21 Days to a More Profitable Blog Tutorial > Day 4! Craft your Why Subscribe? Page and Network
(Breaking news! Heck froze over! I actually slept more than 8 hours!)
"Sleep" is such an underrated commodity! After returning from Advanced Karate yesterday by 6pm, I gave myself permission to make a Chili-Peppered Salad with Bleu Cheese and pine nuts and retreat to my bedroom, where I continued reading my kids’ book Twilight until the wee hours of the morning (okay, until 6:30pm or so). Went to sleep and amazingly (hope you’re sitting down for this) DIDN’T get up at 3am and DIDN’T start writing at 3:03am!
Instead, I got up at a very late 4:26am, filled with energy, perused my feedreader, posted a comment at How to Forgive: The Tug-of-War Between Heart and Head, and am now diving into Day 4!
Let me first do a sanity check (yes, coffee is by my left hand) and begin!
(ahem)
Today is Day 4 of my series, 21 Days To A More Profitable Blog!
And for today, I’d like to talk about…
Girl Scout cookies and Effective Internet Marketing
Got that mental picture square in your mind? Splendid! Now, imagine the following. You’re driving along your town’s road when you see a tent pitched in the local bar’s parking lot that screams out GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!
…and don’t think I’m making this up – I saw this for 4 weeks running last month. Only parents were manning that tent as well; didn’t see any girl scouts there whatsoever. Score 1 for parental ingenuity, and score 0 for the idjut kids who expected Mom/Dad to sell their quota of cookies.
Anywhos, unless you’ve been traveling with E.T. these past 20 odd years, you probably know what girl scout cookies are…or at least what a cookie is. You probably have your own particular favorites like double chocolate chip or thin mints (thin mints, hah, what a concept, what are they going to call it instead, Less-ingredients-so-they’re-thinner cookies) etc. Right?
The point is, you know what a cookie is...you even know what a girl scout cookie is! Why, let’s take that one step further and decree, you probably know what a computer is or what a car is or what a blog feed is or what a coffee cup is or….I assume you get my point. You’re familiar with the product/concept.
You don’t have to pause and think…hmmm, do I want it or not? YOU KNOW.
Now! Let’s say you’re online, happy as a clam, surfing about and come across a blog that uses the What Would Seth Godin Plugin do that we described yesterday. Heck, let me provide you the link to find sites that have this that right now: click below.
Wow, over 500K sites are returned!! Go click on some of them and get yourself familiar with them.
These are what I call the Girl Scout Cookies of the Internet.
All of them say,
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
and the link provided goes directly to the blog’s feed. In other words, they are ASSUMING the visitor ALREADY knows if they want to subscribe….or not.
Let me now call over the dynamic Clue Herder To The Rescue and offer you the following clue:
Well hey, I MIGHT want to subscribe … but then again, I might not. How on earth would I know? I just got to your site!
I know, I know, the silence you’re currently experiencing is your jaw dropping to the ground and you thinking:
My gosh…she’s right.
Indeed. Think about it – when someone visits your site, giving them the option to subscribe right then and there is tantamount to you going to the mall, walking into the sporting goods store and having an employee shove your potential purchase in your face and offer to let you buy it now.
Okay, true, I’ll give you… the above example require money, so it’s not a completely adequate comparison but hey, I’m still on only my first cup of coffee and my burners are still firing up. 🙂
So now an opportunity arises! Let’s look instead at THIS search:
Check out some of the blogs and site resources that are returned!
- Why Should I Subscribe to Dosh Dosh?
- Why Subscribe to Binary Joy
- Why Subscribe? : Solo Business Marketing
- Why Subscribe to the SimpleChurch Journal
- Subscribe to Beerworth Business Newsletter | Robert Beerworth Blog …
- Why Subscribe? The Hungry Dollar …feed your future!
My gosh, what a difference! Especially DoshDosh. …after reading his page, I immediately researched out the above and crafted my own. You can read it over here:
See a wee bit of difference in the content?
I view the ‘Why Subscribe’ page to be a perfect opportunity to really engage the reader with your own unique blogging voice..and proactively demonstrate just, well, why visitors would want to subscribe.
How do YOU view a Why Subscribe page?
Hmmmm?
With that as an admittedly long introduction, let’s now joyfully embrace creating your own Why Subscribe page. Turn now to:
Before You Begin – Know why people should want to subscribe to your site.
After all, if you’re going to write a page you should really know what you want to include. 🙂
- Why SHOULD people want to subscribe to your site?
- What is it that you offer that nobody else can do half as well?
Are you drawing a blank? If so, let me help you with the following:
- Nobody can write in your own unique blogging voice half as well!
Nobody has your own insights, your own style, your own special (zing!) that only you add to your posts. That’s one thing you can highlight!
You can also focus on the mundane like ease of receiving articles, the secret tips/techniques you deliver and the like.
Make notes of at least three different reasons why people should subscribe to your site.
Next,
Step 1 – Go to your blog and create new PAGE (not post, PAGE), title it "Why Subscribe", write it and save it.
True, you don’t HAVE to make it a PAGE, but if you use plugins like the Multi Navigation DoHickey like I have above for my menus, it makes things much much easier. WordPress blogs almost always group pages at the top of your theme; having a Why Subscribe in the main navigation is very good marketing indeed.
Once you have a blank page open, write out your copy. Think from the viewpoint of the reader – there they are with (ideally!) an open mind. How will you convince them to subscribe? What’s the benefits they’ll receive?
What would make them go WHEEEEE! I GOTTA CLICK ON THAT CUTE LITTLE RSS THINGEE?
Write it, save it, reward yourself with a cup of coffee or tea, and then smoothly move to:
Step 2 – Tweak your Seth Godin Plugin.
You DID install it from yesterday, right? No? Ah, these things happen – you can grab the download HERE.
Now, open your WordPress Admin dashboard and choose
Options | WWSGD
See those words, Message to New Visitors:?
Change it to something like:
<p style=’border:dotted blue; padding:3mm;’>
<b>Welcome! If you’re new to my site</b>,
click <a href=http://www.barbaraling.com/subscribe/><b>HERE</b></a>
to see why all the goodies you get when you subscribe to my site.
Thanks for visiting!</p>
Obviously….change the URL to your site and subscribe page. 🙂
But now yet ANOTHER opportunity arises!!!!!!!! Wheeee!
Check out my instance of the Seth Godin Plugin:
You see, after building my Why Subscribe page, I took another look at my site…and realized I offer benefits for folks who aren’t subscribers as well. I have the free ebook download, I write about unique/specific categories such as Make Money, Fun, Insane Luxury…probably it would be useful if I offered information about those resources as well (my goals are to have that ebook passed around online, which can be achieved without a subscription).
If you don’t offer downloads/etc., you can probably just stay with a Why Subscribe page. Always remember to keep an open mind! You can always change your WWSGD link whenever your site evolves.
I have my WWSG information set to display for 2 page views. After that, it disappears for returning individuals. I figure that not every newcomer will click on it immediately, so I offer the second opportunity.
And you’re done! No! Wait! You’re not! I’ve only written out Steps 1 and 2…what about Step 3? Ah hah…here it is!
And finally, for my last step in Day 4 of 21 Days to a More Profitable Blog, I’d like to suggest that you adroitly:
Step 3 – Network and comment at other blogs
Remember my Step 3 of yesterday? That’s where you added bunches of feeds to your website/blog feed reader?
Since (ideally!) you’ve been maintaining and writing every day in your blog, you should now take a moment to scan all of your niches’ blog posts and begin to comment intelligently at them. This will help you generate backlinks/traffic to your site…and now that Newcomers will see your Why Subscribe page, ideally start to build your readership as well.
There’s always a method to my madness! Why not start out your commenting by adding your input below for this lesson? 🙂 Remember, after 3 comments, the DOFOLLOW tag gets automatically switched on and will help drive traffic back to your site as well.
Nice, eh?
And that brings me to:
In closing
In today’s lesson, you wrote your Why Subscribe page to show visitors the goodies they’ll receive by signing up for your feed, and tweaked your WWSGD plugin to showcase that.
But! An opportunity now arises!
(remember, there’s no such things as problems in real life – just misunderstood opportunities)…..
HOMEWORK – Are you on Twitter?
No?? Say it ain’t so! At the time of this writing, Twitter is one of the most popular microblogging platforms around!
Your homework tonight is to:
- Sign up for Twitter if you’re not currently on it.
- Follow Me on Twitter if you currently don’t
- Learn all about Twitter Budgies for a good dose of humor
and answer the following question. Your Twitter homepage lets you include a link to your site….what link should you show?
You might be surprised at the answer….
Until tomorrow! (and don’t forget, if you think any of your friends would benefit from these tutorials, please do share them! I’ve gotten some great comments regarding The Clue Herder above… 🙂 )
Barbara
#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:
Beginners make money blogging tips: Newcomers have NO CLUE as to why they would want to subscribe to your site. Make it easy for them by building a Why Subscribe page.
Intermediate and/or Advanced make money blogging tips: Enhance your Why Subscribe idea by building an entire Best Benefits of My Site To You page.
#END highlights of this blog writing post
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