Have you seen those animated adverts, where the text seamlessly moves along path? In this tutorial we are going to learn how to create a sequence that involves text animating along a custom path using the first margin text property. A custom path is a vector path that is drawn freehand using the pen tool in After Effects.

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Tutorial

Step 1

Create a new composition

The first thing we are going to do is create a composition; this is the canvas you will create your animation on. To manually create a composition, you need to do the following.

Choose New Composition.

New composition window.

This will open the composition dialog box. The options on the basic tab will allow you to set up the preset,
width, height, aspect ratio, frames per second, start code and duration for your animated sequence.

With the dialog box open apply the following settings:

Preset: PAL D1 / DV

Width and height: 720 X 576

Aspect Ratio: D1/ DV PAL 1.09

Resolution: Full

Start Timecode: 0.00.00.00

Duration: 0.00.030.00

Depending on your output, you may want to set up the first 4 settings at other standard settings, for example for Northern American broadcast media or for the Web.

So now our sequence will run for 30 seconds.

Step 2

Changing background color of the composition.

To change the background color you need to do the following:

Choose Background color.

This will open the color picker dialog box.

The color picker dialog box.

Click OK to choose a color for your background. With your cursor move around within the color space to pick a color, when you have chosen your color click ok to accept this.

 

Step 3

Creating text for the animation.

Using the text tool type out a word on the stage.

Choose the font and size using the character palette.

The character palette.

Step 4

Creating the path for the animation

With the text layer selected, select the pen tool draw a path for the text to follow.

 

Make sure that
Rotobezier check box in the tool palette, is selected, this allows you to draw a smooth path.

 

Twirl down the text option to reveal the path options.

Select Mask 1 for the path, this is the path you have just created. Now the text is automatically
linked to that path.

Step 5

Animating text the path

With the play back at the start of the time line, create a keyframe for the first margin property.

For this property set the stopwatch and drag the word to the beginning of the path by dragging the slider value for the first margin property.

Drag the play back head further down the timeline set a keyframe for the last margin property, drag the slider value for the for the first margin property so that the so the text moves to the end
of the path.

 

Move the play back head to the start of the animation and scrub through the timeline. You should now
see your animated text animating along a path.

I’ve added some extra graphics and text in addition to the animated text.

Hope you have found this tutorial useful.

For the beginner, the blog learning curve can be steep. As well as all the technical and blog visibility issues, there are questions about focus, content types and research, and of course reaching readers.

You’re plugging away, day after day, and getting little in the way of recognisable success. How can you stay motivated during what can be a very trying time? Here are the techniques I use.

1. Do what you love.

Staying motivated is a whole lot easier when you’re constantly thinking about, and dealing with, the topic you blog about. If you love your topic, you’ll find it easier to think up content ideas, engage with readers, and establish a warm and welcoming voice that encourages rapport and develops readership.

2. Take it one step at a time.

When you start a blog, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the things you feel you should be doing to help it grow. Realise up front that your blog isn’t likely to be an overnight super-success and pace yourself. Instead of focusing on what you haven’t done yet, spend time each week assessing the things you have done, and considering ways to build on those results.

If you’re going to avoid burnout, you need to be kind to yourself. Otherwise, it’s all too easy to tell yourself it’s too hard, you don’t have time, and to give up.

3. Plan, plan, plan.

If you haven’t already, develop a flexible, but clear plan of attack for building up your blog’s content and reach. A focused plan will help you to keep your expectations of yourself in check, and to test and assess the results of what you do.

This kind of periodic review will give you information that you can feed back into your efforts to make each new promotional approach more successful, and helps you avoid the must-do-everything-now, scattergun approach that quickly exhausts even the most motivated blogger.

As you plan, you’ll likely identify some easy wins — things that you expect will be fulfilling or gratifying on some level. Perhaps these are tasks that will pull in a lot of readers, or maybe you just know you’ll really enjoy doing them. Try to space these jobs so that when the going gets tough, you know you have a favourite task just around the corner. This can make a big difference to your motivation over time.

4. Allow for downtime.

Once you’ve got a plan, fit some downtime into it. Make sure you’re not always operating at breakneck speed, or that if you are, it’s only for a short, manageable period. Be sure to build in time out for family and friends, and to be flexible about your schedule.

Above all, let yourself really enjoy that time off — don’t spend it guiltily obsessing about all the things you should be doing to build your blog.

5. Realise that everyone has bad days.

It’s true. Some of us even have bad weeks! And months. It doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel or that you don’t have what it takes. Of course you have it — the thing is, you need to manage it to get the most out of it. If you have a bad day, don’t beat yourself up. Accept that this is part of life.

If you feel like giving up, let yourself feel it. Stare your discomfort in the face and see if there isn’t some way you can overcome it, or work around it, and make your blog better in the process. After all, necessity is the mother of invention. Sometimes, it’s the thin end of the wedge that gives us the impetus to innovate solutions that make our blogs — and our work on them — infinitely more enjoyable.

These are the main ways I keep motivated about blogging. What kinds of techniques do you use?

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

Avoid Blogger Burnout: 5 Tips to Save Your Sanity

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Delivery is the New It Thing

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

if you’re looking for a way to differentiate your business or products and create a killer competitive advantage you may not have to look any farther than how you delivery of your products and services.

Now, delivery is a fabulously flexible term when applied to business, so I use it here to talk about physical deliver of goods as well as digital delivery or information and even delivery of consulting or plumbing services.

I’ve done a fair amount of polling of late trying to find out why people choose one company over another and I have to tell you that while good service and cool products rate high – convenience is number one every time.

People will pay a premium to get what they want the way they want. While there’s a plethora of free, often dubiously packaged, information and tools available on the web, people are snapping up web apps that package and deliver that same information in a way that works for the user. The growth of paid web apps is a sure sign that people want things that work on their device, in their workflow, and on their schedule.

I’ve published a free podcast for years. You can get it on iTunes for free with a single click. Recently, I packaged it as an iPhone app, cuz everyone’s doing it, and priced it at $2.99. You can still get the free version, but hundreds have chosen to pay for the iPhone version because they prefer that form of delivery.

Here’s my message – figure out how to deliver your product or service in a format that few people have considered. Package your products in boxes that make people notice. Deconstruction how your industry has always delivered consulting services and figure out how to install a system.

More than anything, figure out how to make everything you do easier for the ideal customer and build your entire marketing message around the way you deliver the goods. You need a core delivery strategy!

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There are some things that you probably shouldn’t ever shoot without. For me, my prized tools are my skateboard and gaffer’s tape. For you, they may be something else. Here is a small list of some things that have been very useful on the shoots that I have been on.

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Gaffer’s Tape

Long gone are the days of when I used duct tape for everything, I have since seen the light. If you have never used Gaffer’s tape, it is far superior, stick nicely to the things you need, and doesn’t leave any annoying residue when you take it off. The tape itself is actually made of a cloth type material, and is very strong. Helps for if you need to fix a broken light stand, attach a component to your camera, or tape down a green screen. It runs a little more pricey than duct tape, but a roll of this will save you hours of picking goop off of your tools afterward.

Dry Erase Board

If you are shooting short films, or have a lot of different shots for a commercial, you might want to invest in a slate. Or you could just hit the craft store and get a dry erase board and some markers for about a tenth of the price. This will make things easier on you when you bring your shots into your editor, and lets you identify them nice and easily.

Flashlight or LED Keychain

This is definitely a little $2 piece that I use daily, even if I am not shooting. If you need to peek into your pack to find something, if its dark out and you left your lens cap in the grass, or if you just need a little bit of light to find the keyholes for a location, this will definitely save you a bout of frustration. Next time you are on your way to a shoot, pick one up at the cash register at the gas station, you will be amazed at how much you will turn to it.

Cushion for Knees, Elbows & Shoulders

You know those garderning foam mats your grandmother uses to kneel in the garden and trim her petunias? That is exactly what I am talking about. We all have to get that epic low shot, or change our perspective once in a while, and sometimes our tripod doesn’t go low enough. Throw a mat down underneath the part of your body that is taking the bulk of your weight…. and RELEIF! No more sore knees tomorrow!

Garbage Bags

No, they aren’t to carry your junk, but to aid as another thing to lay down on if you are getting a shot. You don’t want to be getting your threads all gunked up in the dirt, or after a fresh downpour… Just cut up a big garbage bag and lay it out flat. Weigh it down with some rocks nearby, and you will stay squeaky clean!

Skateboard or Inline Skates

This is definitly the poor man’s approach to a dolly/truck shot. But you can do a bit more than that. Just last week I did a few 360 orbit shots of some mopeds using nothing but my camera, an Ikan Superfly cage for grip, and my skateboard. Client thought the shots looked gorgeous and I wasn’t out a ton of money buying track. You might need to do some stabilization afterwards in post, but at least you can get the genral movement of the shot.

3 Prong to 2 Prong Plug Converter and Extension Cords

How many times have you had an extension cord, and there are only 2 prong outlets available on a power strip? You’re camera is out of batteries and you still have an hour of shooting left? Well, no more wasting time… just grab a couple of these at the hardware store, and attach them to everything with a 3 prong head on it. You will never, ever run into this situation ever again with a 3 prong to 2 prong adapter.

Laptop & Appropriate Cables and Card Readers

There are a couple of reasons why you will want to have this on hand. One, your client might really want to see that shot blown up, and you might want to check your focus, light and such on a larger screen if you don’t have a monitor available. Second, if you work with card based cameras, you might run out of room and have to unload your media onto your hard drive to shoot more footage past the capacity of your memory cards. You never know when you might forget to hit STOP RECORD on one of the best shots of the day.

Fans

If you shoot a lot of green screen, or studio production, you will notice that your talent tends to get very heated under those lights. Give them a small personal fan, or have some box fans at the studio to circulate the air so everyone stays happy. Overheated actors are not happy actors… leads to frustration, flustration, and overall sweating, which is never good looking on video.

Leatherman & Other Tools

It’s always smart to have pliers, screwdriver and a pocket knife available for a multitude of tasks. You might need to tighten a light stand, your tripod legs, screw the shoe into your camera, or whatever. You never want to get caught without a means to fix your set when a problem presents itself.

Big Carboard Box Painted White

This will serve three very different purposes. One, it will act as a white balance card. Second, you can bounce light onto a subject, and third you can block light for a subject. Make sure you grab one of those really big boxes (non-glossy) for something like funiture, break it down and tape the ends together so it won’t un-collapse. Then grab a can of white spray paint and put a few coats on it. Viola! You didn’t have spend $50 on a 5-in-1 (although I do recommend having something like that for diffusion.)

Extra Batteries

I can’t stress enough how important enough battery life is, especially if you aren’t going to be able plugin to AC power anywhere. Things like lavalier mics always suck the life out of 9 volt batteries, and your camera can never have enough batteries packed with it. If you can, pick up a battery extender (like this one for the T2i/550D) for your model of camera that takes AA batteries, and pick up a mondo pack of those from Costco if you are going to be out on shoot all day.

Hair Accessories

This is a huge pet peeve of mine, when an actor or actress has hair that hangs over their cheek and a strong light source, natural or not is casting a harsh shadow across their face. Sometimes you just have to give them a hair tie and tell them to pull it back. I Would keep some gel, hair spray, a couple hair clips and hair ties in your bag for just such an occasion.

Zip Ties and Scissors

If you need to bunch cords together, or fix a shirt with a buttom that just broke off… this will work for you. Use those along with scissors to cut the long annoying ends off and its a perfect combo. You can also use those scissors to cut stray threads from shirts that are obtrusive, and just some other general damage control.

Digital Camera

If you are a continuity nazi like I am, this will be a must especially if you talent likes to take frequent water breaks or sits down to rest. There is nothing worse than getting back to the edit suite after a long, tiresome day of shooting and having continuity errors. Use a simple digital camera, or the camera on your iPhone or other smartphone to take a snapshot at the end of the scene so you know where to pick up where you left off.

Powder

Shinyness on an talent’s face is never flattering. It will help if you have some powder from a place like BenNye.com, that you can powder your actor down when they are looking a little shiny. Get rid of those harsh speculars!

If you have some tools, tricks, or maneuvers that you use when you are out on a shoot, we would love to know! Leave a comment below and let us know what your favorite was, or what you would add to the list!

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People often come to me as an expert at monetizing blogs. Although my experience making money online is not limited only to blogs, I’ve been able to extract a lot of income from not necessarily a lot of traffic.

For example, my proofreading business was able to generate a salary level income – sometimes as much as $15,000 in one month during peak season – from barely 100 unique visitors a day to the website. My card game site made $500 to $1,000 a month on 500 to 1,000 visitors a day, although this was before Google Analytics, so the “real” traffic numbers are likely less.

So what’s the secret to making money with blogs and getting the best return given less than stellar traffic? Read on and find out…

How Do Blogs Make Money?

Let’s look at how blogs make money. Whenever I’m asked that question I answer with the following three methods –

1. Advertising
2. Affiliate marketing
3. Selling products and services

You can make money with your blog by placing advertisements on it, by selling products as an affiliate where you earn a commission for each sale you refer, or by selling products and services of your own. There are many derivatives of these three methods, but at the top level, this pretty much covers it.

To break that down into more practical ideas, here are some of the ways bloggers currently make a living online.

• You can place Google Adsense advertisements on your blog
• Allow sponsors to pay you money for placing banners on your blog
• Go to a site like Clickbank and find a product you can write about and promote as an affiliate
• Create an ebook, set of audio or video CDs or DVDs, or home study course you sell them from your blog
• Launch a membership site and promote it via your blog
• Conduct a series of live webinars that you charge people money to attend
• Host your own seminar or workshop and sell tickets to it on your blog (and record it to make a DVD product you can sell)
• Add a shopping cart to your blog and source physical goods at wholesale you can sell at retail
• Provide consulting or coaching services and charge by the hour for your time

Other options to earn a return from your blog that doesn’t directly result in money in your pocket, but can eventually, and are definitely a benefit, include…

• Generating a well known brand, creating mass exposure for your name or what you do – and possibly become famous
• Invitations to speak at conferences and seminars
• An opportunity to publish a print book or several
• Consulting to large companies resulting possibly in employment opportunities or large retainer fees
• Free products to sample and review on your blog
• VIP or press access to industry only events and parties

Now you know how blogs make money in terms of concepts and some practical ideas to implement the concepts, next let’s take a look at some case studies of bloggers I’ve personally met or interviewed and how they have made money from their blogs.

Case Studies: These Bloggers Make Money

I’ll be as brief as I can with these explanations as I want to show you how diverse the ways bloggers make money by providing lots of examples. I’ve included some monthly income totals where possible, but the accuracy of the figures is very likely off, so don’t quote these as concrete numbers. Here we go…

Yaro Starak

Income: $20,000 to $50,000 a month
Niche: Blogging, Internet Marketing, Entrepreneurship
Blog: www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

I’ll start with my own example, since I know it best. I first started making good money with sponsors paying me to place banners and text links on my blog, which continues to this day (see my advertise page for details). Next I did affiliate marketing, initially starting with Perry Marshall’s products like his ebook and renaissance club, since I was studying his materials at the time. This lead to promoting all kinds of affiliate products and services, from Aweber to 1ShoppingCart, and then the big launches that occur in the Internet Marketing niche.

After two years of blogging I launched my own course, Blog Mastermind, then another Membership Site Mastermind, and another in partnership with Gideon Shalwick, the Become A Blogger Premium video course. Just this year I started doing elite coaching at a minimum of $5,000 a person.

You can hear more of my story from a presentation I did explaining my history via audio or video.

Frances Kerr

Income: $4,000 to $8,000 a month
Niche: Alternative Health, Skin Care, Acne Treatment
Blog: www.highonhealth.com

I worked very closely with Fran, helping her to grow her alternative health, acne treatment and skin care blog. She made money first with Google Adsense, though it wasn’t much. Next she started selling banners to sponsors and then reviewing affiliates products like ebooks and DVDs. After about 18 months she wrote her first ebook on acne treatment with food, which resulted in a steady income stream, which has continued to this day. Next she launched her own online store with a shopping cart and started selling physical goods like skin care creams and chocolate. She added a coaching program and membership site, a second ebook and does private consulting for an hourly fee.

You can hear Fran explain her entire story in this podcast interview I did with her.

Alborz Fallah

Income: $100,000+ a month
Niche: Cars
Blog: www.caradvice.com.au

Alborz and I used to work a part time job at the local university computer help-desk. This particular job had the luxury of lots of spare time, which I used to write some of the very first articles on my blog. Alborz saw me blogging and jumped on the bandwagon, leading to the creation of Car Advice.

I spoke to Alborz consistently over the years as his blog grew. It took some pestering, but I finally managed to convince him to try Google Adsense on his blog, which immediately resulted in $20 a day and quickly grew to over $100 a day, then $200. Next he started adding banners from car companies who sponsored the blog because they could see how well it was doing in search engines for terms related to their cars. A big change occurred when he took on investors, helping the site reach car manufacturers to test drive cars, which has led to Alborz driving some of the most exotic cars on this planet, including the Bugatti Veyron. With investors, next came staff writers and then corporate sponsorship deals, which is like selling banners on your blog, but instead you are cutting $30,000 campaign deals with a car manufacturer, rather than $100 a month for a small banner.

Car Advice is now much more than just Alborz, but continues to derive the majority of its income from advertising, though merchandising like DVDs and even possibly a television show are likely extensions of what started off as just a humble blog. You can hear more about the early days of Car Advice in an interview I did with Alborz back in 2008.

Miami Mitch

Income: $15,000+ a month (this need updating, I’m waiting for confirmation from Mitch)
Niche: Sports (began with College Football)
Blog: www.sportschatplace.com/

Mitch joined my Blog Mastermind coaching program during the very first intake in 2007 and immediately stood out as an action taker, attending virtually every coaching call we held, which he does even today three years since the program first opened (that’s value for money!). Mitch began with his passion for college football, starting CFBPlace (College Football Place) where he quickly established his authority at picking the winners of matches.

Like Alborz, Mitch was hesitant for a very long time to attempt to make money from his site, but recently started monetizing his blog. I don’t know the specifics, but I do know Mitch’s site earns income from affiliate programs, especially in relation to betting on sports (his site now has a team of writers who pick the winners of games). Advertising banners, some of which go to affiliate programs, are his main source of income, however he is going to launch a premium sports picks membership site, which will no doubt ramp up the income significantly.

When Mitch first got started I interviewed him to find out how he was able to rapidly increase his traffic in such a short period of time.

Leigh Peele

Income: $10,000+ a month (This is data from 2009, so she is no doubt doing different numbers now)
Niche: Fat Loss
Blog: www.leighpeele.com/

Leigh was also one of my very first Blog Mastermind and Membership Site Mastermind students, who really took my training and ran with it. Leigh monetizes her blog by selling an ebook via Clickbank called The Fat Loss Trouble Shooter and by offering members only sections on her blog. Access to parts of her blog are for members only, which she charges money to access.

Back in 2008 I interviewed Leigh when she was just starting to implement what she learned from my programs, where she explained how she went from $20 to $4,500 a month from her blog.

Will Hamilton

Income: $15,000 a month
Niche: Tennis
Blog: www.fuzzyyellowballs.com

Will Hamilton is a professional tennis coach who turned his knowledge and passion into a six figure income, combining his blog with an email list and using YouTube as the main source of marketing. He creates videos, uploads them to YouTube, drives the traffic from YouTube back to his blog (he puts the videos on his blog too), some of them opt-in to his newsletter, and he sells his membership site to make money. Last time I talked to him he had over 600 paying members who pay $25/month.

You can hear Will explain exactly how he does what he does in this in-depth interview I did with him in audio and video.

Tyrone Shum

Income: $10,000 a month
Niche: Outsourcing
Blog: www.tyroneshum.com

Tyrone Shum is another person who participated in both my Blog Mastermind and Membership Site Mastermind training programs. He was such a good action taker, he virtually copied whole parts of what I did – and it worked. Tyrone uses his blog, which is almost entirely made up of video blog posts (he puts them on YouTube as well of course), gets people to sign up to his newsletter by giving them an entire video course on outsourcing, then sells a monthly coaching program. He makes money from the coaching program, selling affiliates products and from banners sold on his blog.

Tyrone has an interesting entrepreneurial history, which you can listen to along with how he set up his current six figure business (in under a year!) in this interview I did with him for my podcast.

Pat Flynn

Income: $10,000+ a month
Niche: Architecture and Information Marketing
Blog: www.smartpassiveincome.com

Pat Flynn’s story is very inspirational. He lost his job as an architect during the global financial crisis. His blog was originally used simply as a store house for notes he was taking as he studied for a specific qualification called the LEED exam. Strangely enough, the blog took off because other people were searching for information about the LEED qualification and his notes showed up in search results. Eventually this lead to releasing an ebook, which was just a collection of his blog posts that Pat then sold from his blog. He quickly found himself making six figures a year. He used his success to start another blog about Internet marketing called Smart Passive Income and started making money by promoting affiliate products and later creating and selling iPhone applications.

Pat explained how he was so quickly able to go from newly fired from his job to making $200,000 a year online in this interview I did with him.

Robb Sutton

Income: Full time income (he lives off it, but I don’t know how much)
Niche: Bikes and Blogging
Blog: mountain.bike198.com and www.robbsutton.com

Robb Sutton is seriously into mountain bike riding. He translated his passion into a blog, then a full blown community website of mountain biking die-hards. I don’t know how much Robb makes, but I do know he scores plenty of free stuff – even free mountain bikes worth thousands of dollars – thanks to his blog. He has sponsors who place banners on his blog and I suspect he also uses affiliate marketing as he recommends bikes and bike parts on his blog.

Robb’s specialty is scoring free goods thanks to your blog, which you can learn how to do in this interview with Robb.

David Risley

Income: Six Figures a year
Niche: Computers and Blogging
Blog: www.davidrisley.com and www.pcmech.com/

David Risley, like many people who teach how to profit from blogs, first learned his craft by starting a blog in a different niche – in this case, computers. David monetizes his computer blog, PCMech, with sponsors, Google Adsense and a premium members area. His DavidRisley.com blog is focused on selling David’s training programs, with a little affiliate marketing thrown in. David has done a great job integrated his blogs as membership sites, adding premium sections available only to paying members.

You can listen to David explain how he started making money with blogs in this interview I did with him.

More Bloggers Who Make Money

This is just a small sample of the people currently using blogs to make significant income online. On top of the list above, there’s a few others I didn’t mention as you probably know them already, for example -

• Katie Freiling, who uses her blog as a branding and community leadership tool and she makes well over six figures a year selling her training products and promoting other products as an affiliate. You can listen to the interview I did with Katie here.
• Jeremy Schoemaker who runs a multi-million dollar online business with 12 staff, has leveraged his Shoemoney blog for selling his products, promoting affiliate products, landing speaking engagements, building his email list and cementing himself as one of the most well known Internet marketers. I interviewed Jeremy to get his full background story.
• There’s also Darren Rowse, John Chow and Brian Clark, who all rose to prominence teaching how to profit from blogging and all are multiple six figure earners, or millionaires.
• Darren also has a hugely successful blog in the photography niche, which he monetizes by selling ebooks, affiliate marketing camera related products and through sponsorship.
• Steve Pavlina has one of the most basic designed personal development blogs, but also one of the most popular, with millions of readers. He makes as much as $100,000 a month promoting affiliate products, using Google Adsense and this year has been running live workshops in Las Vegas, which he fills to capacity at $500 a head using his blog for promotion. You can find an interview I did with Steve here.
• Tim Sykes specializes in penny stalk trading and earns over a million dollars a year from his blog teaching others how to do it. He sells DVDs, CDs, a membership site and all kinds of penny stock trading related materials. I interviewed Tim, which you can listen to here.

What Is The Best Way To Make Money With Your Blog?

As you can see by all these amazing examples, plenty of people are earning a lot of money using blogs, covering all kinds of different niches, and using all kinds of methods to generate the income.

At the end of the day, the answer to the question of what is the best way to make money with your blog is a combination of what you can gain the most leverage from, what level of work is required to make it work, what are your personal preferences, what goals do you have, how clear are you on how things work, what are you afraid of and what situation you are in.

Your blog traffic obviously plays a huge part in your success, but many bloggers earn a lot with comparably little traffic, so don’t think you have to be the next Car Advice delivering millions of visitors a year to make it work. Pick a good niche, find the best points of leverage given your traffic and style, then get to work going after the dream.

In my experience, the majority of bloggers who break the six figures a year mark or better, do so focusing on a combination of money making methods. You need to test different advertising formats, combine that with some affiliate marketing, maybe some pay per lead campaigns, or do product launches and consulting. Build out a product funnel and foster a huge email list to sell it to and keep testing until you find what works and what delivers a level of income you are happy with.

If you enjoyed this article, please tweet it, you can share it on Facebook or on your preferred social network. And of course, if you haven’t done so already, please join my email newsletter on this page (enter your name and email at that link to join).

Here’s to you building a profitable blog.

Yaro Starak
Professional Blogger

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Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that as this post goes live I’ll be heading to the airport to head to warmer parts of Australia for a couple of weeks break. The bags are packed, the house sitter has the key, the tickets are bought and most importantly….. the blog is scheduled to keep proving you with great content.

Everytime I go away for a break I’m confronted with the choice of either letting the blog sit idle for a couple of weeks or to work hard for the week or two before going to make sure that content keeps flowing. I’ve never really been able to bring myself to let things stand idle – so this week I’ve worked hard at getting enough posts up and ready to go (across ProBlogger and dPS I have 60 posts scheduled – it was a big job!).

The vast majority of them are guest posts. While a few of you may be disappointed that you’ll not be hearing from me for a week or two – I actually think it’s a massive opportunity for the ProBlogger community to hear from some fresh voices on some topics that I would never have come up with myself.

Here’s a screen grab of the upcoming schedule (including a few that already have gone up). Some of them are a little cryptic as I wrote them more for my own benefit and didn’t intend to share this – but hopefully it gives a little insight into how I prepare for a break – I did this for dPS also.

I hope you enjoy the next couple of weeks of content here on ProBlogger – having read all the posts I’m sure you will!

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

ProBlogger is in Guest Posting Mode

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WiseStamp Brings Your Email Signature to Life

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

On the spectrum of really big marketing tactics, the email signature isn’t terribly sexy, but this little touch can say a lot about what you do and how you connect.

If you’re like me, you send a lot of email so why not make sure your email signature is working in the background for you. This doesn’t mean you need flashing lights and honking horns, but you should supply recipients, even those that contact you often, with all the necessary contact details, including social profiles, so that you are easy to connect with.

Creating an email signature, while not that technical, can take a little work and may even be limited on services like GMail. WiseStamp is a browser plugin (Firefox, Chrome, and Safari) that makes the act of creating multiple, highly engaging email signature profiles very easy. This free addon allows you to create rich HTML text, add images, add social profiles and even add applications such as your last tweet, your last blog post, or your latest eBay listing.

The signatures work in Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, and WindowsLive. Once you download and install the plugin you will see a WiseStamp option in your mail. The first step is to create your signatures using the simple online editor, connect your various social profiles and applications, and save your profiles. You can then toggle between personal and business signatures as needed.

Since this is a free application the default setting adds a little promo for WiseStamp at the bottom of your signature. You can remove this by opening setting and clicking that option off. On that same screen you’ll be given the option to make a donation. I recommend throwing a little coin to the creators of this nice tool. It’s good karma and it’s what makes the free app world such a cool place to hang out.

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Guest Post by Ross Hudgens of Billy.com.

Making money as a freelance content writer isn’t easy. If you aren’t running your own blog or website, turning content into cash can be a difficult thing. But there’s opportunity out there – you just have to try a little harder than normal to find it.

One of the best places to look is the Problogger job board. Here, potential employers are looking for people like you – writers serious about their craft, with a strong content-creation skillset that often develops from reading a website like this.

Because of these potential employer’s high standards for Problogger readers, this won’t be the kind of cheap, outsourced content creation you’ll have to scrap up pennies and quarters from – it’ll be real, well-paid writing gigs with some of the best and biggest websites and content hubs on the internet.

Of course, with better gigs come higher standards – so you, as a potential applicant, need to spice up your resume and take note of the intimate details that’ll make your application pop.

How I Found a Content Writer on Problogger

My friend at another company recently created a posting for a content writer on Problogger and told me about his success. As a Marketing Manager at a new company with many quality content development needs, I decided to create a posting as well.

Overall, I was rather impressed with the quality of applicant, but what also shocked me were the glaring problems with many of the resumes and cover letters in my inbox. Similarly, I was equally impressed with some of the ways the better applications “stood out” in ways I wouldn’t have previously thought of.

Both of these revelations made me realize the necessity for this post – since I know the plight of a job seeker who often wonders – “Why wasn’t I picked?”—I thought I could help improve your application process in some way, and also, the chances you get picked up as a content writer on your next application go-round.

Common Application Mistakes Writers Make

1. They had zero attention to detail. One of the classic ways to weed out auto-applicants is by using a “use this” subject line. For example, specifically requesting that the applicant include the job description as the subject. Amazingly, by including this simple detail in my job description, I automatically weeded out 15% of the applicants. Similarly, other applications would announce they were using a templated cover letter due to the appearance of two different fonts, or that they had found my application on Craigslist.

C’mon, really?

How can I possibly rely on you to complete a content piece with exact specifications if you can’t do it for a simple, straightforward application?

2. Their application was too bland. Yes, employers are hiring you on your content writing skills, but when I get 200 applications in my inbox for a position that isn’t full-time, it would be an immense waste of effort to scroll through 600 content pieces to find the best writer. I, like most employers, have a sifting process that involves automatically disregarding many of these applications.

If your cover letter was too brief or non-personal, this implies a disinterest in the job. Although you might have been aware of enough to post the “use this” subject line, you were also not with it enough to customize your application to look anything different than 5 million other similar ones that have made their way into employer’s inboxes.

3. Their content samples were not specific to the application. Although you may be a great writer, I would need to be extremely impressed with your prior history to choose you if you had not written about the subject I was asking for. Again, by disregarding many of these applications that don’t have a specificity, potential employers save a lot of the hassle, and to be blunt, being a “great writer” does not mean that you are cut out to write about green technology, fashion, or marine biology. Sorry.

When businesses come to Problogger looking to hire, it’s not because they want to find a generic person who can pump out articles about anything – they want expertise in an area. The cheap, bland kind of content creation can be found elsewhere.

If you’re really interested in a position that creates content green technology, write a sample article about it for submission. That’s the only way you’re going to get hired unless you’ve got a stacked history of creating viral, amazing content.

4. They only linked to their own blog. You might be able to write well about stuff you care about, but are you skilled enough to think outside the box and also meet the specifications of a certain job description? By linking to just your blog, you’re telling me you don’t have experience writing according to other’s specifications. It’s great that you’re a good writer, but there’s more to the job description than that. Ability to follow directions, attention to detail, and domain expertise are all things that can put an average writer far above a good one.

5. They lacked effort. Some people just flat out didn’t try, asking for payment information, more job details and etc. before supplying additional details. Don’t waste your time making these kinds of pitches! Employers have to pay $50 to get on the job board, and they do it for a reason – there is a wealth of quality potential writers that read the site. By making this kind of inquiry, you are not only wasting the employer’s time, you are wasting your own.

In this way, applications work like the below graph. At a certain effort level, the chances of being hired are rather low, not because you’re a bad writer – but because everyone makes that level of effort. Once you’ve hit an imaginary line – somewhere between 10-20 minutes of effort when applying, your chances jump dramatically. Before that, every second added does little to improve your chances.

How to Make Your Application Stand Out

Beyond the failures in the application process, there are also plenty of application “pluses” I stumbled into that made me stop and say “let’s talk”. Getting an interview among 200 applicants is more than just not being bad – it’s about being really, really good too.

1. Create a Customized, PDFed Resume. As a freelance writer, there’s a good chance you’re going to be applying for lots of these positions. As such, if applying is something you’re constantly doing, you should take steps towards investing in this process – and that means creating an amazing, aesthetically pleasing resume. One applicant sent me a PDF with their work history, a professional photo, and content examples, all in one aesthetically pleasing package. I was immensely impressed with the time and effort they put into this package, even if it wasn’t customized directly for me. Showing an immaculate standard for quality and great presentation is something I want to see reflected in writing, too.

2. Be Creative with the Cover Letter. You’re a content writer, right? This shouldn’t be too difficult. If your opening line says “I saw your BLAND JOB position at BUSINESS posted at X and I was extremely impressed”, you’re telling me that yes, you do care enough to change those custom fields in your template, but you’re also telling me that no, you don’t care enough to try any harder.

If you know the company, find some interesting detail about it and open with it. If you’re lucky enough to know the name of the person you’re applying to, you can go even further to pique their interest. Not only will you likely stroke the ego, you’ll also show you possess the creativity and wherewithal to create quality content.

3. Have content specific to the application. This is straightforward, but the more focused the content is on what the job description asks for, the more likely you are to be seriously considered. The better this content is, the more likely you are to get picked up.

4. Tagging your application e-mail as “High Importance”. This is a minor detail but I found myself opening these e-mails first, and any time you get seen first in a batch of 200 e-mails, that’s a good thing. This function doesn’t work in Gmail, but there’s a good chance you’re sending your application to a business address – so there’s a high probability they’re using Outlook.

5. Be a great writer – everywhere. Again, a rather straightforward thing, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night not mentioning it. Every piece of text in a content writer’s application is important, so make sure every bit of it is a direct reflection of your ability to create great content.

If you can’t properly format paragraphs in the cover letter, you’re not getting hired. If your punctuation is shoddy, you’re not getting hired. If your presentation is subpar, you’re not getting hired. You’re a great writer – why not be one all the time?

Get Applying!

Now that you know how to get hired, get to the job board, check out those job descriptions and start applying! If you have any other stories, tips, or suggestions on how to get hired as a content writer, please share them in the comments!

Ross Hudgens is a Marketing Manager at Billy.com. He also blogs over at his personal website, Authentic Marketing. You should follow him on Twitter here.

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

How to Get Hired on the Problogger Job Board

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Blog World and New Media Expo is a fantastic event for bloggers held every October in Las Vegas.

This year there will be a full day of ProBlogger training in a ‘ProBlogger Track’ on the Thursday. Yesterday the full details of that track’s sessions were released on the BWE site.

The four sessions through the day are based around 4 Pillars of ProBlogging that Chris Garret and I have been working on for a future resource here at ProBlogger. In our view these 4 pillars are all crucial foundations in building profitable blogs – it’s not just about one or two of them, all come together and make a blog a more powerful thing.

The day in vegas is also very similar in content to what we recently put on in the sold out ProBlogger Training day here in Melbourne.

Here are the four pillars and session times:

Creating Killer Content: 9.45-1045am (Presented by Chris Garrett)

Chris Garrett walks attendees through principles of creating compelling content that will draw readers into a blog and get them excited about passing it onto their network./b>

Finding Readers for Your Blog: 11am-12pm (Presented by Darren Rowse)

What’s the point of great content if nobody is reading it? Darren Rowse has jam packed his session full of teaching and tips on ensuring that your blog is read… by more than your Mom!

Building Community On Your Blog: 1.30-2.30pm (Presented by Darren Rowse)

A blog REALLY comes alive when it has community. In this session Darren Rowse teaches the secrets of moving ‘visitors’ into ‘readers’ and ‘readers’ into ‘members’ who feel a sense of belonging to your blog and who begin to take ownership of it to help you take it to the next level.

Making Money from Your Blog: 2.45-3.45pm (Presented by Darren, Chris and Yaro Starak)

In this final session of the ProBlogger stream Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak and Chris Garrett will present strategies for making blogs profitable through a variety of approaches. It will include time for Q&A from participants.

If you’re interested in these sessions – make sure you mark them on your schedule so you don’t forget they’re on. I’m sure Chris and I can come up with some prizes for people who come along and participate well so we’ll make it a fun day.

Keep in mind that this ProBlogger track is on the Thursday and is available to all BWE attendees with a ticket for that day. There will be other sessions going on in other rooms that you can also attend (although we’ve designed this track so that it’s best if you get the full lot).

Other Sessions

I’ll also be participating in a number of other panels and sessions including:

• A Keynote with Brian Clark and Sonia Simone (both of Copyblogger and ThirdTribe)
• A Monetization panel with Shoemoney, John Chow and Anita Campbell
• Possibly a couple of other sessions – TBC

Come along to BWE

I get excited about Blog World Expo every year. The sessions/teaching are great (I just looked over the schedule and there’s some great stuff going on) but better still is the opportunity to meet other bloggers (big and small). The opportunities for collaboration, networking and some fun times are certainly there.

This was taken at a ProBlogger dinner we held last year at BWE – one of the most fun nights I had all year. Photo by Lisa Morosky.

I’ve found people to be very approachable and while there are thousands of others there it’s not as overwhelming as some of the bigger conferences like SXSW.

Speakers are very accessible – here’s Tim Ferris (4 hour work week), Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park) and I after one of the sessions in 2008. Image by Shashi Bellamkonda.

I also love how BWE brings together such a diverse group of people from all kinds of interesting backgrounds.

One of my more surreal moments last year was sharing the stage with people like CNN’s Don Lemon, music producer/rapper Jermaine Dupri, journalist Hugh Hewitt, and Ford’s Scott Monty. Image by Ken Yeung.

Lastly – if you book your tickets before 16 September there are some good discounts on tickets still available. Get all the details on the Blog World and New Media Expo Site and I hope to see you in Vegas!

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

ProBlogger Track Details – Blog World Expo

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