When I run across blog posts worthy of educational reading I break out my FireFox Scrapbook plugin and start taking copious notes. Here is the first section of notes and my thoughts on those notes taken from yesterday’s post entitled “Blogging Reporters Versus Experts.

Article: There are basically two types of bloggers in the world - reporters and experts - and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report).

My Thoughts: Boy, is that true. Becoming an expert is takes time, continuing education and an understanding of the subject matter to the degree where my expertise speaks with its own voice not anothers. See “How To Read” article. I like to report and think reporting can be a great way to develop a writing style.

Article: If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

My Thoughts: Easy for him to say . I don’t feel comfortable being the expert about anything and have a thing about people who think they’re “know-it-alls”. There are some experts who come off better than others. I think Yaro does a nice job communicating knowledge without sounding to “uppidity”.

Article: Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise.

My Thoughts: That’s a good thing. Learning to blog has many different facets beyond expressing content as either an “expert” or “reporter”. If I can leverage the content of “experts” and produce my own unique content with that leverage…I’ll take it for the first few months.

Article: Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc… experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.

My Thoughts: Perceived value is the key here. You can find so-called experts on the opposite aisle of every subject. Just because someone is perceived as an expert that doesn’t make the right. Yaro is  right on with that last part of this paragraph.

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc… experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.

Most Bloggers Are Reporters

The thing with expertise is that it requires something - experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning. Bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).

There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts - there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.

Don’t Replicate Your Teacher

If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study Internet marketing from a “guru” (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.

The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry - the Internet marketing industry - not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.

Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche - Internet marketing - and rarely have any key points of differentiation.

How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things - email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it - making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) - your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.

If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.

Report on Your Process, Not Others

The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey. When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.

It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing. If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) but you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not there’s. Frame things using your opinion - your stories - and don’t regurgitate what the expert said. The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.

Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.

You Are Already An Expert

Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.

Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously; you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life, who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of…well fear.

Blogs and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach. If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert. Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.

Reporting Is A Stepping Stone

If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from “scratch”, then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.

Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog. In many cases people make a career of reporting (journalism is about just that), but if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.

Have patience and focus on what you do to learn and then translate that experience into lessons for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

The article was posted on May 19th 2007, has 128 comments and still generates comments today.

I’d say this author knew this post would strike a nerve with his audience.

Here is the first sentence.

<sarcasm>I’m sure that you all want everyone to think that you’re a blogging newbie! That’s what I want! Wouldn’t that be an awesome way to develop your brand?

Huh????

Brand??? The only brand I am promoting here right now is the brand…”NEW”. “NEW” is the only “brand” I have any right to market within the blogging community with any honest confidence.

There are way too many bloggers afraid to be tagged with what they believe is the “death-label” for blogging success. The infamous…

Blogging Newbie

God forbid a blogging newbie should stand up and admit the reality of their blogging experience or let slip the tawdry fact they are actually learning their trade on the job right in front of a live audience.

Yikes!! What would people ever think?

No…no…no…let’s create a blogging mask of confidence. You know…like the mask we create to feel comfortable inside the “REAL WORLD”. Then we can spend all our blogging energy making sure our blogging mask is in place so our readers will believe our “Pretend Blogging Brand”. Give me a break.

I remember when I was a young adult. A slick friend of mine was hired for a position as a Sales Rep at a high-end men’s retail clothing store. I asked him how he landed this great job when he didn’t know a thing about high-end men’s clothing. He looked me in the straight in the eyes and said,

“Simple…I lied.”

Then I asked him how he planned on fooling his naive employers the first few weeks on the job. He casually added that all you needed to do was…

“Fake it Until You Make It”

I kid you not. And he did “make it” and I never trusted this guy again. Ever! He never rose above the level of “drinking buddie” on my true friends list.

If that’s the type of blogging reputation you’re interested in cultivating and promoting for yourself…Go for it man…be like everyone else.

For me…thanks but no thanks.

Heck, there is nothing shameful with being tagged with the moniker of blogging newbie. It’s an honest place to be. Our blogging newbie skin should be shed when we naturally grow out of it and not a day sooner.

We certainly shouldn’t believe we can shed that skin because we’ve learned the all-important blogging rule of capitalizing every word in our Blog Post Titles. Man, that’s important.

And by the way, WHEN, not if, your blogging mask of confidence does slip off, your readers will not be surprised to find out your true newbie identity.

I here all this talk about striving for authority and credibility within the online community. You want to know how to increase your blogging credibility and authority immediately? Have enough guts to not be ashamed of being who you really are…a blogging “brand” newbie.

At least you will be an authentic blogger and not a fake.

Yea, I’ve strung I few sentences together and thrown them online for others to read. But from a financial standpoint, there is not a doubt in my mind as to my blogging status.

I am a blogging “brand” newbie. What are you?

Many a stalk of email wheat gets burned with the chaff depending on my mood.

What’s really funny is how many times I’ve unsubscribed these email trespassers from their paternal auto responding parents.

Oh, I’ve hit the “HELP” key on “Outlook” and created some Jim-Dandy “Rules” to wipe these suckers out.

Still they return.

My In Basket resembles a scene out of  “Night of the Living Dead”. Zombie emails returning from the Internet dead zone to suck the life out of my day.

Sometimes it feels like a nightmare with no morning.

While carefully sifting the wheat from the chaff this morning I clicked on a newsletter I haven’t read in awhile.

Charles Heflin has a link worthy blog post entitled “Traffic From Social Networks Does Not Convert!” This is post 3 in a series on social media based on Charles’s own test results. Charles talks about creating content following the 3 E’s of social media…Educational, Entertaining or Enlightening. He produced a youtube video overview of the whiteboard process he uses to run his social media campaigns.

Pretty cool.

Speaking of cool, check this short video out. Great content is packaged in all kinds of creative ways.

What you are looking at is my latest attempt to attract birds. A couple of months ago I filled this tube bird feeder with some cheap old bird seed from last year.

I’m thinking to myself, “Ahh the birds will love it. The seed looks fine to me and after all they’re just wild birds, they’re hungry and they’ll eat anything…right? Wrong.

The feeder hung abandon for over a month. Nary a wing in sight of the thing for the entire time. Now…I’ve been told it can take up to three weeks for birds to find feeders but I gave up when a mangy squirrel started to borough his way into one of the yellow holes on the feeder.

I’m thinking I have some fussy birds around my home. They must have tasted the old seed, turned up their beaks and flew the coup cursing me all the way into the woods. I was going to chuck the whole idea of feeding these spoiled brats of the air and let them fend for themselves but decided to give it one more try.

So it was off to find some ‘great tasting’ bird seed. I filled up the feeder again today and am anxious to find out if this premium bird seed is ‘good enough’ to attract a few birds.

I’m thinking a website is similar to a bird feeder. If I fill it up with old poor quality content chances are great the only readers I will attract are spam commenters trying to borough their way inside my websites back door.

So although I believe “Don’t Worry be Crappy” is a legitimate attitude when releasing new innovative content, it is not an attitude I want to hold for the majority of the content released on a website.

I have a hunch filling this bird feeder with great black oil sunflower seed still may not attract birds anytime soon. I may have to learn how to ‘market’ the fact there is premium seed now in the feeder to attract them. They may not trust me until I show them all the benefits of the premium bird seed. Or maybe I’ll have to give them some freebies and throw seed all over the ground under the feeder.

I am competing against all kinds of experienced bird watchers out there who know how to treat birds right. It won’t be easy to win their confidence.

Yep, coaxing wild birds to become my faithful daily feeders will be just like coaxing people to become my faithful daily readers.

photo credit: shashiBellamkonda

This creative blog headline is courtesy of venture capitalist and former Apple computer evangelist Guy Kawasaki. Don’t worry, be crappy is axiom number 5 out of 11 axioms Guy created to help explain the Art of Innovation.  It reads like this;

An innovator doesn’t worry about shipping an innovative product with elements of crappiness if it’s truly innovative. The first permutation of a innovation is seldom perfect–Macintosh, for example, didn’t have software (thanks to me), a hard disk (it wouldn’t matter with no software anyway), slots, and color. If a company waits–for example, the engineers convince management to add more features–until everything is perfect, it will never ship, and the market will pass it by.

Guy’s controversial marketing axiom gets rightfully questioned and criticized but I have to tell you on the whole I think Guy is on target.

In the real world where companies with limited resources struggle to survive in the capitalistic jungle of our free market system, being first to market innovation is risky but necessary business. Market leaders must lead even when they are not sure where their market is headed and the research and development at their immediate disposal is imperfect at best.

As a former sales representative in the Medical Device Industry I have promoted and in-serviced my share of innovative medical device products not ready for prime-time. These medical products were purposefully introduced into hospitals with less than a perfect understanding of all the negative ramifications produced by day-to-day product usage. The health care industry is not a good place to be testing product innovation but believe me it happens all the time.

Beta programs never work out all the bugs real world pressure finally exposes. A case-in-point are the endless stream of service packs Microsoft releases to the public after ‘alfa’ and ‘beta’ testing new operating systems for years.

These medical devices did however blaze a trail of innovation for other companies to follow and created mountains of real-world feedback that quickly spread throughout our medical device industry. Viewed as a whole the positive outcomes produced by the innovative medical devices my company released far outweighed the negative.

Creating original and innovative online content is very similar to releasing new products into the marketplace . Content crappiness can easily leak onto the page generating immediate negative feedback from perfectionist readers not in a position to see the innovative ground the writer is attempting break.

Having the stomach to “Don’t Worry be Crappy” and publish new innovative content produced under time constraints is not for everyone. But that’s why truly innovative content sticks out like a sore thumb when you finally do run across it.

By the way, who was the Internet narcissist who decided “WEBMASTER” defined those of us whose job it is to build and promote web sites? I’m not real comfortable with attaching the word “master” next to anything in my life. “WebServant” seems the more appropriate title.

One website metric term I have grappled with is Bounce Rate? I recently found a web page that did a nice job explaining what a bounce rate is and why it is important.

Bounce Rate is the percentage of web site visitors who arrive at an entry page on your web site, then leave without visiting any other pages or leave without going any deeper into the site. Bounce rate is measured as a percentage. Ideally you want your site pages to have a lower bounce rate.

As an admitted content publishing newbie holding a low “bounce rate” goal in the forefront of my mind as I produce content helps me stay on a general content publishing path. Even when the content produced is off topic I can still use my understanding of the importance of bounce rate to write with the purposeful intent of being authentic and interesting to my readers. They might just say, “hey, I’ll check something else out on this site, I like the way this guy communicates.”

I want to fight the urge to become nothing more than a “technical writer” constantly pumping out educational “primers” on subject after subject. What a bore! And if it’s boring to me when I write, chances are great it will be boring to readers when they read.

How you communicate can be as important as what you communicate and help to keep those bounce rates low.

You know the premise of these shows. Someone will purchase a home that needs to be renovated and then will “flip it” (sell it) for a profit. At least that is the theory. It doesn’t always work out that way.

This make-the-best-of-it financial mentality appeals to me for many of the domains I currently own. Instead of trying to create long-term streams of passive online income with domains purchased with an Affiliate Marketing mindset equivalent to a kindergarten student, why not “flip” this online real estate for whatever I can get for it and move on.

I’ve been reading several site flipping blogs lately such as Bryan Clark’s “Site Flip U” and Jason Pereira’s “The University Kid” site and think site flipping might be a very honest way to make some income with sites I’m not that interested in holding.

Build online real estate with content and backlinks and then selling those web sites for whatever I can get for them. In the mean time, become more proficient in purchasing domains for the right reasons and keep them for the long haul.

Sounds like a plan to me.

5.2

One of the most well know SEO tacticians on the Internet is Aaron Wall of SEOBook fame.  Most of what Aaron talks about is over my Search Engine Optimization head. At my level of SEO expertise I am more interested in what Aaron does than what Aaron says.

I quick cursory review of a few of the raw content statistics produced on Aaron’s SEOBook blog from the date range of August 7th through the 22nd are revealing to me.

Aaron has 11 blog posts displayed on his blog through this date range. Note: After I finished this chart I noticed one of his blog posts was an advertisement. Fooled me..that’s how good he is. So I’m counting it in with the stats below anyway.

Highlighted in red are the two stats that mean the most to me. No one can argue with Aaron’s SEO results and his SEO expertise is highly sought after in the online community, yet on his blog he is not exactly writing long tome’s with each blog post. Seven of his eleven blog posts are under 150 words.

And Aaron is taking advantage of the Internet’s vast wealth of resources with an average of 5.2 links per post to external web sites.

Maybe this is all hit and miss stuff that means nothing. I doubt it. Saying something worth reading with concise short posts might be just as SEO friendly as long posts. If it’s good enough for Aaron, it’s good enough for me.

I feel like Al Pacino crying out in the movie; Sent of a Woman, “I’m in the dark here!” oooaaaaahhhh

First off, writing is not so hard when you can simply report on things or babble on about the goings on in your day-to-day life. It’s not too hard to keep the fingers taping away on meaningless drivel that doesn’t add value into a readers day. But to engage my brain and tell it to “create” content worthy of standing on its own is a different story. The fingers don’t tap so easily when they have to wait for the brain to think first.

What to write a Pillar Article Series on? There is an overwhelming feeling when starting down this path that any article series I write will be doing nothing but “Adding to the Noice” on the Web. What kind of new Pillar Article Series can I write? Yea, that’s easy…piece-a-cake.

How bout, “How to create a 7-part 5-part 3-part PIllar Article Series?