What I Have Been Doing During My Mailing List Haitus

Surprisingly, I did more than I should have while I was working on the mailing list and that’s because my early blogging endeavor was a habit that helped me produced content on a consistent basis. So there was always ideas happening, written, organized and re-arranged even when I didn’t have to.

That’s really a bad thing because it will delay your plans further. So what happened?

I started 2 more blogs! One is the Blogger version of this site, which I want to experiment with to talk more about what’s happening around here. So there is going to be some linking back and forth. Thus, what you’re getting is a summary version of all the posts I will publish here and then some.

I’ve made it look like a twin without all the fancy plugins.

Blogging For Blogger Version

This was made possible in part to their new Template Designer Wizard which was quite impressive. I’ll say that it is something which newbies might like as well if they’re totally at a loss for installing and/or coding. So on the FREE side, this new feature isn’t really that bad.

Blogger Template Designer

Moreover, I did start off with Blogger as a beginner. I think we all have. If you didn’t, well, good for you. It’s just been a long time that I’ve forgotten what’s it like to blog simple. I won’t lie, the service can be very easy and you don’t have to tinker with anything technical. That’s a change because the only thing I started missing was the SEO part. :P

I cannot find adjustments for permalinks, categories and their tags are called labels which you can add onto the sidebar just like our swirl of keywords. So the only way I can optimize my content is through the title and scattering the keywords within the article.

This is something interesting.

Blogger then is definitely for bloggers who aren’t interested in all things technical. They make it so easy that all you have to do is blog! You don’t have to think about search engine rankings for that part. And if you search onto their gadgets, the closest you’ll find to SEO is tips and services such as quotes and blogroll.

Thus, what we call here on WordPress widgets, they call gadgets. When you want to add one, just searching through the gadget list you can insert whatever you like from their list of 1300+. Furthermore, within the design portion of the Blogger dashboard, you can drag and drop the gadgets anywhere you want.

Blogger Design Panel

This is very much like what we see inside our widget section under Appearance. Furthermore, if have a theme like Headway, everything in WordPress may seem like point and click like above. Overall, Blogger really makes it easy to blog.

However, once you go WordPress, you don’t want to go back.

It’s almost like dumbing yourself down. Really. Nonetheless, it’s nice to leverage both platforms to see more ways on how blogging is effective as a whole and I’m all for research to help any blogger get closer to their goal!

Now the next site I created is actually self-hosted.

It’s called Already Used Info. I’ve had this domain for awhile because I wanted to make it something about weddings or clothes. Sort of like a niche site. In the end, I couldn’t find myself go deep into the topic nor did I had the time, so it’s been converted to my personal blog where I randomly talk and let loose on all things creative.

I’m thinking of repurposing content to make videos. What do you think?

Already Used Home

Furthermore, I decided to carry my SEO education over. Especially with setting permalinks, keyword tagging, picture tagging and all that good stuff. It’s a nice change from what’s happening here. Hence, I find it more appealing just to talk about what I’ve written.

Watch out! It’s news anchor time! :P

For this site, I installed On the Go theme from Elegant Themes. I thought it was beautiful, simple and just gets straight to the point. What’s also fantastic is the dashboard configuration which they call ePanel is where you set your specific needs on how the areas will be seen.

So basically everything is set for you. Just adjust and save!

Elegant Themes ePanel

And you know what. All of this blogging elsewhere has really helped a lot with making the e-course. I actually went back in time to remember what it’s like to not have a blog and started from scratch. So while it’s actually taking much longer than I expected, I rather do it slowly rather than rush into making something I’ll keep modifying.

Hence, it’s enough for me to give it a thumbs up to go soon. And that’s a hard thing about seeing your ideas in action. The deadline is actually delayed now and if this was a real-world situation, I’m losing lots of money. Really bad. However, nothing done in excess is regarded as a waste. A couple of product ideas were also conceived.

So now I have about 3 more projects in the works.

Here’s are the ideas behind them:

  • Extended Premium Lessons – that’s an extra 7 more weeks of blog unleashing
  • Article Marketing Challenge Part Deux – a revamp of the 1000 Articles Challenge
  • How to Make Your Own E-course – lessons or ebook, kind of unsure

So I’m curious, would you be interested in extended lessons for another 7 weeks after the first 7 lessons I give out? These would be not be free. Instead, it will be something premium. In addition, I figured that by the time someone completes these 14 lessons and perhaps surprisingly more, which I find that there’s always room for improvement, they would be well into their 5th month. This is enough to make a decision to carry on with blogging or dump it.

The premium 7 lessons will go more into depth on:

  • recommended plugins and their usage
  • site design and basic SEO
  • tracking and analyzing your progress
  • finding FREE ways to grow your blogging experience
  • article marketing and how to spread your influence
  • intro to product development and creating a continuity plan
  • building a mailing list – everything you know VIP style

Keep in mind, you should finish the whole course in 14 weeks or more. A blogger who can withstand blogging that long can do anything! However, if you choose to not continue, the article marketing challenge will be something to look forward to. It’s an alternative route which I find will help us grow to communicate on a community level.

What do you think?

Finally, the e-course product is something which came out of the blue. I thought, hey, you might want to know how to create your own e-course as well. I’ve already put together a resource sheet on whom I’ve studied from, what they provided and how they worked their list. I’m sure as time carries on, e-courses will be making a comeback into the blogosphere too.

The sweet thing about it is, it’s absolutely catered to your style and no one else’s.

Furthermore, the sheet I’ve created was very insightful. I’ve learned so many things which I didn’t use for my own e-course, and it sure would go to waste if I don’t put into the hands of those who are interested in it. Thus, these ideas can really help a new blogger who is focused on providing awesome value in building their mailing list down the line.

Some of the topics include:

  • How to see the big picture to teach
  • Doing the research and tools to help you aggregate the information
  • How to understand your process and create structure
  • Deciding on monetization
  • How to promote the course
  • Learning from your actions to extend more lessons (or not)

Once again, what do you think?

Thanks to everyone who has voted and has supported the blog so far in it’s slow launch. I will be seeing you on the 200th post and official launch of the mailing list with the new e-course!

Filed Under: Performance Tagged With: , , , ,

Using Alexa As A Tool To Research Your Blog Idea

I wanted to put this section into the first lesson of the upcoming e-course on finding your blogging direction. However, I thought I’ll share it here since Alexa is often taken for granted but rarely used for what it really is – research and analysis.

Alexa Home PageSo how can Alexa help you brainstorm your new blog if you’re just starting out?

If you have a site, Alexa is a free service that provides a great way for you to participate with a large audience who too are sharing their statistics in traffic, rank and keywords with you. In addition, you are provided with a means to track, aggregate and organize incoming as well as outgoing traffic from your blog.

What does that mean?

Think of it as many individuals and organizations voluntarily allowing themselves to compete with you. Any site’s stats can be seen. Now don’t let that scare you. Once you go live online, understanding who else is out there can do a lot for you in terms of competition, trends and creatively unlocking unique means to stand out in a market that may or may not be saturated.

Thus, if you have the knack for researching how you can better influence your audience or readers on your particular chosen topic, Alexa is one of those sites to keep under your wings. They are trusted by top blogs online as a way to engage with potential advertisers. That leads me into my next reason.

Alexa is so powerful because advertisers flock to see who’s the best of the best, who’s trending and whatnot so they can do business with you. Hence, there are opportunities here when you participate in a nice, global source where website owners who actually view and analyze their traffic streams interact.

As a registered user of Alexa, they make it easy to see what it is you need to know to make your next move. Now, let’s take a look at what the service gives you, the benefits in joining it’s community and even how you can go about connecting with other bloggers who can be your potential business partners.

Looking Through the Top Sites

Alexa sorts all the sites that have registered with them into three choices – global, by country and category. This is helpful to narrow down sites which you can peak into and research for any incoming ideas on how to start your own.

Alexa Top SitesSince the stats are all there, you just have to decide on what name to call your blog, valuable keywords you can target it with and choose the services to register them on. Alexa provides all this, minus the services to purchase your blog, as you see it through each individual site stats you visit.

So once you figure out what it is you want, go on over to a domain registrar such as Namecheap to see if the name is available and buy it. Then purchase a hosting service like BlueHost to store your blog’s content on. I suggest these services because they provide reliability and quality service at an affordable price.

Now you can see that the process here is quite simple. The hard work can be done for you just from browsing through the top sites on Alexa. You see exactly who is dominating the market, what keywords they are ranking for and how you can get a part of that traffic.

Thus, niche or mini sites can be created this way. That’s why Alexa makes it very handy for make money online enthusiasts to target exactly who it is they want to work with, and seeing the top sites are helpful because knowing more about other blogs stats can help you decide on the little things they are not utilizing.

I must say though, that it takes an eye to look for these concepts, much like searching for discounts at your nearest local market. So imagine what you can do with the information that is already given to you.

If you have some idea of what you want to do but aren’t really sure yet of where to target it to, browsing through the Top Sites on Alexa can give you plenty of ideas to start. Nonetheless, you can’t be wrong when all the data is given to you.

Site Information Advantages

Looking more in-depth at the information of a site, one can see the:

  • traffic stats
  • search analytics
  • audience
  • available contact info
  • reviews
  • related links
  • clickstreams

Alexa Site Information

These are all information which Alexa provides for you to look through and see specifically. Thus, as a site owner, you get a lot of details with which you can take away to improve or give to potential advertisers who would want to work with you.

Personally, my favorite sections are the traffic stats, audience, clickstreams and definitely the reviews. As a registered member, reviewing other sites can give you potential exposure. Another reason why is because there are barely any reviews done.

Check out my writing an Alexa review article where I show you how you can do that.

Basically, I see reviews as potential for growth especially for beginners who are just breaking out online. When you share your opinion of your favorite sites, much like commenting, you will enable the site owners to connect with you directly, and what’s awesome about that is there’s really not much competition to fight over.

So you’re practically hitting it straight into the blogger’s radar, and unlike comments, you get to be seen every time they check their stats!

Seeing What’s Hot

Much like Google trending topics and other search engine trends, knowing what’s hot around the Alexa neighborhood can also be advantageous to you. This is more so for niche site builders or bloggers who are in the market to target the individual articles they write.

Alexa What's HotFor personal bloggers, this might not appeal much. Unless you are in the thrill for market research, there can be interesting keywords to watch. Site owners who are aware, can easily find something trending and perhaps create an article that may pick up steam to become viral.

Point is, you want to keep your mind on timeless topics. Trends will come and go but if you find something that is repetitious, it can quite possibly be a potential income stream.

With a little implementation on search engine optimization combined with article marketing as well as list building tactics, products from affiliate marketplaces like the popular ClickBank, Commission Junction, PayDotCom and even Amazon can make part-time income a reality.

Keep in mind, you are only seeing trends and not really their searches. In that case, utilizing Google’s Keyword Research Tool can help you narrow down your target keyword further. After all, if making money online is your motive, competition must be within reach.

Moe does a great job at explaining how you can use Google’s Keyword Tool.

Utilizing the Alexa Toolbar

Contrary to checking out Alexa‘s Top Sites and seeing What’s Hot, you can also install their toolbar which allows you to see if a site is part of the network. In addition I also recommend the WebRank Stats toolbar which lets you see the numbers of indexed pages and backlinks found in the search engines as well as Quirk’s SearchStatus too. With all three, you can have an in-depth view at how a site performs. At the moment, the first two are only for users of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. The third is also available for Google Chrome.

Alexa Toolbar

Now this doesn’t mean you ignore sites that aren’t part of Alexa’s network, it just means, if you interact with one, you’ll both gain. Thus, this is great for networking with other bloggers who are within the same interest as yourself. You’ll find out that it will be essential as you go deep to share a bit of your link juice.

Hence, we’re treading into SEO territory here. Just know that enabling your links to be dofollow will benefit your site to rank well when you comment often. What’s more, for each user who installs the Alexa toolbar and are a registered member of the community, their site will constantly rank well. So it’s a win/win on both sides.

Remember, your blog is your flagship once it’s live. How you want to go about it online, even to compete with other bloggers might not be in your best interest to start. But somewhere down the line, you want to know how you can make your site better. Alexa can help you with that and what’s more, it shares your growth with other competitors to make you within reach.

I’ll say that’s a nice kick in the rear and worth the insight to improve your blogging to become a valuable member of the blogosphere. What are you waiting for, check out Alexa and register your site if you have one already. Join the majority who are finding each other online each and every day.

What are your thoughts on this article about using Alexa as a research tool?

Filed Under: Performance Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Blogging For’s November 2010 Month in REVIEW

Last month, Adam Paudyal over at Endeavor-Online wrote this awesome review:

November Alexa Review

Review http://www.bloggingfor.info on alexa.comThanks Adam, you so rock! Now I have to get my rear over to writing yours. ;) So what about you, are you ready to give this blog your two cents on Alexa?

Get featured in the next review!

1) It’s a great way to build your Alexa profile and ranking.

2) It’s a great way for others to further connect with you.

Overall, this month’s content posting is the lowest ever coming in at only 10 articles altogether! This validates the point that you don’t need a lot of content to receive comments. However, the downside here is if you don’t mind a suffering in Alexa ranking, post less. That says a lot about the relationship of your content and comments.

If you rather have lots of comments, write less.

If you rather have a good Alexa ranking, write more.

Plain and simple, you can see that content is the currency of the internet. Comments give your blog interaction and makes it homely, personal and engaging. Even though I’m receiving more comments than ever with less content out, that shows me that I can put more efforts elsewhere to market the blog further like this mailing list I’ve been working on.

Only 3 more posts until launch! Whooo!

Keep in mind, that even though I didn’t post much, I still engaged outside of the blog whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook, blogging communities like Blog Engage, Blokube, TGIF Links, and so on. The social aspect is what keeps your blog alive. And now you know. ;)

Moreover, I was amazed at what happened during my hiatus in launching this upcoming mailing list. Fabulous folks who have mentioned or featured me this month deserves my utmost thanks and appreciation below:

  • Patricia Millman with Lavenders: Small Niche, Big Ideas – This gal is rocking the blogosphere just jumping in already. With her latest Etsy shop, I always shake my head because she says she’s a technophobe, but here she is zipping right pass all of us beginning bloggers. Haha. Great news. Learn more about this niche.
  • Ajay Chavda with 3 Types of Visitors Extended, Beginning of a Social Media Experiment – Part of a what is to be a 100 day social experiment, Ajay dissects one of my post and rewrites it completely with his analysis and relevant data. This is an awesome read for those who want to see another version of the 3 types of visitors.
  • Lye Kuek Hin with Inspirational Bloggers Sharing Their Most Important Blogging Tips and again with How They Maintain Their Inspiration – I have already voiced myself within this two posts. Lye has generously compiled them together to give you a taste of many bloggers’ variations of their tips and strategy for blogging.
  • Michele Welch with the Big THANK YOU Post! – Wow, I didn’t expect this but Michele is one rockin’ blogger whom I respect and really enjoy the posts of. While we haven’t known each other long, the connection was instantaneous. Glad to be apart of great company!
  • Ingrid Abboud with her 1 Year Blogoversary – Happy, happy, joy, joy to my friend Ingrid with her blog Nitty Griddy and it’s Anniversary. Thus, she shares her thanks, lessons learned and more. Here’s what I call writing it up! See what she has to say.
  • Kristi Hines with Women in Blogging: 125 Fearless Female Bloggers – Oh my, this list is one powerhouse. Every one I’ve listed above, ladies that is, is included. So you’re looking at a lot of awesome influence and professionals here. Open up your bookmark accounts and start taking note of these awesome women!

Thanks

Now, let’s get on with the program! Here are the stats this month:

Alexa November 2010What stood out?

  • Ranking only fell 2-3 thousand this month. Boo hoo! Must post more.
  • Reach increased because of the awesome folks who’ve mentioned me. Yay!
  • Pageviews/Pageviews per user/Time on site/Search decreased but jumped in the last week. Again because of the mentions. ;)

Lesson learned: content is everything but building relationships is where you get traffic.

Below is what Google Analytics saw which was far superior than last month, October’s stats. Thanks again to the awesome mentions, I was able to keep this blog in the radar of new visitors. If you see, the bounce absolutely dropped as there was more targeted traffic rather than stumbles.

November 2010 Google Analytics

Click to see in full.

Referring sites which made this blog within reach:

November 2010 Referring Traffic

Click to see in full.

Here are the individual blogs I want to thank this month:

  1. Jonathan Volk
  2. Adam Paudyal at Endeavor-Online
  3. Leslie the Freebie Guy
  4. Lye at Find My Blog Way
  5. Murray from Murlu.com

Top Content and views this month:

November 2010 Top Content

Posts with the most interactions:

Let’s look at the world rank, audience and searches now. This area is always interesting as it fluctuates each month. Just glancing through this section alone, it let’s you see a lot about your international presence and influence.

Alexa November 2010 Audience

As you can see, I’m getting some traffic in from the East. :)

What I haven’t noticed before but will take note of more on is the keyword searches done to find this blog. Take a look at the high-impact searches which are competitively ranking with other sites and those keywords which I might have the opportunity to rank high in the search engines for with less competition.

Alexa November 2010 SEO/SEM

Let’s hop on over to websitegrader and see how things have fair.

Website Grader November 2010

Click to see in full.

Alright! We’ve gone up a point in grade and the blog grade is really the one which I’m amazed at. It used to be in the 30′s a few months ago, now it’s at 61. Not bad! We’re rising.

As for link data, about 120% increase in indexed pages and 350+ more backlinks build on the www side and a slight drop on the non-www side.

Website In Depth November 2010 Backlinks/Indexed Pages

Click to see in full.

Finally, the value is where the motivation for monetization will prevail. Because Alexa didn’t drop that much, I only went up a few hundreds. Imagine it dropping like hot cakes, what then?

November 2010 Value

Plans for the month of December:

  • mailing list launch
  • guest posting
  • article writing through Ezine
  • product development
  • business training 101

The last bit is part of Pawel over at Self-Employed Cafe’s Startup Business Support Group! It’s open to individuals FREE who are interested in starting their own business. The invitation is open until the end of the year. Until then, you have to pay a fee to get in. This is a win for you. Come join us!

Next, your best blog post submissions to Michele Welch’s NewBizBlogger’s new ebook is open until December 13. I’m going to see what I can dig up, so exciting times are coming up ahead. Won’t you think of one to contribute too?

Until then, this is Thu Nguyen coming at you from Blogging For!

What are your thoughts on this month’s traffic report? Share your comments!

Filed Under: Performance Tagged With: , , , , ,

50 Things I Didn’t Know About Starting A Mailing List (But Do Now After Studying Others)

Thanksgiving is around the corner. Yay! I have lots to share with you on what I have been doing. There isn’t too much explanation though as this will be a blitz, a giant of a list post for you to peruse. However, they are pretty self-explanatory.

These gems were uncovered from my ongoing endeavor as of recent in research. As you know, I’m doing everything myself for this upcoming mailing list launch. The 7 tips I’ve shared earlier are only a summary of what’s below. You’ll definitely see the meat of the whole process today. So take note because as I took action on them, I realize I have quite an arsenal to give back. Only 4 more posts until launch! :)

Now I want to share my discovery with you in hopes that you too shall gain some insights on what launching your mailing list might take you into. Refer to this article down the line as you get yourself into the habit of building your own list. The best way to see the idea in full is to work it’s magic by taking action. I could have called it the step-by-step approach as well, but hey, now you know how I’ve done it. Away with the thoughts then.

Here’s hoping you’ll learn something about building your mailing list. Let’s see them happen soon. Oh, by the way, Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks to all who have been friends and supporters of Blogging For! Hugs! Hugs! Hugs! Ok, here are those findings.

Right From the Heart

Source: Right From the Heart

50 Things I Didn’t Know About Starting A Mailing List (But Do Now)

  1. If you don’t know, ask your readers. Start a poll and get some feedback.
  2. From what they’ve given you, what do you know for sure? Take that as a starting point.
  3. What do they like? Plan to put a lot of that in. Don’t leave out your voice.
  4. What don’t they like? This will help you focus better and you will steer clear of it.
  5. Decide your type of incentive – ebook, ecourse, interview, PLR, etc.
  6. Instill a deadline to light a fire under your behind. This will give you a kick in the rear!
  7. What are the formats you’ll send the info in – text, audio, video? Let your readers know.
  8. Spend relevant costs for ecovers or make your own ecover? You decide.
  9. Determine how you want to distribute the information – by e-mail or onsite?
  10. Will there be a squeeze page too? You might have to write copy afterward.
  11. You now have an impression of your audience. Create a rough draft of the giveaway.
  12. Think about relevant products you can promote too. Ones which you already use.
  13. Try mind mapping. There’s Freemind or on site with Mindmeister or Bubbl.us. FREE.
  14. From what you’ve see, where do you need more research? List some keywords.
  15. Search for your specific keywords and relevant long tail phrases.
  16. Organize those finds in an manager like Evernote. Here’s a research template.
  17. Also use Google’s Wonder Wheel for more awesome, relevant searches.
  18. Get a new e-mail like Gmail for opt-ins. Saves you time so you can tag and label.
  19. Sign up for your competitors info. Study their delivery and effectiveness.
  20. Look at the thank you page. Did they send you elsewhere or to a freebie/bonus?
  21. Do you want to send your readers an upsell too and with what relevant product?
  22. Look for patterns in your subscriptions as you receive them. What are you sold on?
  23. What don’t you like? Think like a subscriber. What won’t you do?
  24. Look at the ratio of the e-mails in value and promos. Too much or too little?
  25. Decide on how you’ll send your material. Weekly, daily, what’s your frequency?
  26. Look at the tools they are using, free or premium? They will promote them often.
  27. What autoresponder delivers the goods? Who uses it that you know and trusts it too?
  28. If signing up, consider their affiliate program to promote to your list as well.
  29. FREE and reliable autoresponders are also available – MailChimp and Listwire.
  30. For creatives, take note of email template designs. How will you design yours?
  31. In time crunch, stick to simplicity for results. Design is second to actual work.
  32. As you receive content, look at how it is distributed. What type of audience reads it?
  33. What are the formats sent – text, audio, video? Take note on how to format yours.
  34. See possible templates for your material or consider hiring a freelancer to design.
  35. You can do it yourself with Open Office and searches for FREE ebook templates.
  36. OK, do a second draft of your information. What will you take away or add on now?
  37. Put yourself in product creation mode and think in layers.
  38. Who are your audience again? Refer to mailing list notes you’ve taken for approaches.
  39. If you can, keep everything organized so you can find your information when needed.
  40. Refer to your mindmap, notes and blog archive for ideas when you lose direction.
  41. Consider openers/prompts, freewriting on 750 words, article templates for continuity.
  42. Set aside time slots to focus on specific writing jobs. Chunk tasks together.
  43. Don’t try to do everything all at once, you’ll overwhelm yourself and lose motivation.
  44. Don’t fall trap to new ideas. Finish the ones you have to do first!
  45. When finding yourself overdoing tasks, take a break! Come back later.
  46. Don’t throw away any drafts. These can be possible guest posts later for marketing.
  47. Don’t be afraid to make new charts, new designs, see new visions or processes.
  48. Be careful as over-editing can erase your original intention. It might change everything.
  49. Feel free to test your material on your family members, get their opinion and reactions.
  50. Remind yourself this mailing list is another extension of you, a deeper you!

Alright, so you have seen now how I have done my process. From getting the feedback and into the act of market research, anything you do online, when you know your competitors, you get an idea of where you can step up. Now that can be different for someone else, but with the discovery above, I clearly see that the path is doable.

That gives me motivation to keep going.

The rest is just an injection of the knowledge.

Business MotivationWhat about you, what do you know about starting a mailing list?

Share your thoughts.

Filed Under: Performance Tagged With: , , , , ,

7 Tips For Starting Your Own Mailing List

Hey there friends, bloggers and drifters, exciting week here for Blogging For. What’s more, I’m still working on finalizing the lessons before the 200th post. That’s 5 posts away! Aaaahhhh! (home alone face) :P

Until that time, here are some tips on starting your own mailing list and things you might want to think about when you do attempt the process. This is from my own recent experience, so if you see that I’m missing out on something, feel free to let me know in the comments. Appreciate it!

Alright, let’s see what these tips are.

1 – Determine Your Audience

Audience

Who do you want to cater to? Eventually, you need to define for yourself whom you’re going to speak to. This way, the information will be much more targeted. I was confused on this even though I knew that the blog is speaking to beginners and intermediates, what I didn’t quite know was if it was really true.

To validate this thought, I set up a poll and thanks to the bloggers and drifters who graciously replied, the new mailing list is going to gear more towards the beginners as well as intermediates.

So if in doubt, ask your readers. They will clearly show you the way.

2 – Determine Your Incentive

GiftWill you be giving away something? There are different incentives to think about – ebook, e-course, interview, report, bundles. I chose an e-course because I don’t see a lot of bloggers doing that. So it’s a challenge but at the same time, I get the freedom to be creative.

Rather than compile everything into one book which you’ll download and might not ever read, I’m taking a jab at a giving you the utmost value continuously. That’s just my take.

Do what you feel would be best suited for your time/efforts/energy.

3 – Determine Your Frequency

Delivery

How often will you be e-mailing your readers and friends updates, news and promotions? For myself, the e-course will start off weekly and after that, I will also be doing a weekly or twice a week update to readers on the mailing list.

The blog already will be published on a daily basis once the launch is done. Regular readers already know that, but for those who don’t have the opportunity to visit often, it will be compiled at the end of the week and then there’s some. ;)

More than that, the list should engage your readers without overloading them with too much junk. If they’re reading your blog as well as are subscribed, how can you integrate both together seamlessly without putting on too much?

My rule of thumb? A little variety can make a lot of difference. A little bit of this and that but make it interactive. Keep the engagement alive. That’s why they subscribed in the first place. They want to know what you got. What can you provide?

4 – Determine Your Delivery Platform

Platform

What service will you use to deliver your goods and updates? I will be using Aweber, an autoresponder service, since it is fast, easy and convenient. It also provides me with sign-up forms. Basically, it is a premium 3rd party e-mail tracking software and among it, other popular services include MailChimp, GetResponse and InfusionSoft.

Check out MailChimp which was the first to be featured in the Autoresponder Insights Series here. In the next couple of days, Aweber will be up as well. This is part of the ongoing investigation for beginners where I will explore, walk you through and even create a campaign to show you how it is done so you too can create your own mailing list when time comes.

5 – Determine Your Funnel

FunnelHow will your readers receive the goods? Will it be through e-mail then on the blog? Through a download link or on-site landing page with the link? You want to think about a system or continuity process through which your readers will continue to click through.

This is the reason why I chose to provide an e-course instead of an ebook. Readers will be sent an e-mail letting them know that their e-course is ready with a link. They will go to the course on site and also receive a link to download further the corresponding workbook that comes with each lesson.

Sounds like a lot of work but really, instead of jamming everything together, readers who follow through this funnel let’s me know that it’s effective. If not, I might have to eliminate some step somewhere to make it more better. Only time will tell.

6 – Determine What Works

Personal Knowledge Management by Sumeet Moghe

After you have everything set up, what performed well? Your autoresponder should be able to track the click-throughs for any link you send out in the e-mails. If you’re getting a decent amount of click-thrus, this will tell you that your campaign was effective.

However, let’s be realistic, nothing is perfect. Conversion is a process through trial and error. When you monitor what e-mails get the most clicks to see what converts well, those are the areas you want to concentrate on. This can also go another way, if you’re not getting click-thrus, how can you improve it?

So when I send out the lessons, I want to see if the readers will follow through and also download the workbooks on site for each lesson. This goes back to testing the funnel. After all, this is for my readers. I want to know what converts best for those on the list.

Thus, you want to think about conversion here. How can you retain your readers so that they can stay on your list as well as site longer? What are you providing and do they even read it? Using the reports from Aweber, I will be able to determine how I can improve my mailing list.

7 – Determine How You Will Market Your List

Marketing Process Mapping

What will you do further to promote your list? The E-course is the main attraction to which I can encourage new readers to subscribe. So after the mailing list launch, I will be doing some guest posts around the blogosphere.

That may mean I have to create a landing page to target new readers who doesn’t know anything about the blog. Another thing is article marketing with Ezine Articles just so that I can get more inbound traffic from an audience that’s not aware of Blogging For. Also thinking about the site, I may have to install a plugin that will pop-up after a few seconds to remind readers that, ‘Hey, let’s keep in touch! Here’s my gift!’

What are other tips that you might have to start a mailing list?

Share your thoughts.

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