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Blogging tips for beginners and advanced bloggers

How NOT to publish incorrect stuff on your blog?

June 16, 2014 by Jane Sheeba 11 Comments

How NOT to publish incorrect stuff on your blog?

So you have a blog that acts as a marketing tool for your online business. You expect your blog to gain traction and attract clients/customers for your business 24/7. That is a very reasonable expectation.

You create and publish useful and awesome content in order to attract traffic to your website.

You intend to be useful; so you create content that is supposed to help your customers. There’s nothing  wrong in your approach.

But then what if you publish wrong/incorrect/misleading information on your blog? This is serious. You will mislead people with wrong information – based upon what you share, you could potentially jeopardize someone else’s business or life!

Think about publishing incorrect dieting methods, or wrong information about meds or wrong business strategies!

You will not only ruin your reputation but you will also ruin the life/business of your readers quite easily.

In this post, I thought I should answer one of my subscriber’s questions (reworded for clarity, and depth):

How can I stay away from publishing incorrect or wrong stuff on my blog? I am concerned about my readers. I want to be faithful to them and I want to genuinely help them – so I don’t want to mislead them by publishing wrong stuff. At the same time, this fear is keeping me from publishing anything on my blog!

Whenever I come up with some content, I seriously doubt if what I say is correct or not and I hesitate to publish on my blog. Please help me overcome this “syndrome”!

Great question! And let me answer it in this post.

Do not write about what you don’t know!

In order to make sure you don’t publish any incorrect stuff, it is quite safe not to write about what you don’t know.

First of all if you create content on a topic in which you are not an expert, it will show off quite soon. It won’t take long for people to “smell” your ignorance on the topic.

Gone are the days where you can start blogs on all topics under the sun in the name of “niche sites” and create/outsource content to make profits.

Nowadays, you cannot write rubbish. People come to your blog for a purpose. They either need help, or they need information on a topic.

If you tease them with your immature content they’re not going to stick to your site. Even more, they’ll immediately bounce off and will never come back which is fatal for your business.

So make sure you know what you are talking about before you create content on a topic.

It is very common that most bloggers simply show themselves off as “experts” in fields they’re not experts in. This is no joke. Times have changed.

You need to be involved in the content you create and you have to know for sure whatever you share.

Be it a technique or a tip or a statistic – know what you are talking about.

Do intensive research on the topic

It is not necessary that you should only write on topics that you are an expert.

Of course if you want to share useful stuff to your readers while you are in the process of learning that’s totally fine.

But now since you are in learning mode you could make mistakes! That’s realistic and you can do nothing about it.

And, that need not stop you from sharing your learning experiences, your mistakes, your failures and what you have learned so far.

However while you are attempting to publish content on your blog on a topic in which you are still a learner, you should be very careful since you could publish incorrect stuff out of your ignorance.

You might not know stuff for sure and this will reflect in your content. In order to avoid publishing incorrect stuff and in order to avoid providing misleading information to your readers (and hence ruin your reputation) you should be doing intensive research on the topic before you attempt to create content.

In fact, heavy research is not only necessary when you are writing on a topic that is not very familiar to you; even for topics in which you are an expert at, researching is required.

Looking for similar topics, stats etc. around the web will help you know more about what’s going on in that area.

You will come to know if someone has already written the same thing – if so how you could fill the gap? How could you add more value? How could you make it more interesting and more useful? – and things like that.

In addition, research will help you write with confidence – even if you are not an expert (yet) on the topic, researching will give you a feel of familiarity on the topic so you can infuse confidence in your voice.

Plus, coming to the focus of this post, by doing enough research you can be sure about what you are talking and hence you won’t publish incorrect stuff.

Back up your claims with references

Back up your claims with references

Just in continuation with the previous point (of doing intensive research) you should be able to back up your claim with references. Sometimes it is inevitable to totally avoid presenting any figures or facts on a blog posts just because you don’t know about it.

Even though it is better to not write about such things in the first place (according to my first tip in this post), sometimes you have to do this.

If that’s the case you have to make sure that you back up your claims. Do research, and don’t forget to collect the necessary reference material while you’re on it.

When you create content, back up your claims by linking directly to the reference material that you collected. If you are going to share a statistic, directly link to a page where you found those numbers.

This will not only increase your confidence while you are creating content but this will give your readers a chance to trust you.

You content will be authoritative and will sound firm and good rather than looking like some random guy/girl sharing some random information.

Get expert opinion if needed

If nothing helps and if you are still doubtful about sharing something on your blog, you can always get expert opinion on the topic. I hope you have some useful connections already. If not you should build connections.

As I’ve pointed out in one of my earlier posts, you cannot build a blog by being a one man/woman. You need a community of real people who will visit your website, consume your content, do business with you and keep your business afloat.

Similarly you need peers and mentor(s) to help you move along in the right direction. Unlike your visitors/customers, peers do not tend to consume information from you or do business with you (although that might happen).

But peers and mentors usually have some extra experience and expertise on the topic and hence they will be able to guide your through various stuff in your business.

And yes, you can contact your peers when you have doubts or if you are unsure about something that you very much want to share in your blog.

Getting a second (or multiple) opinion(s) will help you publish that stuff with confidence and you can avoid publishing incorrect material on your blog.

So how to publish only correct information on your blog?

There you go! I gave you four tips to do this. Publishing incorrect information on your blog is quite dangerous as I have pointed out in the introduction.

You cannot simply publish anything that comes to your mind. As long as you write it in a private diary (online or offline), it is OK.

But when you put something online for the public, you are accountable for the same. In addition when you claim to help people and offer products or services and do a business online, you have to be very careful about what you publish on your blog.

Publishing incorrect or wrong information is no joke and you could jeopardize someone else’s life or business.

I hope these tips will help you overcome this problem. And don’t let that “fear” stop you from publishing. Apply these tips and keep publishing. Keep helping others. And keep doing business!
Jane Signature

Filed Under: Blogging Tips

Email Autoresponder: Make It About Your Subscribers And Build Rapport

August 12, 2013 by Jane Sheeba 25 Comments

Email autoresponder – It’s an awesome tool that keeps email marketing alive. Not to mention, its so mistaken these days.

Many people think that one of the major benefits for the sender is “Money”. That’s why they say “the money is in the list”.

That’s not wrong. But that’s not the sole purpose.

From my point of view, list building should be done primarily for building relationship and rapport with your customers/readers and then you should also be making money out of your list by offering quality.

Now the biggest question here is which comes first – building relationships or making money using an email autoresponder?

The answer of course is NOT something similar to that of the famous question: Chicken or Egg? – But most bloggers mistake it for one.

THE best practice is to build rapport with your subscribers by providing value and THEN make money from your list.

I am sure it doesn’t work the other way now-a-days, given that people are fed up with sales emails and can easily smell you if you’re a sales person.

If people find that they can get value from you and if they come to know that you treat them in a special way, sure you won’t have problems in recommending stuff to them and making sales.

So it all comes down to a point where you should think about using email autoresponder for your subscribers’ benefit, instead of yours.

The basics of email autoresponders

Interacting with your subscribers is important if you want to keep yourself and your blog updated to suit their preferences.

However, if you are dying to reach a significant subscribers figure within a short period of time, then the temptation to exchange emails with the others’ list can become a serious issue.

Email marketing is also a very important part of your promotional/marketing campaign in general – say you’d want to promote a blog post or an offer at your blog and so on.

Effective email marketing requires a competent email autoresponder to work on the various aspects like list building, leads collection and email distribution.

It is actually sheer intelligence to use the various developed technological tools to ease these essential labors of blogging.

One of the shiny effective email autoresponders that I use is Aweber (aff link) (and the other one is GetResponse (aff link)). I’m so glad I’m using it.

You can try Aweber for free for the first month (fully functional account), by the way.

Or if you’re on the fence, you can read my honest review about Aweber and my comparison of Aweber with the other famous email autoresponder Mailchimp here

1. Aweber Review – Is it really the best email autoresponder in the market?2. Aweber Vs Mailchimp – The autoresponder face off

An email autoresponder can handle the work of providing your readers/subscribers with awesome information within a fraction of the time it will take to attempt it manually and in a more organized way, too.

You simply have to know of the handy ways that you can incorporate this efficient tool in your work process.

Here is a brief list of four simple ways to help you build rapport with your subscribers.

Relevant links that I talk about in the video

1. Aweber or Mailchimp – http://www.janesheeba.com/aweber-mailchimp-best-email-autoresponder/

2. Why I use Aweber? – http://www.janesheeba.com/why-aweber/

3. My blog maintenance service – http://www.janesheeba.com/blog-maintenance

4. My blog setup service – http://www.janesheeba.com/wordpress-blog-setup/

5. My Thesis theme review – http://www.janesheeba.com/thesis-theme-review-seo-guide/

Designing helpful courses or products that you can offer via an effective email autoresponder

When your subscribers register for your email list, you must make it worthwhile for them.

It is true that this opportunity is primarily to market your business – as you would expect.

However, try to send in some extra nudge in their direction.

Designing an exclusive course related to your niche is a great idea to send out with your autoresponder emails.

You can also send in product referrals as well as suggestions with these messages.

You do not have to review these new products but refer the products related to niches that you think your subscribers might find interesting.

Using your email autoresponder for conducting surveys and polls

Use your email autoresponder to build a competent survey that your subscribers can take.

You can also arrange for contests and have your subscribers enlist through the autoresponder email.

This is an amazing way to build an effective customer list and encourage lead collection since there is a lot of room for receiving feedback from your customers.

When you take polls, surveys or even ask a simple question, they feel so special.

Whenever you are involving them in making decisions, it feels great for them.

They feel welcomed and so involved in your business and not to mention, feel connected too.

I often ask questions to my subscribers whenever I am planning to start a big project, or if I need suggestions regarding a new site or a new ebook – say, the design, the cover, the chapters to be included – you name it.

Not to mention, this also helps build buzz.

Helpful offers via the email autoresponders

You can use your email autoresponder to send out service offers for your product.

You can preferably offer free trial subscriptions so that people can use the product for a few days without any charges.

The best part is that the emails are a part of lead generation and you can build on your consumer relationship with future offers and subscription plans.

You don’t have to feel shy about promoting your product/service, given that it is an attempt to help your readers, of course.

In my case, whenever I talk about a particular problem, and if I provide a service I don’t hold back from mentioning it on my newsletter.

Review products/services for goodness sake

Yes I know, people run away from reviews these days, coz they’re only done in order to make a sale, these days.

It is hard to find genuine reviews that discuss both the plus and minus of a product, the practical difficulties/limits of a product and so on.

But if you write genuine reviews, you can not only make sales easily but more importantly, your list subscribers will thank you for helping them choose a particular product from the sea of other crappy products.

I didn’t realize myself how effective genuine reviews (or genuine product recommendations) work towards building connections with my subscribers.

In my initial days, I always used to think people will find me annoying if I recommend a product for which I am an affiliate.

But when I recommend something that solves their problem or when they are stuck with making a choice between two products and if I tell them what suits their case, they not only end up buying it, but more importantly they become a thankful fan of me 🙂

Building rapport using your email autoresponder

Email marketing had become a piece of cake with all the lovely tools around.

We have email autoresponder services that have many cool features – lovely templates, design, and many other technical features that make it super easy to maintain our communication with our list subscribers.

  • Are we putting good use of the tools that are available to us?
  • Are we misusing them?
  • Are we effectively using them?
  • Are we using them to help others?

Yes we can now type a set of, say, 10 emails in one day and set up an autoresponder series so that any subscriber to your list starts receiving those emails in a particular order and in a particular frequency that you choose.

You can set this up once and forget about it for the rest of your life.

And still your subscribers, no matter if they joined your list today or 5 years from now, will receive those messages in the order and frequency you set up.

How cool is this?

Instead of simply being a sales man/woman, make use of this wonderful tool to build rapport and long lasting relationship with your subscribers.

This is the bottom line: When people find that you are helping them out generously (without holding back) and if you can manage to connect with them, making sales is a piece of cake.

This is not the case of “Chicken or Egg?”. Its pretty clear. Its the connection that comes first.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips

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About Jane

Jane Sheeba is the founder of Jane Sheeba Media. She shares everything about business and blogging that she learned the hard way! Don't forget to claim your FREE access to her Blogging Success Foundation Course.

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