A funny thing happened along the way

As some of you know, I never finished my Ph.D. in Marriage & Family Therapy back in the late 80′s/early 90′s. Have you ever been told you could not do something? If you’re anything like me, that just makes me want to do it all the more, if for no other reason than to prove them wrong.

Except this time when some of my dissertation committee told me I couldn’t write well at all, somehow that got in, and I took them at their word.

So if you believe you can’t write, you don’t finish your dissertation and you don’t get your Ph.D.

So then in 1994 I started writing a weekly column about relationships for the local paper that filled my private practice to overflowing. I must confess that I did get a kick out of having a full practice while others with a Ph.D. were struggling.

Not too long ago someone from the dissertation committee signed up for one of my Content Creation Workshops. That’s a day we still celebrate.

As author Richard Bach says “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.” I like to say, and sometimes accidentally change Bach’s quote into “argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.” Same message that is worth taking with you.

Bottom Line: Be careful, be very careful, about the limitations others, and especially you, try to put on you… and which ones you believe.

So what’s to be learned from all this?

Here are a few learning points about writing and creating content:

1) As stated above, don’t accept, ever, the limitations others put on you. In fact don’t accept the limitations you put on yourself. They are often times just beliefs – a feeling of certainty about something. It can be quite fun to challenge those limitations and prove them wrong.

2) I probably still couldn’t write academically if you held a gun to my head. And, fortunately, I don’t want or need to do so. The great news is I don’t have to and neither do you. All you need to do is write conversationally. In other words, simply write like you talk.

3) Number 2 works because prospects are attracted to your voice. Not the audio sound of your voice, but the way you approach and solve problems. That is your voice, and no one else can deliver it like you.

4) If you can write a 5 item grocery list, you can create profitable content based on your own expertise. You can then turn that content into a powerful presence on the web and be found all over your niche, lots of traffic visiting your profit sites, build a highly qualified and responsive list community, and create profits by creating, marketing and offering information products based on your content.

The truth is I’ve been creating content to building my businesses, both offline (a thriving therapy practice from 1986 – 2006) and online (helping entrepreneurs build their online business with Content Marketing 2006 – NOW), since 1994.

And I want to bring those 18 years experience creating profitable content to you with this Webinar “How to Create Prospect & Profit Pulling Content in 20 Minutes or Less with Jeff Herring” on Wednesday March 20th at 12 pm EST -

Join us here => http://uContext.com/quickcontent

The struggle for many content marketers, both new and experienced, is consistently coming up with ideas for creating content. I’ve noticed that many go through a few stages in their struggle to come up with content ideas.

Let’s take a closer look at those three stages and more importantly, what to do about each one.

3 Stages

Stage 1 – Ideas are not flowing – When you sit down to create content you have to repeatedly stop and think about what to write about. The flow has not stopped, it’s just not as easy as it normally is for you.

What to Do – Step back and brainstorm. Make a list of content ideas. Don’t edit – just brainstorm. This is something you need to be doing anyway, so you always have a list of content ideas from which to pull.

Stage 2 – Ideas are a struggle - Even when you look at a list of your ideas, nothing pops out for you. It feels like you are seeing the ideas on a list, but they are not making sense in your head, and not making the trip from your head to your fingers.

What to Do - Take a trip to your supermarket and check out the titles on the covers of the magazines in the checkout line. Thousands of dollars have been spent deciding how to title these articles. Find titles that you can use in your niche and get busy creating great content.

Stage 3 – You are beginning to believe in writer’s block, even though it does not exist. Ideas are not only not flowing, ideas are just plain stuck. Your frustration level is high, and you’re honestly getting a little bit frightened by your lack of ideas.

What to Do – Go to your topic in EzineArticles and look at some of the top articles in your niche. See which ones are getting lots of traffic. Choose an idea that you know will appeal to your community and simply do a better job with it.This is not plagiarism. This is research because you are simply looking for ideas. You are not copying what someone else has said, you are just going to do a better treatment of it because of your skills.

The Next Step – Your next success step is to grab your spot in our upcoming webinar “How to Create Prospect & Profit Pulling Content in 20 Minutes or Less with Jeff Herring” on Wednesday March 20th at 12 pm EST -

Join us here => http://uContext.com/quickcontent

Not because is the latest and greatest thing. I’m sure
next month everyone will be talking about something
different. I want to make a serious effort to get published
because I want recurring income from something I only have
to do once.

But, I wanted to do it right because the benefits of
writing a book once and getting paid over, and over, and
over again is just too good to at least give a solid try.
Its hard to deny Amazon’s absolutely enormous marketplace.

So, I’ve started consuming every little bit of information
I could find on Kindle publishing. I bought ebooks and sat
in on every webinar I could find. Sometimes more than once.

Then I found a Kindle publishing guide that is about as
complete as I’ve ever seen.

http://uContext.com/perfectpublishing

Please ignore the hype on this sales page! The videos in
this guide are all about doing it right, the way Amazon
wants you to do it. No tricks. No shoddy PLR content.
Instead, its about how to do it quickly, easily, and
still create top-quality books that you aren’t afraid to
show off to your friends and family.

I honestly thought about keeping this guide to myself. I
didn’t want to add more competition to the Amazon
marketplace. But, I caved because I know it can really
help people that are serious, and I’m sure there is more
than enough space for you and me.

As always, I don’t promote anything I haven’t bought and
reviewed myself!

I highly recommend it…
http://uContext.com/perfectpublishing

I was burned out and frustrated with trying to make a living online without knowing where my next customer would come from. I needed a new strategy.

It was just about that time when Willie Crawford set me an email about a group that was only 3 years old. It was the “Niche Affiliate Marketing System”. But, the name threw me off. By this point, I had my fill of Internet “systems”.

But, I clicked the link and read the sales page anyway. It was from Willie after all. And, I knew he is careful about what he promotes.

What I found was not really a system at all. Instead NAMS is a group of 25+ Internet business people who have had years of success and were donating their time to help other people find success too.

Twice a year they get together in Atlanta to teach those that can make show up, and record the sessions for those who can’t. And, every week throughout the year they have “deep dive” webinars into specific topics.

For two weeks it haunted me. I kept the email and bookmarked the link. Maybe this one the thing I needed to make a positive change in my business.

As a New Year’s present to myself, I signed up. And, because I did, 2011 was a much different year than it mighthave been. My business is finally off the ground and growing.

If you’re business needs a new direction, a new strategy, or something different than a get-rich-quick system, I invite you to consider making NAMS a New Year’s gift toyourself. Make 2012 the year you find success or more of it.

http://uContext.com/nams

Please, don’t pay full price! Use the coupon code: MyNAMS85

However, there is something you can do. Try setting your “Min. Gravity” to something very low, but still above zero.

For example: 0.1

To do this, go to the uContext members area and click on “Websites”. Then, click on “Filters” under your website’s settings.

Because gravity is linked to sales activity, this will help filter out products that no longer have affiliates promoting them or making sales at all.

http://www.ucontext.com/knowledgebase/

Something that comes up a few times a week is why links
don’t show. And, most of the time is because of not enough
content and not enough keywords. I simply can’t cover all
the tips and tricks in the knowledgebase on this one topic.

However, last week I found a very interesting ebook that
shows an interesting way to find and research good keywords
in a niche. The guy that wrote it is an SEO professional
and has worked for some big companies. His experience
really shows in this guide.

http://uContext.com/advancedkeywordreport

He covers how to do keyword research on Adsense and
affiliate websites, but it really covers any type of blog.
Many of the other guides I’ve read are a little too vague.
Markus really shows the simple math and science of doing
it right.

As a bonus, he threw in a guide for doing local SEO keyword
research. Handy if you’re targeting a specific town or
city.

Starting later tonight I will be putting his tips and
techniques into practice with two new websites.

http://uContext.com/advancedkeywordreport

• Do you have the uContext plug-in installed, activated, and configured with your API Key?
• Are your links a color that is easily visible and contrasts the other text on the page. Consider changing your stylesheet to make the links easier to see.
• Have you rolled your mouse over the links in your content looking for URL’s with “ucontext.com” in them?
• Is your content long enough? A minimum of 300 words is recommended. Anything less and uContext will struggle to find keywords.
• Do you even have keywords? In other words are there specific words or phrase that you use more than once throughout your content that best represent the primary topic of your blog post?
• Are you using uContext filters and are there enough Clickbank products left related to your website’s topic to promote? Look for the bold number highlighted in yellow in the filter settings of the uContext members area for your website. Its better to start out with all products available and slowly refine your filters over time.
• Clear your cache from the uContext plug-in settings area after you make changes to your filters. Access several pages on your website. Wait 5-10 minutes and reload those pages before looking for uContext links again.
• To see if the plug-in communicating correctly, go to “Pages” under your website in the members area. If you don’t see pages from your website listed after activating the plug-in, visiting a few pages, and then waiting 5-10 minute before refreshing those same pages, please contact support at the link below.

After you’ve evaluated the possible problems above, please use the support area if you continue to have problems.

http://uContext.com/support

• Not enough traffic
• Not enough quality of traffic
• Not enough buying traffic
• Your niche could be too general

There are literally thousands of ways to get traffic. We can buy it, we can trade for it, and we can optimize for it. But, there’s no doubt we need traffic to makes sales. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t make sales with low traffic numbers. That’s where quality, buying traffic is important.

If we had a blog on dog training and most visitors are teenagers looking for information about Snoop Dog’s next album, that’s very poor quality traffic. You need to make sure you’re tapping into audiences that match the niche. We probably want to locate people who either just got a puppy in the last several months or people who have dogs with behavior problems.

But, we also want buying traffic. With so much free information out on the Internet, we need to focus our traffic even more. Never underestimate the impatience of a person with a problem. Present them with a quick and easy solution to their problems and they’ll most likely buy the solution instead of wasting hours search around online. In other words, we like to think these are people sitting in front of their computers with their mouse in one hand and a credit card in the other.

This leads me to the quality of your website. And, the most important factor is whether or not your niche is too general. For example, does our dog training website have several posts about the classic car we bought last weekend? How about training parrots to talk? I’d say that’s still too general and off topic.

If you stray off the main topic, don’t go too far. Perhaps dog house plans and products for cleaning up urine stains would be a better choice. See how they might relate to someone with a new puppy or someone with a dog training problem? uContext tries to do this for you with the links it creates, but it needs the content on your website to give it hints.

Is the content on your website well organized and presented in a clear and profession manner? All too often I see websites that are crammed with advertisements surrounding and injected into the content of the website. Google Adsense here and there, random banners all around, and more Adsense scattered throughout the body of the content for good measure. Stop the madness! I doubt many people spend much time on a website like that, let alone actually click ads.

To summarize, get in front of the traffic by understanding who your audience is and what they want. When they visit your website, treat them right and many will trust you enough to buy. Put yourself in their shoes.

Upgrading your uContext account lets you see reports to help you understand your audience. What keywords are they clicking most and what offers are they seeing? You can also fine tune the exact Clickbank offers to best fit your visitors.

Go to “My Account” in the uContext members area to upgrade to get reports.

http://uContext.com/members

Today, I’m going to talk about the length of blog posts. Many people will tell you many things about this topic. And again, its because this is not an exact science. My recommendation is a minimum of 500 words. Since the recent changes with Google’s formula, this is a safe minimum.

But, this is simply a guideline. The world won’t end if you only write a 490 word blog post from time to time. Sometimes there isn’t that much to say. On the other hand, how serious about blogging is a search engine going to think if you routinely write 1000+ word blog posts? Most search engines are going to think your VERY serious. Again, use your best judgement.

uContext needs content to find keywords and turn them into Clickbank affiliate links for you. If your content is too short, there’s a real good chance there aren’t that many keywords in your content to begin with. Your blog post won’t have any links if uContext can’t find keywords.

You’re probably saying, how am I going to get enough content for even just a 500 word blog post on a regular basis? There are actually countless ways to get inspiration and even borrow content. Here are a few of my favorites…

Article Directories – Places like ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com are huge directories of articles. By following their rules you can cut and paste these articles directly into your blog. But, the best way to use these articles is for inspiration or simply rewrite the entire article in your own words.

PLR – Public License Rights articles is content that you can get for free or buy. Much like the articles in article directories, you can use them as-is for free. Again, I recommend rewriting at least 20% of the PLR article to make it more unique. There is a lot of debate as to whether search engines care about duplicate content, but its best to take 15 minutes and avoid the issue altogether.

Google Alerts – I always knew about Google Alerts, but didn’t realize the power of this super simple tool until recently. This free service allows you to basically watch the entire Internet for keywords that you choose. When something new appears on the Internet, Google Alerts can send you an email digest or you can use your favorite RSS reader to watch as new content is found. This is a great way to get news and watch what other people are talking about in your niche.

Jeff Herring is the master of creating and re-purposing content quickly and easily. He has what he calls “Plug-n-Play” instant article creation templates. With more than 1,500 article on ezinearticles.com alone, who can argue with his authority on the topic!

Click here for more info…
http://uContext.com/articletemplates

Today I’m going to discuss keywords saturation since its the most important factor all around. Too many keywords and search engines will think you’re trying too hard. Too few keywords and uContext won’t be able to create links. Not only that, but you’re much less likely to get the traffic from search engines you want.

So, what’s too much or too little? Unfortunately, knowing the answer to that question is not an exact science because search engines like Google and Bing won’t tell you their exact formula for ranking your website.

But, my recommendation is to pick one main keyword or phrase and 2 or 3 supporting keywords or phrases. For example, a main keyword might be “weight loss diets”. And, my supporting keywords might be “diet tips”, “low fat food”, and “weight loss recipes”. See how they all relate to each other?

The next task is to use them in your blog post. At minimum, you’ll want to use your main keyword in the title of your post. Also, use it in the first paragraph of your content, preferably in the first sentence. And, use it again in the last paragraph, preferably in the last sentence. To give it a little extra emphasis, I recommend bolding one use and italicizing the other.

And finally, use your related keywords throughout the body of your blog post. And, will all the keywords, don’t over-saturate your content. I recommend no more than once per paragraph. But, use your best judgement. Again, this isn’t an extact science.

Don’t forget about your human readers too! A good website is one that has enjoyable posts that entertain and/or inform. If visitors to your website find your content spammy and unreadable, they won’t stay long, might not ever come back, and are far less likely to click on your advertising links!

To learn from the best right now and from someone who’s been making a living online with websites since 1998, Rosalind Gardner’s comprehensive affiliate marketing course will cover every topic under the sun.

http://uContext.com/superaffiliatehandbook