Welcome to Catchtheposts! I hope that the content of this blog will be helpful to you. Don't hesitate to use the contact form to send me your comments, feedback, suggested topics or questions. Thanks for visiting!

If you're new here, you may consider to subscribe and receive all new tips for free. Updates may be delivered on your feedreader or directly on your mailbox!.

Photo by _StaR_DusT_

One of the most challenging activity you may face as a blogger is to maintain a constant flow of valuable article ideas. In April, I published an article titled 12 Effective Ways to Find New Article Ideas. This article was presenting concrete and applicable ways to find new idea. It was based on where to find it. I this article I’ll be focusing on 10 strategies that will allow you to create new content based on existing material. Thus, I will bring your attention on how to transform or revisit articles and data to create valuable content.

1. Update an existing review.

Things change over time. They may get better or they may get worst. They may become very popular or just disappear silently! The fact is that time influences everything and you can use that to create new and valuable content. If you did or read a review in the past, you may want to update it to make it accurate with the actual reality.

2. Develop another perspective.

We often base an article on a very precise perspective. For example, we may write on the most effective way to do X. This article will present a specific perspective about X, but what about the most common mistakes while doing X? This perspective is valuable as well. This strategy may be applied to almost every topic. In general, you just have to remember that there are always 2 sides on a medal. Having a good understanding of both sides is always something valuable for readers!

3. Create a resource list.

Creating a resource list is not something complicated on a technical point of view. In fact, it only requires time and time again! Writing this kind of article is very time consuming but this is precisely where the value is! People enjoy resource list because it gather together the best resources about a specific topic. No need to search, no need to spend time; your article provide all the best references about a specific topic. Note that this strategy generally performs well on social media networks and allows generating plenty of valuable backlinks!

4. Add new elements to an existing article.

Adding new elements may be related to a list but it may also be related to any kind of article. For example, one may create a list of 5 or 10 items about something and you may want to add some items to this list. So instead of commenting this list by adding additional elements directly on your comment, you may want to write a post that complement the initial list and put a link to your post on your comment!

5. Give your personal opinion.

If your opinion is based on concrete and pertinent arguments, it is valuable to everyone! Each day you probably read a lot of articles from bloggers in your niche. You may agree with some of them and disagree with others. It is a good strategy to react on articles you disagree with. Of course, this shall be done very carefully because the goal here is not to provoke, but to bring relevant arguments that may help your readers to understand a specific situation.

6. Create a poll based on an existing list.

Let’s say a blog on your niche is publishing an article titled 10 Reasons Why You Should Start Blogging. It may be a good idea to create a poll with these 10 reasons and ask your readers or a community about why they start blogging and collect the data until you get a good sample – let’s say something around 100 people.

7. Publish poll results.

Creating a poll is not something difficult. You may find WordPress plugins that do the job or you may want to signup for free with PollDaddy.com. A poll with a significant sample is always a good post opportunity. In general, people like numbers and statistics that are well presented and interpreted. You may want to use this strategy with strategy #6.

8. Summarize an article series.

Reading an article series may be very interesting for a reader. In fact, everyone want to know what will be coming after! However, when the series is completed, some people may not be interested to go back in time and find every post related to this particular series. A good strategy would be to summarize that series in a single article. Thus, people that didn’t read the series may be happy to get the most important points gathered in a single post and people that read it may be happy to get a valuable summary to bookmark.

9. Presents the main ideas from an interview.

Interviews are generally very valuable posts because they present personal experiences that may help any reader to learn from somebody else. In fact, this kind of article is very enriching and educating. Presenting the main idea from an interview may be very valuable for lots of people. Note that the new content doesn’t replace the interview but complement it by creating a valuable guidelines presented in another form. As an example, I did that on my article 20 Remarkable Lessons For Blogging Success (A StrongLifts.com Case Study).

10. Create an article based on the comments of a popular post.

We often forget that comments are content just like any article. Comments sometimes raise new issues or new questions. What about creating new content based on these valuable comments? It sounds to me like a good strategy to build relevant content based on this kind of discussion. It may help some idea to get more visibility.

Of course, there is probably much more ways to transform existing material to create new content. The above list is far from being exhaustive. However, it is a starting point that aims to help you developing new content strategies. I would really appreciate getting your experiences about this content.

I’m waiting for your comments and feedback!

Photo by DeclanTM

I’m a big fan of humoristic cartoon! Since my blog is about blogging, I decided to share with you my blogging jokes collection.

Enjoy them and take the time to have a good laugh – this is a good way to rest your mind and to relax!

If you like this collection, bookmark it and share it with your friends and blog fellow!

From BLaugh.com

From Various Other Places

Photo by lawtonchiles

One of the most common topics among bloggers stands around the readership. What are the best ways to increase your readership? What are the main reasons for a visitor to subscribe to your blog?

Convert a visitor to a loyal reader is not easy. In fact, the reasons for subscribing vary from person to person. For example, I personally subscribe to a blog for the quality of the content and because I like the blogger behind the blog! Now, what about you?

The question this week is:

What are the main reasons for you to subscribe to a blog?

I would really appreciate to hear you on this topic. Please share your opinion and/or your experience with us. This is always very valuable for me and for the whole community. Thanks for your participation!

Photo by Oslo In The Summertime

This is a guest post from Amin Motin. Amin Motin is a British internet marketer with a passion for educating. Learn more at Sublime Products

All blogs need traffic to survive. A blog with no visitors is a sterile and unloved place. Add visitors who care about what you say and suddenly your blog has become a little social media site of its own.

It’s possible to steal traffic from other blogs who are your competitors. You can take a slice of their traffic and build your own blog into the bargain. Not only is it perfectly legal to do so, but I can guarantee you that in some cases other bloggers will come asking you to take some of their traffic.

What I’m talking about is giving away your best content to another blogger. It doesn’t have to be a direct competitor, but it can be. So, why would you give away your best content to someone else? What makes it beneficial to you?

Before I answer that question directly, let me ask you a little question.

Do you ever visit fast food places? Have you noticed, especially in shopping malls, how the fast food outlets are normally all pretty close together? Wouldn’t it be better for them if only one hamburger place was allowed there?

No. And they wouldn’t always want that anyway, even if it were possible.

The reason is that every food outlet in a shopping mall food court will generate some traffic. But one that traffic is at the food court they will see all the other places to eat. Some of those visitors will consider the other outlets and the effect is of ‘recycling’ the visitors. It’s almost as if the food court had many times more visitors.

Something similar applies in the blogging world. You probably already know that it’s beneficial to make quality comments on blog posts. It allows you to showcase a little of what you know and how you write to the blog’s visitors. A percentage of them will come by your blog for a little look.

Now making quality, related comments to the posts is a good thing, but there is something even more powerful. Hans has already posted about this at http://www.catchtheposts.com/5-golden-rules-to-maximize-your-guest-blogging-benefits/ . If you haven’t already viewed that post you should take the time to do so. If you follow the information outlined and take some action, you’ll be surprised at the benefits you can receive.

On the 27th June 2008 I read that very blog post myself. Frankly, a lot of the information is not new, but it’s presented in a clear and accessible way. One of the major points that Hans make is that you have nothing to lose by trying. Be audacious! After all, if you write a guest blog post and it gets accepted you’ve just done three things:

• Added valuable content to a fellow blogger’s site
• Created a new relationship
• Stolen his traffic.

Two of those things directly benefit you.

Plus it’s something that is easier to do than you might realize. For example - oh, you were wondering about the ’stolen his traffic’ line? Allow me to explain.

If you take the time to create a guest post that is high quality, you will definitely get some visitors clicking through to see your site. They’ll be looking for additional content that you may have. They may also want to know a little bit more about who you are. But that traffic came from the original blog. It’s traffic you would probably never have seen without the guest blog post. In effect, you have ’stolen’ traffic from the original blog. The thing is what you’ve really done is multiply it. So it’s a win-win for you and the host blog.

Can you do the same with comments? Well, yes, you can, but the amount of traffic you’ll get from a few comments is nothing like the traffic you’ll get from a guest blog post.
I know, because since I read Hans post about guest blogging I decided to do just that. You might notice that this is a guest post on Hans blog! It’s not my first guest post, either.

As someone who makes his living online I’m always interested in what other internet marketers are doing, so I read their blogs. There’s one blog I read frequently. It’s usually entertaining and always informative. After reading Hans points I thought I’d approach the owner and see what he thought. He has a special section on his blog inviting people to guest post for him! I’d never noticed. And nobody else has, either, because he hasn’t had a guest blog done before me.

Since then he’s published two guest posts for me and I can tell you that I’m seeing hundreds of new visitors as a direct result of those guest posts.

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. That’s what I meant earlier by saying it’s easier than you might realize. Even though we’re competitors, the quality content I provided for Frank and the share of his traffic that I got created a win-win for us both.

I’d encourage you to try the same. Look for blogs that are related to your own niche. Create your best article, or post, and offer it to them to use for free, in exchange for a link or two. You know what the worst that can happen is? You get turned down and you still have a great blog post that you can use on your own blog. One word of caution: if you’re going to do this, make sure you create some content that you would love to have on your own blog. Make it your best post. Make it something you almost can’t part with, because it’s so good. Don’t ever offer a host blog anything other than your best work.

Here’s the payoff: if you’re successful with your guest post you then have a track record to refer other host blogs to. So you can create more guest posts and build your guest post resume. And each one of those posts will be out there, working for you for years to come. I still get traffic from blog comments I made 2 years ago. I wish I’d actually done guest posting then, because the traffic that comes calling is so much higher.

Don’t waste any time. Find a blog that looks likely to take quality guest posts and get writing. Here’s a hint for you: this blog takes guest submissions. What are you waiting for?

Photo by chadmagiera

This is a guest post from Cindy King. Cindy King is a Cross Cultural & International Sales Specialist based in France. She has rare first hand experience in international sales combined with expertise in cross cultural communication, international marketing, internet marketing and international B2B copywriting. Cindy writes a business directory and a weekly newsletter on how to Get International Clients at www.getinternationalclients.com.

Are you an internet marketer? Are you here for the business opportunities? We have all heard of the success stories. Many internet marketers make a good living. As an international marketer, I often wonder just how much money these successful internet marketers are leaving on the table.

Different Approaches

Businesses approach international web marketing differently. Based on my personal experience, how you approach international web marketing depends on where your primary business is:

• Brick and mortar businesses with a website are very interested in international web marketing, almost right from the beginning. International exposure is one of the big calling cards for getting a business online. These businesses already have a marketing role within their company. They often realize they need international marketing.
• The successful internet marketers I follow do not have a specific international web marketing strategy. They already have international sales. Yet they do not try to develop these international sales further, through international web marketing. Some do limited off-line marketing, through presentations and courses in different countries.

Off-Line Companies With International Marketing Strategies

Companies with a primary business off-line try to improve all sources of revenue. They have traditional marketing strategies in place.

A website with an international web marketing strategy is a logical step. These businesses evaluate an international web marketing strategy as a business investment. They define guidelines and strategies suitable for their company.

Online Companies Without International Marketing Strategies

An online company usually does not have the same reasoning.

• Does the buzz about instant global markets make standard business practices obsolescent?
• Is it simply because the online e-business does not have the same company structure?

Many online businesses sell downloadable products as a way to reach international audiences. International product delivery is not an international marketing plan.

Find The Right International Marketing Plan For You

Successful e-businesses have international client bases. The size of these international client bases can be significant. With such large volumes of international clients, it makes sense to create a much more targeted marketing plan to these audiences. Effective marketing to different international clients involves adapting your sales message to each different culture.

You do not need to jump into the deep end. International business development goes through 5 marketing steps.

1. Domestic Marketing
2. Export Marketing
3. International Marketing
4. Multinational Marketing
5. Global Marketing

I think you can see where the challenge lies for internet marketers. Most people assume that just because a website has global reach, they can jump from Domestic Marketing right into Global Marketing.

The fact is that businesses need to go through each of these steps one after the other. Jumping over even one of these steps is difficult and usually expensive.
You need to identify the marketing step where your business is. Only then will you be able to create an international marketing plan.

Target Specific Cultures

Once you have identified which marketing plan is suitable for your business, you can then go about finding the suitable way for your business to market to your international clients.
International marketing will help you to adjust your offer and your products to get more sales from different cultures.

There are three advantages to taking a systematic international marketing approach.

• You will get more sales from this one market.
• You will learn the full potential your product has in each different country.
• This process increases your own international market knowledge.

Sales Left On The Table?

Many online businesses make fast money selling one product with one marketing system, and then they stop there. A few successful internet marketers do start an international marketing plan when they:

• Give presentations at live events in different countries
• Go into joint ventures in different countries

The problem is that few internet marketers use any traditional international business development tactics.

A First Step

What can you do to improve international sales?
Remember to first identify which one of the five marketing steps is best for your business. Then, a good place to start is with your communication.
One first step is to adapt your websites and sales pages to target different cultures.

• You can start with one multicultural communication.
• For best results, you then need to move into culture-specific websites and emails, for example.

Read more about how you can develop your international business on Get International Clients.
Do you know how many sales you are leaving on the table in your international markets?

Photo by notsogoodphotography

One of the first things to do, before starting a blog, is to determine your targeted audience. In fact, the more targeted it is, the more your chances are to attract a wide readership.

Determining your audience is critical because it will highly influence the topics, the content, the wording, the distribution, the marketing plan, and so on! To summarize, your audience defines your blog identity. Why? Simply because every plan, every strategy and every tactic will have to take one common thing into consideration: your audience!

For example, targeting beginners in your niche won’t be the same as targeting experts. The topics shall not be the same. The working and the language level shall not be the same either. Your blog promotion will also differ, because beginners won’t be found at the same places as experts. This is also the case for the distribution; you won’t reach beginners and experts the same way!

Your audience will always be a target; it will never be black or white. This being said, you will never be able to reach the perfect audience target. Thus, you will need to find a way to confirm that your average audience is still on the target. To do so, I would recommend you 5 techniques.

1. Ask.

This is a simple technique, but it may help to get some feedback. If you don’t ask, you won’t know! Concretely, you may just ask it directly by writing a post in which you will ask the readers about their opinion on your blog. As your audience to comment on the design, the content, the topics vs their interests. Ask about what they like and what they don’t. Stay opened to receive suggestions; this is priceless and this is the best source of information to improve your blog smartly! Doing this kind of post may help to put a dialogue in place. This is a great opportunity to build additional relationships with some readers.

2. Create a Poll.

The beauty of polls is that it is 100% accurate and, most of the time, very quick to answer. However, in the other side, it is less flexible than free discussion and it require building it with the right questions! It’s quite frustrating to publish a poll, receive tons of answer and finally have no conclusion at all! The questions and the wording are crucial! In fact, it makes all the difference between priceless information and useless information. Polls are extremely interesting to collect information. For example, some of your readers may want to give their opinion anonymously. Of course, they won’t tend to leave you a comment on the post you did to apply technique #1. However, they may leave you very useful information by answering to a poll you can fill anonymously!

3. Look at Site Statistics.

Gathering information on your blog is essential! Most likely, you are using an analytic system just like Google Analytic or something similar. If this is not the case, open a Google Analytic account immediately after you finish reading this article. This is imperative! Of course, there are tons of information gathered by these systems, and there are a lot of time to spend analyzing all this stuff, but let’s focus on 2 parameters: the referrers and the most popular pages. The referrers will let you know where you visitors are coming from. Take the time to visit those web spaces. Analyze them and take the time to make some conclusions. On their side, the most popular pages will let you know about the most interesting stuff on your blog. Generally, those pages define pretty well the identity of your average reader. This may help you to give a direction to take with your content. The most important word here is direction. Don’t write exclusively on your most popular topics; just take the right direction. Don’t forget that variety is also an important rule to follow.

4. Follow the Commentator’s links.

Comments are priceless. In fact, they are the concrete sign that somebody read what you write. There is nothing more frustrating than the sound of silence. Writing and having no feedback is hard. This is precisely one of the most common reasons why many blogger just give up. They get discouraged and see no reason to continue. So if you have comments, take the time to read it and to answer! And moreover, take the time to visit your commentator’s blogs. Most commentators leave their link to their blog; just follow it! This will give you tons of very valuable information: the niche of your commentator, the topics, the web design, the interests, and so on. Take the time to visit the about page and the contact page. You may found some treasure out there!

5. Follow the Social Media links.

You may also find some profile links from technique #4. Follow these links and look at the profile and the content submitted by your readers. Having access to this information is very valuable because it’s having access to your readers’ bookmarks. This is more than enough to have a good idea about his/her interests! Another useful information that may be available there is links to other social media profiles. In fact, most social media sites actually allow their users to publish links to other social media profiles. For example, the MyBlogLog service gives access to several other ways to connect with the user. Take advantage of it and just follow the links… you may found a great reader, a business partner and even a friend!

I personally don’t think that one technique is better than the other. In fact, I think they are all complementing each other. A smart mix of all 5 techniques will result on something quite relevant and accurate. Always stay connected to you audience; they are what makes your blog alive! Building a community is something hard, but if you stay connected with your readers, you’ll notice that they’ll always be near you when you’ll need it the most!

Photo by junku-newcleus

This is a guest post from Hendry Lee. Hendry helps bloggers overcome technology challenges in starting and growing their blogs. Get daily tips, techniques and strategies by visiting his blog at blogbuildingu.com.

Not all traffic is created equal. Thousands of visitors may not mean a thing to your bottom line. On the other hand, 100 visitors may turn into 20 feed subscribers or more if they are qualified.

Bloggers may brag about their numbers, but at the end of the day, all that is matter is money in the bank.

Why Do You Want Repeat Visitors?

Although a blog is just another web site, what makes blogging so powerful is the fact that it is not a one time interaction between a blogger and his/her readers. Interaction and communication should be integrated tightly into every blog.

Repeat visitors are in many ways better than first-time visitors. Depends on your traffic strategies, when readers come to your site, at first they may not know about you at all. They are looking for information, and hope that you are able to provide that.

Article marketing is an example of traffic source that brings in qualified visitors. When the readers visit your blog, they already know about you because they have read your article(s). It they don’t like what they read, there is no reason they click and visit your site.

Repeat blog readers are even better. They subscribe to your RSS feed because they want to get more content from you. Often they are also bloggers and influencers who will tell others about your blog instead of merely readers.

Of course, they are also more likely to become customers or clients…

After working so hard and spending a great deal of time to get people to your blog through blog promotion, you want them to come back and become your loyal audience.

7 Ways to Keep Visitors Coming Back to Your Blog

You may be familiar with some of the items in the list, but it is important that you don’t underestimate these tactics. A little bit of change in how you approach each of them may make a big difference.

You may not want to use more than a few tactics at the same time, because they can be quite overwhelming. It is better if you focus on one or two things at the same time, spend time to do them right before moving to another one.

1. Make your blog design / layout easy to navigate. It is helpful if you stick with clean design. Usability is a complex subject, but you can make use of common sense to distinguish between a blog that is easy to use and otherwise.




2. Be specific, produce content your audience wants. By specific, I mean you should target a niche instead of trying to be everywhere at the same time. The more specific you are in your content, the more people will be able to resonate with your message.




3. Gain insights into the readers. Web analytics software will show you which content is popular among your readers. Getting this kind of information is priceless. It can potentially change the direction of your blog for good.




4. Encourage comments. The difference between a blog and typical web site is that with a blog, you already have comments feature integrated as part of the blog. If you choose to enable this feature, you will be able to cultivate relationship with your readers in a more direct way than with contact form or even email marketing. This establishes a bond with the readers.




5. Tap into the power of email marketing. Email is still a powerful way to reach out to your audience. It is possible to use this in combination with a blog, especially as a follow up mechanism.




6. Highlight the RSS feed. Another great option is RSS feed. Many people are hesitant to give away their name and email address nowadays. An RSS feed solves this problem because what the readers have in their news reader is 100 percent opt-in messages.




7. Add a discussion board. This is another popular form of social interaction online. Forum can be very addictive. When you have a group of like-minded people gather together on a virtual place, they tend to visit your site back more often.

With social network apps like Ning, now it is possible to create your own social network too. However, I know I have said about this, but you should not try to juggle too many balls at the same time. Building a blog can be a very rewarding experience and part of it comes from the interaction you have with other bloggers and your readers.

Photo by studiozoe

Like I do every month, I took in note the top commentator of July and I execute the draw to update the Core Audience’s Corner for August. I’m very proud to announce that one of the winners is Cindy King from Get International Clients. Unfortunately, the second winner just didn’t answer to my email, so I’m gonna give the second place - at least temporarily - to the second top commentator which is Amin Motin from Sublime-Products.com. Note that I will give 24 hours in the future to send me back an answer. This means that Amin will keep the actual place if I don’t receive any feedback today from the second winner. Stay tuned to your email!

Congratulation to both of you and thank you so much for your support. I the meantime, I would like to thank everyone that support me either by being part of my readership or by any other action around my blog! Also, a special thanks to everyone commenting my posts on a regular basis. This is so much appreciated!

Don’t hesitate to give them a visit; you may discover great blogs and excellent bloggers. These 125×125 ads will be online for the next month. Then, as usual, I will reset the top commentator counter and make 2 other winners (still 1 as the top commentator and 1 resulting from a draw)! This way, you will always have your chance to get your place on the top! All you have to do is being part of my email subscribers. By subscribing to the blog you will be part of the draw and you will receive every future articles in your mailbox. You can subscribe by clicking here. Note that privacy is important for me, so be sure that your email address will never be transmitted to anyone!

For more information on how to get your place or to better understand the idea behind this initiative, take a look at this post or just contact me directly. It will always be a pleasure to discuss with you!

Take note that I published a new poll on the sidebar. Please take few minutes to check it out! Thanks for your participation!

Photo by christopher.woo

Headlines are everywhere in our life; in the newspapers, on the front page of magazines, on websites, on blogs, on social media sites, and so on. In fact, headlines help us getting a really good idea about the content of articles. Thus, headlines are critical because they will determine if an article is read or not!

For example, social media sites are handling and broadcasting tons of content each days. The only way for anyone to discriminate about all those stories is to look at the headlines. In fact, there is a natural selection - just like Darwin would say - that is done. The best headlines will be read and the weaker ones will just dies silently! If we apply Pareto, 20% of the stories - with the best headlines - will be read by 80% of the site users.

This is only a simple example to illustrate how crucial the headlines are. In order to help you improving your headlines, I made a list of 15 excellent resources related to headlines creation. Hope this will be useful for you.

Here it is:

1. The Sexy Art of Writing Headlines that Kill - freelanceswitch.com

2. Writing Effective, Attention-Getting Headlines and Titles on Your Blog - lorelle.wordpress.com

3. How to Write Magnetic Headlines - copyblogger.com

4. How To Write Great Headlines - modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk

5. How To Write Eye-Popping Headlines While Exhausted - instigatorblog.com

6. Five Tips for Writing Effective Web Headlines - google.com

7. 25 Headline Formulas That Have Plagued and Blessed Web 2.0 - skelliewag.org

8. 54 Proven Headlines Templates That Sell - seoblackhat.com

9. Headline writing: How to write web headlines that catch search engine spiders - newmediabytes.com

10. Writing Headlines for Regular Readers, Search Engines, and Social Media - copyblogger.com

11. 7 Easy Ways to Create Eye catching Titles - netwriting.co.uk

12. Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Headlines - world-copywriting-institute.typepad.com

13. How To Write Web Headlines That Beg To Be Read - lockergnome.com

14. Five Keys to Writing Killer Web Page Headlines - wordsmithbob.com

15. The Best Headlines Are Not Just Written For Google or Digg - instigatorblog.com

Photo by jonrawlinson

As a blogger, you contribute to the global knowledge of your audience. Depending of your niche and your blog scheme, the informationmay be broadcast using different tactics. For example, news blogs might not use the same tactic as photos blogs or personal blogs.

I think that the main school of thoughts says that the role of a blogger is mostly to be a teacher or, at least, to be an informational channel that would help the online community to be better informed. However, is it really the fundamental role of the blogger?

I’ll let you read 2 posts related to this subject. I have to say that I particularly enjoy the post of Jonathan Morrow, an author on Copyblogger. In this post, Jonathan is saying that the teacher role in more a secondary role. The main one would rather be related to the class clowns rule! I won’t go too far, because I think this post worth to be read carefully.

1. How to Stop Being Invisible – Jonathan Morrow
2. The Role of the Blogger - Bridget McNulty

The week the question is the following:

What do you think is your fundamental role as a blogger?

I would really appreciate to have your opinion on this topic. Any feedback or life experiences would be very valuable for everyone!

Thanks for sharing with all of us!