Blog Critique #1 – Apprentice Marketer Gazette

Well here it is. The first ever Blog Tyrant Blog Critique.

Let me start by saying thank you to all those who submitted their blog to be critiqued. It was a massive turn out. This really was not meant to be a competition or anything like that; just something I want to start doing for my readers.

Wait a second… I didn’t get to submit my blog!
I just want all my RSS readers, Twitter followers, etc. to know that the notification for this only went out to my email subscribers. I really do end up sharing a lot more with those guys as it is a direct and personal way of communicating to a very select (and handsome) group of people. Consider it a thank you for staying subscribed by email. To make sure you don’t miss out on the next one head over and subscribe. You won’t be sorry.

A bit of a twist on things – comments rewarded
To put the Blog Tyrant twist on all of this I want to let you know that if you leave a comment and engage in discussion on this post I will give you an extra entry in to next months blog critique. That will also help us get more people interested and involved and make it worthwhile for everyone concerned.

So here it is. A very rough and quick critique of the Apprentice Marketer Gazette. Please do your usual amazing fantastic thing and provide as much useful feedback as your keyboard can handle.

How Amazon.com Hooks Visitors

photo credit: the bbp

Amazon.com is one of the most successful websites in history. In fact, I am willing to bet that in a decade Amazon will be as big as Google and Facebook. Why? I’ll tell you a bit later on.

In this post I am going to show you how Amazon.com hooks visitors in and turns them into hyper loyal repeat customers. Once you learn to see these strategies and methods you will be able to apply them to your own blog or website in order to massively boost your reader retention, interaction and, of course, money making ability.

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…

SEX! How to Market Your Blog Without Selling Out

photo credit: felipe_gabaldon

Something that really bothers me in today’s media is the apparent lack of concern for the impact advertising and marketing has on the people who see it. Sex, violence, drugs, cheating and an unhealthy obsessions with money and status. Its nothing new but it is everywhere. And as you delve deeper in to the world of blogging you realize that a lot of those big online marketers are just the same; they’ll do anything for a buck

In this post I am going to talk about how you can market your blog or online business without selling out and resorting to the cheap “SEX!” tactics that we see everywhere else.

What you will find is that in the end these techniques are even more powerful.

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…

How Stay-at-Home Moms Can Make Good Money with Blogs & Online Businesses

A few days ago I was talking to my mom about how she sometimes feels like a career change. “Can you think of anything else I could do instead?” she asked me curiously. I just stared at her for a bit before replying, “You do know what I do for a living, don’t you mom?”

One of the internet’s true wonders is that it allows people with little time, low start-up capital and minimal experience to create a business that would be impossible in the offline world.

And as Blog Tyrant grows I notice more and more stay-at-home moms subscribing and emailing me about how they can make an income while their kids are at school or asleep for that hallowed 30 minutes.

This post is dedicated to you.

The next 3,182 words are all about how stay-at-home moms can make good money with online businesses, blogs and websites. I hope you read this article and leave thinking that it is possible.

HELP: I would love it if the amazing Blog Tyrant community could drop by the comments section and leave any tips you can think of that would help stay-at-home moms fast track their blogging business. Think time saving. You could really help a new family out.

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…

What Science, SARS & Sexual Partners Can Teach You About Blogging

photo credit: jaroslavd

Every now and then something in the offline world hits me like a tonne of bricks and makes me re-think my online activities. This article is all about one of those moments. It happened while watching a documentary and as soon as it finished I realized that I would have to re-structure the way I went about my blogging.

In this article I am going to talk about the SARS virus, sexual partners and Kevin Bacon and what these random elements can teach you about how you blog.

Trust me, you’ll want to hear this.

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…

What Makes People Open an Email or Letter?

photo credit: lisaclarke

Email marketers think they are pretty smart. Some of them make tens of thousands of dollars per email campaign. But the old letterbox marketers are pretty smart too. In fact, some stores make millions of dollars straight off the back of a letterbox drop, while certain politicians get elected to office by virtue of writing letters to their constituent. I wonder which of the two has better open rates?

In this post I am going to look at some lessons from email and letter marketing that might help us discover what really gets people to open an email. This is a vital thing to know if you want to start making money from your blog.

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…

Why I Switched to Aweber for My Blog’s Email List and Why You Should Too

Photo credit: maistora

For close to ten years now I have been using Feedburner to capture email subscribers. Last Thursday I changed to Aweber.

In this article I am going to show you why I moved my blog’s email list and why you should too.

Your blog’s email subscribers are the base from which you can grow your brand and develop a lasting income. It is vital that you set yourself up with the best software so that you can capture email subscribers effectively, email them new content and develop a lasting relationship.

Goodbye to Feedburner?

In some respects it is goodbye to Feedburner and in others it is business as usual. I have been using Feedburner on multiple blogs and websites for almost a decade now and, for the most part, I have been extremely happy with their free service.

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…

How to Stop Your Blog Bleeds

photo credit: Foxtongue

Your blog is bleeding. Hemorrhaging in fact.

Every day you are losing valuable readers because of tiny cuts and gashes all over your blog. All that hard work you did crafting headlines, writing original content and marketing your work is going to waste. In this article I am going to show you how you can stop your blog bleeds and retain more visitors to your blog.

Diagnosing the blog bleeds

The first thing a doctor does when he or she sees a patient is takes a history. In fact, 90% of all diagnosis’ are done from the patient history. Apply that to the blogging world and it means you can solve a lot of your blog bleeding by just knowing where it is taking place. A lot of people have no idea.

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…

How to Make a Problogger Style Facebook Landing Page Using FBML [Video]

Well, you asked for it! Here is the first ever Blog Tyrant video tutorial!

Please head on over to my Youtube Channel and subscribe for all my updates. If you can’t watch the video I have written out the steps for you below.

Today I want to show you how you can very simply create a Facebook landing page for your Fan Page using FBML, just like Darren Rowse the Problogger has done. This is a fantastic way to make your page look less like Facebook’s brand and more like your own. Quite a few of the lovely Blog Tyrant readers have asked me how to do this so I thought I’d try it as the premier video.

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…

How to Utilize Wait Marketing on Your Blog to Make More Money

photo credit: eflon

Have you ever been standing at a petrol pump watching the dollars tick over only to notice a little advert for milk on the pump handle? That is called wait marketing; a form of marketing where products are promoted to you while you wait around for something else to happen.

It is a very powerful method.

In this article I am going to talk about how you can use wait marketing on your blogs and online businesses to make more money. This article is part of an ongoing trend here on Blog Tyrant to talk about offline marketing methods that work well for blogs and websites.

What exactly is wait marketing?

Wait marketing really isn’t that difficult to understand. Basically, any time you are standing around waiting for something and you see an advert positioned in that very place you can be certain it is a wait marketing campaign. Some of the most common places you find wait marketing promotions include:

Read the rest of this amazing literary work…