“Announcing ProBlogger Melbourne Training Day – Register Your Interest Today” plus 2 more

Announcing ProBlogger Melbourne Training Day – Register Your Interest Today
Time Management for Ridiculously Busy Bloggers
How to Turn Your Blog Traffic into Money

Announcing ProBlogger Melbourne Training Day – Register Your Interest Today

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 09:55 PM PDT

Today I’m excited to give ProBlogger readers advance notice of a special training day in Melbourne for Bloggers – the 2nd ever ProBlogger Training day. I’ll share the details below (you can express your interest in attending or sponsoring below too) but first let me fill you in on the back story:

In July 2010 and very much on the spur of the moment I came up with the hair brained idea to run a small conference in Melbourne.

Within a couple of days I’d booked an international speaker (Chris Garrett) had convinced 4 local bloggers to speak, booked a venue and had announced to the world it was happening. We released 100 tickets (I thought I was ambitious – given there was only 3 weeks until the event) and I stood back to watch what would happen.

The event sold out quickly and we ended up upgrading our venue room to accommodate another 50 people. The day was amazing – 150 great bloggers from across Australia (and one from New Zealand), some amazing speakers and a real buzz in the room (and around the web as it trended on Twitter). You can read about the day here. The overwhelming response was that people wanted another event (although they wanted more notice and a bigger venue – as it was squashy).

The Details So Far

Over the last few weeks we’ve been working on the next Melbourne ProBlogger Training day. Here’s some advanced details (although as we’re a few months out there is still a bit to be filled in):

Date – Friday 21 October 2011
Time – all day (9am-5pm for the conference bit)
Networking Event – we’re looking at adding an evening networking drinks after the conference part of the day free for attendees)
Cost – TBA but we’re aiming to keep it affordable again
Venue – we’re still finalising this in the coming week but it looks like being in the CBD of Melbourne. The venue is larger than last year both in terms of capacity but also will allow us to spread out a little more.
Speakers – the only person I’m able to talk about at this point is me…. but I’ve already had confirmation from two overseas speakers and am talking to a number of local bloggers.
Schedule – last time we had everyone in the same room for the whole day – this time we’re booking a venue where we can have multiple topics on at once so you can choose your own schedule depending on your needs. Will update more on this as it gets closer.

Interested in Attending?

We’re currently putting together a site with all the information about the conference and anticipate launching it and starting to sell tickets in August. However in the mean time if you’re interested in attending please add your email address below and you’ll be the first to be emailed about it (this advanced email list bought the bulk of the tickets last time so you’ll have every chance to attend).

Note: if you can’t see the email field above you may need to disable ad blockers as some are a little too aggressive and block this form.

Calling Sponsors

Do you have a company or product that you’d like to get in front of 200 or so Australian bloggers? If so we have a limited number of opportunities for sponsorship on this event. Last year’s attendees numbered 150 – but they were an influential bunch. We tallied up their combined readership and it totalled millions of readers so this is an opportunity to get in front of key influencers.

These are limited to a handful of companies though so please don’t delay in contacting us.

Please contact us via the contact form here on ProBlogger and we’ll get you information on these opportunities.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Announcing ProBlogger Melbourne Training Day – Register Your Interest Today

Time Management for Ridiculously Busy Bloggers

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 01:04 PM PDT

This guest post is by Stepfanie Cuevas of The Lady Bloggers Society.

I used to be a huge multi-tasker. I was always taught that you can juggle at least a dozen projects at once, and that it was an art form that you could boast to the rest of your blogging buddies. I spent nights writing blog posts, getting assignments turned in, tweeting, Facebooking, and replying to emails. After a whole day's (and plenty of nights) of work, I was completely exhausted. After all that juggling, the list of things still needing to be done had only grown not shortened whatsoever.

Blogging was something that I loved to do not only to connect with people, but was the perfect way to work from home doing what I loved. So when I found myself sorting through hundreds of comments while trying to figure out what to make for dinner and who was going to take the dog to the vet, I knew something had to change. I'm proud to say, gone are the days of multi-tasking. I learned to embrace the new rules for time management for ridiculously busy bloggers like myself.

Multi-tasking is dead: set time aside

When I tried to juggle several items at the same time, I ended up completing a bunch of crappy work, or sending out tons of insensitive emails. Committing myself to one task at a time resulted in amazing blog posts and personalized emails and tweets. Complete with flowers and butterflies.

Not only did I break up my tasks, but set a timer for each item I was working on. Say I wanted to reply to emails in the morning, I set a timer for 20 minutes, and when that time was up, moved on to the next task on the list.

Schedule blog posts, tweets, and your favorite pizza man

For a long time, I turned my nose up at scheduling blog posts and tweets. In addition to my blog for blogging women, I also have a parenting blog, where I pride myself on spontaneity and creativity. Little did I know that I would be so flustered and busy that my time for creativity would almost disintegrate.

I learned to batch write, take guest post submissions, and schedule out a majority of what I wanted to say. With all blog platforms, you are able to schedule blog posts. I also use Twuffer to schedule all of my tweets. Craig is also scheduled every Thursday evening to deliver two large pizzas to our home. Yes, he knows this as well.

Take advantage of mobile apps

In connection with scheduling blog posts and social updates, I keep on top of everything using the golden iPhone. With the WordPress app, I can quickly scan comments and reply. The Mailchimp app lets me easily see how many new subscribers I have, as well as keep up with my email reports. I can also quick reply and DM anyone using the simple Twitter and Facebook apps.

It usually takes me about ten minutes to scan through everything without opening up my laptop whatsoever. I do this about two or three times a day, and then I'm off enjoying the rest of my day laptop-free.

Eliminate the unnecessary

Take a look at your blog. What are you using and what are you not? Is your blog filled with ad networks you no longer use? How about your email? How many mailing lists are you on that take 20 minutes to delete?

Spend a half hour going over your blogs and your email, and get rid of all the unnecessary items that take up your time, space, or crowd your mind. When these things are gone, you'll have fewer things to manage, and more time to actually blog.

Focus

Last but not least, I'm caught red-handed when it comes to taking on too many projects at once. There was one time when I was working on two of my own blogs, writing for three other websites, all while freelance writing for parenting and entrepreneur magazines. I had to take a step back and re-think what it was that I really wanted to do. I had to choose and focus on what was worth my time and cut back on what was not.

Take a break and see where your time and energy is going. Does the work you are doing right now reflect where you want your blog to go? Instead of ad building, maybe you should be participating in communities to network with other people. Instead of applying for all these blogger opportunities, maybe you should try guest posting on blogs to gain more credibility.

Focus is the ultimate tool when it comes to time management. Have you found this in your blogging?

Stepfanie Cuevas is a blogger and social media enthusiast. She is the founder and editor of The Lady Bloggers Society and writes for many different parenting, entrepreneur, and social media sites. Stepfanie is also organizing this year's Social Online Conference for women bloggers. Visit her at Stepfane.net

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Time Management for Ridiculously Busy Bloggers

How to Turn Your Blog Traffic into Money

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 07:06 AM PDT

Over the last three years as an online publisher, my business has undergone a complete transformation in its approach.

Whereas I previously slapped some code from a couple of ad networks into my blogs’ templates and relied upon people clicking those ads to generate income, I’ve increasingly focused my energy upon creating my own products (largely ebooks) to sell.

The change in approach has been gradual and it has been a lot of work, but the results have made it worth doing. Last week the total of ebooks that we’ve sold moved past 62,000 units, with a combined revenue of around $1.1 million (note: that’s not all profit).

The cornerstone of my new approach

Numerous factors have contributed to these results, but one that I’ve recently been focusing on more and more is that of “landing pages.”

A landing page is a page on your site to which you direct traffic with the goal of converting those who land on it to take a specific action. This action can be many things, but might include:

convince your reader to buy your ebook (or other product)
get your reader to opt in to your email newsletter list
convince advertisers to advertise on your blog
convince your reader to buy an affiliate product that you’re promoting
welcome anyone arriving from a social media account, and convince them to follow you
introduce your blog and give new readers a tour of content that’s especially relevant for them
thank people for subscribing, and encourage them to confirm their opt in to your list.

The list could go on and on, but the common thing is that these are pages to which you drive traffic, and on which you call readers to take a specific action.

Landing pages have been key in my own approach. I’ve used them in all of these ways, however, using them as sales pages has been the most effective tactic in selling ebooks.

Specifically designed landing pages work better

One of the key progressions in my own use of landing pages was to transition from using the default layout in my WordPress theme, to using specifically designed landing pages.

Previously, I used the default page that came with the theme that my blog used. As a result, landing pages looked pretty much the same as any other page on my blog. The result was good, but not great.

The problem I faced was that readers not only had a call to action to buy my ebook, but also numerous distractions in my sidebars and navigation areas (calls to subscribe, advertising, calls to visit other parts of the site, etc).

Readers were distracted from the main call to action on the page—to buy my ebook. A change of approach was needed, so we designed a landing page that had one single focus, and one call to action only.

You can see an example of this page on our latest product page at Digital Photography School—Going Pro (an ebook for helping photography enthusiasts to make money from their photography).

While the page is consistent in design with our normal dPS theme (in terms of color and branding), it doesn’t have any of the distracting elements of a normal page on the site.

There’s none of the normal navigation to other parts of the site in the header area, and there’s no sidebar. All people can do when they arrive is to read about the product—there are no other options to click or read.

When we switched from using default pages to a specifically designed landing page for the sale of our ebooks, we saw a significant leap in conversions. I don’t have the specific figures but it was in the order of a 30-40% increase—which in time has lead us to many thousands of dollars in extra revenue.

These landing pages were something I knew I should institute for a long time before I actually did it. The reason why it took me so long was simply that, as a technologically-challenged blogger, I consistently put it in the "too-hard basket". In the end I only did it when we redesigned the blogs and I had my designer create a template specifically for the job. That was a couple of years ago, and about a year after I should have done it.

As a result of that inertia, I lost considerable sales, and I still kick myself about that regularly. That was two years ago—today it would have been a lot less difficult.

Landing pages made easy with Premise

Earlier this year, the team at Copyblogger released software for WordPress that’s all about creating landing pages that convert—it’s called Premise.

I can safely say that if I’d had this plugin when I first started selling my ebooks, my sales numbers would have been a lot higher. It takes the "too hard" part of landing pages, and completely eliminates it.

The idea with Premise is that instead of having to have a designer create a template specifically for each type of landing page for your blog (or having to learn to do it yourself), this plugin helps you create those landing pages yourself.

Premise focuses on three areas:

Creating pages: they let you choose from seven types of landing page styles, and then add graphics and copy to them to create clutter-free and beautifully designed pages.
Creating compelling copy: the design of your page is one thing, but the real magic happens in the copy that you create for the page to convince readers to take the action you’re suggesting. Premise gives advice on how to craft the type of landing page you’re creating, right in the WordPress interface. You also get access to some great copywriting seminars (keep in mind that this is from Copyblogger—the masters of creating compelling content and copy).
Optimization: improve your conversion rate and search rankings with more tools and guidance, including easy split testing and SEO features.

One of the most amazing features of Premise is the graphics library. You could easily pay more than Premise costs just for a set of graphics like this, and it ensures that every landing page you create is unique.

Check out Premise for yourself. Just like I learned, the extra income you earn from quality landing pages will make Premise pay for itself many times over.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Turn Your Blog Traffic into Money