This has become a bit of a pet peeve with me (and it is not directed at anyone in particular). The thing that gets me most, is the fact that this was something that I not only did with my blog for the majority of it’s existence – but something that I also promoted as a good idea.

What I am talking about is bloggers incessant need promote their blog before themselves.

You know what I am talking about, people who:

• Use Their Logo As Their Gravatar
• Leave Comments With Their Blogs Name

Everything is about people knowing about their blog.

Like I said, I used to follow this ‘marketing strategy’ but since dropping it, I am starting to realise how annoying it really is.

Who Want’s To Communicate With A Brand?

I don’t know about you, but I want to talk to people. I want to know about the face behind the blog.

I love reading ‘about’ pages.

I love it when I can find and use a persons real name in social media conversations, comments and emails.

I want to know that I am talking to a person a and not a product!

What Is Best In The Long Run?

I understand the desire to try and brand your blog. But in all honesty, the only reason people stick around once they have visited your blog is because of you.

Content is great, but anyone can write content. People are looking for personality, who you are and how you write needs to connect with what they are looking for.

Branding will only get you so far, but start building personal relationships and networking and you will be shocked by the opportunities that arise.

The Changes I Made

With the relaunching/rebranding of StandOutBlogger it wasn’t just the blog design that got an overhaul.

I completely changed the way that I interacted with everyone. I wanted to put a name and a face behind StandOutBlogger.

So I:

• Comment With Just My Name
  Every since I had started this blog, every comment I made on another blog was always ‘Tom | StandOutBlogger’ or ‘Tom@StandOutBlogger’ (if they used KeywordLuv). Everything needed the blog name on it.

  Now everywhere I comment, it is just ‘Thomas Sinfield’ – and if a blog has KeywordLuv, I don’t use it) I Want the bloggers to know that I am there to add value – not to try and drag their readers away to my site.

• Made Twitter More Personal
  I changed the background and icon from my logo to a photo of myself. I also included my name in my Twitter background. Previously people would have had no idea on Twitter if I was male/female or what age I was. Now with one simple change it shows everyone exactly who I am – and have you noticed how much easier it is to tweet with a face as opposed to a logo?
• Changed My Gravatar
  In the transition from logo of photo, I also made my Gravatar a nice little head shot of me.

I don’t know about you, but there is an increasing amount of spammy comments (and I am not just talking about the auto generated ones). I am talking about the commentators who just skim your content to pick up on key thoughts, so they look like they are leaving an educated comment – but in all seriousness they are just trying to get a link to their blog and a trickle of traffic.

So while I will approve comments that add value. Very rarely will I visit a commentators website, unless their name or a photo makes up part of their comments ( usually takes both).

Am I Saying Everyone Should Do This?

In a perfect world, ‘YES’. but in reality not everyone has the same goals. And while I am working on building community and credibility, other people are looking for traffic and profit (which funnily enough come when you have community and credibility).

But I think the main point I am trying to make, is that if you are interested in networking, then please give us something to work with? No one wants to communicate with a logo and a company/blog name!

Your Say: Blog Promotion vs Networking?

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe people do not care if they are communicating with a person or a brand. If you have something to add to this discussion, add your comments below.

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Have you ever felt like your goals just seem unattainable? I felt exactly the same, and this is how I went about fixing things (without lowering my expectations).

Goals Are Great.

Everyone should have them. But with everyone talking about dreaming big and setting BHAG’s (big, hairy, audacious goals), I think it can be easy to get overwhelmed in inaction and leave you 6 months down the track wondering why nothing has changed.

Does This Mean That We Should Give Up On Goals?

Of course not!

I know just like you that goals are important  if you really want to create change in any area of your life. But why is it that some people seem to create and grow and improve with such ease – smashing their goals, while the rest of us are left resetting our targets after we failed to achieve them once again.

Are we just dreaming?

You’re Dreaming Not Goal Setting

The thing that I have found is that the majority of people who say that they have goals, really don’t – they have dreams.

A dream is a goal without legs. Set something that will take you places.

They realise that to succeed and to move forward they need to set some goals. So they start writing their ‘wish list’ and then sit down and think, ‘ glad that is over, now I can get back to what I was doing.’

If you are serious about creating change in your life turn you dreams into goals by giving them some legs!

How To Give Your Dreams Some Legs

But how do you make sure you are not going to wake up to find that your dreams were just that, dreams. What is it going to turn your dreams in goals that are going to lead you in the direction your are pursuing?

Stepping Stones…

I know it sounds simple, but the easiest way is to break your dream into smaller, more manageable chunks.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, sometimes our goals can seem unattainable – and that is what stops us from pursuing them.

So Take Your Big Goal And Break It Down

For me, I have some massive goals personally and for this blog. In this post I will stick with my blogging goals; let me share just two of them.

1. I will have 5,000 people on my email lists by the end of 2011.
2. I will make $100,000 through my blogs in 2011.

I don’t know how you are with big goals, but these ones really scare me!

The first thing that I always do when I write down my goals is think about where I currently am (in relation to those goals) and instantly feel like I am drowning.
Is it just me? Or do you get the same feeling?

So Let’s Start To Break These Goals Down

Ok, if I am planning on having 5,000 people on my email lists by the end of 2011 and I currently have about 500 subscribers that means I need 4,500 more subscribers in the next 17 months.

I’m not sure about you, but 4,500 is a little bit too big of a number for me to grasp at the moment, so what I decided to do was break it down.

4,500 in 17 months, equals 264 subscribers a month. Or 8 a day.

Now which goals seems more manageable? 4,500 subscribers in 17 months, or 8 each day? My goal feels so much more attainable when it is broken down to a daily target.

And since I added Popup Domination to this blog I have actually been averaging over 8 new subscribers a day (just from this blog).

By breaking it down to a daily target it is easy to keep track of and allows you to map out your journey towards your goal – which means that you can see when you are missing your target, so that you can reassess and fix on a daily basis.

Well, that one is sorted, I just need to continue to get 8 new subscribers a day  and I will have 5,000 subscribers by the end of 2011, but what about my $100,000 goal?

This is the one that really scares me! $100k broken down over a year $8,333 a month! Now currently I am averaging about $3k a month so I have 17 months to practically triple my current monthly income – tell me a job that you can increase your salary that quick!

Let’s break it down again…

$100,000 in a year equals $8,333/month or $274/day!

Now I know the daily target worked for my last goal, but making $274 from my blogs each and every day still feels unattainable to me – so I need to break it down further.

Set Smaller Targets

Now I have 17 months to reach my goal, but in reality the goal is only for the 12 months in 2011. That means I have the next 5 month to set myself up into a position that will give me the best chance of achieving my goal.

I Will Have A $5,000 Month By The End Of 2010!

I know that if I can build my online income up to a level of $5k a month by the end of 2010, I will put myself in a great position to smash my 2011 goal.

Obviously I will have to put strategies into place to make sure that my income is continually increasing. I will need to set traffic goals and content creation goals. I will be creating new products and working on ways to make my current ones more profitable – but I will only continue to do this as long as my goals stay within reach.

Continually Reassess Your Targets

Now that you are starting to break down your goals, so that they are measurable on a consistent basis, you are giving yourself the opportunity to know where you stand in relation to your final destination.

This means that you will know if you are on track to meet, exceed or fall short and this allows you the chance to reassess your goals.

If you think you are going to fall short, is there anything you can do to make sure that you meet your targets? If you are on track to smash your goal then realign your goal higher and push it further.

The most important thing is that you do not get swamped by your massive goals, but you begin to start taking action towards them with small stepping stones.

What Are Your Goals? And How Are You Making Sure You Achieve Them?

My FREE e-course will show you the 7 Things Every Successful Blogger Has!

What You Need To Get Started:

• A Domain Name
• Blog Hosting
• Start Building A List
• Successful Blogging E-Course (FREE)

I am starting to get this question a lot, and it is becoming more frequently from my offline friends as they see my Facebook status’ and or ask me what I do to make a living.

When they hear that I am making about $3,000 a month blogging I always get two questions:

1. Is It Hard To Make Money Blogging?

This is probably the hardest question to answer because it is different for each person. But my answers is always that to start blogging for money it is not HARD it is just A LOT of work.

Blogging for money is not a get rich quick scheme, it is like anything, if you follow a proven system then work the system and you will get the result – but a lot of people think they know better or give up before the results start to show.

2.  Can You Teach Me How To Start Blogging For Money?

If you want more personal teaching from me then make sure you are signed up for my ‘7 Traits Of A Successful Blogger e-course‘.

This is something that really irks me. You see, I run a blog about building a successful blog and people come to me personally and ask if I can take the time to teach them how to start blogging for money. How about you just start reading my blog?

You see, the reason I don’t personally teach individual people is because then I am only helping one person – and I don’t see that as a good use of my time (don’t get me wrong, I really do want you to start blogging successfully). But I can reach so many more people through my blog and my email list – so that is how I choose to teach people.

Now that doesn’t mean don’t contact me. If you have a more specific question in regard to your blogging – I’d love to hear from you. But if you are just starting out, all of the answers are in my free e-course and in this blog – so just start looking.

I’m No Overnight Success

How I Started To Blog Successfully

Are you willing to blog for a couple of years with no profit?

Ever since I recently made public how much money I make from my blogs, a lot of friends are asking me how quickly they can make $3,000 a month – almost as if it is going to happen overnight.

Blogging has been a massive journey over more than 3 years (and the majority of those 3 years I was working about 30-40hours a week on my blog for pocket money (about $50-100 a month) – but no one wants to know about the hard times.

The Steps That I Took To Start Blogging

You don’t have to shell out hundreds of dollars on blogging books, I never did. For me my blog training was ‘on the job’.

I wanted to learn how to make money online so I purchased a domain name, got myself some blog hosting and then started writing – and to be honest, looking back at some of my early content, I was terrible. But enough people started to subscribe to my blog and I made the odd small affiliate sale, that I knew that this could work – now I just had to work out how to turn my little blog into an influential platform and start make more money blogging.

I Became A Student To Those Already Doing It

Watch bloggers that are where you want to be and ask yourself what are they doing differently? Do that!

Now I never made contact with any of the bloggers that I looked up to, but what I did was watch everything that they did. I wanted to know what worked for them and the things that they were doing to to gain influence, traffic and money – because if I could just duplicate a small percentage of their success, then I would have been happy.

I Implemented What I Saw Was Working

The majority of bloggers know exactly how to start blogging for money- it really isn’t  a secret code. As I mentioned earlier, blogging is a system and all you have to do is work the system and if you are stick around long enough, you will start to see the results you were looking for.

The problem with most people is that they know what works, but they do the opposite (I was exactly the same), but once I started to put all the elements of a successful blog into play, I started to get ‘successful blog results’.

Here is what I did…

How To Start Blogging For Money

I Focused On Search Engine Traffic

Don’t get me wrong. I love social media traffic as much as the next person. But the one thing I have found is that while the majority of traffic had been coming from social means (Twitter, StumbleUpon, blog commenting), the majority of money was being made from my older posts that were starting to get good ranking in the search engines.

So I started to optimise my posts for search engine traffic.

I Focused On What Worked For Me Personally

The best products to promote are those that you actually use yourself. There is much more integrity in this

Have you ever noticed how the majority of blogs have the exact same ads and promote the exact same products (and we wonder why most blogs make no money).

Instead of following the crowd, I decided to test promoting different products to see which ones converted best for me – and I still do this. The funny thing is that the products and services that convert the best for me are products that rarely see promoted by other blogs in my niche (funny that!)

The main marketplaces that I use to find products to promote are:

• Clickbank - Mainly information products
• Commission Junction (CJ) – Products & Services

But don’t just scour these marketplaces for products. The one thing that has worked for me, is to promote products and services that I actually use. There is such an integrity when you can post screenshots and results from your actual use of a product.

I Focused On Building An Email List

A quality email list is like money in the bank. If you can start to capture the visitors of your blog and funnel them into your email list using a quality free product then eventually this is going to be earning more money for you than anything else on your blog.

I am actually working on a new blog that is solely based around it’s email list and I can see it quickly stealing the largest percentage of my blogging income. Start building an email list!

I never really took this point seriously and it showed in the profit that I was making from my list. I wasn’t converting effectively, my free product was poor and not monetized correctly – I was a complete mess!

But recently (after watching another of my blogging mentors), I have started to see once again how effective and important your email list is and COMPLETELY REWORKED my ‘7 Traits of a Successful Blogger‘ e-course which now is extremely professional and has some fantastic content (oh, and it is well monetized – signup to check it out!)

I Utilized Social Media

Now I know that I said at the start that search traffic converts better than social traffic, but that doesn’t mean we should ditch social media at all. Any traffic is good traffic!

Social media in reality is just networking and all about building and nurturing relationships.

Here are some of the social media tools and strategies I use:

• I Comment When I Have An Opinion

  There are millions upon millions of blogs in existence and I am sure that you are probably following a few of them. One of the best advertisements for your blog is an intellectual and ‘value adding’ comment on another blog.

• I Make Use Of Twitter

  Twitter has become extremely spammy and the majority of people just use it to promote, promote promote. The problem with this is that people start to ignore your tweets like a kids blocks out a constantly nagging parent.

  The best use of Twitter is what it was created for – to network. So ask and answer questions, sprinkle links in from time to time, but focus on relationships and people will search your links out.

• I Use Facebook To Funnel Traffic & Subscribers

  Did you realise that Facebook was bigger than Twitter? Most people do. So why do most bloggers have a Twitter account but not a Facebook fan page?

  With the use of facebook landing pages and the viral effect that groups and fan pages can have, you would be crazy not to set up a fan page for your blog.

Those 4 things are what took me from an average blogger to a profitable blogger, so if you are wondering how to start blogging for money then start putting these 4 steps into practice and you will be well on your way!

My FREE e-course will show you the 7 Things Every Successful Blogger Has!

I put the question out to my readers,’What is stopping your blog from success?‘ and wanted to take the time to address the response from Julian from Corner Paradise:

For me it’s finding the necessary time to blog…

This is a problem that the majority of bloggers face more than they would be happy to admit. So I wanted to tackle the topic head on, with my list of:

5 Ways To Find Time To Blog

1. Make The Time

Have you ever noticed how busy everyone seems to always be? Unless things are scheduled into peoples days, they are easily forgotten or become neglected. So if you have a diary, block out an hour each day as your ‘blogging time’ this can be anytime during the day – just set the time and do everything else around it.

You can’t honestly tell me that your life is so busy that every single  one of 24 hours in your day filled by necessities?

2. Turn Off The Television

Following on from my last point, one of the reasons that people say that they have no time is because their day is filled with a lot of little things that are not really that important. Tell me one person for which the television saved a persons life! It is purely entertainment (and usually meaningless entertainment at that).

So do yourself a favour, turn the TV off and put that time into your blog.

3. Become Accountable To Someone

Have you ever noticed that if you tell yourself that you are going to get something done there is a good chance that it is not going to happen, but if you find someone that you trust that you tell that you are going to do something – you will make the time because you don’t want to be seen as a failure in the eyes of someone you trust.

Find someone you trust and ask if you can be accountable to them with your blogging frequency.

4. Gather For The Winter

There will be days when you have a lot of free time and other days when you will have none. They key is to use the time that you have, so if you have extra time – write extra posts. This will give you spare draft posts sitting there waiting for the times that you want to post to your blog, but don’t have the time.

Are you making the most of the days where you have extra time?

5. Blog Your Passion

And when it call comes down to it, if your blog is about your passion you will make the time to write! So if you are struggling to find the time to blog, maybe it is time to step back and think – ‘Am I really in the right niche?’. Because if you aren’t passionate about what you blog about, not only will you get distracted by the smallest things, but the lack of passion will show in your posts….

And who wants to read a passionless blog?

So now what is your excuse for not having time to blog? If you want to blog, you will make the time.

My FREE e-course will show you the 7 Things Every Successful Blogger Has!

Michael Dunlop, the creator of Popup Domination was kind enough to let me trial his new WordPress plugin on my blogs for the last couple of days so that I would be able to do a more detailed review/case study for it’s launch today. Here is my experience.

So let’s start at the beginning,

What is Popup Domination?

Popup Domination is a premium WordPress plugin that allows you to create some of the best looking light box popups that are proven to increase opt-in email list conversion on your blogs.

What Do They Actually Look Like?

Well you should have already experienced the one that I have created for StandOutBlogger so let me show you one that I have created for a brand new blog (where I am signing people up for a product that I haven’t even created yet).

I added the Popup Domination plugin onto my blog WebsiteBuildr.com on Saturday morning, and since then I have only had 17 unique visitors (brand new blog) and I have already had 2 opt-ins through the popup! That is over 10% conversion!

However, this is just one of the 4 different popup styles, here is another one that Michael personally uses on his blog:

As you can see, the light box plugins are extremely eye catching and look nothing like the spammy popups that people find annoying.

So How Has It Performed On StandOutBlogger?

As I mentioned earlier, Michael has allowed me to access this plugin before it launches, and that has given me the opportunity to test it out on StandOutBlogger to see if I can replicate his ‘300% increase in conversion‘ for myself.

List Building Has Always Been Difficult For Me

I am going to be completely honest and say that I have always had trouble converting traffic into subscribers on my blogs. Last year since the introduction of my email course I have only had a trickle of new subscribers each week. I think my previous record was 5 new subscribers in one week, and considering I was average about 200 visitors a day – this was pretty abysmal. This is why I was so excited to test out Popup Domination to see if it was my product on my method that was failing.

Turns out it was my method:

Remember how I said that I only added Popup Domination on Saturday morning (two days ago)?

Well I am sure that I don’t have to point out the dramatic difference that this plugin has made to my email list conversion.

The way Popup Domination has converted so far, I will double my list in a few short weeks!

Imagine if you were adding 10 new subscribers a day (now I know Michael is pulling 100 a day), but if you are just starting out with list building – 10 new subscribers a day equals 3,650 subscribers in 12 months time! If you are not making good money off a list of that size then you need to take a look at the way you are promoting to you list!

You Are Not Going To Annoy Your Regular Readers!

If you are worried about frustrating your regular readers by having your new  popup displaying each time they visit – don’t stress. Michael thought this one through, and you can set the amount of days before your light box popup shows to that same reader again. It is automatically set at 7 days, but you can change this to whatever you prefer.

But How Hard Is It To Set Up?

Popup Domination installs just like any other WordPress plugin – easily. And I know Michael claims that you will have your light box popup set up and running on your blog in 2 minutes, well maybe I am slow, but it probably took me a little closer to 5. But the main thing is that it is incredibly simple to set up your popup!

There is no coding involved at all, to create your popup you paste the code that your autoresponder (I use Aweber) gives you in a text box, choose the popup style and colours that you want and then fill in the text boxes with the text and bullet points that want to use. Oh, and if you choose the one that includes an image, then you just have to upload the image from your computer (and it will automatically be re-sized for you!).

This is incredibly beginner friendly!

You Need This Plugin!

I don’t usually give such raving reviews, but as you can see by results so far, Popup Domination will be a game changer for your blogging career!

You may have noticed that all the probloggers are starting to focus on building email lists, and the reason is simply that ‘responsive email lists make money‘ and the bigger you can grow your list the better it will be for you.

One of my goals is to be a top 10 affiliate for a product launch by the end of 2011 – I can now see this becoming a reality as I know my email list will continue to grow thanks to Popup Domination.

How Much Does It Cost?

This is a premium WordPress plugin, and considering the results that I have achieved in such a short period of time, as well as Michael’s results of 300% increase (which he shares on the Popup Domination sales page) it does have a cost attributed to it.

But it is not expensive, at just $37 I personally believe that it is costing you money each day that you DO NOT buy it.

So what I recommend you do, is head over to the Popup Domination website and watch the video that Michael has created which explains a little bit more about how it works, as well as shares his personal experiences with Popup Domination, and if you honestly believe that it will not be of benefit to you, then don’t buy it!

But, if you are serious about making money blogging, and are looking to optimise your list building, then I cannot recommend Popup Domination enough!

My FREE e-course will show you the 7 Things Every Successful Blogger Has!

As you may already know, I have only recently created a Facebook page for StandOutBlogger (you should become a fan!) and I created a tutorial about How To Create A Facebook Page For Your Blog.

Now that post was given a lot of love by my readers so I wanted to show you all how you can drastically improve you Facebook marketing by creating a landing page for your blogs Facebook page (and I have even included the final PSD file- so if you have Photoshop you can easily edit my design to suit your Facebook landing page).

Why You Need A Facebook Landing Page

When you create a Facebook page for your blog first time visitors are greeted by your wall (which is full of your latest comments), which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is not ideal.

The best thing for conversion of fans is a Facebook landing page.

A Facebook landing page is simply just a page that gives new visitors a quick overview of who you are and what you do, and then directs them what to do next.

Here Is The Facebook Landing Page We Will Be Making With This Tutorial

(click to view full size)

As you can see it has a lot of information without being messy. I a couple of seconds new visitors can find out:

• Who I am (Picture makes it personal)
• What I Do (And why they should become a fan)
• Logo (Build your brand from the start)
• Call To Actions (‘LIKE’ the page, or sign up for your email list)\

And the best thing is, that if you have Adobe Photoshop, I have included the final PSD at the end of this tutorial so you don’t have to start from scratch (you can just edit the template and upload it to your Facebook page).

Facebook Landing Page Tutorial

Start With A Blank Canvas

I did the measurements and found that the best size for a Facebook landing page image is 770px wide x 450px high. Feel free to mess around with those numbers, but that is what worked for me.

So open a new canvas and start with a white background. (no need for an image for this step!)

Part 1. Creating The ‘LIKE’ Page Call To Action

Select The Rectangle Tool From The Toolbar

Create Thin Rectangle Across The Top Of The Canvas

Add The Facebook ‘Like’ Button

To get the Facebook ‘Like’ button, you can either go to a Facebook page and take a screenshot, then cut it out. Or you can do a Google search to see if you can find one (also, it is included in the PSD at the bottom).

Paste and resize the button to fit inside your rectangle.

Download Hand Drawn Arrows File

The whole point of the like button on the landing page is to encourage visitors to click the real button that is above. A great way to accentuate this point is to include an arrow. I found a great selection of vector arrows created by DragonArtz.net. Download them and open them in Photoshop.

Open the downloaded file in Photoshop and select the one that you like best. Cut it out (it has transparent background) and paste onto you landing page canvas.

Change Colour, Rotate and Flip Arrow Into Place

Now you are probably not going to want the blue colour for the arrow (it definitely conflicts with the dark grey), so go to blending options for the arrows layer and and select colour overlay. Select colour to suit your corporate colours.

Then press Control + T to transform the arrow to be the right size, and face the right way.

Add Text  – And Space Around Button

I used the font ‘Aller’ at size 18, but feel free to try out different fonts and wording.

And that finishes off the top bar, let’s get into the rest of the Facebook landing page!

Part 2. Adding Your Branding

This next step is setting up the images that will show people what the page is for (and who is behind it). So we are talking about the logo and picture of you!

Adding Your Logo

Paste your logo onto the canvas and place it in the top left corner under the banner that you just created.  Scale to a reasonable size.

Time For People To See You!

If your business or website relies or being personal then I highly recommend that you add a photo of yourself. If you are a bit camera shy, feel free to add a image of your website or your products or services.

1. Paste the image of yourself onto the canvas and resize to fit vertically between the bottom of your logo and bottom of the canvas.

2. Add a Drop Shadow – change settings to suit your preferences.

3. Rotate the image - this makes the image stand out better.

The Facebook landing page is coming together nicely! We will now move onto the main content which will tell people who you are and why they should connect with you.

Part 3. Adding The Content Box

Add Rectangle Shape

Just like the rectangle we added at the start but this time we are creating a much deeper one.

Choose a colour that once again matches your branding (I prefer a very light colour) and position the layer behind your photo.

Add Style To Your New Box

To the rectangle box I then go into ‘Blending Options’ and add a drop shadow (the same as on the photo) and a 1 px stroke. The stroke colour should be a darker version of the box colour.

Add Your Blurb

This is just basic typography, but to give you an idea of what I did, I used the font ‘Antipasto’ at size 18.

You will also notice that I left aligned the text blog, but tabbed the lines out to follow the photo.

Creating A Signature

I love the idea of having a ‘hand written’ signature at the bottom of my blurb as it just gives that additional touch of personalisation. I made the signature colour a dark blue to look like a blue ballpoint pen.

To get the scripted look I used the font ‘Jersey Stories!’ at font size 80.

Rotate The Signature For Effect

Now it is really beginning to look like a landing page, the only thing we have left now is an offer that will convert people to your email list.

Presenting Your Offer

I specifically left right hand side of the Facebook landing page free, so that I would have room to place an offer to help convert people to my email list.

Tell People What To Do

Obviously we want people to sign up to our email list, so let’s tell them to.

I simply used a font called ‘Kozuka Gothic Pr6N’ in bold at 24 point font (but once again select fonts that you like). I did the first layer in the same dark gray as the top banner, and then dupilicated the layer and made the second layer orange and lightly moved it up and to the left to show the dark gray layer as a stroke.

Detail What Is On Offer

Now they know what to do, you need to tell them what they are signing up for. So if you have a free product or service you give to new subscribers then detail that in a few words.

Show The Product

Most people are visually persuaded, and that is why I created a cover design for my ecourse. If you have something similar then paste and scale your image below your offer.

Add A Signup Button

All you need to finish off your Facebook landing page is a button to tell people to sign up for your offer. While the truth is that the whole image will be link to your sign up page, people need to be directed (you can’t expect them to know what you want them to do)

Now I don’t bother creating buttons from scratch because there are so many pre-made one already available online. I personally get my buttons from Button-Download.com – they have a huge selection I like their style.

Select the one that you want on your landing page and click the ‘PSD’ link to download.

Open Button & Edit To Suit

This will come to personal preference, but I changed the text on the button to ‘Get It Now’ because people want the product, they don’t want to sign up.

Once you have done that paste it into your design and you are done!

To learn how to install this image and link it through to your signup page please read my tutorial on ‘How To Create A Facebook Page For You Blog‘.

Download The Template PSD

To see this Facebook landing page in action visit the StandOutBlogger Facebook page (and don’t forget to ‘Like’ it while you are there!)

If you liked this post, then would you please share it through the links below.

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All of us are at different levels with their blogs. Some of use are getting a heap of traffic but not money. Others can convert like crazy on the traffic they get (but can’t work out how to get more visitors).

We all have hurdles that are stopping us from taking our blogs up to the next level, but I want to know what it is for you personally!

So What Is Stopping Your Blog From Success?

• Creating Quality Content
• Finding The Time To Blog
• Being Unique In Your Niche
• Getting More Visitors
• Converting Your Visitors To Subscribers
• Making Money From Your Blogs
• ??????

I want you to fill in the blank (by commenting), and share with me what you believe is stopping your blog from becoming what you want and know it can become.

This will help me direct my content focus to more of what you want.

My FREE e-course will show you the 7 Things Every Successful Blogger Has!

I had always been open to the thought of accepting guest posts from fellow bloggers on StandOutBlogger but surprisingly I never seemed to get than many offers.

This shocked me, because I saw newer blogs such as Famous Bloggers get a lot (and  I mean a lot!) of guest posts on a regular basis.

The reason for my lack of guest post requests alluded me until the launch of my new blog design.

You see, in the header of my redesign I included a link in the navigation titled ‘Become An Author‘ (but hadn’t actually created the page to go with it).That was about a week ago – and already I have had 2 requests for guest posts!

Then I Realised…

I’d Never Said I Accepted Guest Posts

The reason I wasn’t getting people asking if they could write for my blog was because I never made it know that I wanted people to!

It is definitely a lesson learnt.

If you want your visitors to do something then you can’t expect them to be psychic – tell them what you want and you will get what you want (and make it easier for those who are looking.

So what do you want from your visitors but aren’t telling them?

Oh, and by the way, I’ve updated the ‘Become an Author‘ page, so if you are looking to guest post head over and check it out!

My FREE e-course will show you the 7 Things Every Successful Blogger Has!

I just wanted to clear up a couple of things when it comes to purchasing the SEO software Market Samurai.

Quite a few people are coming to my blog through the keyword ‘Market Samurai promo code‘ (well that is what the SEO Power Plugin is telling me) and probably leave straight away – obviously when they find out that I don’t have a promo code for them to use.

The Truth Is…’There Is No Market Samurai Promo Code!’

It’s true!

But wait, before you go and buy the full version for the recommended price of $149, there is a simple way to save 35% (or $52) off the RRP – which means it is just $97!

How?

All you have to do to access this discount is to signup for a trial of Market Samurai and purchase the software within the first 6 days of signing up.

It is really that simple, so don’t fall for marketers trying to give you a Market Samurai promo code because:1. They don’t exist & 2. you don’t need them.

All You Have To Do Is:

1. Just sign up for a trial

2. Take Market Samurai for a test drive for a couple of days

3. Purchase within 6 days of signing up (to take advantage of the $97 discounted price)

**NOTE**

For those of you wondering if they do actually jack up the price after the 6 days, they do. First to $127 and then to the full price of $147. So make sure that if you test out Market Samurai and love it – get it in the first 6 days.

My FREE e-course will show you the 7 Things Every Successful Blogger Has!

One thing that I never realised was that all the people that had unsubscribed from your Aweber email lists were still counted as part of your total subscribers when bill time comes around. And since Aweber account prices are based on the amount of subscribers you have – this could be costing you money each month.

I was looking at all my email lists and found out that I had 391 people who had unsubscribed from my email list – it that pushed me over the next price bracket it could be costing be an additional $10-80 a month (depending on which price bracket I was in).

But don’t start stressing, there is an easy way to remove all the emails that have unsubscribed and I will show you (with screenshots) in this tutorial.

(For this tutorial I will be using an email list for my brothers Architecture company Archilads which has 79 unsubscribers)

Removing Unsubscribed Emails From Your Aweber List

1. Select List & Search Subscribers

The first thing you want to do is make sure you have selected the email list that you you to remove the Aweber subscribers from. After you have done this, head to the top right of the page and put your mouse over the ‘subscribers‘ tab and select ‘search‘.

2. Select Unsubscribe And Save

From the drop down menu, select ‘Unsubscribed‘ and then click the ‘search’ button (but double check you have unsubscribed selected, because it would be terrible if you deleted the subscribers that want to hear from you).

3.Select All In The Erase Column

Now just clicking delete doesn’t work with this segment, so you have to select the ‘erase all‘ check box (which is the blue one!) and it will select all the subscribers on that page. Now if you have hundreds of unsubscribers then you may need to repeat this process a couple of times because Aweber only shows a maximum of 100 per page.

4. Save Selection (Delete)

This is it, once you click save, those unsubscribed emails will not longer be a part of your list! So click ‘save’ (because it is going to save you money – sorry for the bad joke!)

Just To Prove It Worked:

So there you go, quite a simple process but if you didn’t know about it (like I didn’t) then it could save you some money each month.

Don’t Use Aweber?

Aweber is the list building tool that I use and recommend.If you are not already building an email list, then head over to Aweber and take advantage of their special offer of the first month for just $1.

My FREE e-course will show you the 7 Things Every Successful Blogger Has!