25 Lessons You Can Learn From Marko Saric

1. Keep your tweets short

In his post detailing how he got retweeted by Darren Rowse and Guy Kawasaki, Marko said the following:

You must make your tweets retweetable in order to optimize the chance of going viral on Twitter. When you send a tweet about your post, as you have a limit of 140 characters, you basically only have space for the title and the URL. You must make your title short to keep your tweet short.

There have been several times where I've retweeted something, and had to spend time editing it to make sure it could fit. Sometimes, I wont retweet because I don't have the time to edit.

This simple tip will increase the amount of people who see your tweets.

2. Target the influentials

Later, he wrote about how targeting the influentials can be mutually beneficial.

Don’t be afraid to target Twitter power users. They have a lot of followers and influence and in most cases they are looking for good and relevant articles to read and tweet.

Its important to stress that you shouldn't spam the 'influentials.' Rather, you should send them links that their followers might enjoy. That way, you are helping rather than selling.

3. Monetize by carefully choosing products to sell

In his post detailing how he earned $1000 in blog revenue in a month,

One important lesson is that you do not have to sell every product there is. I see many bloggers who post generic promotions for different membership sites regularly.

He earned $1000 through two main methods. one was his Twitter Marketing book, and the other was affiliate commissions from recommending the Thesis Theme. He rarely promotes his products. Instead, he writes useful articles on both twitter and Thesis and uses his affiliate link.

Make your Blogging Idea Spread:

In his post, A 6 Step Plan For Creating Something Big, Marko details a number of ideas to make your blogging idea spread. My favourite three were:

4. Help people, build fans one by one
5. Connect with people that are looking for your knowledge and experience. Help a few people at a time, build your subscribers one by one
8. Use twitter. Do a search on a keyword related to what you do and start helping people

His key focus on this article was that you could make your ideas spread, simply focus on helping people. I've seen people launch blogging careers simply by writing really useful articles.

7 Remove the timestamp from your post.

With popular posts, it can be worth removing the timestamp to remove the impression that the post is outdate.

As the post byline is just underneath the post header, it is one of the first things people notice and I believed that it would give a wrong impression to a new visitor. Impression of outdated and irrelevant blog post, or even worse an impression of an inactive blog. And that is not the image you want when running a blog consulting service.

I agree, especially when it comes to pillar content. Alternatively, you can find ways to highlight how active your blog is.

8. Make it easy for potential advertisers to contact you.

In his post discussing an indirect method to attract advertisers to your blog, Marko says

Mmake sure to have a “contact page” in your blog navigational menu so it is easy for potential advertisers to contact you. WordPress blog plugin like Contact Form 7 lets you easily insert a contact form into a blog page.

An alternate method is having a media page or a page dedicated to press/advertisers. It also helps if you have these processes organized well in advance.

9. Feature a large number of articles on your front page.

In this tutorial, Marko talks about how you can use teaser previews to entice readers to read your best content. Again. he recommends the Thesis theme.

I really agree with this. Many bloggers are changing to have teasers instead of full articles to avoid overwhelming the new reader. It also allows you to show off more of your content, which can help if you cover more than one topic.

Make your Blog Stand out

In his artcle about standing out in a saturated niche, Marko gave two tips on how he differs:

10  Giving away my design / promotional secrets

11 Going deeper in details than competitors do

Many niches in the blogosphere are crowded and it can be hard to differentiate yourself from the competition. Providing extensive case studies is a way to really stand out.

12. Promote content from your commenters.

In his post about turning your blog visitors into loyal commenters, Marko spoke about promote your readers content.

Chris Brogan recently introduced the “Post from the comments” category, where he promotes interesting comments to his posts and publishes them as an entirely new blog post. This encourages visitors to write insightful comments in hope of hitting the front page and getting great exposure.

This can work, provided the content you promote is of high quality. It also work when your promoting content from other social media sites.

13. Ask for help from your loyal commenters.

Marko released a twitter ebook that was downloaded by over 1000 people. He talked about one of this methods of promotion:

On January 22nd I sent an email with the ebook attached to all the people that have commented on my Twitter articles. This was first of all a thank you to all the loyal commentators and second of all a way to build a bit of buzz.

You can also request help from those who have shown their loyalty through email or other social media support.

14. Add Tweet This to your blog posts

Marko discovered early on tha adding tweet this was more modern and helped your blog go viral.

From my Twitter experience I came to the conclusion that Twitter and retweets are the future and adding a “tweet this” to your blog posts is a much better option than having the default “email to friend” button that bloggers use. “Tweet this” is modern, it is simple and it has much better potential of building awareness by helping your blog go viral.

Many other bloggers have shown that tweet this is a very useful button to have.

15. Announce your latest blog posts on twitter.

Marko expanded on this idea in his post about how to make your blog go viral with twitter retweets:

Always make sure to announce your latest blog posts in a tweet, as that will make it easy for someone just to click on “retweet” button and retweet your post to their own network.

This works but there are a number of things to consider.

• Don't promote your blog posts too much as people may unfollow you
• Find the right time(s) to tweet your blog posts.

16. Write quality blog comments

In his case study on how he got 230 unique visitors from one blog post, he said the following:

Write a quality comment that creates value and grabs the attention of readers. Add something substantial to your comment. Add your thoughts about the post, provide additional information from your personal experience or from a post you have on your blog.

Being the first comment is no longer the best way of getting a lot of clicks. Being the first quality commenter is.

17. Brand your blog posts.

Later in the post, he gives tips on branding your blog comments.

Brand your comment by using same name, same avatar, same URL and same signature. This should be consistent with your social media profiles. Consistent marketing will build relationships to your blog. When people continue seeing your name repeated in comments sections of blogs and your comments are useful and interesting, it will make them wonder who the person writing is and will get them to click over to your blog.

I've been able to connect with many top bloggers and they've said its the repeated exposure thats made them remember me. I know that consistent branding has also helped me stand out.

18. Write guest posts

In his post detailing how he got his pagerank up to pr 4 in just two months, he recommended writing for blogs with a higher PR. One of the blogs he wrote for was Problogger. He also recommended that you include good anchor text in your links.

19. Follow what happens in your targeted community.

When discussing how he got his guest post featured on Problogger, Marko recommended following the trends.

Subscribe to the blogs in your field, follow what their write about and beware of discussions andtrends. Beware of what people comment on these blogs, what is on their mind and what questions they seek answers for.

Many of my early posts were based on questions raised in the Problogger comment section. Many of my latest posts is by following the

20. Repeatedly add quality comments to the same blogs

In his post about building blog traffic, Marko recommended to stay connected to these blogs

Get involved in discussions multiple times, don’t just post one comment and never return. A profile of a blogger with 100 blog comments on 20 different blogs is going to be a lot stronger than the profile of a blogger with 100 blog comment links from 100 different blogs.

I haven't commented in some while, but I normally stick to the same blogs. This is because I try to become part of the community instead of being another name.

Try to increasse your blog comments

In his post about increasing your blog comments, Marko discussed the following two methods:

21. Participate in the conversation. Be approachable, answer the questions and write your thoughts on your readers contribution. Recognizing your readers will encourage them to keep commenting on your blog posts and will encourage others to join in the conversation.

22. Install WordPress Thread Comment plugin. It enables blog users to reply to an existing blog comment and the discussion will be displayed threaded or nested. It also sends a notification by e-mail when reply is available. The advantage of threaded comments is that it makes it easy to follow and respond to conversations.

I haven't experimented with the second technique, but I definitely get more comments when I participate in the conversation. This also applies to blogs you guest post on.

23. Begin with the conclusion

When Marko wrote about making your blog sticky, he recommended that people start the post with the conclusion. This would 'make the reader excited to read the whole post.' I am experimenting with this, but it definitely is an interesting way to hook the reader.

24. Promote RSS to your blog readers.

In his post about promoting your RSS, marko discussed his use of a plugin:

25.  Another great opportunity to promote your blog RSS feed is to use the What Would Seth Godin Do WordPress plugin. This plugin uses cookies to treat new visitors differently than returning visitors. So for example for your first time visitors you can leave a “Welcome” message on top of your blog post where you ask the blog visitor to subscribe to your RSS feed. See this plugin in action at HowToMakeMyBlog.com.

This is a very effective method of drawing people in to certain pages depending on how they entered. Its well worth checking out the blogging.

25. Have your main promotions above the fold

This is a basic tip - but one worth repeating. When you check out the How To Make My Blog homepage, you will see that his consulting services and Twitter Marketing ebook are promoted above the fold. This means they are noticed, even if they aren't clicked on.