Why I’m Opening Blog Tyrant to Guest Posts… With a Slight Difference

When I launched Blog Tyrant over a year ago (can you believe it?) I instantly got lucky.

I hit the front page of Delicious in the first few weeks and had tens of thousands of visitors who subscribed, tweeted and told their friends.

My career as the Blog Tyrant was born… thank heavens.

And from the beginning I decided that I wasn’t accepting any guest posts, even if Seth Godin himself wrote to me. A lot of people thought this was a strange decision.

So why did I do it?

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Blog Hosting Review: What is the Best Blog Host?

What is the best blog hosting set up to start a WordPress blog the right way?

In this review I’m going to show you:

• Why you should avoid free hosts and blogging platforms
• Why I think a WordPress blog hosted with BlueHost is the best option for new bloggers
• A quick video on the three elements necessary to start a blog
• A step by step guide on installing WordPress on BlueHost
• The sweetest features BlueHost has on offer

But why am I writing about this?

Well, I get a lot of emails from readers asking where they should start and how they do it. It can be a really scary and stressful time if you feel like you are doing it all alone.

Over 300 people have used this post to start their very first blog! But if you get stuck or are still confused just shoot me an email and I’ll help you out or answer your questions. That’s what I’m here for!

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How to Add a “Click to Tweet” Link to Quotes Within Your Posts

Ever wondered how people add a little “tweet this quote” or “click to tweet” link within their posts that allows readers to just tweet that quote and not the whole article?

You might not have even seen it yet. Its a fairly new thing that all the cool kids are doing.

Anyway, I first saw this on Neil Patel’s blog and decided to implement it on my own.

This is a really cool way to get more retweets on your blog because you are giving people micro-opportunities to share your work. They might not want to tweet your whole post but they might like a quote or two.

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How to Use Video to Massively Increase Sign Ups & Conversions

Blogging used to be just about written content. But these days we need to think of ourselves as internet marketers. And that means video.

I’ve said it so many times lately: as the world makes the shift from PCs and laptops to tablets and smart phones we need to be on top of the technology changes.

People are viewing and responding to videos now more than ever before and it’s important that we take advantage of its power.

In this post I want to show you why video can massively increase your email sign ups, sales and conversions. I’ll also show you some really cool examples.

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How to Get $2,390,000 Worth of Funds for Your Next Project

Tim from Double Fine negotiating publishing rights. Courtesy Double Fine.

Let’s be clear. This is not just a post about raising funds. It’s a post about building a community.

And yep, that figure is totally real. A company called Double Fine used Kick Starter to raise over $2,000,000 from random individuals in just over two weeks.

It was totally amazing.

In this post I want to show you how Kick Starter works but also show you a few really important community-building lessons that you can learn from this amazing online event.

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Why Your Email Subscriber Stats Are Lying to You

We all know how obsessed I am with email subscribers. Most of my guest posts are about how to get more of them.

And we all know that I really like Aweber for an all-in-one service that builds opt-in forms, manages the database and let’s you send out nifty emails.

But what if I told you that your email subscriber stats were lying to you?

Would you be worried?

In this post I want to show you a couple of very important things to understand about your email subscriber statistics. It could be the difference between a big success or a lot of failures.

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28 Posts + 1 Big Tip to Help You Get Really, Really Big on Twitter

Everyone wants to be really big on Twitter.

Thousands of adoring fans, people who Tweet your blog posts and an instant flow of traffic for everything that you do.

Here are 28 articles that will help you get really big on Twitter. I’ve read all of these (some a few times) over the years and think they have some great insights to provide.

Oh, and at the end I’ll give you 1 big tip that will bring everything together.

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The Simplified Guide to Social Media for Small Businesses

Social media is not going away. And if you are a small business you wouldn’t want it to.

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube… the list is huge (and possibly overwhelming) but the potential for growing your business, expanding your customer base and making more money is just as vast.

Some small businesses are now using social media to grow profits. Others are struggling to navigate the jungle and are making mistakes along the way.

In this post I’m going to talk a little bit about what you need to be doing if you want to get in on the action.

I’ll answer all the questions you’ll need to know including:

• What is social media?
• What social media sites should your small business be using?
• How do you get started on the most important sites?
• How do you use social media to grow profits?
• What strategies and tools will help you grow faster?
• What have the best social media users been doing? (Case studies)
• What are the dangers of social media?

Let’s jump right in! You’ve got over 3,500 words to get through.

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7 Difficult Questions Every Blogger Needs to Ask Themselves

Blogging is quite an introspective art.

Sure, we write for other people (sometimes thousands of them) but we also spend time looking inwards and asking ourselves important questions about who we are and what we are doing.

And as your blogging career progresses there are a few really big questions that you will need to ask yourself.

This post is a bit of a depart from my usual 2,000+ word essays. I’m just going to show you seven questions that I have asked myself over the last 5 to 10 years.

Hopefully you can jump ahead and learn the lessons now – some bigger than others.

What questions do you think are important to ask?

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5 Ways to Make Your Blog’s Sidebar Work Smarter

The sidebar is an often misunderstood part of a blog or website.

99% of the time you will see it clogged up with social media icons, affiliate ads, email subscription boxes… the list is endless.

But is your sidebar really working for you? Is it working as smart as it could be?

In this post I am going to show you five ways to make your blog’s sidebar work a lot smarter.

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