I am having a lazy day today. I didn’t have to work and don’t really feel like thinking that much, so I decided to share a few things that I like to do when I don’t feel like working!

Here is 11 things that I did on my lazy days – In no specific order (Too lazy too!):

1. Wrote Songs
As you would know from by post comparing ‘Building A Famous Blog To Writing A Hit Song‘ I am passionate about song writing. Lately I have been writing a lot on my guitar as my Yamaha Motif 7 keyboard is currently at church. Today I spend a good couple of hours on writing a couple of pages of new lyrics, fiddling on the guitar working out chord structures, and trying to find interesting melody lines.

I didn’t get anything finished today, but I did get some ideas for a couple of new songs.

2. Played The ‘Be A Tycoon’ Facebook App
I only recently joined facebook in the last week, but have become addicted to a game called ‘Be A Tycoon‘. The idea behind it is to buy and sell companies to increase your wealth. Well in the last two days I have gone from $6million to over $300million. With these numbers you can obviously see why I am addicted!

3. Found Random Blogs To Comment On
Today I commented so much more than I usually do. Because I just blog hopped from one blog to that blogs commenters. I found a heap of interesting (and strange blogs), so many that I would never have found normally.

4. Stayed In My Pajamas
It is winter in Australia, and I must admit I love wearing my warm track pants as long as possible. Since I had no pressing engagements I actually staying in my pajamas until about 1pm!

5. Ate A Lot – But Nothing Decent
I have to say, I am terrible at this. I just go straight to the cupboard, find whatever lollies, chips, chocolate etc are there and start eating. Who cares about lunch. But then again I did have lunch because my friend called me and said he wanted to grab some lunch so we went and got a healthy hot dog and shake for $5 from Wendys.

6. Updated My New iPod
I am so happy to finally get my new black 8gig Ipod nano. Before that I only had a 1gig shuffle and I lost the connector to the computer so I couldn’t recharge it. The only thing was my iTunes was chocked full of duplicated entries and songs that I don’t even like. So I spend a good hour or more cleaning out my songs and podcasts before uploading them all.

Just so you know I currently have 2.4gig of songs and 1 gig of podcasts.

7. Thought About How I Really Should Go For A Jog – Don’t Still Don’t!
Even last night I went to bed thinking I will get up early and go for a jog along the beach.

8:30am: Woke up and thought to go for a jog – checked my emails instead

9:30am: Decided to have breakfast instead of going for a jog.

10am: Started doing all the above mentioned items and the idea of going jogging got lost for the rest of the day.

8. Thought About How Glad I Am That I Have The Day Off
I must say, this thought crossed my mind quite frequently today. Usually when I was on msn chatting with friends and they were asking why I was at home. It frequently brought a smile to my face – thinking about this much needed day of rest I had been waiting for.

9. Thought About How Much Money I Won’t Have Because Of Not Working
But then things took a turn and I started thinking about how much money I was loosing for not working and it kind of counteracted all the good feelings I had been having. It is a good thing that I have trouble concentrating for long periods of time because usually as soon as the thought entered my head it was gone.

10. Got A Haircut, Just Because Your Friend Is
As I was having lunch with my friend he mentioned that he really needed a haircut. Considering he hadn’t really had one for about a year I was obliged to agree. I had been planning on waiting until the middle of August when I get back from my holiday in New Zealand to get a hair cut for myself. Because you see not only will it be cold and the extra hair (mine was getting pretty long – ie fringe was over my eyes and hair covered my ears), plus snowboarding is all about style and I really wanted to have hair flowing out of the botton of my beanie, flowing in the breeze – in my hope of being labeled cool. However this was not meant to be as I found myself telling him that I would join him in getting a hair cut.

However I must say I am pretty happy with it. I kind of feel naked with how short it is, but I still have my fringe (some would call it emo).

11. Wrote A Random Post Like This For You All To Comment On!
Then it suddenly gets to 9pm and you realise you have 160+ readers who have been eagerly awaiting a blog post from you, and the best you can do is come up with a list of things to do on a lazy day!

Hope you guys enjoyed this post. It is totally counter to my usual style, as I think this is my first full personal post – don’t worry, they will be very few and far between because I don’t want people to find out all my bad habits!

I’d love to know what you do on the days that you just don’t feel like doing anything. So hit me up with a comment!

If you found even one useful piece of information in this worthless post then please subscribe to our feed or email updates. By doing this you will be voting for this blog in Blogging Idol!

I have been thinking over this past weekend about some of the bigger blog that I visit and what makes me enjoy visiting them each new post. What draws me into each of their post? You see I can visit a blog and it may have amazing content. The blog design may be the best I have ever seen. In fact, they may even have 50,000 feed readers and say they are making $2 million dollars a year, but I will still chose not to visit the blog – unless it has one characteristic.

I Want To Be Able To Relate With You

Who wants to visit a blog that where the blogger seems to be perfect? I know I don’t, because what can I learn from them. I will never be perfect so the tips I learn will never help me.

I know a lot of my readers are in the ‘make money online’ niche. Would you visit a blog where the owner seems to have the perfect run, everything they have done has turned out to be 10 times better than expected. They never choose the wrong ad keywords. They have never had a loss on a project. I don’t know about you, but I can’t relate to that.

I make mistakes – a lot of them. Some of my ‘great ideas’ are my biggest flops – but I learn from them. I have forgotten to do things that I say. I have even given up on projects that could have been a success – because I was too lazy. How am I supposed to relate with the perfect blogger?

In fact it kind of starts to annoy you a bit doesn’t it?

It’s like those people that are just good at anything.

You spend hours and hours each day to learn a new football (soccer) move (which I did heaps of as a kid) and ‘Mr. Perfect’ would come along and do it first go.

Or what about this one:

The parent that has the perfect child. While yours is eating dirt, running rampant, not doing what he/she is told – just being a kid, their child is already reading (probably the dictionary for fun), can do simple maths (like trigonometry) and can hold a civilized conversation with adults – all at the age of 6.

Ok. Maybe that last one was a bit of an exaggeration, but I am just trying to make the point that most people don’t like people who show off. People who try to put up a facade and make people believe that they are perfect – because usually they are not.

As a blogger, I encourage you to be someone that your visitors can relate too. Here are a few tips to help you:

Talk About Your Mistakes:
This is a hard one because everyone couples mistakes with failure. Mistakes should be seen as learning curves, learning curves that you can share with your visitors – so they don’t make the same mistakes.

Jonathan Volk did something I really admire. He is a PPC affiliate that his goals say he is doing $170,000 a month in affiliate sales. You would think if anyone didn’t make mistakes it would be him. But you would be wrong. Jonathan recently made a post where he told us that he lost $3,500 by accidentally paying up to $45 per click.

Don’t Alienate Your Visitors
No one wants to think that they are dumb. Sure you may be making 100 times what I am but talk about things that I can do to get to where you are. Make sure your posts are easily understood and implimented by everyone interested in your niche.

Another small tip is to make your post titles personal, by use phrases like:

• How YOU can make an extra $10 a week
• 5 different ways YOU can increase traffic easily
• 3 reasons ANYONE can be successful blogging

Don’t alienate your visitors based on their level of knowledge. Let it be know they they can do it. They are able to achieve the same level of success that you have.

Be Approachable
One of the best ways of relating with people is just being able to be contact. I know a lot of pro bloggers would get a heap of emails each day, but isn’t it just common courtesy to at least give a small reply to an email? I don’t care if it takes them a week to reply, I would just like one.

When I don’t receive a reply, it makes me think that I am below them. That they consider themselves much better than I am. And this is not something that you want thought about yourself as a blogger – you want to be relatable.

I remember when I wrote an ebook that I was planning on selling for $10. I email a heap of the top bloggers offering them a free copy of my ebook – no strings attached – hoping for a free review, but not expecting one.

You Know What?

Out of about 10 or 15 of the top bloggers in the ‘make money online’ niche I think I got 2 replies. One from:

JohnCow – where he thanked me for the ebook and offered to do a review of it on his blog (which is what I was hoping for and did get me a few sales) and:

Carl Ocab – who let me know of a few mistakes and offered to provide a great testimonial for my sales page.

None of the other bloggers even took the time to thank me for the ebook, or let me know that they even received it. To be honest this lowered my respect for a lot of them – because it made me feel small.

One of the things I have done to try and make myself as approachable as possible is make myself available for any of my visitors to contact me with questions and thoughts that they may have about my blog, their blog or blogging in general. And they WILL get a reply – and maybe even a link in one my posts if I choose to feature the question or thought.

The Key Is Just To Be Someone That People Can Relate Too

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As we continue to look into various ways of making your blog famous, I want to take a look at two popular ways to increase your branding. I will be looking at Advertising on Blogs as well as Guest Blogging, putting them head to head in a few different categories to see which one comes out the winner.

Blog Advertising
This is where you purchase an image space or a link on a blog or website linking it back to your blog. For this comparison we will be using the standard 125×125 ad space that is featured on most blogs these days.

Guest Posting
This is where you write a post specifically for another blog. Usually you contact the blog owner first and pitch a post outline to them and if they accept , you then write the post and they post it on their blog – with a sentence or two about you and your blog either before or after the post body.

Now I have personally over the first half of July had both blog advertising running and guest articles posted so I will use the data I can get from these for my analysis. (I realise that results may vary from blog to blog)

There are two ways to judge the benefit of a marketing method. One is short term results. The other long term. To make it easier to understand I have made the short term goals the initial traffic I received as a direct result of the marketing method, and the long term goal is the impact it had on my branding. This second section will be based wholly on my personal opinion as it cannot be looked in things like visitors and numbers.

Short Term Benefits Analysis – Traffic Stats

• Blog Advertising
  I have banner ads on 4 blogs currently. However two of them did not make my referring sites section in AwStats with less then 8 visitors ( sorry Nathanial and EliteBlogger). I will however take a look at the stats from the other two blogs that I have a 125×125 ad spot on:
  • TechTreak.com
    So far this month I have had 13 unique visitors from this ad space.
  • ThomasSinfield.com
    From this ad spot I have derived 10 new unique visitors.
• Guest Posts
  I have had the opportunity to guest post on 4 successful blogs, however I did not receive enough traffic from my guest post at MixedMarketArts to complete our analysis. Here is the traffic details for my other three guest posts:
  • CarlOcab.com
    The traffic coming from the posts address is 8 unique visitors, however I did receive another 38 visitors from Carl’s homepage – which as the link to my blog from the post was visible on the index page, it is safe top assume that a portion of these visitors were a result of the post.
  • TylerCruz.com
    My guest post here brought me in a total of 12 visitors.
  • RetireAt21.com
    And this guest post added another 11 visitors.

I cannot honestly say that I am impressed with the stats either of these marketing methods have produced. However, we can safely agree that both have similar short term results.

Now lets take a look at the benefits in the long term – with branding.
Long Term Analysis – Branding

When I think branding, there are three things I look for.

• What Are People Seeing To Help Them Remember My Blog
• What Is The Credibility Of The Marketing Effort
• How Long Will The Marketing Stay Live

So lets take a look at each of these for both blog advertising and guest posting. Starting with the first.

• Blog Advertising
  • What Are People Seeing To Help Them Remember My Blog
    The thing I love about blog advertising is the image awareness that it creates. I honestly don’t care if I get 1 or 1000 visits from the blog I have a 125×125 ad spot on. My main goal is to get as many people to see my ad, which is well designed and highly congruent to my blog layout, because when they happen to stumble upon my blog later they will feel like they have been here and know about my blog.

    125×125 ads are fantastic for increasing exposure, but you need to makes sure that you have them professionally designed and they have the same feel as your blog does.

  • What Is The Credibility Of The Marketing Effort
    Sure having an ad spot on a credible blog may give your ad some weight, but think about all the BeachBum marketing ads that are on many of the high profile blogs. Your marketing has very little credibility as everyone knows that the only reason you image is on the blog is because you paid for it.

    Does this mean that they are worthless? Of course not. The results you receive from image branding still works.
    
    

  • How Long Will The Marketing Stay Live
    As long as you keep paying for it. This is one of the down sides of paid advertising. You have to keep paying if you want to keep getting the benefits.
• Guest Posts
  
  • What Are People Seeing To Help Them Remember My Blog
  • With every guest post you are able to have some sort of blurb and link back to your blog. HEre are some samples of mine:Guest Link On Tyler Cruz
    
    Guest Link On MixedMarketArts
    
    Guest Link On RetireAt21.com
    
    Guest Link On CarlOCab.com
    
    As you can see although guest post blurbs come in a range of ways, they usually have a small writeup on you and your blog as well as a link to your blog using the anchor text you require.

    This helps with SEO, and the branding of the name of your blog, but doesn’t really do anything for branding your blogs image.

  • What Is The Credibility Of The Marketing Effort
    This is where guest posts takes over blog advertising. Guest posts carry a great amount of credibility as they are seen as a personal recommendation from the blog owner. Visitors know that to get a guest post published it has to be approved by the blog owner – meaning that they approve (and even recommend) the blog post, and also to a smaller degree the guest blogger.

    I have seen a few bloggers gain a bucket load of credibility from regularly guest posting on major blogs – and this has seen the blog grow dramatically.
    

  • How Long Will The Marketing Stay Live
    Forever. Well maybe not. A blog owner may take it down – but why would they? The blog owner is getting great content and probably some nice search engine traffic, so the chanced of getting your post removed after a month is very minimal. This means that your post (and link) are going to be there for visitors months and even years into the future.

So Which Is Better?

Well based on the traffic stats both blog advertising and guest posting are head to head. So I guess in this regard it depends on whether you have time or money to spare. Writing a guest post would probably take you half and hour and buying a blog ad can cost anywhere from $1 (or even free) to $500 a month plus.

I cannot really judge the performance of the branding aspect at such an early stage but it is safe to say that both options have their advantages and disadvantages, so just choose the model that is right for you.

Vote for StandOutBlogger.com at Blogging Idol: Subscribe to our RSS Feed or email updates to get each new post to you as soon as they are written!

Hey guys, has been a great week with a fair few of my July goals already being crossed off the list.

Namely:

• Increase RSS Feed Subscribers to over 100 (Currently 30) – 101 – 11/07/2008
• Decrease Alexa Rating To Under 200,000 (Currently 267,978) -186,815 – 12/07/2008
• Have A Technorati Rank Of Under 100,000 (Currently 150,025) – 81,315 – (10/07/2008)

I still have 5 more to go, so we will see how the rest of the month pans out.

Carl got back to me about the amazing prizes I won from his birthday competition. 2 of them I plan on keeping but I am in contact with one of them to see if I can give the most expensive one away to one of my loyal readers :D – so stay tuned (and subscriber so you don’t miss your chance!)

This Weeks Stand Out Bloggers!

I got some great posts for you this week from some of my commenter’s. I am sure you will love them!

• If you have been reading this blog for more than a week you would know that setting and keeping track of your goals is one of my favourite topics. Well ProTycoon has a great post about ‘Analysing Your Blogging Goals.’
• Rajaie shares ‘5 Points To Consider Before Sending An Email‘
• Melvin touches on another of my favourite subjects in his post ‘Providing Something, That’s What People Love’
• This last one is just a little bit of fun, but AboutCoolness.com shares a picture where R2D2 is found in The New Indiana Jones Movie.

Pro PSD Blog Design For Sale

One of my active members Jug from Zigtur.com emailed me offering a fantastic psd blog design for purchase. I had no need for it as I had just recently purchased a PSD blog design from him (Current theme at ThomasSinfield.com), so I thought one of you might me interested in it.

Here is a preview: (Click here for full size preview)

He is looking for $35 for the theme but feel free to contact me with any offers or comment below and I will make sure that he receives them.

Indepth Blog Review Winner Announced!
Thanks for the great response guys! 33 entries shows me that you are all committed to making your blog better, but as always there can only be one winner and the winner is:

BlogBadly.com with his comment:

Review my blog because it’s an innovative twist on the ol’ blog-about-blogging niche. I also donate all of my profits to my “keep-Max-off-the-streets” fund, which I assure you is a 100% legitimate and government-approved organization.

In addition, my name has the same amount of letters as yours (three). If that isn’t a good reason, than I don’t know what is.

I mean, think about it. On one hand, you can review the blogs of the other people who commented on this post… but on the other hand, you have five fingers.

Also, this comment has exactly 100 words in it.

It was a hard decision and I feel bad only being able to review one blog, which is why I would love to make myself available to all my readers, so if you have any questions for about your blog feel free to contact me and I will do my best to answer you as soon as possible (with the possibility of making a feature post of it if I think it will bring me traffic!)

Thanks guys you are all awesome! Remember to vote for me in Blogging Idol by subscribing via rss feed or via email updates!

With ‘Blogging Idol‘ coming close to the half way mark I am guessing most of you know where you are standing and how you have been going. I want to take a quick look at 5 easy steps to make sure that you come away with a good result.

Now when I say good result, I don’t mean that you have to walk away the winner of the contest. Although that would be nice – you may have notice that over 100 blogs have been entered into the contest the odds are not really in our favour to win, so how do you make sure you are a winner even if you don’t walk away with first place and a massive prize pool?

So You Don’t Enter Contests To Win?

No, I am not saying that. Sure have winning as one of your goals, but for me personally, there are other reasons for entering contests – especially rss ones like ‘Blogging Idol’.

I have come up with 5 steps to help you successfully complete a blogging contest.

1. List Your Reasons For Entering
   Why are you entering this contest? Sure to win the main prize, but what if you don’t? What else do you want to accomplish? With Blogging Idol I had to look at this because I new my chances of beating 100+ bloggers was pretty slim. I knew I had to have other reason for entering. I decided that that the main reason for entering this competition was to motivate myself to increase the effort I put in to this blog and to increase my RSS feed count dramatically.
2. Set Your Goals For The Contests – Based Off Your Reasons For Entering
   Now we have a reason for entering, that isn’t winning, we have to start setting goals for each of these reasons. This is where SMART goals come into play. You need to make sure your goals are:
   S – Specific M – Measurable

   A - Attainable

   R – Relevant
   T – Time Bound

   So i decided my goal was:

   To increase my RSS feed count from 30 to 100 subscribers within the month of July.

   You will notice that this goal fits every step of the SMART goals formula. Have goals that fit this formula makes it easy to see if you are on track and gives you a definable goal that will either be achieved or not.

3. Create A Plan To Accomplish Your Goals
   Goals are all good and well, but how are you going to achieve them? Now is the time you need to start looking at creating your plan. This is where you take your goal, and break it down into smaller bite size pieces and laying out your strategy to achieve it.

   With my goal, I created a plan that listed a few ways that I would meet them. I listed them when I posted about my goals for July. I also wrote a guest post on TylerCruz.com about how to break your goals into smaller more manageble goals. The key here is to map out the course you are taking to achieve your goals.

4. Carry Out Your Plans
   This is where you have to do what you said you were going to do. Take your plan and start putting it into motion. You have come this far by having a reason to enter, creating goals, and setting forth a strategy to achieve these goals – don’t give up now! Take the daily steps you need to achieve what you set out to do.
5. If You Meet Your Goals Early – Adjust Them Higher
   This is the fun part! The thing about SMART goals is that if you have set in motion a strategy to complete them – you will most likely achieve them early. I have done this with Blogging Idol. I set myself a goal to have over 100 subscribers by the end of July. I set my plan into motion and totally smashed my goal by achieving it in the first 12 days of July. So do I just slow down and go back to normal? No way! I have doubled my goals and now plan on having 200 rss subscribers by the end of July.

Obviously this is something that should be done before you a competition starts, but if you have not done this already and you are taking part in Blogging Idol, then I highly recommend you stop what you are doing and take 30min to set some goals and map out your path to success.

Then have a successful competition completing your goals!

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