looking at the image, and also gives them a practical example of a successful ad campaign through the image.

Content is king, but without an image to compliment the message, content is a king without a queen – lonely and lifeless!

Conclusion – End or The Beginning?

The key to a good presentation is the opening statement. We all know it and we try to incorporate this as often as possible. However, we tend to ignore the ending statement most of the time. While we sit to create an article we are pumped and by the time the article reaches its end we struggle with words. Words fall short and we conclude our “best content ever” with nothing extra ordinary.

Let’s take a movie for an example. You spend hours watching a movie to see what happens at the end. By the time you reach the end you have speculation and imagination running wild as to what might happen at the end. You wonder if the girl and guy get together at the end, and if its a war movie you wonder if the main character is going to survive and save the world. Wouldn’t it be a waste of time if the ending is lame? Nothing different but the same ending that you have seen dozens of time in different movies. The same applies to your content.

Create an ending that will compel your readers to think and respond. A conclusion that will compel them to share their thoughts and expertise on a particular matter. An ending that will make them not only think but apply what you have said.

Closing statement is as important as the opening statement. The closing statement of your article is the end of your content but the beginning of a discussion.

Are there only 5 ways to elevate your content and reach the masses? I know for a fact there is more ways to create and optimize your content. This is the beginning of this article, let’s finish it with healthy discussion and through exchanging ideas in the comment section below.

© 2006-20010 Invesp

The last issue of Time Magazine has a whole lot of people buzzing. The cover has the iconic photo of US Marines at the battle of Iwo Jima but rather than holding up a flag, they are holding up a tree signifying the importance of global warming. Now, I found many things about the controversy rather interesting, but two points have to do with conversion optimization.

This is one out of two times that Time, in its 85 years of publication, has had a border that is not red. The conclusion is that in order for them to allude to the importance of this issue, or any issue, they change the border. How can you catch the eye of your visitor? In order to avoid confusion and anxiety build up within a site visitor, keeping the website consistent is crucial. However, from time to time, if you want something to pop out consider altering an element, color, etc. on that page to draw the visitor’s attention to something remarkable you are offering.

Another aspect you can take from this is the importance of choosing the right image(s) for your blogs, site, pages, etc. Of course, you don’t want to necessarily cause controversy, but you want people to buzz about your site. An image alone won’t do that, but a killer image paired with excellent content and a user friendly site is something worth talking about.

People will remember something that stands out, and through innovation and offering a unique perspective through site design, images, videos, etc. you’re presenting an edge, and something different to your users. Time has always been passionate about Global Warming, but this latest issue stepped it up a notch and made them gain stronger supporters or enemies. What do you offer on your site that is memorable?

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Download your copy of this 20 page report that outlines a 4 weeks step-by-step instructional program that will get most of your submissions to the first page of Digg. The report is free but only available to subscribers of the Invesp blog.

By following the steps in this report, we were able to get 63% of our submissions to the first page of Digg in 2007.

So, why are we sharing this?

At the start of 2008, we restructured our services to strictly focus on conversion optimization work. By the end of March, we completed our last social media optimization project. Because of this we have decided to share some of the secrets we learned over the last few months.

How do you get your copy of "Breaking the Digg Code" report?

Subscribe to our RSS feed and the report will be available in the next email or feed update. If you are already subscribed, simply check the footer area of the your email or feed.

© 2006-20010 Invesp