Robert Plank

If you don't have a blog, you need to get one. If you do it right, it's just 10 minutes out of the month writing/scheduling that month's blog posts and maybe 30 minutes a month moderating and responding to comments.

But here's where my blogging style gets controversial... blog scacity. Limiting the number of comments.

Why on Earth would you limit the number of comments people can leave under your post? Here's why...

1. Social Proof: Without comments, your blog looks empty. Many people are on the brink of commenting. Give them a reason to comment right now.
2. Time Limit: Even if people want to comment, they take too long to think of an idea. This forces them to write what they're thinking right now.
3. Interactivity: It makes your blog a fun and interactive place.
4. Up-to-Date: Have you ever had someone comment on a post of yours that was a year or two old? Me too. It's annoying. I want people to comment on what's hot right now.
5. Simplicity: When all the other blog posts are closed, there are fewer calls-to-action on the page.
6. Perfect Fit: You can adjust the limit depending on the size of your blog. On a big blog, go for 100. On a smaller one, set it to 10 and then personally reply to everyone's comments.
7. Exclusivity: It makes the early commenters special, they're the only ones with a comment on there.
8. Schadenfreude: Everyone likes to watch ice skaters because they're secretly hoping they'll see someone fail... what if you don't fill up your number of comments?
9. Differentiation: Most blogs haven't thought of this, or they're too chicken to try it, so you'll stand out just by doing this.
10. Marketing: To fill up the number of comments, you might have to mail your list or more or stick the link in your autoresponder sequence (a good habit to have).
11. Launch: To make sure everyone gets their comment in on time, you might have to announce the post a couple days ahead of time (another great habit).
12. Results: It just plain works! You know you want more blog comments so implement this strategy of closing comments down after a certain number, and see what happens.

Which reason do you like the best? Do you think blog scarcity is a good or bad idea? Leave your quick opinion in the comment form below and click Submit Comment.

Why do I keep seeing people leave posts on their Marketing Blog just to post about it?

If you are adding content to your blog "just because", you are adding an extra chore for yourself, you are preventing yourself from actually getting real work done, and you are missing out on a lot of the opportunities having a blog can give you.

As you probably know, Google loves blogs.  And that means if you blog about one of your products, or about your niche, or about something that you are doing, it is going to be ranked highly in the search engine, especially when that is brand new.

That means that if you just blog about any old subject, you are going to get ranked highly for no reason at all.  But if you are about to come out with a new product or are about to re-launch an existing one, you should be blogging about it - that way it shows up in the search engines. And when you send your list to that blog, you are already overcoming many of the objections they are going to have when it comes time to buy.  Plus your subscribers now feel that you are giving them value and not simply hard-pitching them.

The next time you make a blog post, stop and think for a second:  "What can I talk about that will get people ready for my next product launch or re-launch?"

There is also nothing wrong with recycling your auto-responder content.  And this can go either way. If you have an auto-responder broadcast or follow-up that got a lot of response, there is nothing wrong with expanding that into a blog post, or even just posting it as is.

Likewise, if you had a really good blog post that got tons of response a year or two years ago, but people simply can't find it now, there is nothing wrong with scheduling that as an auto-responder follow-up.

We all need more follow-up emails in our auto-responder sequence.  You should definitely start off with ten - but you have less than two years' worth of an auto-responder sequence, you should add a little bit to it every month.

And finally, while it is great to make a blog post about an upcoming product, it is even better to blog about that once it is now live.  I don't do this as often as my pre-launch posts, but every now and then I will create a blog post and disable comments, and make the Call to Action at the end of that blog post via a link to whatever it is I am talking about:  I hard-sell people directly on the blog.

Most bloggers seriously underestimate the power of the Call to Action - whether that is to get comments for social proof, to make your upcoming launch look even better, or just to promote something you have just launched.  Or even to re-launch something you launched in the past.

And that is the correct way to blog about your business. Frame people and pre-launch them for whatever solution is coming up from you.  Recycle your auto-responder follow-ups - and even use those blog posts as auto-responder follow-ups.  Market the stuff you already have.  And deliver a strong Call to Action to get people to take action and do something at the end of your blog post.

Which of these three items are you missing in your blog?  Please share this with me in the form of a comment below and let me know what you are going to do better in your blogging business next time you make a post.

As you probably noticed, last month, I made 30 blog posts in one month (instead of my usual 1 to 3).

Why did I do it? I wanted to see if it would build my list faster, make me more money, and make more connections with the other participants of the challenge.

How did I do it? I outlined a few lists like "5 Elements of Social Proof to Explode Your Business" ... "11 Easy-to-Implement Ideas for Your Next Webinar to Ensure Maximum Attendance, Interest, and Profit" or even "12 Can't Miss Rules of Highly Effective Membership Sites" ... dictated them, got them transcribed, and scheduled all 30.

How long did it take? It took about two days to make all the posts.  Half a day to outline everything, a day to dictate, then half a day to schedule and edit the transcribed posts.

What were the results? I'm glad you asked... the big reason I did this was to get more email subscribers.  In May (before the 30 Day Challenge) I got 1,867 new e-mail optins... and in June (during the challenge), I only got 1,537 optins.

In other words, blogging 30 times in 1 month instead of once per month... got me the same number of optins!

But Didn't It Get You MORE Audience Participation?

Good question.  In May (before the challenge), I had 198 comments on my blog.  In June (during the challenge), 660 comments.

30 times the work, to get triple the comments.  If I had spaced out those 30 posts into 3 posts per month, I would have 10 months of blogging scheduled and out of the way to get the same comments.

But Weren't those all NEW Commenters?

Let's look for fresh blood.  In May when I had those 198 comments, 78 comments were from people who had NEVER commented on my blog before -- 39 percent.

In June, out of those 660 comments, 83 comments were from brand new people on my blog -- 13 percent.

See what happened there?  Triple the comments, but the exact same amount of new people.

I segmented my list for this month and only sent ONE sublist a notification about a new post on most days.  But even when I mailed the WHOLE list about a blog post, it usually got the same number of comments.

But Did the Challenge Make You More Money?

My earnings in May after commission, fees, and expenses: $19,400.71. June earnings after expenses: $21,412.78.

Before you say, "The blog challenge made you an extra 2000 dollars..."  Keep in mind I have a lot of recurring membership sites and autoresponder followup sequences, so you can't automatically assume that this extra 10% boost in income was due to blogging.

Will it Pay off in the Long Term?

I'll have to check back in a month or so to see if this extra 30,000 words of blog content gets me more search engine listings, but for now, it didn't get me a big boost in traffic.

RobertPlank.com had 6057 visitors in May, and 8586 in June. A 41% boost, but not 30 times or even 3 times the traffic as a normal month.

Did Anyone Comment Every Day?

At the beginning of June, I asked you guys to promise to leave a comment once a day every 30 days.  Almost everyone said something like, "No, I won't do it.  I'll forget."

It looks like Melanie Kissell and Henrik Blunck both managed to leave me a comment every day for a month, so I want you to leave a blog comment congratulating them right now.

But Here's the Big Question:
Should You Upgrade?

Three First impressions About WordPress 3.0

When you add new content to your blog, you need to have more social proof. You can't have one of those sad little blogs where most of the posts have zero comments. You need comments on your posts - and lots of them!

Why is it that I get way more comments than your blog does?

It is because I have experimented with different things that DON'T work, and things that DO work. But lucky for you, I am only going to share with you strategies that get you more comments on your blog with very little effort.

Comments On Other People's Blogs

What if once per day, before you did anything else that day, you spent just three minutes going to one person who has previously left a comment on your blog, clicking into their blog, and leaving a fast response under their most recent entry?

That means that just a few minutes of work every day equals seven people per week who feel obligated to leave comments on YOUR blog.

Just remember, you get what you give! If you leave a "Me too" comment on their blog, expect a "Me too" comment back. However, if you add a short and simple response that contributes and adds to the conversation, you can expect those people to do the same.

What's great about this strategy is you can keep returning the favor over and over, when other people leave you a blog comment, and phase out the people who don't.

The result is a very strong inner circle of people who you can count on to comment on your blog.

Email Your List Telling Them To Comment

Here is a much easier way to get traffic to your blog and get them to comment. Send an email message to your list, telling them to go right now and leave a comment.

This does not have to be a long email, and you don't have to copy and paste the blog post into that email. In fact it is better if you simply send a short message saying, "I left a blog post. Go here and comment right now." And link directly to your individual blog post.

Comment Record With The "Get Recent Comments" Plugin

With WordPress you can add different modules, or widgets, to your sidebar, including one that lists the recent comments. However, the built-in "Recent Comments" plugin for WordPress doesn't say much, it only makes a list of the recent names of people who have commented on your blog.

However, the "Get Recent Comments" plugin, which is an additional plugin for WordPress, will list everyone on your sidebar who has commented recently. It will show their name and the first part of their comment. That means if someone is returning to your blog, they can see what new comments have appeared since their last visit, and click directly on one and reply to it.

This makes it easy for people to remain in the conversation, especially people are leaving comments across multiple posts.

Comment Scarcity With The "Call To Action" Plugin

I have a special Call to Action plugin that will not only add a simple arrow underneath your blog post pointing to the comment forum, it will display a message telling people to comment.

And you can optionally close comments after a certain number of comments or quota has been met. You could say that you are only allowing ten comments per post. After that post has ten comments, it is now closed up and no longer accepting new blog comments.

Comment Follow-Up With "Subscribe To Comments"

One of my Top 5 all-time favorite WordPress plugins is the "Subscribe to Comments" plugin. What this plugin does is it adds a checkbox to the comment form. If someone leaves a comment and this box is checked, WordPress will send them an email every time a new comment has been placed on this post.

This means that if somebody leaves a comment on your blog on Monday and then someone comes back and comments on Wednesday, that original person can come back and respond because they received an email telling them there was a new comment.

Comment Bribe With "Action Comments"

I have a plugin called "Action Comments" which adds an additional checkbox to your comment form which allows people to get onto your auto responder list.

Think about it: when somebody leaves a comment on your blog, they are already typing their name and email address in order to identify themselves in that comment. However, by checking this additional checkbox, you can also subscribe them to your list.

Why would anyone want to get subscribed to your list, you ask? You can notify them of future blog posts AND you can create an opt-in bribe, such as an audio or a report containing your Top 5 blog posts, in one convenient location.

People are leaving a comment and they see a checkbox that asks if they would like to have a free bonus. They comment, they get their free bonus, and now they are on your list and can unsubscribe at any time.

But the beauty of this is that next time you have a blog post, when you email your list, that person who subscribed to your blog from leaving a comment, will be directed to leave their next comment.

And those are 6 incredible ways to get more comments on your blog posts: Comment on other blogs, mailing your list, using the "Get Recent Comments" plugin, using the "Call to Action" plugin, the "Subscribe to Comments" plugin and the "Action Comments" plugin.

Are you using any of these methods on your own blog? Are you missing any of them? (Which ones?)

Please post a comment below with your response.

The biggest benefit you can give to yourself as a business owner is to remove yourself from the equation. That means automate as much of yourself as possible ahead of time so your daily tasks do not become chores.

You might be surprised at all the ways you can pre-schedule your content and your marketing ahead of time and I'm going to explain six ways to do that right now.

1. Blog Drip

When someone says the phrase "drip content" to me, the first thing that comes to mind and the first thing that should come to mind to you is dripping out content on your WordPress blog.

WordPress is the #1 blogging platform and my favorite feature about it has always been that you can schedule content ahead of time with no additional plugins needed. When you're writing a blog post, you can choose to submit it right now or you can change the date on it so it appears as if it was written a long time ago, but you can also change the date to a date in the future – for example, date it to be next week or next month.

That post will remain in a scheduled state until the next week or next month and it will automatically be published for you on a timer. You can set not just the date but the time of day so you know exactly when that next post is coming out.

I highly recommend that instead of sitting and writing out your blog's next week's worth of content, write 4 or 5 short posts and schedule them one month apart. That way, you have the next several months of blog posts already scheduled. And guess what else, if you're using WordPress to run your membership site, you're dripping out content inside your paid membership site as well.

2. Autoresponder Drip

The next easy way to drip content is with your email autoresponder.

You might not have notice it yet but your autoresponder gives you the ability to pre-schedule posts in the same way as your blog. You can write an email that will be sent to your list and set it to tomorrow's date or next week's date, which means that you can write your next month or your next week's worth of autoresponder emails and not have to do anything for that amount of time. You could go on vacation for the next week, schedule your next week's worth of emails and now your business will run even though you are not present.

When you are launching a product, one email simply won't cut it. You need to give people multiple reasons to go check out your offer. You need to give people multiple email reminders getting them to look at your webpage. When you're running a webinar, you should send several emails leading up to the webinar to make sure everyone is on the call.

When you make a blog post, you should send traffic to that blog post and even send reminder emails, which means you can schedule your blog post and schedule your autoresponder emails for that blog post.

3. Sales Letter Drip

If you know a programmer for about $5, you can get content on your sales letter dripped out. There's a little thing called "if else" statements.

That means if you want to slowly increase the price of your product – say increase it by $10 once a week for 5 weeks, you can at a special bit of PHP code that will replace your order button with a new one at a higher price every few days. You can run seasonal specials. For example, every month you could rotate in a different bonus for your offer to give different people a reason to get in.

4. Squeeze Page Drip

You can apply the same "if else" technology that you use on your sales letter to your squeeze page as well and you can use it to do the same things – rotate a monthly or weekly offer, and this can be a different headline, a different bonus or even an entire page swapped out for another.

You can switch out one of your opt-in forms after 2 months for a different one and have the first opt-in form send people to a page where they are supposed to re-tweet one of your free audios, but after 2 months, now direct them to a page where it sends them to your blog, which is now filled up with content.

More often than not, if I have a hard deadline for something, if I know I'm going to increase the price, change the headline, change a redirect, I will set it on this timer instead of doing it manually because otherwise I know I might forget.

5. Social Media

Now that you've dripped out your blog post, install a WordPress plugin such as Twitter Tools to leave a Twitter post or a tweet everytime you make a new blog post.

Also, if I know I'm going to be tweeting about something for the next week or two, I will use a scheduling service such as SocialOomph (formerly TweetLater) to write tweets but set a publication date on them, which means I can write 10 or 20 tweets a time which will be posted once a day or once a week.

If you don't know what kind of scheduled tweets you should put out there, just use 30-day reminders. If you're posting about a blog post today, schedule another tweet in 30 days, reminding people about that old blog post.

6. Traffic Drip

Even third-party services allow you to drip out your content, even if your content appears on other people's sites.

The Traffic Geyser service allows you to upload up to 90 videos at once and determine when they will be scheduled. (I wish Tube Mogul did too.)  When I was using this service for videos, I would record 90 videos at once, upload 90 videos and set the publication date for each and everyone - meaning that I could leave it alone for 3 months and it would send out a new video to the video sites once per day.

EzineArticles even has a premium option which means you can schedule all your articles and determine what date they will be published. Meaning, you can use the same strategy, write or outsource 90 articles, upload and schedule them all and the next 3 months' worth of traffic building are now automatic.

I hope that one of those 6 ways to drip content automatically opened your eyes and made you realized that doing things on a consistent basis doesn't always involve you and doesn't always have to be a chore.

So, which one do you like the best? The blog drip, autoresponder, sales letter, squeeze page, social media, or traffic drip? Post below, letting me know. Thank you.

I'm participating in Jeanette Cates' June 2010 30-Day Blogging Challenge.

A 30 day challenge of anything is a really good idea.  Even in 2008 I let people follow along in my "30 day video challenge" where I recorded one quick video every day for a month.  After that, it was hard to stop creating videos.

If you write every day for 30 days, you'll get used to it and it will be hard to stop writing.

But I do have one roadblock. I still want social proof and comments.  In an ideal world I'd like to get 100 comments a day for 30 days, but I'm going to be talking to my list about OTHER stuff aside from my daily blog posts.

My questions to you are:

1. How should I get 10+ comments per day this month without mailing my list?

2. Can I count on you to leave a quick comment on my blog every day for June (yes or no)?  I need to decide how many comments to open up.

3. What would you like me to talk about on my blog this month?

Please leave me a comment below answering these three short questions...