photo credit: edenpictures

Blogs that tend to do well are blogs that have a crystal clear core message that people can instantly relate to.

The message should be short and sweet. You should be able to express it in a single breath.

When you have that kind of core message that’s both easy and exciting to share, people will easily help you get your content around by passing it to their friends, linking to you and helping you succeed.

A clear message makes it easy for people to envision how the content in your blog can help them.

On the other hand, without a great core message, it’s very easy for your blog to get lost in the clutter.

So what makes a core message great?

It Needs to Be Unique

Your core message needs to be different than any other core message on the market. Otherwise, you risk having your blog categorized as “just another blog in X market.”

For example, a poor core message would be “I teach people to lose weight.” A much better core message would be “I teach people how to use Yoga to lose weight from home.”

Try to narrow down your core message. Pick a subset of your market or topic to target.

It Needs to Have “Snap”

When you explain your core message, it shouldn’t sound like a lecture. Instead, it should sound extremely snappy.

When someone hears your core message, there should be an “aha!” They should instantly recognize the value in what you bring to the table.

Poor core messages need long explanations in order to make sense. Great core messages on the other hand solicit the response of “Hey, I know someone who could use that.”

It Needs to Address a Need

A great core message needs to be presented in solution format. It should solve a pre-existing problem.

Take PayPal’s core message for example: They wanted to make it easy for anyone to send anyone else money on the internet. It was that simple.

It addressed a burgeoning need that was just coming into play as the internet was taking off and especially as eBay was facilitating more and more internet transactions. Furthermore, it met the above two criteria of being both unique and snappy.

More Examples of Good, Strong Core Messages

Here are a few more examples of great core messages.

A Small World: A social networking site for traveling entrepreneurs. In the highly competitive world of social networks, it’s one of the few that have survived because of how specific and exclusive they are. I’ve personally met some incredible people as a result of this social network.

Zappos: Free two way deliver on all shoes, 365 day return policy. Their return policy means that if you don’t like a pair of shoes, you can return them anytime within a year for free – You don’t even pay any shipping. It takes the risk out of the equation for the customer.

Steve Pavlina: “Personal Development for Smart People.” Steve regularly does self-development experiments and journals about them. For example, jogging every day for a year, eating only raw vegan foods for 30 days, doing polyphasic sleep for a month and blogging about it, etc.

Note that in Steve Pavlina’s case, his core message was also his tagline. Your core message doesn’t have to be a tagline, though it can be. Your core message is the essential takeaway any visitor to your site needs to be able to glean quickly.

Four Hour Workweek: How to minimize the amount of work you need to do, with a heavy emphasis on outsourcing.

Designing Your Core Message

Try asking a few people you know what your blog is about. Were the responses similar? Or were they all over the place?

What do you think makes your blog different? Do you have a clear answer?

If you don’t have a crystal clear core message yet, coming up with one is one of the most important things you could do for your blog. Make sure it matches the above criteria and use blogs you respect as inspiration.

- Derek

photo credit: hang_in_there

Blogging can be one of the most exhilarating experiences in life when things take off. It can also be incredibly discouraging when things are flat.

If your blog isn’t getting as much traffic as you’d like, or if people aren’t responding to your content the way you’d like, how can you handle that?

Here are a few ways to help weather the bad times to get to the good.

Get Off the Internet

One of the best ways to clear your head and start thinking outside the box is to get off the internet. Bloggers and web professionals tend to spend all day in front of the computer.

Being in front of the screen isn’t the best way to think of solutions. Instead, go take a walk. Go to a museum. Go for a swim. Get out there.

Take a notebook with you. Journal about your blog. How can you improve things? What’s the underlying reason things aren’t working right now?

You can also write ideas for blog posts that excite you.

Identify the Problem and Find Solutions

Figure out what the problem is. Generally speaking, your problems can either be emotional or business.

If the reason is emotional, you might have some soul searching to do. Is this blog really what you want to be doing? Is it rewarding? Do you feel like you’re helping people?

By asking yourself honest questions, you’ll either find that you indeed are doing the right thing and just need get realigned, or you might need a change of plans.

On the other hand, your problems might be more on the business end. Perhaps your blog isn’t taking off the way you’d like. Perhaps people are coming to your blog but aren’t buying anything. Perhaps you’re getting complaints from readers.

If you’re having a business issue, research it. For example, if you need more traffic, research ways to get more traffic. If you need more buyers, research ways to increase your blog’s conversion rate.

Once you identify a specific problem and go looking for a solution, you’ll find many ways to solve the problem. The key is to get your mind out of the sense of discouragement and back into problem-solving mode.

Write a “50 Reasons to Get Excited” List

If you want to get excited about your blog again, write a long list of 50 good reasons why you should be excited about your blog.

These could include emotional reasons, like self-expression or making a difference. It could include financial reasons, like the amount of money you could make. Just write anything and everything that comes to mind with regards to why you should feel excited about your blog.

Take your time with this list. Do it over the course of a couple days. By the time you finish, you’ll have a document that will excite and energize you everytime you look at it.

Write, Write, Write

Finally, one of the best ways out of any slump is to just write. Write your way through the discouragement. In fact, if you can funnel the discouragement into your writing and use it as fuel, you could produce some extremely powerful content.

By writing great new content, you might find yourself getting excited about the future possibilities. You’ll start to feel “the flow” again. You’ll start to look forward rather than feel stuck in the past.

Also, by writing content, you’ll ensure that even if you feel discouraged, you’ll have enough content to fall back on that you won’t suddenly stop publishing. That’s critical to your blog’s long term survival.

These are a few different ways to handle discouragement as a blogger. Unlike a regular job, blogging has many ups and downs. Your successes can feel elating, while your down times can feel like you’ll never make it. These are feelings every blogger has to go through. In order to make it to the finish line, in order to build a successful blog, you need to be able to weather the bad times to get to the good.

photo credit: DonkeyHotey

One often overlooked topic in the blogosphere is taxes. It’s one of your biggest expenses as a blogger, yet few people actually address how it works.

Knowing how taxes works as a blogger can help you reduce your expenses. In the worst case scenario, it can help you defend against an audit.

Here are a few of the most important things you need to know about blogging and taxes.

The Basics: Which Bloggers Need to Pay Tax?

The answer is simple: Everyone.

Some people believe that if you don’t make very much from blogging, you can just not report your income. The reality is, even if you earn just $100 for the year from blogging, you’re still supped to report the income.

If you’re earning under $600 a year, technically you don’t need to file a 1099 tax form. However, regardless of how your income is legally structured, you still need to tell the IRS.

It doesn’t matter if you’re living in the country or not. If you’re a United States citizen, you need to pay taxes on your blogging income.

There is one exception to this: If you’re outside the United States for over 330 days of the year, you might qualify for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. That means you can exclude up to between $91,000 and $95,000 in taxes per year, effectively paying no taxes unless you’re an extremely high bracket earner.

Talk to a tax attorney if you fall in the later category. Apart from this one minute exception, every blogger needs to pay taxes.

What Can You Write Off?

There are a lot of things you can deduct from your taxes. Keeping good records is essential for taking advantage of all these tax breaks.

For one, all the expenses related to running your business can be deducted. Your web hosting and your domain name. The cost of running your shopping cart. The cost of WordPress themes and plugins.

The content that you outsourced. The analytics package you purchased. Your autoresponder account.

Essentially, ever expense that’s related to running your business should be carefully tracked and deducted from your income.

You can also write off any office supplies. This includes hardware, paper, ink, etc. If you use your computer exclusively for work, you can write that and any other computer equipment off as well.

If you have a specific section of your home that you do your work in, that area can also be deducted from your taxes. Make sure you truly do have a separate area for work if you choose to take this deduction, as it can be an IRS red flag.

The Easiest Way to Stay in the Clear

One big mistake bloggers make is waiting until the end of the year to think about taxes. When that time comes, you could be stuck with a huge tax bill without much cash to pay for it.

Instead of just thinking of your taxes at the end of the year, start thinking about it now. Put away 25% to 30% of your monthly income for tax purposes.

At the end of the year, if your taxes come out to less than that amount, you get a nice bonus. However, it’s better to save too much rather than too little.

These are the basics of blogging taxes. If you run a blog and you’re earning money from the blog, you should start documenting every expense as soon as possible. Everyone has to pay taxes – Including bloggers – The only question is how much.

- Derek

All fresh and ready for the new year, Lynette Chandler’s done it again. She just released her awesome Free 2012 Blogging Calendar.

It’s a great printable planner that allows you to plan your posts, guest posts, promos and emails throughout the year…

She’s also included information about holidays, observances (some serious and some downright wacky) and historic events that can be creative inspiration for your blogging. For example, did you know that yesterday was “Mutt Day” and that January 3rd is Elmo’s birthday? There are even handy marketing tips at the bottom of each page and more in-depth tips about email marketing, using PLR and more.

Here’s a snapshot of the calendar, but you can download the whole thing to see what it’s really all about:

There’s no opt-in required and Lynette won’t even ask for your first born as sacrifice. Just download and go.

photo credit: Seesmic.com

When people look at your blog, one thing they use to determine how credible they think you are is the number of comments your posts get.

If you get a lot of comments, chances are people will think your blog is more credible than if they looked at your site and found that nobody has left any comments.

The number of comments you get isn’t caused strictly by traffic. There’s of course a corrolation, but low-traffic blogs can often get more comments than high-traffic blogs.

Here are a few tips for getting more comments to your blog, without having to bring in more traffic.

Tip #1 – Give Free Stuff Away

Giving stuff away is an easy, surefire way to increase audience participation.

It doesn’t have to be expensive. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be related to your topic. Many blog authors have found that they can offer to give something small away and in return get a lot of blog commentors. Let your readers know that you’ll choose the best comment from the bunch and give that poster a small prize.

For example, if you run a travel blog, you can offer to give away a free old phone that you had lying around the house. Travelers from the United States often need new phones when traveling because their old ones are carrier-locked.

If you run a parenting blog, you could offer a surprise baby gift. If you run a “make money online” blog, you could offer a 10 minute phone consultation.

These are just a few examples. Let your imagination run wild. Many of these gifts can be free or just old stuff you have lying around your house. Even if you decided to buy gifts, you don’t need to buy prizes worth more than $5 to $10 to get more audience participation.

Tip #2 – Answer Every Blog Comment

One big mistake blog owners often make is getting in the habit of ignoring comments. Naturally, if you ignore your comments, people are going to feel like you’re not listening when they write.

If you make it so that your time is perceived as scarce, but that your readers can reach you if they commented on your posts, they’re very likely to do so.

This isn’t an “instant tactic” for getting more comments. For your readers to get the sense that you respond to comments could take weeks or months. But this habit is also what will help you build a loyal following that constantly reads your posts.

Tip #3 – Make it Easy to Comment

Have you ever visited a blog that makes it so difficult to comment that you really just don’t want to bother with it?

Avoid asking your users to sign up for an account. Don’t make them link their Facebook. Don’t make them sign up with Gravatar. Don’t make them verify their email. Just let them comment with one click of a button.

A lot of people will comment on your blog on a whim, but wouldn’t comment if they had to go through a long ideal to do so. Make it as easy as possible for your users to comment on your blog.

Tip #4 – Ask Specific Questions

A lot of people who like your posts might not comment simply because they have nothing to comment about. They could read your article, love it, nod to themselves and leave your website happy – Without commenting – Simply because you never asked.

One easy way to increase your comments is to ask your readers one or more specific questions. Questions can help you get more comments and spark heated discussions in your comments.

To take it a step further, every once in a while ask for your readers’ advice. People love sharing knowledge and if there’s something you genuinely need help with, don’t hesitate to turn to your readers. They’ll help you with some great tips while simultaneously boosting your blog’s popularity.

Getting More Comments – Last Words

If you’re not getting as many comments as you’d like right now, address the issue like you would any area of your business. Start tracking your metrics (comments,) set goals and experiment with different kinds of strategy until you find one that works consistently for your business.

Garnering a following that actively comments on your blog posts takes some hard work in the beginning, but once people get in the habit of interacting on your site most of the work will take care of itself.

- Derek