In the last post we discussed 4 formats of packaging your knowledge. Let’s continue with the other 5 formats to package your knowledge for maximum sales.

In this post we will cover A.N.E.N.T part of the P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T. formula.

Audios

Audio products also have high perceived value. You can record your own product as audio book or it can be offered as an upsell to your eBook. You can interview other experts on your niche and sell the audio interview as product.

To add value to your audios, you get them transcribed and have the audios and transcript available as a complete package. You can also put the audios and transcript on CD and deliver it to your customers.

Newsletter

Even though we have picked up the electronic trend, we still like to touch and feel things. That’s why we still get newspapers every morning even though all the information is available online for free. Off late the there has been an increasing trend of monthly print newsletter for internet marketing as well as other niches. Doctors, engineers, companies, holiday clubs etc. have been sending month newsletter for long time.

You have to ensure that you put together quality information that customers feel worth paying for. Get the format done once and then stick to the format. Printing can be handled by one of the fulfillment companies. If you deliver quality information every month, you are bound to have good retention rate and good publicity by word of month.

eCoaching

People in all niches like hand holding to reduce the learning curve or a support they can fall back on. eCoaching allows you to offer this support. All the product formats listed above are one way communication i.e. something that you want to communicate to your customers, but what they understand from your eBook, audios, newsletter or home study course is completely dependent on their receiving ability.

eCoaching allows you to deliver information in audio or video format at regular interval and you give assignment to your students, they have to submit the assignment to you before the next session. They can also contact you if they are stuck at some point while doing the assignment. This has more person touch involved and hence eCoaching gets you good returns for slightly higher involvement. Since everything is online you don’t have to deliver the lessons again, create them once and deliver the same in future sessions, then your involvement will be only supporting your students.

New Formats

As internet has involved new formats of packaging and delivery has come out. It’s always good to embrace new technology that allows us to give more personal touch to our knowledge sharing. You can use Teleseminars or Webinars to deliver your knowledge.

You can also package this with Web 2.0 style community learning format. Everyone loves community, because collective knowledge takes individual’s knowledge to higher level. So, you can create blog or forum where you can post your sessions and invite responses from the participants.

Tape Videos

Videos are becoming part of day-to-day life. People like watching videos than going through 100 page ebook. Videos also have greater perceived value as a package. Videos can be instructional, demonstrational or presentation.

You can create power point slides on the topic you want to cover and record instructional videos using screen capture tool. When you want to demonstrate how to do something or how to make best use of a system or service, then you create demonstrational videos. If you are not camera shy then make a presentation as if you are speaking in front of live audience, that will have greater impact than screen capture instructional videos.

There you are with the PERMANENT formula of packaging to leave everlasting impression on your customers and evergreen sales of your products.

If you have created product in one format, it is very easy to convert it in other format and each format has its associated advantages and disadvantages. Before you decide on your product delivery system, make sure to research your niche to see what the norm is. Figure out what would be best for your niche and proceed accordingly.

Would like to add any other format to the P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T. formula?

Experienced information marketers know that creating an info product is only half the process. Learning how to effectively package your knowledge so that it is attractive to buyers is just as important as finding your niche.

It doesn’t matter how good your product is if no one wants to buy it. The same pages of information can be packaged in many different ways. Look over the following options and determine which method would be right for your niche and their needs.

Here is the P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T formula of packaging your content for maximum sales:

P – Physical Products

E – Ebooks

R – Reports

M – Membership Sites

A – Audios

N – Newsletter

E – eCoaching

N – New formats

T – Tape Video

Physical products

Physical products offer you the ability to put something real and tangible in the hands of your buyers. Physical products are often marketed as “home study courses” which can be set at a higher price point than an eBook or a set of online videos. Although you will have to pay for the production of the book, the videos or the audio CDs, you can more than make up for those costs with your price point.

It is very easy and cost effective to create your physical products. Companies like Kunaki and Vervante not only help you in delivering your physical products without any hassles but also allow you to automate the complete ordering process. With certain topics, physical products just make more sense.

eBooks

eBooks can be anywhere from 30 to 200 pages long. They normally offer a more widespread look at a topic than a short report, but they have the potential for covering a lot more topic areas in the niche. The advantage of eBooks is that they can be priced at higher rates than short reports.

They are automatically delivered to your customers so they get the instant gratification of having the product immediately. eBooks can be paired with supplemental reports, audios or videos depending on the niche and how many resources you want to offer your customers.

Reports

Short reports are typically between 10 and 20 pages. They go in depth on a small part of a topic instead of giving a general overview like most large eBooks do. With a short report, you’re normally giving someone an actionable plan that they can use to fix an aspect of their life. “How to Calm a Colicky Baby”, “How to Improve Your Golf Slice” and “How to Lose 5 Lbs this Weekend” are all examples of the narrow focus of short reports.

If you have a larger topic, sometimes breaking it down into short reports and offering them separately is a great way to make more money and establish your authority in the niche. Write a report series is great strategy to have repeat customers who are happy with your reports, it also allows you to come out with complete home study course once you complete the series.

Membership sites

If you have a lot of information on a niche and feel that you can provide month after month of content, you can create a membership site. The benefit of making a membership site with your content is that you earn money each month from multiple members. Instead of having a one time sale for your content, you can earn from it continuously.

Your membership site can take many different forms. You can offer weekly or monthly reports delivered to your members’ inboxes. You can host a forum where members can meet and discuss the niche. You can also offer training through a private blog. The options are endless!

In this post we have covered P.E.R.M. of P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T. formula.

In the next post we will cover the remaining 5 formats.

So, what format works the best for you for your product delivery? Why?

There are people who thoroughly enjoy writing while many others find it a truly grueling and painful task. If you fall into the latter category you most likely spend hours and unnecessary energy trying to put together content, be it articles, blog posts, eBooks, or anything else for that matter. Do you end up frustrated and ready to throw in the towel or cringe every time the task of writing finds its way to the top of your to-do list?

If you’re shaking your head yes right now, I’ve got good news! There are ways to write faster, make the entire process easier and produce quality content that gets read time and again. This post will help you do all of those things. Interested? I thought you might be.

The following 5 quick tips will help you view writing in a whole new light.

1. Plan Your Topics in Advance

Nothing is more difficult for a writer than staring at a blank screen without knowing what to write about. This leads to frustration and disappointment and is actually one of the main reasons people prefer not to write their own content. Planning your content in advance is one of the biggest keys to help eliminate writer’s block and make the task of writing easier and even enjoyable.

There are people who plan their blog posts in advance i.e. they load wordpress with posts for a specific period and schedule them to release on a particular date. Let’s say you want to write 4 posts a month i.e. 1 post per week, so, write all 4 in the beginning of the month and schedule them to release every week.

First, as you think of ideas, be sure to write them down somewhere – preferably in the same place each time. This will give you a running list of things you can choose from when the time to sit down and write rears its head. I keep an ideas notebook on my desk and scribble in it all day long. Some people like to record them on their mobile phone, as they have it all the time!

If ideas are the problem, there are ways to combat that too. One way to find inspiration is by visiting forums, message boards and ning groups that focus on your niche. These places are full of people who need answers to questions in your field of expertise. Don’t forget social networks either. Sites like Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Digg are overflowing with people who need your help or advice. Find out what they want and jot the topics, ideas, and questions down on your list.

Looking to incorporate keywords into your content for SEO purposes? If so, the next step is to do some keyword research at a site like http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com. This is also another avenue to find extra topic ideas should you need them.

Doing this research will help get rid of writer’s block, and allow you to deliver exactly the information your market is in search of.

2. Get to the Point & Stay There

When writing, it’s particularly important to stick to the topic at hand. Don’t fill your writing with what’s known as garbage text that isn’t necessary. Find out what exactly your readers want and give it to them. Give your readers substance not just words. Here are a few good rules of thumb to keep in mind.

Once you’ve written your content go back through it and remove unnecessary words. Including these extra words will only bore your audience. One of the most common wasted words is the word “that.” If a sentence makes sense without the word in it – take it out.

An excellent way to combat this problem is through the use of bullet points. Before you begin writing you may wish to make a list of 5-6 bullet points that you want to “hit” through your article. As you write, cover each bullet point with approximately 2-3 sentences each. This will guarantee a concise, to-the-point article that your readers will enjoy reading each and every time.

If you need to add length to your writing, some options are:

-        Examples

-        Statistics

-        Charts

-        Case Studies

-        Tips

-        Definitions

Of course, there are many other ways to add value to your content without filler. Use your imagination and you’ll do fine.

Re-read your material. If you have to read a sentence or paragraph more than once to understand it, chances are your readers will too. Reword the information so it’s not so confusing. After all quality is important than quantity.

3. Take a Break

Have you ever noticed when you write for a long time you become frustrated, tired and uninspired? After awhile it seems increasingly difficult to get your point across. Yet, you keep plugging along because you have to get your writing done – perhaps you’re on a deadline or just want to cross it off your to-do list to be rid of it. Unfortunately, this will lead to more time wasted than gained.

If you take breaks in between chunks of writing you’ll quickly notice a huge boost in productivity. Your mind will have time to rest in between sessions and it will bring a level of clarity to your thinking. This will make the overall writing process faster, easier, and improved.

Believe it or not, forced writing is easy to spot. It sounds forced and most people won’t continue reading to the end if it makes no sense. By taking breaks, the quality of your end product will benefit if you give your brain time to rest.

4. Don’t Edit as You Go

A mistake people commonly make is trying to edit while they write rather than once they are finished. This is counter productive and actually slows your writing down considerably. Making corrections while you go keeps ideas from flowing freely and makes you concentrate more on spelling and grammar than the points you are trying to convey.

You’ll get more accomplished by allowing your mind to run without extra clutter. Check comma placement later! Once you’ve finished typing (or writing if you’re a pen and paper writer) then and only then, should you be checking spelling, grammar and punctuation. You’ll be able to zip right through error corrections without wondering what you are missing in your content.

One suggestion if you find it hard to pull away from editing as you go: Turn the automatic spelling and grammar correction function off in your word process. Those little squiggly lines under misspelled words hinder creativity. Sure, they are cute and a little helpful but not while you’re creative juices are flowing.

5. Record and Get Transcribed

There are times when you just can’t think what to write or you are not able to structure your thoughts or just feeling tired to type. Then consider talking on your favorite topic and record it. Get it transcribed by someone and once you have the typed text read it and improvise it. There are times when typing also slows down or creative juices, so, easier way out it to record when our creative juices are flowing and outsource typing to someone else.

Recording makes is quicker for us and increases the productivity, allows us to do a lot more. Let’s say you can not type very fast, record your blog posts or articles; post of project of one of the freelance sites for transcribing your recording. Once you receive the transcribed version, read through it to ensure quality and wherever necessary expand it with more ideas or example if you have one; even if you don’t add anything that’s fine.

If you want to write faster, be sure to plan your topics ahead of time, take plenty of breaks to rest your mind and avoid editing while you type, record and outsource typing work to someone else. Remember to use bullet points when necessary, write a concise, focused article and you’ll be writing like a pro in no time.

Dread writing no more – or at least less than before! J

What do you do to create content faster?

A blog without readers is pretty much useless. If you’ve been blogging for a while and have only been getting a trickle of viewers to your posts, you need to put a traffic building plan into action. Building traffic is just as an important skill to bloggers as writing quality posts is. Many bloggers are terrific at creating content but don’t know a thing about building traffic.

Here is a quick guide to the six most popular (and most effective) traffic building techniques.

1. Get SOCIAL

Social networking and blogging go hand in hand. Your blog posts can be distributed across social networking channels in many different ways. Sign up for Twitter and tweet about your posts as soon as they are added to you blog. Update your Facebook status with a link to you new blog posts. Buzz about it on your Google Buzz account. Submit your stories to Digg.com, Reddit.com and StumbleUpon.com. Bookmark your blog posts at Yahoo and Google bookmarks.

Remember that in order for social networking to be effective, you need to participate with other people on your list. If you visit their links and respond to their updates, they’ll be likely to do the same for you. It’s a two-way street, if you put comments on their site, they will reciprocate. You should also encourage your readers to share the post if they find it useful, http://www.Addthis.com allows you to do this very easily. You just need to install their plug-in on your WordPress blog and your are done! J

2.Get SEEN

Find blogs in your niche and start following their posts. Make sure to add insightful and interesting comments on their posts. Not only will the blog owner take notice and visit your blog, other commenters will visit your blog to get more of your great insight into the topic. Don’t spread yourself too thin with blog commenting, but make it a point to comment on a few related blogs each week.

This may become very addictive and may result in waste of time if you don’t plan it properly, so, set apart specific time for visiting and commenting on other blogs.

3.Get SENT

RSS feeds are a way to syndicate your blog’s content so that it is sent to many different people in their own blog readers or on their own sites. Most blogging systems have RSS feeds automatically included but you can add a lot more functionality to your feed by using a free service like FeedBurner. With FeedBurner you can add things like sharing the feed via e-mail so it will pull in new readers and encourage previous visitors to come back to the blog again.

Also, submit your RSS feeds to RSS directories; this will get you good exposure and decent traffic once you start posting good quality content at regular interval on your blog.

4.Get SYNDICATED

You may think that by being a blogger you can ignore article marketing. However, you can get a lot of traffic to your blog by tweaking some of your popular blog posts and adding them to article directories. You can post your popular posts as articles with a link back to your blog in many different article directories. Not only will you get a valuable backlink but your article may also be used by ezine owners which will bring you more traffic.

Couple of the popular article directories are:

http://ezinearticles.com

http://goarticles.com

The main key is to put a good resource box at the end of your article, it should be enticing enough for the readers to click the link and visit your blog. May a times 2-part strategy or offering a freebie works really well in resource box.

5.Get SITELINKS

Speaking of backlinks, you should work to build backlinks to your blog through several different means. By creating backlinks to your blog, you’ll improve your blog’s ranking in search engine results. You can get lots of traffic from search engines if you are within the first group of search results for your keywords.

You can get backlinks by submitting your blog to different blog directories in your niche.

6. Get SYSTEM

You should try and get system for everything you do in your online marketing efforts. If something is working for you and you have to spend too much time doing it manually, then you should either try to find out software or script that will allow you to automate it or if it’s a mundane task and automation is not possible then create documentation and outsource it.

Out of the 5 strategies I have mentioned above automation is possible for all 5. You get software that will allow you to post your blog link to all social sites, find out related blogs and you just have to post comments from the software interface on those blogs, submitting your RSS feeds, link to blog directories is also handled by these software, most popularly known as Bots.

So, get a system; don’t work hard, work smart!

These 6S Formula to drive traffic can be used over and over again to help build traffic to your blog and increase your readership. If you have not done any of these then start doing whichever ones you are comfortable with and slowly and steadily try to do all of them. See what’s working for you and then rinse and repeat your success! J

So, I would like to know what strategy have you been using to drive traffic to your blog?

Normally the word Free is associated with something of not so great value. We feel if something is given for free, there must some catch, otherwise What’s in it for them to give it to us for free! J

But there are some resources, which may sound too good to be to true, but they are available for free and I have been utilizing them, so, I would like to share with you top 5 free resources I have been using.

1. Free Conference Call

As the name suggests this service allows you to do conference calls for free, there are companies charging you as much as $39 to $97 per month based on your conference volume. You get a private number and host as well as participant code, when you register with Free Conference Call. They also give you menu options to control the conference. You can use 3 different services offered by them at no cost.

You can use their main service which allows you to have a conference call with 96 people, so, this becomes a open session where everyone can have a discussion, you can mute the call if only you want to present on a topic.

Second service allows you to get international dial-in numbers, with the main service you get US number, so, with international dial-in option you get numbers from UK and Europe cities.

Third service is really cool, it allows you to arrange a large event, where 96 people can participate in a discussion and 1000 people can join in on the call to listen to the discussion.

Thus you can choose the free service based on your requirement, you can use one or all. All the services provide you recording feature, so, you don’t have to pay anything for getting the entire call recorded and as soon as you are call is over, the recording MP3 file is available in member area for download.

Now, you don’t have an excuse to start your own Teleseminars. You can not ask for anything more from this cool free service! J

http://www.FreeConferenceCall.com

2. Freebinar

After Teleseminar, the latest trend is hosting Webinars, where you share your desktop and show the presentation and other activities like using a software or  service. Many Webinar services are cost prohibitive, you end up paying as much as $99 per month for hosting a webinar with 100 people.

Now, you don’t have an excuse, because you can use Freebinar to host Webinars at no cost. You can invite 150 participants, they also give you a free conference line and there are different admin controls available to you for Webianrs, like allowing chat feature, allowing interaction, allowing participants to ask question etc.

You can schedule as many webinars as you like in a month, there are no limits. The only limitation is they do not offer recording, but you can use the next tool I mention to do the recording of your Webinars.
Give it a try and you will be happy you did! J Thank me later.

http://www.freebinar.com

3. Camstudio

Screen capture videos are becoming very common, using screen capture videos you can demonstrate how to make the best use of any software or service or you can share a presentation and record video for the same.

Most popular product in the market is TechSmith’s Camtasia. It comes for around $300, you can also get a 30-day trial version of the same.  But, I want to let you know about the free alternative, Camstudio, it has limited functionality compared to Camtasia, but it does the basic job of screen recording well.

So, you can use Camstudio to record screen capture videos, record your Webinars or create informative presentation videos.

http://www.camstudio.org

4. Free Studio Manager

Do you like to create multiple products at one go, I love to do it. We talked about how to record your telesemiars, we also talked about doing webinars and informative presentations and screen capture videos.

How would you like to convert the Webinars in to audio only files, how would you like to write the webinar or teleseminar or presentation videos on to CD or DVD. Free Studio Manager does all the job for you for free.

It has plethora of options and they keep on adding more. You can download Videos from YouTube and upload to YouTube, you can convert videos in to different formats, like iPhone compatible format.

http://www.dvdvideosoft.com

5. eFax

We all need to send and receive fax for offline business or otherwise. eFax allows you to receive fax at no cost. They give you a personal fax number, you can pay premium to get a number of your choice.

I really like the service because I get the fax instantly to my email, which I can read and if needed I can print, so, a simple way for me to save paper! J

Get your free fax number today.

http://www.efax.com

Here are top 5 free resources I use. What are the powerful free resources you use for your business?

Your blog has the potential to be a money making magnet, if you know the right steps to take. Blogs once started as a sort of online diary. They’ve been totally transformed to fit a whole range of needs, from a place to house an online newspaper to a simple way to start an Internet stream of income.

There are people who make thousands of dollars only from their blog, they use different methods to convert the readers visit to their blog in to money.

The following six methods will help you make money from your blog, no matter what niche you are in and how you are using your blog.

1. As An AFFILIATE

This is one of the easiest ways to make money from your blog, and the simplest to start. When you blog, write some posts that are informative and educate people about different things that want to do or achieve. Then write about what product and services they can use to achieve their goals quickly and easily.

You can begin by selecting an affiliate program from popular affiliate network, Commission Junction. You can also post a review on your blog about the product (complete with your affiliate link) or post ads along the side of your posts (also with your affiliate link). I would personally recommend writing a blog post and recommending the product than just putting the ad in the side bar. Affiliate marketing is simple to implement because you don’t have to worry about creating a product.

2. As An AFICIONADO

If you feel there is a need to be met in your niche and want to create your own product, you can add it to your blog for another stream of income. Advertising your own product on your blog is a smart idea. Your readers have already built a level of trust with you so they’ll be likely to be interested in your product.

You can link to your product’s sales page directly from your posts and display graphic ads in the sidebars of your blog.

You can write informative and educative posts around the main theme of your product, but the key is to write “Useful but Incomplete” posts. The information you cover in your post should be very useful to your readers, but the product or service you recommend makes it complete, i.e. it allows them to put the information in action by using your product or service.

3. As An ADVERTISER

Contextual advertising, like the type offered at Text Links, will help you make money from your blog without much intervention on your part. When you sign up with Text Links or a similar service, your blog posts will automatically have certain words hyperlinked. These links go to advertiser’s websites. You get paid when someone clicks on a link. Unlike with affiliate programs, you don’t get a commission on the sale but you do get paid whether or not your visitor buys from the advertiser’s site.

Once your blog starts becoming popular, advertisers in your niche will approach you to put their ads on your site, it can be banner ad, splash page or run a promo or contest for your readers. They know that you have huge fan following, so, they can use your blog as a medium to connect with their target audience. So, this is a good medium for you to monetize your blog, you can have different pricing for different types of ads based on the exposure the advertiser is going to get.

4. As An ADSENSER

Who is not familiar with Google Adsense. If you have been online for 2 days, I am sure you would have seen a block with title Ads by Google. Google Adsense and other pay per click advertising programs will give you code to add to your website. These programs will display ads in the sidebars of your website or in your post depending on your choice. Anytime a visitor clicks on one of these links, you will get paid anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars depending on your niche. These ads are based on the content of your posts so they will be attractive to your audience.

I wouldn’t recommend using Adsense ads on your main blog. You are running the blog to establish a connection with your readers, establish yourself as an expert. Adsense ads screams out to your readers, “click me to make me some money”. You don’t want to convey that message. Adsense is good if you are creating blogs for flipping or creating network blogs using PLR content to drive traffic to your main site.

5. As An ASSOCIATE

Once you have some traffic coming to your blog, you can be paid to post reviews. There are many different networks that link advertisers with bloggers. You simply find an advertiser through one of these networks and promise to post a review on your blog about the product or service. You’ll be paid a flat rate for your review. Be sure the product or service is relevant to your niche for best results with this monetization model.

You also want to ensure that product is good quality, don’t post the review till you have used the product or service yourself. There are couple of reasons for the same – you won’t know the hidden aspects of the product (good or bad), your knowledge will be limited to only what you are informed by the product owners and the secondly, if you haven’t used the product you won’t write the review with great conviction and confidence, and this will show in your review. So, don’t try to fake it. Don’t write the review for money, if you write honest review, money will follow.

6. As An ACQUAINTANCE

We all need friends in life to make it more eventful, share our happiness and seek support in sorrow, internet is nothing different. A good network of like minded friends can get you a great mileage in your online venture. Be on a look out for other like minded people in your niche, read their blogs and find out more about them. If you like what they write then connect with them and create your mini network of blogs.

The mini network of blog created by you and your friends will recommend each others products only; list sharing won’t be a problem as it’s happening amongst group of friends. You need to monitor who is driving how much traffic and who is converting well in terms of making sales. This will also help you to drive targeted traffic and establish yourself as an expert.

As you can see, you have a lot of different options when it comes to making money with your blog. Try one or all of these to see what works best for your niche.

I would to know what ways you use to monetize from your blog?

In Part 1, we discussed what are the key aspects you need to prepare for and control while conducting audio interviews. Now let’s get in to nuts and bolts of conducting audio interview.

Trust me it’s really simple 1-2-3 process, the main thing is to get right expert and have right questions to ask him/her.

You can conduct audio interview by recording your conversation with the person. Conversation can be on Skype/GTalk or it can be on regular phone and you can use software or hardware recording device to record the interview. But the output you get here is not the best quality and there are efforts involved in using these.

I conduct interview for my site Marketing Masters Academy using free tools. Let me show you how I do it.

Firstly, I would prepare for interview as mentioned in Part 1 i.e. I study the expert, I ask question to my audience about what they want to know from the expert and based on that I prepare customized questionnaire. I share the same with the expert and then we set-up a convenient time to conduct the interview.

I use a free service Free Conference Call to conduct my audio interviews. Main advantage of this service is that it gives me final MP3 file of recorded conversation as soon as the call is over. They have a very easy to follow menu and prompts that makes conducting audio interview piece of cake. I normally prefer conducting one-on-one interviews, but if you like audience to participate on live call, then Free Conference Call allows you to invite up to 1000 participants also.

If you are conducting live audio interview with several participants on the call, ensure that you follow the controls provided by Free Conference Call. It is recommended that you un-mute the call only after the main interview is over, taking the questions in between may break the flow of interview. It is advisable that you don’t conduct more than 2 hour long interview at one go. Give a 5 min break at the end of first hour. Ensure that you conclude by summarizing the discussion and mention at least one key action point at the end of the call.

After the call is over, I login to my member area at Free Conference Call and download call MP3. After downloading MP3, I divide it in to two parts. I arrange my questions in such a manner that one part is basic questions and second part of interview questions go in to advance stuff. I use Audacity to cut MP3 in to two parts; it’s really easy to do it. It allows me to edit unwanted portion, if any, in the audio.

I will ensure that I have done initial branding in the audio i.e. I will start the interview by mentioning the name of my site, and then introduce the expert. In case I have not done that, Audacity allows me to introduce that piece.

I like audio interviews because they allow us to create at least two products at once. As soon as I have my audio files ready, I will get them transcribed using one of the freelance sites. Doing a quick check of what you receive really helps to ensure that product that you put up on your site is good quality.

Thus conducting audio interviews can be simply managed by using Free Conference Call, which does everything for you. If you want to edit the audio or divide in to parts then use audacity and if you want to create multiple products from your interview them get it transcribed at any freelance site.

Wasn’t that simple process.

So, how do you conduct audio interviews?

Do you have any secret tip to create impressive audio interviews?

What are your road blocks for not doing audio interviews?

Can you remember name of some of the most popular chat shows? Who are they named after? The host, correct? Why is that? Because the expert or the guests are the ones who bring their knowledge to the audience, they are the ones who are sharing something, but we will always give the credit to the host, because if they weren’t there we wouldn’t have connected with the guest.

The Key thing that host brings to table is not only to convince the guest to share his/her secrets in front of audience but also ask intelligent questions, so that audience is able to get the best knowledge out of the guest. Host also adds his/her wisdom to the knowledge shared by guest, this also adds to the knowledge that audience receives.

To conduct impressive interviews in any niche, you need to prepare really well. The preparation will need to be two way, about the guest and about the audience.

You need to follow the expert and find out his/her USP and interview on the same. This will allow you to extract something that no one else brought out from the expert. For this you will need to do good research about what your guest is in to, news items from various sources like his/her ezine, forums and other buzz. You will also need to go through other interviews that the expert has given, so that you ensure you are not repeating everything that s/he has shared in the past. There will be some common questions, but try to be as unique as you can.

You need to know your audience also really well; this is to ensure a good selection of experts/hosts for your interviews. This is also to ensure what subjects you need to interview people on and what questions you need to ask them. You audience (subscribers/customers) will have questions about different things, so, it is better to ask them to give you one question that they would like to ask the expert and then you can compile the list of questions.

If you know both the expert/guest and your audience well, half the battle is already won. Then you will need to ensure that you add value to the interview, so that your audience doesn’t feel that you know nothing about the subject. There are some interviewers who try to act over smart, and would try to speak just for the sake of it or would add things that are unrelated or inaccurate.

There are couple of ways in which you can add value, first you can define the structure and ensure that the flow is proper and key points are summarized. You have created questionnaire based on inputs you received from your list, and you have added questions based on your observation about expert/hosts activities. So, before starting the interview, prepare good introduction of the interviewee, tell your audience what you are planning to cover in the interview i.e. what they can expect to get out of the interview, take notes during the interview while the expert is talking, so that when s/he finishes talking you can summarize key points. Secondly, you can add to the knowledge shared by expert if you have relevant experience. Sharing stories or some anecdotes keeps your audience interested in the interview. Don’t force yourself, if you can’t add anything that is fine, because you are going to contribute at least by summarizing the key points for your audience.

So, to conduct an impressive interview know your host and your audience well, prepare a list of intelligent questions, control the flow, take notes & summarize key points and in the end mention about your key take away.

In Part 2, I will cover the mechanics of conducting audio interviews.

Let me know your thoughts about what are the key things you consider while planning for audio interviews?

In the last post we covered 3I formula for creating popular blog posts, we talked about how to use reviews, quick tips and resource lists to create widely successful and popular blog posts.

In this, let’s talk about 3 more types of blog posts:

4. The INTERVIEW Blog Post

Although these require a bit of preparation, they can be very valuable to your blog. You can interview someone in your niche and share the results of the interview with your blog readers. This will not only help provide valuable content for your blog, but you can also get more traffic to your blog. Likely, the person who you are interviewing will publicize the event on their blog and around the ‘net which will bring more traffic back to you.

You can not be expert in everything, so, by arranging interviews with different experts in your niche, you are acting as a gateway for your readers to access knowledge. This way you will have readers and customers for life. This is contrary to the theory that you shouldn’t expose your list to other marketers. I don’t believe in that, it’s like not introducing your friends to each other. If you genuinely believe that a person is worth learning from, then you should interview him/her and introduce to your readers. This will do no harm to you, instead it will increase your credibility.

5. The INSTRUCTION Blog Post

Like quick tips, how to posts help you provide valuable information to your readers. However, unlike quick tips, these posts go into detail on a certain topic. Some how to posts are even separated out into two or three part courses. For ideas on what to create how to posts about, look at the most frequently asked questions in your niche and develop posts around those topics.

How to posts if written well and step-by-step become very popular with your readers. So, you need to ensure that you answer the questions your readers have asked and do it in easy-to-follow manner. People have quite a few questions and hence it becomes very easy to write how to type of posts to address those. How to play the best shot in golf, how to train your cat, how to grow red tomatoes, how to find the best deal on eBay etc. These blog posts are keyword rich also, so, they get good Search engine exposure also.

6. The INFORMATION Blog Post

What’s the first thing you read after you wake up, newspaper, correct? We all watch CNN, BBC to catch the latest news, so, that’s become a habit. You can report news about latest happening in the industry on your site. The article can be information only or you can write your view about the impact of this news on the business or trends in general.

Google News, Yahoo News, Cnn.com get loads of readers to find out latest news on different subjects. If you want to be popular, you need to target a niche or local area news, both these become very targeted and people would love to come to your site for the latest information in the niche or the area than sifting through piles of link on google and yahoo to reach the information they want to find.

If you want to keep your blog fresh and interesting, you should post often. Creating different types of blog posts will help to keep your audience interested. It will also keep you from getting bored with your blog.

Do you want to add to the 6I formula list?

Before starting my blog, I used to read through quite a few other blogs, I am sure you do too, and there are some which are part of our favorites list, I monitor them using feedly. So, start my morning by reading a digest of what’s new in my favorite blogs.

While I read through quite a few posts, I was thinking about categorizing them in to different types. So, here are 6I types that I could gather.

Blog posts come in many different forms and lengths. Whether you are blogging to make money directly from the blog or blogging to drive traffic to an affiliate program, you should know about these six kinds of blog posts to create your own popular blog posts.

1. The INSPECTION Blog Post

Review blog posts can help you monetize your blog.  You “inspect” – take a closer look at – a product or service.  When you review a product or service and include an affiliate link, you’ll make a commission off of each sale generated with your affiliate link. Review blog posts should go over some of the major plusses and minuses of the product. Even if you loved the product, you should keep your review balanced by mentioning a few things that could have been improved. Your audience will appreciate your honesty and be more likely to trust your recommendation.

I have seen this strategy not being utilized properly and hence at times it loses its value. You need to put up your honest inspection for your readers to like and respect your opinion and take up your suggestion. Your main goal shouldn’t be earning money by making affiliate sale. If you genuinely like the product then only recommend it, if you won’t use the product then don’t recommend it to your readers.

2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post

Quick tips are great “in between” posts since they are so short. They are normally between 100 and 250 words. If there’s a great bit of information that you want to share with your niche but it doesn’t really warrant a full blog post, you can post a quick tip. The tip should be focused on one key area of the niche. For example, “How to Grease a Muffin Pan” is a perfect quick tip article for a cooking blog.

These are really quick and easy to churn out and help you keep your blog fresh and connection live with your readers. Even if you experienced something new in your life or want to share that as a quick lesson that you learnt from your visit to super market, you can do it with the Insights post.

3. The INDEX Blog Post

Blog readers love lists! If you’ll look at the most popular blogs you’ll see that they make good use out of this type of blog posts. You can make lists fit any niche topic imaginable. They are great ways to convey information online because they can easily be scanned by web readers who like to skim over information. You can create resource lists that will help your readers find information on your niche. You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in a niche, like “5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Sales Letter.” The possibilities are endless.

You know why this kind of blog posts work, because as a human nature we all like to make lists of the favorite places we want to visit, favorite movies we must watch, even Amazon has a wish list! So, if you create a list of resources, you can use affiliate links and earn commission, you can also create 5-10 quick tips list and use the post to promote your product which covers the subject in great depth.

To be continued…

So, what are the different types of blog posts you write?