Outsourcing: the Secret to Blogging Success

This guest post is by Mark Collier is the author of Link Building Mastery.

As an Internet entrepreneur, it’s easy to develop this sense of single mindedness—the if-I-can’t-do-it-no-one-can attitude. I call it RTODIY (refuse to outsource; do it yourself). Although the name does need a bit of work. Maybe I should outsource it…

The symptoms are: excessive DIY, penny pinching when you could outsource for little or nothing, and learning the basics of advanced theories in a vain attempt to save money.

RTODIY is also the major obstacle between your self-created job and a successful business that runs independent of you. As Keith Cunningham puts it, job is just an abbreviation for Just Over Broke.

Overcoming RTODIY

I have certainly done my fair share of RTODIYing, most recently with my experience in launching my relatively new website and writing and launching a new ebook.

I wrote all the content for my website myself and learned all I needed to know to create a website myself. While this is pretty common, this was only the beginning. I decided to write an ebook, and once it was finished, I knew I needed to create a sales landing page for my product.

Now for those who don’t know about landing pages, let me fill you in. Landing pages are designed to make all your ebook sales. Sure, promotion is crucial, and you need a great product, but without a great landing page, you’re wasting your time.

I recognized the value of a landing page and went about buying a template and customizing it, after, of course, I learned the basics of CSS.

This is what my landing page looked like:

That’s exactly what I expected would sell my $47 ebook! And I actually believed it would sell.

That was until I received the best business advice I have ever received from Glen Allsopp. I sent out an email to the 15 people I interviewed for the ebook, informing them of the new sales page. Glen said, “I hope you don’t take offence, but I really don’t think you’ll get a single sale with that landing page.”

And he was right. Not a single sale came from the first 300 people who visited the page.

So I decided to go and outsource—yes, I said outsource—the sales page design to a professional and the results were and are absolutely incredible:

What a turnaround! I certainly would be more likely to buy from a sales page that looked like this.

The results

When I talk about results, I mean money. While the orders certainly haven’t been unbelievable, they are far better than nothing, which is what my original page generated.

In the month since I launched the ebook—and I have no reputation or marketing budget—I have made seven sales. Okay, that’s not a mind blowing amount, but it’s $327 in sales, and the email sign up box has captured 120 email addresses.

I am more than happy with these results, having had no experience in launching a product, and no email subscriber list that I could promote the launch to. In fact, I didn’t even bother having a launch.

I expect sales to continue to grow, and my initial investment in that web designer to continue to pay off.

My learnings, your learnings

My reluctance to outsource to a professional web designer for $150 would have cost me $327 today, and what could be thousands in future earnings. I’ve learned that spending that extra bit up front distinguishes you from the competition, and is well worth the investment.

But I understand that not everyone will launch an eBook or create a sales page. So how can these learnings be applied to your blog, especially if you are a solo blogger?

If you find yourself doing all the work—and I literally mean all of it—you’re a class one RTODIYer, and you may need help. You need to learn the art of delegation and to commit to investing that extra bit into your blog that will come back and reward you many times over.

You need to stop acting like a one-person blog and starting acting like ProBlogger. After all, that’s how ProBlogger has been so successful: outsourcing and hiring (for free or otherwise) the best to do the work for them. Guest posts are just one example of that.

You wouldn’t have seen W.K Kelloggs out in the field growing the corn for his Corn Flakes, you wouldn’t see Michael Dell personally handling customer complaints against Dell, and you wouldn’t see Richard Branson micro-managing the 200 companies he has controlling stakes in.

All these great business people have committed to outsourcing. They have committed to investing in and trusting others, and ultimately they have overcome a human’s natural instinct to Refuse To Outsource and Do It Yourself.
That’s what your blog is, right? A business?

As a blogger, you should give up you RTODIY ways and move forward with your business in a more profitable direction. Trust in others and be prepared to invest in your blog, and you will reap the rewards. Here are a couple of ideas I know you’ll like:

• Open your site up for guest posts. It’s a great, free way to take the writing pressures off you, while retaining full editorial rights.
• Get a custom design made by a designer, or at least have a blog brand with logo and color scheme that’s consistent throughout your blog, Twitter, and Facebook page.
• If you really want to step up to the next level and be an outsourcing master, why not hire a part-time writer or regular columnist? You can pitch their work to the big names in your industry and get a lot of exposure from them.

The general rule of thumb is to try to outsource your weaknesses (my big one is design), and give yourself more time to focus on your strengths. To control of your RTODIY and your blog will only go from strength to strength.

Have you outsourced any part of your blog, or are you a RTODIYer? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

Mark Collier is the author of Link Building Mastery, the best ethical guide to link building available on the web. With 86 powerful link building strategies and 15 interviews with link building interviews, including an interview with Yaro Starak (the owner of this blog). You can join the ethical link building revolution now.

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My 6 Favorite Blogging Locations

Where do you blog from?

One of the most attractive parts about blogging as a profession for me is the independence and flexibility that it brings.

I can work from anywhere that I can find an Internet connection. In fact, I don’t even need that at all times—I just need some kind of device to capture the content that I produce (something to type on, a camera, and/or a microphone).

This flexibility, and the opportunity to be location-independent, are wonderful things. They’ve meant I’m able to travel and work from the road; they’ve enabled me to be quite hands-on with my family (particularly useful when your kids are toddlers!), and they’ve also cut down the dreaded commute that I used to have to do when I worked a “real” job.

The other great thing about this type of work—combined with the ever-increasing array of portable computing gadgets that are around—is that from day to day, I’m able to work in all kinds of locations. This variety can be both fun and make life a little more interesting, but it can also help stimulate all kinds of creativity.

Someone asked recently what were my favorite places to blog from. Here’s what I said (and I’d love to hear your favorites below):

1. Cafes

The combination of coffee, a computer, and the white noise of those around me is a very productive mix for me. I spend at least four mornings a week in my local cafe, just a short stroll from our front door. The staff greet me with ‘Blogger dude!” and bring me my drink of choice (a skinny latte with one sugar) without needing to be asked (and a second one 30 minutes later, or on the nod of the head—whichever comes first!). They even installed WiFi just for me.

Other patrons ask how I ever get anything done with all the noise, but for me it’s a strangely productive place where I find myself getting lost in my work. I also enjoy the fact that there are others around—snippets of overheard conversation or interactions with others in the cafe often produce ideas, stimulate blog posts, and even generate product ideas.

2. Shopping centers (the mall)

A variation on the cafe approach has been a semi-regular visit to a local shopping center or mall. The one I go to is among the biggest in Melbourne, and has a great range of cafes, a food court, and several hundred shops—including an Apple store. I enjoy working there partly for similar reasons to those mentioned above (white noise, coffee, etc.), but also because I find the environment quite stimulating for ideas.

I have a little routine that I use: an hour in one cafe; a 15-minute stroll through the shops, where I get all kinds of marketing ideas; an hour in a second cafe; another stroll through shops; then I settle down in the food court or a resautrant for lunch. The combination of all this is surprisingly productive (and I keep the Apple store in business with my regular stop-offs there).

3. The library

I don’t get there as much as I used to since we moved further away from the city, but I always found the big library in the center of Melbourne to be an inspiring place to work, and I used to head there at least once a month. I found just being in a place where others were working and reading used to help me still myself and focus.

Having a vast array of books, magazines, and newspapers on hand for little breaks was also quite stimulating, but the real treat for me is the reading room pictured above, which is just an inspiring place to hang out.

4. Flying

One of the most memorable work sessions that I’ve ever had was on a recent flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles. While I never used to enjoy that flight (14 hours cramped up next to a stranger with not much to do? Not fun!), the last few times I’ve flown, I’ve found myself being particularly productive

Perhaps it’s the altitude or the oxygen they pump around the plane (do they do that?) but I often get a lot done flying. This could also partly be because this is one of the few times in my life that I’m disconnected from the Web (those international flights don’t have WiFi yet). It might also be because I’m traveling to and from conferences that I find to be stimulating experiences.

5. On the couch

Most weeknights you can find me sitting in our lounge room, next to my wife, on the couch, in front of the TV, blogging. I’m not sure how much of the TV I actually watch, but I find the experience to be a good way to wind down at the end of a day.

There are times where my wife needs to tell me to put the computer down so we can connect (although she often sits there surfing too), but all in all it’s usually a reasonably productive time. I tend to use it mainly for admin-type tasks—email, social media, comment moderation, etc.—rather than creative ones, but occasionally I’ll find that something from the TV also stimulates ideas for my work.

6. My desk and office

This is where I do the bulk of my blogging. While I like to get out of the house in the morning to write (mornings are generally more about writing content and creative tasks), I spend the bulk of my afternoons in my home office. This is where I create multi-media content, do interviews, take calls, and do most of the admin and editing tasks that I do.

I did a tour of my office a few years back—not a lot has changed in terms of layout, although I now mainly work from a laptop rather than the desktop computer.

What about you?

Where do you spend most of your time blogging? Which places do you enjoy blogging the most? Do you find different places are better for certain tasks more than others? Interested in your thoughts.

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I Do: Tips for Co-blogging with Your Spouse

This guest post is by Mr. Broke Professional: the husband in the husband/wife team behind Brokeprofessionals.com

“I think you need to rewrite that last paragraph,” she said. “And this time, maybe try to be just a little more concise.”

She said it gently. Yet the words stung. She could tell I was a little hurt, so she tried to smooth it over.

“I really like this blog post. I think it is going to be well received by our readers.” I patiently waited for the “but.” And after a moment or two it came.

“But … the only thing is (and please don’t be upset) maybe you should also work a little more on the title before hitting the Publish button.”

This was a new criticism and I did not expect it. Again it hurt. I do not particularly like being edited, by anyone. “Anything else?” I asked with more than a hint of sarcasm.

“Yeah, when you’re done with that can you help me set the table? Dinner is almost ready.”

So goes life when you blog as a husband/wife team.

Note that I’ll use the term “spouse” in this post, but this word is being used to mean any type of relationship.

Advantages of blogging as a husband/wife team

There’s a lot to be said for blogging in partnership with your spouse.

Time

The one resource all bloggers can agree they need more of is time. Unfortunately it’s also the most finite of resources. Partnering up with at least one other co-blogger is great because you can, in theory, accomplish twice the amount of work. For example, while one of you is working on the creative portion of your blog, your co-blogger can work on blog promotion.

When you co-blog with your spouse, as I do, it’s even easier to communicate. You’re probably always together anyway, so even dinner can become an impromptu brainstorming session.

Not feeling guilty about the blogging “time suck”

Another advantage of co-blogging with your spouse is that it’s a great way to spend a lot of time on your blogging hobby without feeling like you are alienating your family. I feared in the beginning that my wife would start to resent my blog, but instead I turned her into a blogging co-conspirator.

Honest feedback and criticism

My wife and I can be (sometimes brutally) honest with our criticisms with one another because we have been together for years. We are in sync and understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I understand that she finds the creative process more engaging than blog promotion, so I try to pull more weight with promotion and online networking.

Much like real life, as bloggers your spouse and you will tend to form a complete unit, whereby you can as a team rise well above the level of skill and/or success that you could ever hope to achieve individually.

Improving your blog’s voice and perspective

Our blog has brought us closer together and we can sometimes incorporate our marital dynamic subtly into our blog. We have blog “debates” or use in-jokes that are, hopefully endearing to our audience and different from what they generally read in most other personal finance blogs.

You can leverage your relationship to maybe create a more unique and valuable experience for your audience.

Motivational benefits

Like an exercise program, a book club, or a diet, it can be very motivational to have a blogging partner—someone who can push you, and keep you inspired and working towards the ultimate goals of your blog. It’s also helpful if that person is someone you do not want to let down.

There are nights when I don’t want to follow our posting schedule, but then I think about how we’re a team. Also, having someone else around to pull half the weight means that I have not yet come close to burnout, despite the fact that we both have demanding day jobs and keep a daily posting schedule.

Challenges of blogging as a husband/wife team

Like any partnership, blogging with your spouse has its challenges.

Creative control issues

You need look no further than examples of various movie star couples that have broken up after working together on a movie project than to know that working with your spouse is not without its potential traps.

For some, the whole purpose of starting a blog may be to escape a job or family, or to simply have something all their own. Once you partner up with a co-blogger, whether the co-blogger is a friend, a stranger, or your spouse, you will no longer possess 100% creative control over the blog.

For example, once I wrote a post that was, in hindsight, really quite weak. It was weak because it was a subject only I really cared about, and it was outside the scope of our niche. My wife pointed this out, and I have to admit I begrudged it for a little bit, even though I knew deep down she was right. The opposite scenario has occurred as well. This creative collaboration can benefit the blog, but it’s still a challenge for the individuals involved.

The stronger personality may take over

This is the Fight Club Rule in effect. Essentially, and as with the rest of your marriage (or in any relationship, really), the stronger party may hijack creative control, and thus alter the intended direction of your blog.

This is not an issue that affects us personally, but we definitely have some friends in couples who could not, in our opinion, function as a 50/50 blogging team. This is particularly devastating if the less visionary or talented partner is the one who is more desirous of control.

Fear of honest criticism

I realize I previously listed open communication and honesty as a likely result of blogging with your spouse, but I can also imagine scenarios where even married couples are too nice to be honest about whether material is right for their blog or not—and the kind of friction that might result.

Jealousy

There have been times when I’ve been jealous of one of my wife’s posts going viral or getting more comments—particularly if my posts have been in a prolonged slump. It is only normal to feel a twinge of envy under such a scenario, and it is one of the possible occupational hazards of working with any partner on a blog.

The blog becomes consuming

I fear I have the blogging addiction much worse than my wife does. I am sure there are times when she wishes we could just relax without worrying about furthering the blog. The solution, of course, is to set some boundaries. That said, if you figure out how to properly establish such boundaries, please let me know, so I can try to establish some as well! My wife would be forever indebted to you, I’m sure.

Are two heads better than one?

The important thing, of course, is to have fun and to allow the co-blogging experience to bring you together as a couple. The major thing to avoid is burnout induced from working together. If you ever need a reminder of what not to do, turn to this post or, if you’re desperate, watch the movie “The Getaway” starring Alec Baldwin and his ex-wife, Kim Basinger.

If you establish the right boundaries and you both find a passion for blogging, then your co-blogging experience can be both beneficial to your readers and to your marriage.

Have you ever co-blogged? What was your experience like? If you haven’t co-blogged with a spouse, would you consider doing so? I look forward to reading your responses.

Join our husband/wife blogging team as we discuss life for the overeducated and underpaid, along with what we have learned about blogging thus far, over at Brokeprofessionals.com.

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Plan the Blog; Blog the Plan

This guest post is by Tricia Lawrence of Realbrilliant.com.

Oh, it’s a love/hate relationship with New Year’s Resolutions, isn’t it? If you’re feeling a bit dismayed at your lack of resolution to blog better in 2011, you’re not alone. But I’m here to help.

How can you get that resolution back on track?

1. Revisit your plan

What did you decide to do this year? Blog more often, guest post more often, add sponsors, or get involved in the comments? You can pick yourself back up again. It’s only February, and there’s a lot of 2011 left.

So, where did you lose heart? What made you trip? Was your goal too much? Did you set too high of a standard? Did the new season of American Idol suck you back in? (Steve Tyler is like a train wreck; you just can’t look away! His jowls. Randy’s shoes! Yeah, I got sucked in.)

2. Reconfigure the plan

So, how can you get back to it? Do you need some more soul-searching? Do you need to research? Write a few emails that you’ve been avoiding? Ask the hard questions and push past the block. You can do it!

3. Schedule yourself into the future

How do you intend to accomplish this plan for your blog? Set up a schedule. If you have to write your blog posts at Starbucks to feel like you’ve made it, then do it. The carrot and stick method works. Bait yourself and get a reward.

4. Find your resources

Whether you’re using Darren’s book or blogging ebooks to build a better blog in 2011, dig them out from wherever you’ve stashed them, and use them. Set limits on how much you’re going to do each day, but do something each day. Don’t we all just work better when we stick with it? Little by little, we’ll eat that elephant.

5. Keep track of your progress

Believe me, you keep at this blogging thing in 2011, and by 2012, you’ll want to look back and see how far you’ve come. Keep a blog journal and note how many things you attempted, what did work, and what didn’t. This is not a competition. This is a learning process.

Twelve months is a long time. Even if you’ve dropped the ball and really got off track in the past weeks, that doesn’t mean you can’t get back to the top of the pile in the next five weeks. Give yourself a break, sip the latte, and go to it!

Tricia Lawrence is an author, teacher, and speaker, helping the publishing industry, specifically authors, position their blogs and books to sell. Tricia’s book, The Social Network(s): A Field Guide for Writers will be out on Kindle in March and she’ll appear at several tech and writing conferences in 2011. Sign up for Tricia’s biweekly eZine, Please Write Like You Talk at http://www.realbrilliant.com/blog. Tricia is on Twitter @realbrilliant.

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Teach, or Your Blog Will Die

This guest post is by Martyn Chamberlin of Two Hour Blogger.

What separates your blog from thousands of others in your niche? What are you doing that’s different? Why would people prefer your blog over others?

Like most writers, that question may make you freeze for a minute. You can feel your insides going numb. Your face starts turning green.

What’s different about you? Man. You can’t think of anything right off the bat. You’ve lived with yourself for a long time, and you’re used to it. You can’t imagine what makes you different from everyone else. You’re just an average guy.

After thinking for a bit, you come up with this answer:

The only thing that distinguishes you from everyone else is your personality. It’s your most valuable asset. There’s nobody else quite like you. If you write with personality, people will listen to what you have to say.

This makes sense. You begin feeling better. All you have to do is relax and be you, and everything will be okay.

But there’s a problem: nobody cares about who you are.

Everybody’s unique

There are millions of bloggers, and every one of them has a personality. Sure, your personality will separate you from other people, but that’s not enough. Everybody’s unique. So if you want people to read your blog, you’re going to have to have more than just personality.

This is a huge blow to the ego. It’s very hard to accept. By nature, you imagine that people value what you have to say. You’re more important than they are, and they recognize that.

I see this happen all the time in the visual arts. An amateur artist thinks their self-taught, self-expressive painting is every bit the masterpiece of a Rembrandt or Bierstadt. The artist refuses to study formal technique because he or she is afraid it’ll ruin his or her “touch”—the artistic personality.

Teach, or die

There’s one thing your blog can’t live without. And that’s teaching.

Nobody cares who you are, but they love to surf the Internet and learn things. If you’re giving away useful content that creates value for others, they’ll start showing interest in you.

People care about you in as much as you help them.

It’s tough to learn, but it’s true. People have the same ego problem you have. Learn to harness that, and you’ll start getting attention. The main purpose of blogging is to give your audience information they didn’t know. If your blog doesn’t teach, it won’t survive.

• Decide what your blog is all about.
• Choose very specific topics within that niche
• Write thorough, two-hour posts that explore these topics, one at a time.
• Publish consistently. Don’t publish something unless it’s the best thing you’ve ever written. This means you’ll either be deleting a lot of drafts, or you’ll be spending entire days revising your content.

As you do this, don’t worry about how you come across to others. Don’t put on a front. Just teach. And teach with passion. If you have a personality, it’ll start showing naturally.

Picture that starving artist. After a few years’ frustration, he or she decides they need formal training after all. They take workshops from today’s masters. Eventually, their technique improves and they paint professionally. Does the artist still have a unique, personal style? Sure. But this time, it’s professional.

True, some of the artist’s original “touch” is gone. But looking back, he or she realizes that they’ve mistaken “touch” for awkward unprofessionalism. Now, the artist’s glad he or she lost that touch. It was horrible.

If your blog is going to live, you’re going to have to teach. If all you ever do is be personable, it’s going to die. Teach or die. It’s your choice. Your blog can live without you, but it can’t live without teaching.

Do you teach on your blog? How important is learning for your readers?

Martyn Chamberlin is an entrepreneur who blogs about copywriting and digital marketing at Two Hour Blogger. You can catch more on Twitter.

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5 Hot Tips to Make Your Readers Fall in Love

You’ve tried to get their attention. You’ve read the right books, listened to all the gurus, and freshened up your appearance, but it’s not working.

You aren’t being noticed by the one you love. Your ideal customer isn’t giving you the time of day. They’re ignoring your offers. All of your overtures are rebuffed.

They’re just not that into you.

To wrap up Valentine’s week here on Copyblogger, we’re going to cover how to flirt with potential customers, get their attention, and make them fall head over heels with your product or service. It’s a five-part technique that — when implemented together — will attract the most resistant customer.

1. Make yourself desirable

Want to capture your potential customer’s attention? Give them what they’re looking for.

Hunger is the best sauce.
~ Italian proverb

Share valuable information, and make sure you’re offering what they actually want. You can do that by:

• Checking your search stats to see what terms people use to find your site,
• Using sites like Twitter and Facebook to “listen in” to conversations about what buyers in your niche want, and
• Observing what people actually buy (rather than what they think they would buy).

High-quality information will establish your expertise and build your authority over time, and that is irresistible.

2. Show them the goods

You’ve captured their attention with your valuable, optimized content. Now it’s time to get their number so you can stay in touch.

Forget about all those cheap pick up lines you learned in high school. (Or the equally cheap lines that are still taught by sales trainers who apparently think we’re going door to door with vacuum cleaners.)

Instead, dangle something in front of your audience that they’ll find so useful, so compelling, and so tempting they’ll be rushing to type their e-mail address in your opt-in form.

Offer a solution to a problem, or a series of tips. Create a guide or checklist for getting something accomplished. Give them access to a free audio or video product.

It’s the first step in a sales funnel that will lead them along from free, to entry-level, moving through mid-range and on to the top of your price range. A really good free offer will make them fall right into the top of your funnel before they know what’s hit them.

3. Surprise them (in a good way)

Once they’ve signed up for your free offer, surprise them with the high value content you keep delivering. This is the ideal time to establish that you are a class act, and make it known you won’t let them down.

Deliver superior quality content, and present it in a professional-looking package. If it’s blog content, make sure your site looks great and works perfectly. If it’s an e-book, take the time to design it well. If it’s an email auto-responder, create a template that’s polished and easy to read. If it’s audio or video, deliver it with the best production values you can muster.

Because they’re watching your every move at this point. You have their attention. Don’t blow it.

4. Respond to their overtures

After you’ve done steps 1 through 3, some — not all — of your audience will respond to your customer flirtation techniques.

You might start to get blog comments, Twitter DMs or e-mails sent from your website.

When the messages come in, be sure to respond promptly and professionally. Don’t leave your prized customer hanging!

Show potential customers they can count on you to be responsive and trustworthy. Let them know you’ll be there when they need you.

5. Stay faithful

The last step? Repeat the first four over and over.

Consistent, high-quality content delivered over time will establish you as a reliable, authoritative source of information. “Getting their number” and staying in touch (via an email or RSS subscription) will allow you to continue the courting process. And reliable, responsive customer service will seal the deal.

When it’s time to swoop in and make the sale, the stage will be set. Your customers will be all warmed up and ready for action. These techniques will make it easy to sweep them off their feet.

Before you know it, they’ll be in your arms with wallets open — captivated by your content, smitten with your services, and carrying a torch for your products.

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Which Blogs Should You Be Watching?

This guest post is by Kevin Sanders, of strongandfit.net.

What if I said you’re only as good as the blogs you follow? Maybe that’s not completely true for everyone, but I’m willing to bet all the A-listers have several blogs they check out every day.

I think there are basically two types of blogs you should follow.

Type 1: Blogging blogs

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I believe every blogger should keep an eye on several pro blogs in the field—whether they’re on making money or SEO tips, etc). Why? Here are three reasons:

1. Game-changer posts

Every once in a while, I’ll run across a post that radically impacts my blogging from that point forward. One example would be a post I read here that explained how to optimize the position of ads. Following that advice greatly improved the profits I made through both Adsense and affiliate banners. I don’t find these high-impact posts every day, but they easily make up for the effort I spend following the blogs I read.

2. Motivation

I wasn’t even sure you could make money with blogging when I first started. It’s hard to keep posting every day when you aren’t even sure there’s a possibility of financial reward for your efforts. Following the pro bloggers gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going, even when profits were slow (or non-existent). It also helped me to have realistic expectations and patience. Building a good blog takes work and determination; never underestimate the power of motivation.

3. SEO tips

I was completely clueless about SEO in my early blogging days. I still don’t consider myself an expert—not by a long shot. I also don’t obsess over SEO. Having said all this, I needed to learn how to work with search engines—best SEO practices, so to speak. I learned most of what I know from reading what other bloggers had to say.

I follow about 17 blogs through feeds on my Google page. Do I read every post on every blog? No. I just keep an eye on them and click any titles that get my attention. Also:

• Don’t overanalyze them. At some point you just need to shut up and blog. Don’t try to follow every single bit of advice you read—some of it may not apply to you, your niche, or your blog. You’ll even run across contradictory advice if you follow the blogging niche long enough. Just use what helps you and disregard what doesn’t.
• Don’t snub the B-listers. Keep an eye out for up-and-coming bloggers who may not be well known yet. Some of these guys really know their stuff and are more accessible than their A-list counterparts. Some of my favorite blogs, in fact, are not nearly as popular as Problogger.net. One example is SEO-Hacker, a blog created by one of my friends here in Asia.

Type 2: Niche blogs

I mentioned that I follow several pro blogs through RSS feeds. I also follow several blogs within the same niche as mine (fitness blogs). Following blogs in your niche, or related niches, can help you in several ways:

1. Potential income streams

Your fellow bloggers can help you keep an eye on new ways of making money. You may learn of a new product or service to promote by watching other blogs in your niche. Most of us try to keep track of these opportunities through affiliate newsletters, but other bloggers can help you find even more opportunities.

2. Trends within your niche

Blogs within your niche will alert you to “hot topics” in your industry or specialization. You may want to post your own two cents about those trends—there’s always a chance you’ll get ranked well in search engines on a topic that everyone’s talking about (and searching for).

This is especially helpful if you live outside the country that’s responsible for most of your traffic. I live in Asia, but most of my fitness blog’s traffic (and revenue) comes from North America. It’s very beneficial for me to follow bloggers back in the States.

3. Rebuttal posts

Following other bloggers is also an opportunity to be a voice of dissent. If you read a post you disagree with, you can give your own unique point of view on a particular topic within the niche. This would likely be a post you would have never thought of if you weren’t watching the blogosphere in your niche.

The bottom line: watching blogs within my own niche gives me lots of new ideas for producing fresh, relevant, high-quality content. I think it will do the same for you.

What should you keep in mind as you follow niche blogs?

• Be yourself. Don’t just repeat what everyone else is saying. Always try to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Loyal readers want to hear what you have to say.
• Do your homework. Hopefully you’ll inspiration from other blogs, but be sure to do your own research. You’ll need to go back to original sources and studies to check the accuracy of other bloggers. You’ll also need to carefully look at products you choose to endorse—what’s right for one blogger may not be right for you (even if you are in the same niche).

Are there other types of blogs that you consider essential reading? Share them in the comments.

Kevin is a missionary, author and fitness enthusiast. You can check out his fitness tips at strongandfit.net. You can read his devotional thoughts and personal reflections at KuyaKevin.com.

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How To Use The Paid Subscription Model On My Website?

This post is part of the Friday Q&A section. If you want to ask a question just send it via the contact form.

Edgar asks:

Can you talk about paid subscriptions? Do you own any membership sites? I had my boxing website for several years with lots of readers, and just now I have decided to convert it to a paid subscription site. I going to charge $5.95 a month and wanted any tips you suggestions before I go live.

I do own a couple of membership sites, but they don’t use a monthly subscription model. Instead they have a fixed fee that members must pay to join, and after that they receive lifetime access to all the content. I’ll explain why I use this model below.

First of all I don’t like the idea of putting a whole website behind a pay wall. For example, I could make all the content on Daily Blog Tips private, and charge $2 monthly for people who wanted to access it. I don’t like this model first and foremost because it makes the website less useful and lot more selfish. Sharing what you know free of charge is a great thing to do, and if other people didn’t do this extensively in the past we wouldn’t have the open source movement of the Internet as we know it. Even if you are just concerned with your own gains, though, putting the whole website behind a pay wall is probably not the wisest of the business models. Giving away free content and information allows you to attract search engine traffic and readers, which you’ll be able to leverage to launch other products/projects.

A more viable model is to have a lot of content freely available, and then to launch a premium section of your website where readers need to pay to get access. In order to make this model work you need to ensure you have a big enough audience before launching your premium section (e.g., 100,000 monthly uniques or 10,000 subscribers), and you also need to make sure your audience will get value from your premium section. One way to do this is to create a learning environment. If you have a photography blog, for example, you could launch a premium section with advanced tutorials, or even with a complete photography course.

For content based membership sites, however, I don’t think the monthly subscription model is optimal. You could make it work by keeping the site updated with new content every month, but that takes a heck lot of work, and the value that members get will diminish over time anyway. A better model in my opinion is to charge a one-time fee (breaking it up in small installments if you want).

If you want a real subscription model (i.e., one where your clients keep paying you month after month), you need to have a slightly different approach. You can make it based on content, but your content must be time-relevant. That is, your members must gain benefit from accessing your content exactly on the time you release it, and after a while (days or weeks) the content loses its value. One example of this model are stock alerts. There are many websites where you can subscribe to receive daily or weekly alerts about what stocks you should buy and/or sell. This type of content works perfectly with a subscription model because the member has the incentive to keep paying month after month, as long as the alerts are actually helping him make money.

Another way to structure a real subscription based website is to offer a service. Email marketing providers, for example, charge a monthly subscription because you use their services on a ongoing basis.

So yeah I think subscription based business models are solid, but you need to have the right product/service and the right structure in place to pull it off.

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The 8 Most Greatest Tips to Write Unstoppably Killer Headlines Guide Ever

This guest post is by Eric Cummings and Michael Cummings of On Violence.

Nearly a year and a half into making small strides in one of the smallest niches on the Internet—the MILblog (military blog) community—our traffic started going up. We had one question.

Why?

Our guess is that—in addition to some great guest posts—we started writing better headlines. People want to read articles with great headlines. From the very beginning, we knew we should have been writing good headlines—it was one of the first tips we read. So why did we avoid writing analytics-crushingly good headlines?

Because of the tabloids.

We’ve all been at the check-out counter, looked over and seen the tabloids screaming, “Snooki Sex Tape!” What? Or, “Brad Leaves Angelina!” Double what!? “Obama is an Alien!” Triple what! So you pick up the magazine, and none of that is in there. Snooki just got drunk. Brad is on vacation. Obama is still human. You’re understandably disappointed: you’ve fallen for the tabloids.

I think bloggers do the same thing. In an ever busier, fuller blogosphere, we battle one another with our headlines. We fight each other to write gripping, sticky headlines, clawing over one another with more outlandish declarations of greatness like, “The 10 Tips To Guarantee Blogging Success” or “How to Make A Billion Dollars Blogging, Today!” Bloggers are, in the words of Cmdr. “Stinger” Johnson, writing checks their butts can’t cash.

And the average member of the public is sick of it. Even John Stewart has made fun of it.

If every post you have is turned up all the way, your readers will go deaf. Take “Please RT,” for example. Asking your followers to retweet a post will almost guarantee your tweets get more views. But if you “Please RT” every other tweet, as opposed to just the occasional special tweet, “please RT” loses its meaning. You’ll lose followers, or your tweets will just get ignored.

So when we started blogging, we wanted to avoid misleading headlines, writing only straight-forward, descriptive titles. And it was boring. Post titles like, “War Without Meaning” and “Rainbow” just don’t attract readers. They aren’t creative or fun.

Every headline needs to do two things:

1. Explain honestly what is in the article.
2. Make you want to read that article.

There are boring headlines that aren’t honest, boring headlines that are honest, exciting headlines that are dishonest, and exciting headlines that are honest. If you don’t know which is the best, it’s the last one.

So we went from writing “Violence in context” to writing “Haters Want to Hate or: If You Haven’t Been to Afghanistan, Then F*** You Hippy and Get Off My Internets.” That title is fun, ironic, and snarky; it was also our most popular post ever.

This wouldn’t be ProBlogger if we didn’t offer tips on how to “crush” headlines, and we have ‘em:

1. Avoid exclamation points, or titles that feel like they need exclamation points. Seriously. Calm down.
2. Avoid non-ironic hyperbole. It probably means your claiming something you can’t follow up on.
3. Put accuracy before excitement.  We still don’t turn every headline up to eleven, because some don’t need it. Accept this, and say what your post is about.
4. Embrace creative limitations. To paraphrase Robert McKee, limitations force writers to be creative, to look for novel solutions. So be honest, don’t overstate or over-claim. Then apply the creativity to get a great title on that post.
5. Take five minutes on every post and brainstorm a better title.
6. Don’t use the word “Secret.” Because guess what? There are no secrets to great writing/blogging/making money/losing weight/whatever. It’s the Internet. Someone, somewhere already posted that data. Which means it isn’t a secret. In the words of Darren Rowse, “

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How Often Should You Update Your Blog

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One question that is being asked often in the blogosphere is the question of how often a blog should be updated. We all want working formulas and at the same time we also want to please our audience.

Even though there is no set formula for updating a blog there are some factors you can consider that will help you get the best from your blog in terms of updating it. This post will be giving you some tips on how often you should be updating your blog.

Know Your Audience

There is no fixed formula or rule on updating a blog and how often you update a blog depends majorly on your audience. Some blog types require you to be updating your blog several times a day while other blogs will do well with you updating your blog once a week. Some audience are okay with you updating your blog everyday while it can be really frustrating to others so it doesn’t matter how capable you are as a blogger, your audience will go a long way to determine how often your blog should be updated. Two typical examples are the technology niche and the personal development niche, you can succeed in the technology niche by writing very short articles several times a day but you will have more chances of success in the personal development niche by updating once or twice in a week with a more detailed article.

The Length of the Article

Another important factor you should consider when deciding how often you will be updating your blog is the length of the article. It can be really boring to your readers if you keep writing several thousand words article everyday but they will be far okay with two or three of these in a week.

Your Capacity as a Blogger

It is also very important to know how effective you can be when trying to choose how often you will be updating your blog because consistency is very important and should be factored in when you’re doing anything as a blogger. If you plan to be updating your blog with longer articles once in a week and you suddenly stopped updating for a month your users will have the impression that you’ve stopped blogging or that something is wrong with you so they might stop reading your blog. It doesn’t matter how often you want to be updating your blog or how long you want your articles to be, always make sure you’re consistent with it.

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Bible Thumping, Brainwashing, and Pimping—Your Keys to Blog Success!

This guest post is by Jason Towne of TopThreeDaily.com.

I’m new to the blogosphere, but thanks to tips from ProBlogger and a few others, I decided to make the plunge and start my own blog. It’s only been a little over a week. The day after my site went live I had nearly 2,000 pageviews and 500 unique visitors. Within the next 24 hours those numbers doubled and then I soon passed 8,000 unique visitors and 20,000 pageviews. In the week that we’ve been up, the site rose over 2.4 million spots on Alexa.

Keep in mind I had no experience whatsoever with blogging, social media, or technology. How did I do it?

Optimizing the WTF? factor

The first and most important thing I did was to research what, and how, blog posts go viral. I began by researching the concept of linkbaiting, starting with ProBlogger’s classic post, and then continued to study Buzzfeed, Popurls, and other sites to get a feel for what gets spread around. One thing I learned is that titles that make people say WTF? are winners. For instance, my first viral article, 6 Bible Thumping Tips that Will Save Your Butt!, only had a chance because the title was so intriguing. I know this because I sent out that exact same article twice, with two inferior titles, and it went nowhere. When I changed the name, it took off like a rocket.

Now that I’ve had several viral articles in a row, I’m confident that a quality title is everything. Here’s a trick that I use.

First, focus on either list posts or how-to guides. Both of those bring amazing results over and over. Second, think of something that’s traditionally considered a “negative,” combine it with a “positive,” and you’ve built instant interest. For instance, “Bible Thumping” is usually used in a derogatory way, but “saving your butt” is a good thing. You could do the same with any negative and any positive. For instance, diseases are bad and money is good. So how about an article titled, 5 Diseases I Would Pay Money To Get. Then go research and find some rare, cool disease that has positive benefits. I would click on that.

Ask yourself this question when considering titles: “Would this title make a person say ‘WTF?’”

Befriending Reddit

Keep in mind that I was new to social media and blogging, so I was working by trial and error. What I’ve learned pretty quickly is that Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and StumbleUpon are great if you already have a presence on those sites. If you’ve been using them for some time and have a lot of friends and followers, then you should definitely submit your stuff. However, if you are a newbie like myself, then Reddit should become your instant best friend.

The reason is that Facebook and Twitter are only as good as the number of friends you have. If you have no friends, then you’re submitting your work to nobody. Digg and StumbleUpon are great if you already have some time put in. I didn’t, and when I submitted my articles to those sites they were seen by absolutely nobody. If you’re new, you’re better off not submitting your stuff to them—let someone else (who is established) eventually do it for you.

However, Reddit is a different story. The great thing about Reddit is that when you submit an article, picture, video, or whatever, it is posted instantly for all Reddit users to see. If they like the title then they click on it, and you’re in business. The better your article/picture/video is, the more they will then share it with their friends, and so it starts to go viral.

Here’s an example. I posted an article called called How Bad Boys Control Women (The Real Jedi Mind Trick) on Digg and StumbleUpon, and it wasn’t looked at even once. Then I posted that same article on Reddit and it blew up. I was swarmed with visitors and it began to spread like wildfire. Reddit gives you the initial chance that all the others just don’t offer.

Browsing the Web

Unless you’re a creative writing machine, you probably can’t write blockbuster linkbait articles every day, so the next-best thing is to browse the web for material. I found lots of good material that was a bit older, but very well written. I then got permission from the author to either repost it on my site in whole or repost part of it with a link back to their site. Since the article was out of favor anyway, everyone agreed. What this did was allow me to create a new post on a cool topic, reword my title, and submit it to Reddit. This gave me a massive pageview boost, and helped the original site the article came from get a new lease on life. Everyone won.

Here’s the best example. I was short on creativity the other day, but I remembered hearing on the radio about the police arresting this pimp and finding his business plan. I tracked it down online, put it in a brief article I wrote, then posted A Pimp’s Actual Hand-Written Business Plan. I then tossed it on Reddit and within 12 hours I had gained 15,000 new pageviews. Pimp = negative, business plan = positive. If you’re still not convinced the title strategy works, go back and take a look at the title of this article. You clicked on it. It works.

Have you tried writing titles like this? What title tactics have worked best for you? And what’s your experience with Reddit? Let us know in the comments.

Jason Towne is a published author and former Hollywood script doctor. He currently runs the best-of-the-web blog, Top Three Daily, which came online on Jan. 26, 2011 and is already starting to have an impact on the blogosphere. Towne is also a freelance article writer, consultant, father, and husband. You can follow his posts through his

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How to Impress Blog Visitors Before they Start to Read

This guest post is by Darren of Findermind.com

Isn’t the best way to impress readers by providing great content? My answer would be yes, because most people come to your site for your content.

There are, however, some things you can do to impress and build credibility among your (first-time) readers even before they start to read what you have to say. How? Let me explain.

Provide quantitative instead of qualitative statements

People are not stupid. Messages like “we are the best blog providing blogging tips” won’t work. Your visitors are skeptical. They want evidence to show you’re the best blog for blogging tips. That’s why it’s important to provide quantitative instead of qualitative statements. Here are some examples of quantitative statements:

• 116 new subscribers daily
• over 56 new twitter followers every day
• join over 170, 000 subscribers (this example’s from ProBlogger!).

In conversion rate optimization, using statements such as these is considered a best practice. Why? Because it consistently produces higher conversion rates.

There is, however, one good way to provide believable qualitative statements…

Let somebody else do the bragging for you

This concept is used a lot around products releases, where it’s known as “providing testimonials.” But, of course, you can use the same concept for your own website? If, for example, Darren mentioned something nice about your blog, why not showcase it to your readers? An example might be:

“Absolutely the most useful blog on WordPress Tips”—Darren Rowse, ProBlogger.com

As you can notice, this is a qualitative statement (without any specific evidence). People won’t believe you if you brag about yourself. “We’re the best, the greatest, the cheapest…” Sorry, that doesn’t work. Do you believe it when the author of a specific blog says they’re the best in their niche? One of the first questions that comes to mind after reading this is, “Why are you the cheapest, greatest, and best?”

There is some research, however, to support the claim that if you let another person do “the bragging” for you, then you can establish credibility quickly. In chapter 22 of his best-selling book 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, Dr. Robert Cialdini mentions a study he’s done with Jeffrey Pfeeffer (you can view the study here in PDF format).

The pair asked study participants to imagine themselves in the role of a chief editor for a particular book publisher. Their current job was dealing with a particular author. To get an impression of that author, they had to read an excerpts of a negotiation for a sizable book advance. The results showed that the participants rated the author more favorably in every area when his bragging was done by his manager, than in those areas where the author bragged about himself.

If you mention a quote from someone else (like in the above ProBlogger example), then it’s best to put it above the fold—next to your logo, for example. There’s often a lot of empty space there, and some people use that for ads, but you can use it for building credibility among first-time visitors.

Put a universal Like button on your blog

The above screen shot is from Mashable.com. At the top of their sidebar, they display a universal Like button which is visible on every post and every page.

This can communicte significant social proof, and has one big advantage: it’s very easy to click on. Also, it’s very easy to locate—more on that later.

Why use this instead of the Facebook social plugin? After all, Problogger does:

The answer is that the Facebook social plugin has several disadvantages :

• It has to be placed below the fold and in the sidebar. Space above the fold is most commonly used for ads.
• The Facebook Like button is a lot harder to find, with so many elements competing for users’ attention. I would estimate that the single Like option on the universal button is at least three times easier to find because there’s a number next to it, and eyetracking studies tell us that people’s attention focuses on numbers (mostly because they are an indicator of facts, and people love to read facts online).
• Why would I like to “Find the Blog on Facebook” if I’m already on the blog? That instruction simply doesn’t make sense. It’s not one of the things I want to do. The thing I want to do while on a blog is read its content, and if it’s good, I can either like it or not. As such, a simple Like button is more relevant to users’ intentions.

The universal Like button creates credibility very quickly. Everyone’s on Facebook. By seeing your Like button—and the number of people who like your blog—visitors will understand that there are real people reading your blog. This further establishes social proof: the bigger the number of people who Like your blog, the better.

When to apply these principles … and when to ignore them

Are these principles applicable to all blogs? No. It  all depends on what you blog is about, and who’s in your audience. For example, I blog about people search, and I can’t really apply these principles to great effect, because I can’t built a loyal audience. My audience members’ goals are pretty short-term: they are looking for a person’s details, and once they find that information, they’re gone.

But I would recommend these principles to owners of blogs that have a potential to build long-term audience relationships, like people trying to build a more successful blog, people trying to make money online, people trying to save money, and so on. I would recommend these principles for people trying to build a loyal audience—and I’m pretty most of you are doing that.

What other techniques have you used to impress visitors to your blog as soon as they arrive? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

Darren loves to do guest posts on blogging/social media. His current project involves teaching people how to use social media to successfully re-unite with friends and family members. If you ever wanted to do that, start by reading this article, titled 25 Free People Search Engines to Find Anyone. Good luck!

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Don’t Go It Alone: Relationship-building for Bloggers

This guest post is by Jane Sheeba of Find All Answers.

Let’s get it straight. Blogging is not a standalone job. You cannot blog in a space that doesn’t exist and to a group of virtual people. You need people—yes, living human beings, not just pairs of eyeballs—to read your
blog.

You don’t just need people to read what you write; you need people to:

• agree/disagree with you
• give you different perspectives/thoughts/suggestions
• follow as role models/examples
• endorse/recommend you to the public
• share things with
• buy your stuff and so on.

So you need people in the blogosphere. Period.

Blogging has evolved so far, so strongly, and in an awesome way because of relationships. Just imagine the number of people who hunt blogs for information these days. A big number is just on and around blogs. So you need to make good use of that number.

Let me give you three tips (surely the not-so-trivial kind) to get along with people in the blogging world.

1. Comment

Commenting—not spamming, but giving out your genuine thoughts and views about a particular blog post—will help you to develop an excellent relationship with the author of the article. Everyone knows this. So how can you comment to build relationships (apart from links) effectively?

Reach out to growing bloggers and to those bloggers who are in the same stage as you in their blogging journey. Every comment you make on your favorite A-lister’s blog will indeed help you make friends, attract new visitors, and sometimes even attract subscribers. This is conventional wisdom.

My suggestion is to make a habit of commenting in the not-so-big, yet growing blogs (apart from the A-list blogs that are your favorites and those you comment for link-building purposes). Spend some time to find out a handful of blogs in your niche that are just growing, and comment in them in a consistent and useful way.

Your first friend will be the blogger, of course. And he or she will return the favor. You become blogging buddies and comment on each others’ posts regularly.

Here’s what you can do after that:

• Communicate personally with the blogger. Give suggestions, ask for advice, help each other, and so on.
• Trade off Tweets and Facebook shares. This works great for me. I share their posts, and the favor is returned. So if you have ten blog buddies like this, the exposure you’ll get can be fairly decent. I have also gained new subscribers and friends who are friends of those buddy bloggers.
• Endorse each other’s products/services.

2. Guest post

Guest posting is great for link building and for traffic—quite true. But how about guest posting for developing strong relationships?

Among various other benefits of guest posting, developing relationships with others is one of the main benefits. How can you achieve that? Again, aim not only for the A-list, but go for the growing blogs. This time you need to filter a bit more. Find out blogs that are doing great with readers and comments, and simply forget about the PR for this moment (I say this because I personally know and follow many blogs that have excellent content, and a great number of loyal readers and fans, but the blog’s page rank is 0).

Write a very useful post (you know that!) and close it by opening the topic up for a discussion. Given that the blog has decent number of readers who comment, a call to action should work great. Now it’s your turn to build relationships. Make it a point to respond to every comment in your guest post. But go further. Encourage discussions in the comments. And give out additional tips and secrets in replies to the commenters.

Tip: Look for CommentLuv-enabled blogs. They normally have good number of people who comment.

CommentLuv is a cute little WordPress plugin that fetches the recent post of the commenter (from the website feed) as he/she types the comment, and displays it after the comment. If a blog has the CommentLuv plugin enabled, there should be a little checkbox below the comment Submit button, as shown here.

Checking the box will display the recent post. If you have registered your blog at the ComLuv website, you can choose to display any one of the ten most recent posts.

That ‘s not all. You also have a search option at ComLuv website. You can search for CommentLuv-enabled blogs in your niche by entering appropriate keywords.

Download CommentLuv plugin here, and register your blog at comluv.com.

3. Linking

Write round-up posts on your blog that link to other posts. Do this periodically: once in a week or two, write a round-up post. This time, you need to aim only for the big players: A-list blogs. Your post can be centered around one post from a particular A-list blog, or a collection of posts from different blogs with either the same or different topics.

You can follow any or all of the following strategies:

1. Write one blog post agreeing/disagreeing/appreciating/casting your extra views on one popular blog
   post. Caution: Don’t be tempted to get dirty and disagree with popular bloggers just to gain attention.
2. Write one blog post on a topic and quote four or five related blog posts to validate your thoughts.
3. Pick four or five popular blog posts of A-list bloggers, not necessarily in a very narrow topic, and write a list post that ties them all together.

You have got to try it and see. You will get a lot of exposure, friends—and loyal readers.

The bottom line? You cannot blog alone. You need the support of nice people to blog successfully. Don’t just be obsessed with SEO and link building; rather, seek to develop true and long-lasting relationships.

Just ask this to yourself: “Why do I blog?” There can be many answers, but this will be surely one of your answers: “to create relationships with others.” Unless you’re writing a blog that’s entirely private, you blog for relationships. You write for people—your friends, your students, your clients, your community, your gender, or people with particular interest or issues. So make the most of those relationships.

What methods do you adopt to develop blogging relationships? And what works best for you?

Jane writes on Blogging Tips, Relationships and Self Improvement at Find All Answers, a multi-niche blog. You can grab two ebooks titled “Problogging for Newbies” and “Your guide to Better Time Management” freely by subscribing to her blog.

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How to Troubleshoot WordPress

This guest post was written by Neil Matthews, a WordPress consultant at WPDude.

Over the years, I’ve developed a troubleshooting methodology while working with my WordPress technical support clients.  My methodology helps  to solve the majority of WordPress crashed sites I’ve come across, and I wanted to share it with you, the good readers of ProBlogger.

I cannot claim that I invented the process, but I have brought together a number of useful tips from the WP community and combined them to create a repeatable and verifiable way to isolate and troubleshoot WordPress problems.

The process

This methodology isolates the various layers of a WordPress site one at a time, tests a layer by removing its component parts, and then, if the problem still exists, moves down to test the next layer.

Once you have isolated the problematic component, you can remove it from your site and troubleshoot the problem itself.

I recommend doing this in a slow and ordered manner, incrementally testing each layer as you go. Look at a layer, disable all of the components, and slowly restart them to find out where the problem lies.

The layers

I like to divide WordPress into four layers:

• plugins
• theme
• WordPress core
• database.

This methodology looks at the first three layers only.

What can this process fix?

This methodology can be used to fix a variety of WordPress issues including, bit not limited to:

• the dreaded “white screen of death” where all you can see is a white screen and nothing else
• “Header Already Sent” errors
• “Fatal Plugin” errors
• “Out of Memory” errors
• …many other WordPress problems, too.

Back up first

Even if your site has crashed, it’s important to stop, take a moment, and back up your site as it is now.  You are about to embark on a journey which will make a lot of changes to your site.  Taking a backup of the site as it stands means you can fall back to your starting position if you need to, without making the situation any worse.

Troubleshooting plugins

I always start at the plugin layer when I’m troubleshooting a WordPress problem. In my experience, about 80-90% of system crashes are caused by plugin issues. This is because there are so many plugins (sometimes of questionable coding quality) available to WordPress site owners.  Combining these plugins with other plugins, themes, and WordPress itself creates an untested mix that can very easily crash your site.

This is how I troubleshoot plugins:

1. Disable all plugins.
2. Has the problem gone? If it has, you have an issue at the plugin layer, if not, move down to next layer the theme.
3. Re-activate plugins one at a time.
4. Test your site after each reactivation. Has the problem returned? If so, you have now found the suspect plugin: go to point 5. If not, rinse and repeat from point 3.
5. Disable that plugin.
6. Re-activate the other plugins to ensure you don’t have multiple plugin problems.
7. If the problem is still cleared, you have isolated and remove the problem. Go to the Getting Support section below.

Sometimes plugins cause such a problem that when you try to log into the dashboard to disable them, all you get is the same error message. If you cannot log into the dashboard, all is not lost: I have a work-around for you.

What you need to do is connect to your site via FTP and navigate to the wp-content folder.  If you rename the plugins directory, to plugins_temp for example, WordPress no longer knows where the plugin files are, and stops running them.  Now if you try to log in to the site, you’ll find that the issue has probably gone.

If you then proceed to the Plugins section in your Dashboard, you will see an error message that the plugin files cannot be found and have been disabled. Rename plugins_temp and you plugin files will be available again. Now, incrementally start from point 2 above to see which one caused the problem.

Troubleshooting themes

Once you have tested the plugins to rule them out, you need to move down a layer to the theme. This is how I troubleshoot themes:

1. Disable the current theme.
2. Activate a default theme such as Twenty ten.
3. Test. If the problem has gone, you know the theme is causing issues. If not, move down to the WordPress core layer.
4. Re-activate all of the plugins individually to make sure there is not a composite problem. If the problem doesn’t recur, you’ve isolated the theme as the problem area.

Next, I’d try to rule out any changes I’d made to the theme by removing any code I had recently added. If I have updated the theme, I’d roll back to a previous version. If I have just added a new widget, I’d try to back this out.  As you can see, the process is all about back-tracking methodically so you can repair the issue.

Again, if you cannot log into the dashboard there is a work-around. Connect to your site via FTP, and navigate to the wp-content/themes directory. If you now rename your currently live theme directory to themdir_temp for example, WordPress won’t know where the theme files are. All you’ll see at the front end is a white screen, but the dashboard will be available. Go to point 2 above and activate a default theme.  Remember to change the name of themedir_temp back to themedir to help troubleshooting.

Troubleshooting WordPress Core Files

The last layer to check are your WordPress core files.  This is the last layer because it is the least problematic, but I have seen incidents where files have become corrupt, stopping WordPress from working correctly.  The easiest way to troubleshoot WordPress core files is to re-install a clean copy.

This is my process for troubleshooting WordPress core files:

1. Download a clean version of WordPress from http://wordpress.org/download/.
2. Connect to your site via FTP.
3. Rename wp-admin and wp-includes to ensure you are uploading clean copies of these directories.
4. Back up wp-config.php just in case. This files holds your database connection details (amongst other things).
5. Upload your clean version of WordPress.
6. Test. Is your issue fixed? If so, you have isolated the problem at WordPress core. If not, it’s time to call in the experts.
7. Re-activate your theme and test it.
8. Re-activate your plugins and test them.

Fixing the component

At this point, you have hopefully isolated the component of your site that was causing issues.  So what do you do now?  Here are your options:

• Visit the plugin or theme developers’ site and check to see if they have a support forum to search or request support from. Any developer worth his or her salt will be only too happy to provide support, and premium plugins and themes should provide top-class support as part of your fee. Remember to be nice to them if it’s a free theme or plugin and they don’t reply in five minutes.
• Find a replacement for the plugin or theme. There is usually more than one implementation of a plugin, so if you can, swap out the problematic plugin with another one.
• Request some support from http://wordpress.org/support/. This is excellent for core WordPress problems, and you will often find forums for individual plugins there, too.
• Set the social media monster to work on your problem. Sometimes it’s as easy as sending out a tweet to your network to find a solution to the problem.
• Get the pros in—hire a WordPress technical support team or consultant to solve your problem.

Wrap up

I use this methodology on a daily basis—it’s proven in the field on crashed sites.  The key is to methodically work through the layers, eliminating as you go, until you find the root cause. Then, fix that issue.  Remember to constantly test, though, because sometimes there are composite problems with multiple plugins, or the theme and a plugin.

Do you have any WordPress bug horror stories you can share? Who solves your site’s bugs and problems—is it you?

Neil provides WordPress technical support services at WPDude.com. He has also created a mini video course on this methodology over at wptroubleshooting.com.

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