Is your blog bland and boring like the one shown here on the left? Then there’s no wonder no one’s coming back! To get more people to read and subscribe to your blog, you need to make it visually enticing to match the intriguing content that adds value to the reader. Many writers forget that blogging is a VISUAL experience. With today’s visual media, you need to make sure you add pictures, diagrams, images, MindMaps and of course embed videos from YouTube.

A bland blog like this is created purely for SEO purposes and that won’t be worth much in the long run. Sure the immediate SEO effect will be there, but without HUMANS going to the pages, STAYING on the pages AND coming back, it will die a slow death within the indexes.

Don’t forget that when you launch a blog, you’re doing it for the end game – to have a loyal readership that wants to hear from you.

Make what you have to say exciting, appealing and attractive. Go from Bland To Brand!

Otherwise your blog will languish and all your effort will be for naught.

If you’re going to put in 90% of the effort (writing the content), why not go the extra 10% and get the REWARDS?

Just ask yourself one simple question…

“Would I read and come back to this blog?”

I have to state up front that I’m a Qantas Platinum Member and consider it one of the world’s top airlines. I think this is a great way to “come clean” about any mistakes, errors or shortcomings. The worst thing that can be done is – nothing.

Qantas Easter Message

As you can see, we’ve updated the Australian Blogs Banner… We thought it was time we gave it a mini face lift. Let us know what you think by posting a comment to this blog post. If you have ideas and suggestions about other themes and iconic images we should include, we’d love to hear them!

Today’s post is special, it includes an AUDIO interview with Magic Barclay of Fitness Driven in Geelong as well as a downloadable checklist. Magic cares for people the various conditions and afflictions noted below with a holistic, non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical approach, producing, well… exponential results with a holistic approach that involves the patient and his or her carer. Her blog is becoming the central source of up-to-date information and research for people who want solutions that work.

Australian Blogs is proud to support Magic’s incredible devotion to this cause that helps so many who need better information. Information that actually solves problems, reduces pain and discomfort.

To listen to Dr Marc Dussault’s Interview of Magic Barclay at Fitness Driven <- Click on the hyperlink.

5 Exponential Blogging Lessons are included below:

Read More »»

Attention all Australian Women Business Women and Men who know outstanding women worthy of nomination… The 2009 Telstra Business Woman Of The Year Awards are on again… Click on the URL for important dates.

This is an excellent way to get FREE publicity and see how you stack up in business. If you want to take a 20-minute self-administered ‘Business Marketing Autopsy‘ Click on the hyperlink for a quick profit check-up.

If you’re blogging as part of a corporate strategy, you need to make sure you are consistent with your branding, otherwise you will lose credibility, preeminence and yes sales. As an Exponential Growth Strategist, I help people get extra-ordinary results by doing out-of-the-ordinary things leveraging exponential marketing strategies on the Internet as well as in business.

Blog Branding: How Important is it?

That depends. It depends on why you are blogging in the first place. If it’s just a fun thing you’re doing, then it doesn’t much matter, but if it’s to make money or reinforce a service or product you’re selling then it is VERY IMPORTANT.

Without spending heaps, you can get really cool stuff done by professional web designers like KillerCovers.com.

I guess the only point I want to make today is that if you want to be taken seriously, you just have to LOOK the part.

The reason I say this is because without proper branding, you’re going to lose people ONCE they get to your blog – within seconds, people get a feel for it and either stay or click away.

You only have seconds to make that FIRST impression.

Make sure it’s a good one!

Ever wonder why some blogs are really cool to read while others are a bore and waste of time? If you don’t have enough people COMING to your blog and REGISTERING to your blog, you might not have developed a ‘persona’ that is congruent and authentic that resonates with your audience.

It’s a skill that I teach in our Killer Kopywriting Workshops, a Platinum Program event that is usually closed to the public, but when you call Gulliver on 0401 923 582, IF seats are available, he might be able to get you in to the next one in Melbourne on Wednesday 28 January from 10 AM to 5 PM so you can fly in and out on the same day from inter-state without having to pay for a hotel room.

But that’s not why I’m writing to you today.

The persona that you create will determine who subscribes to your blog.

If you don’t create one, no one will come.*

A ‘persona’ is a manufactured identity that meets the approval of an audience that wants to hear more from that ‘persona’…

One extreme example is The Rich Jerk. He created this persona and people who are into that ‘persona’ will go to his site and register on his blog.

Another persona, more my style is Grammar Girl… She has GREAT advice and I think her branding is very professional. I always send people to my favorite post on apostrophes…

So there you have it, create a persona and reap the rewards of a dedicated group of subscribers who will not only read your blog, but send people to it like I just did.

* If you don’t have a ‘persona’, then you need to have something else to get people to keep coming back, that is the subject of a future post – stay tuned and stay subscribed!