AMVA - Amanda Moore Virtual Assistant

Ok folks, this one has been at the back of my mind for a while but I just experienced it again so I’m putting it out to the world.

Blogging is SUCH an important part of building your online presence. However, there are things you can do that will detract from your visitor’s experience. Here are a few things that I’ve run into lately on some blogs that make me want to not go back:

1 - Advertising. Too much advertising is a *huge* turn-off. Particularly if the ads blink or move in some way (anything moving and blinking is a no-no) or the ones that are the double underline of the word with an ad that pops up of you hover over it. The amount of money you make may not be worth how many people you send away.

2 - Pop-ups. Pop-ups are evil. Please don’t use them. And in this I’m also including the ’snap view’ or whatever it’s called that wordpress.com blogs default to. It’s the little box that pops up when you hover over a link. Annoying in the extreme.

3 - Music. Unless you’re a band, there’s no reason to have music on your blog. If you feel you *must* have music, make it really, really, really obvious how to turn it off.

4 - Comments. Comments are the life blood of a blog. It’s how you get your readers engaged with you and coming back. If you set your blog up to only accept comments from people who have to be members of a certain service (i.e. blogger.com blogs) you’re going to lose a lot of people. I have a blogger/gmail ID, but it’s not linked to my business, it’s personal and I don’t want that linked to my business comments. Make your comments so that ANYONE can comment and just moderate them.

5 - Contact information. If you’re running a blog for a business, you MUST give your visitors a way to contact you - particularly if you don’t allow open comments. An email address is easiest, but if you’re not comfortable with that, at least put up a contact form. Otherwise you might as well just put up a post that says “I don’t want your business”

6 - RSS feeds. If you have a blog and you don’t have an RSS feed you’re making a big mistake. I’m still seeing a lot of blogs out there where you can subscribe to a newsletter, but not to an RSS feed. Well, I don’t do newsletters so, while I enjoyed your blog, I won’t be reading it again. Sorry.

So, to the blogger who had a bad experience that I wanted to commiserate with but who didn’t have contact info or wouldn’t let me comment - sorry that happened. I’ve been there, it gets easier.

So…what are your blogging pet peeves?

by Harjeet Kaur

Creating a viral ebook marketing campaign can be one of the easiest and most effective ways to promote your product or website. Before you begin writing your viral ebook, you need to know the 5 most common mistakes that can cost you time and potential income.

1) Never Link Directly to Content You Do Not Control

You should always use redirect links placed on your own server instead of direct links to affiliate programs.

You never know when the program you are promoting will change the way its affiliate links work or go out of business. Using redirect links allows you to quickly replace the affiliate links with the new version or redirect to a similar product.

I cannot stress enough how important this step is to you. Once you launch your viral eBook, you cannot get it back to make changes to it. Using redirect links will prevent dead links and lost profit.

2) Avoid Using Dated Information By Providing Too Specific Details.

Do not talk about free trials or time specific discounts.

The affiliate program you are promoting may not always be offering the trials or discounts. You will anger your readers if they cannot get the bargains you promised.

You should also avoid statements like “Just Released” or “Just Launched!”. The program you are talking about may have been around for years by the time your reader gets your ebook.

3) Never Include Information You Do Not Want All Over The World.

Because of the viral nature of your ebook, it will eventually spread to every corner of the world.

If you include personal information like your home phone or your cell phone number, you may be unpleasantly awakened at all hours of the night. The person in England or Japan, may not be aware you live in United States.

It is best to provide only an email address or autoresponder for the initial contact.

4) Do Not Brand the Ebook Yourself

Putting yourself in the position of having to manually brand and send each copy of the ebook is a sure way to turn your campaign into NIGHTMARE.

You may be thinking, “What’s the BIG DEAL?”

Let imagine for a moment that your ebook starts out slowly and only 10 people request a branded version the first week. It takes you about 6 minutes per ebook to brand it and send it to the user. You have just given up an hour of your life.

Now those 10 people each give it away to 10 people that also request branded versions. You now have 100 new requests at 6 minutes each. Now we are talking 60 hours.

As you can see with each passing generation, you will quickly become unable or unwilling to fulfill requests.

The solution is to give your carriers the ability and instructions to rebrand the ebooks themselves. This will take you out of the loop and allow your virus to grow exponentially unattended.

5) Do Not Forget To Launch a New Window for External Links

When linking to any information not found directly in your ebook, you should always open a new window. Many sales processes use javascript that could cause compatibly problems if viewed within your ebook.

It would be terrible if a viewer where ready to buy a product based on your recommendation but was unable to, because you failed to include this simple step.

Avoiding these 5 simple viral ebook marketing mistakes will greatly increase the profitability of your campaign while avoiding the pitfalls.

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