On Copywriting

Major Announcement

Today I have a major announcement. Here it is...

I'm abandoning this blog!

Today marks the end of On Copywriting on my Typepad domain. I am no longer going to blog on Typepad.

It's a strange feeling. I've been blogging for over four years on Typepad. Here's a little history.

When I got started blogging, I blogged about health. In fact, I wrote over 300 articles about health, exercise, and nutrition. You can see those blog posts here.

I never made much money from this blogging activity. But I sure had fun. I would usually write my posts during my lunch break at work. Every day I'd look forward to writing my next blog post. I built up a decent readership during the first couple years.

It's funny to look back at the home page of that blog. I can see where my thinking was back in 2005. I've come a long way since then.

Later, I migrated my posting about health to The Health Blog. The transition went okay, but not great. One thing I tried to do was bring on other bloggers to help with the posting. My approach didn't work as well as I thought it would, even though I offered to pay for each post.

I had actually grown tired of writing about health. And I had started blogging about copywriting, so it was difficult to maintain my activity on both blogs. So The Health Blog fell by the wayside. It's now like a little blog island floating on the vast Internet ocean.

Now I'm making another change. Instead of blogging here on this domain, I've moved to a Wordpress blog hosted at www.RyanHealy.com. This is the new blog where you will find me.

Why have I decided to do this? There are a few reasons.

1. By having my name as my blog domain, it allows me greater liberty in my daily posting. Instead of my blog being focused mostly on copywriting, it will now have a slightly different focus. I've already written about this on my new blog.

2. When I started blogging, I chose Typepad because Seth Godin used it. I figured, "If it's good enough for Seth Godin, it's good enough for me." Turns out, Seth Godin has said choosing Typepad was the biggest mistake he made. Think about it: he doesn't own the domain and, therefore, he doesn't own any of his inbound links!

3. James Brausch told me to switch. His exact words were, "Stop the Typepad nonsense and get a domain."

So... The new blog is located at www.RyanHealy.com. If you have linked to my blog in the past, you may want to update that link. I've also begun a new blog notification list. This is for a few reasons. Perhaps I'll talk about them later. If you want to be notified of posts on the new blog, you will have to join the new blog email list and/or update your RSS feed.

==> Business Growth, Life, etc.

1,000 Comments and Counting

This week marked comment #1,000 on this blog.

Earlier this year, I promised to feature whoever it was who left the thousandth comment. I wondered who it would be. (I made sure I would not be that person.)

Believe it or not, Keith Goodrum was the man. What are the chances?

I already featured an interview with Keith because he was the first one to purchase my report, submit an action plan, and follow-through on what he said he would do.

This time, instead of doing a written interview, we'll be doing a brief audio interview. I'll post it here in a few days.

I guess this helps to prove that good things happen to those who take action.

Getting Stuck in Widget Hell

Lately, I've noticed some blogs that have been infested with widgets. In the worst cases, the widgets slow down the page loading time so much that I just leave. I'm not talking 5-second delays here. I'm talking 15 seconds or longer, which is an eternity when you just want to read something.

One particular blog I'm thinking of uses a three-column design similar to this one. Widgets line both the left and right columns. The blog has good content, but I never visit it. The widgets keep me away.

Remember: People visit your blog to read it. They do not visit to look at widgets.

Take a look at your blog with a critical eye. Is it adding value to your blog or to your readers? If not, delete it. Is it causing your pages to load too slowly? Get rid of it.

Some widgets are useful. For instance, the MyBlogLog widget I have on this blog is a form of social proof. It demonstrates that people read my blog. And it gives MyBlogLog members an incentive to visit frequently. (Their photos appear on my blog, which draws some traffic to their own blogs.)

If you do have widgets on your blog, it is better to place them in the right-hand column because of how most blogs are coded. You'll notice my left-hand column has fewer items than my right-hand column. This speeds up page-load time.

After looking at my own blog design, I got rid of the list of Amazon books. They only generate about $10 in commissions a quarter. It's negligible. So I deleted the list. It's one less distraction, and it keeps more of the focus on the blog posts (instead of the books).

What will you delete to improve your blog?

Bloggers Are Connectors

Bloggers are connectors.

This finally hit me when I observed Terry Dean linking out to some of his favorite blog posts every now and then. He mostly writes his own blog posts. But he periodically refers his readers elsewhere.

I like this approach. It connects people. I've found some great blogs I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

And so you'll see I've adopted the same practice with this blog. When I read a great post about copywriting or marketing, I make a mental note or bookmark the page. When I collect three or more of these posts, I write little blurbs to tell you about them.

For example, here are two recent posts in which I listed some excellent blog posts:

• Three Must-Read Blog Posts by My Colleagues
• Inspiration, Negotiation & Writing Well

I think this is a good blogging habit to adopt. It's good for you and it's good for the blogs I link to. After all, creating a conversation and connecting people is what blogging is really about.

Three Must-Read Blog Posts by My Colleagues

For today, I thought I would refer you to some recent blog posts I have found particularly interesting and helpful. Each is related to marketing, persuasion, or copywriting. All of which are beneficial to copywriters and online marketers.

1. How to Influence Others

Terry Dean summarizes the six primary forces of influence as documented in Persuasion: The Psychology of Influence by Robert Cialdini. This is a great introduction to the book in fewer than a thousand words. Caution: After reading Terry's post, you may be persuaded to buy and read the book.

2. Check Out How My Brother Got Me 3 Clients

Rebecca Dean, sister of copywriter Stephen Dean, explains exactly how she was able to acquire three new clients simply by using a well-crafted forum signature. She not only shares the wording of the signature, but the forum she used to acquire the clients.

3. Social Proof, The Secret to Selling More And Being More Attractive to Women

Paul Hancox reveals the surprising results of a study designed to learn more about how we think... and how we are influenced by the opinions of others. I highly recommend you read this post if you are interested in understanding more about psychology. Once you learn the principle, you can discover the techniques and use them in your marketing.

Shortlist of Blogs I Read

Today, I thought I'd share with you the blogs that are on my shortlist. These are the blogs in my feed reader... the blogs I make every attempt to read regularly.

• Terry Dean
• James Brausch
• Michel Fortin
• Ben Settle
• Eric Graham

Do I read other blogs? Absolutely. In fact, I read all the blogs listed in my blogroll in the right-hand column. These just happen to be the ones I read most frequently and find most useful.

If you get a chance, swing by these blogs and consider adding them to your daily reading.

Also, as side note, I find that it's hard to keep up with more than about five blogs on a regular basis. I recommend having your own shortlist, tailored to your primary goals and interests, so you stay focused. Otherwise, you can spend hours reading blogs and never implementing anything.

P.S. Looking for a feed reader? I personally use Google. Just go to http://www.google.com/ig to set up your custom Google home page, including RSS feeds. You can add feeds by URL, and then drag and drop them anywhere you want.

I Want to Pay You $50

Want to make a quick fifty bucks?

I'm looking for two readers of this blog who'd be willing to put together a "Best of Ryan Healy" list. I will pay each reader $50 to select 12 posts I've written that they consider to be "required reading."

This is a genuine "earn while learning" project.

I thought about doing this myself, but I have a problem. I'm not you. What I think is a really great post may not be that great. After all, it's your opinion that really matters, not mine.

Fair warning: There are 229 posts on this blog. That doesn't mean you have to read all of them. In general, you'll be able to just skip over short posts. I'm assuming the best posts will be in the copywriting and success categories. But, hey, I could be wrong. ;-)

When you deliver your list, all I need is the title and link to the post. You can put it straight into an email, a Word doc, whatever.

If you're interested, here's what to do next:

Leave a comment below expressing your desire to participate, and why. The first two people who write a good reason why get the job.

I'd like this done by Friday of next week (6/8) or earlier. As soon as you turn in your list, I'll PayPal you $50 immediately. Thanks.

Trackbacks Continued

My post about how to do Trackbacks has been well received. Already, some of my readers have linked to the post... and Google has indexed it and started sending traffic to it.

So, to continue the discussion, I figured I would share another little "Trackback trick" that I learned by observing other A-list bloggers. Here it is...

Instead of always sending Trackbacks to other blogs, consider...

Sending a Trackback to Your OWN Blog!

I've only recently begun to do this because:

1. It improves blog navigation by linking related articles together.

2. It increases page views per visit. (If a person reads an article and enjoys it, they are likely to read another "deeper" article on the same topic.)

3. It can help boost search engine rankings. (For instance, Google looks at what incoming links say, but also looks at what links within your site say.)

If you've never done a Trackback before, this is also a low-risk way to learn how to do one. Simply write two related posts and send a Trackback from one to the other.

Once you feel comfortable with how the process works, then start sending Trackbacks to other bloggers. Make sense? Alright, go to it!

Blog Readership Rising...

Within the last month, the number of RSS feeds pulling content from this blog have more than doubled. How did that happen?

Well, I suspect it's because of a small little tweak that I almost didn't bother to do.

Take a look at the top right corner of this blog. You'll see a Feedburner icon that displays the daily number of readers.

Ever since I added that icon, readership has risen steadily. I've taken a screenshot so you can see for yourself what a dramatic difference it's made.

Click Here to See Feedburner Reader Stats

Want more readers? Get a Feedburner account, and display the Feedburner icon in the top right of your blog.

3 Reasons to Trackback

Trackbacks are helpful for three primary reasons:

Reason #1: It tells the author of the original article that you're continuing or expanding the discussion on your blog.

Reason #2: When you Trackback, a link to YOUR blog appears on the original author's blog, if they accept your Trackback. Not only are you sending traffic to the original author, they're sending traffic back to you! (Notice how many people Trackback to Seth Godin's blog? One reason people do it is for the traffic.)

Reason #3: You make friends. I've found that to be a successful blogger, you must become friends with other successful bloggers. One way to quickly "make friends" is to send Trackbacks.

So How Do You Do a Trackback?

For Typepad or Wordpress, it works like this:

Step #1: Write a post on your blog that references a post on another blog.

Step #2: In the body of your post, create a link to the original blog post that inspired you. (The link must go to the specific post, not the home page.)

Step #3: Underneath the space where you write your blog post, you'll notice a small box that says "Send a Trackback to these addresses" (Typepad) or "Trackback a URI" (Wordpress).

Step #4: In this space, you'll want to copy and paste the Trackback URL. If the person you're linking to uses Typepad, you'll notice that underneath the original post, there's a line that says: "Trackback URL for this entry." A URL like this follows:

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/30595/18654976

That's the link you want to copy and paste into the "Trackback" space underneath your new post in your user interface. Now, if the person you're linking to uses Wordpress, then the Trackback link is almost always the same as the normal URL, except you add "/trackback" at the end.

For example, you would link to:

http://www.terrydean.org/unplug-for-ideas/

And then you would send a Trackback to:

http://www.terrydean.org/unplug-for-ideas/trackback

Does this make sense? Give it a try and see what happens. Heck, Trackback to this article if you want. After all, the more people who know how to do this, the more Trackbacks you're likely to get!

Now, after you complete the steps above and publish your post, please double-check your work. Go to your blog and click on the link to the original author's post. Does it work? If not, go back through the steps and see if you can identify where you made the mistake.

A common error is to link directly to a Typepad Trackback link instead of linking to the permanent URL. This won't work. You've got to hyper link to the permanent URL... and then ping the Trackback link. So there are two links involved. You cannot send a Trackback with just one link.

When Should You Send a Trackback?

It's my belief that you should only send a Trackback when you're adding to, expanding, or continuing a discussion. This way readers can track how a discussion evolves from blog to blog.

If you are only giving a one-sentence plug to a great blog post you found, then you should NOT send a Trackback. In this case, simply link to the blog post without sending a Trackback. (Otherwise, it might look like you're trying to hijack traffic from the original author's blog without adding any value to the discussion.)

P.S. When somebody sends a Trackback to my blog, I see it in my user interface. I can accept the Trackback if it's a legitimate post. I can reject the Trackback if it's a spam post. This is why you often won't immediately see your Trackback on the original author's blog. Don't worry if this happens. Just wait a few hours and check again.

P.P.S. In case you're wondering, Blogger doesn't have Trackback functionality, which is one reason I don't suggest using it.