July 4 is Independence Day here in the States, which, for most of us, entails the risk of losing:

• your fingers to cheap fireworks;
• your waistline to hot dogs;
• your liver.

All of which, as a red-blooded American, I support wholeheartedly. But if you’re spending today celebrating the country’s independence, how about putting some attention on your own personal independence?

It might be independence from a day job, or financial stress, or even a mindset that’s keeping you from making things happen.

Here are a few of my favorite tips for declaring your own individual independence.

Expand Your Audience

Andy Warhol had it wrong. Now that we’re living in the future, everyone isn’t famous for 15 minutes. We’re each famous with 15 people.

Each of us online, whether or not we’re technically selling anything, has our own little village of customers. Customers for our products, our ideas, and our funny pictures of cats.

And most of us would like to expand that village, at least by a little bit. Especially if we want to build a business around it.

So what’s the secret to finding a wider audience?

Put more thought into what your village of customers wants and needs.

Sure, personal expression can be a good thing. But never forget the other side of that computer screen.

There’s something you can offer your audience that will fulfill their fondest desire or solve their most pressing problem. Think a little more about them, and a little less about yourself.

Create a Revenue Stream

For most of us, freedom and independence tend to boil down to having enough money coming in the door.

It’s a lot simpler to say good-bye to your nightmare boss or your crummy living situation when you’ve got some steady income rolling in.

Whether it’s writing an ebook, building a membership site, starting a coaching program or setting up a part-time freelance business, there’s something you could build in the next six weeks to bring a little revenue in.

The hardest part is getting started. Once you’re up and rolling, you can tweak and expand your offering to make it better and bring in more income.

Don’t let perfectionism slow you down. There’s no better way to see what works than to actually get out and do something. Start small and build on what works.

Never Stop Learning

In today’s economic and technical environment, the moment you stop learning, you’re road kill.

It’s not always about learning the latest and greatest. Sometimes it’s taking the classic works in your field and translating them for a new audience. Sometimes it’s about making a completely new connection. It’s about staying curious and keeping your mental playfulness.

If you never add anything new to your intellectual mix, your content is going to sputter out and die. (If for no other reason than you’ll develop a killer case of writer’s block.)

Spend a little less time on the trivial stuff (I love Twitter too, but no one needs to be there five hours a day) and a little more time building your understanding.

Knowledge is your greatest asset. It can’t be stolen or confiscated. It sets your intellect free. And when your mind is free, the rest of it is just a bunch of beautiful fireworks.

picture credit: Hugh

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

You’ll see one theme come up again and again on Copyblogger. If you want to create real revenue with your blog, you need to have something worthwhile to sell.

Most sites are disappointed by the nickels and dimes that come in from advertising. If your site gets massive amounts of traffic, it can work, but if not, you’ll want to find a much more profitable source of revenue.

But most of us find that it’s not all that easy to translate high-quality content from your blog into a high-quality product for sale.

Four or five years ago, you could have slammed together an ebook over the weekend and created a decent income with it. But in the current environment, buyers are more careful with their money, and you’ve got an awful lot of competition.

The good news is, most of your competitors still think it’s 2003, and most of their products are astoundingly lame. And there are still lots of buyers who need to solve their most pressing problems.

So there are still plenty of opportunities to monetize with an ebook. But it has to be terrific.

So what makes a terrific ebook?

For an ebook to work in this climate, it needs to:

• Solidly address the problems, concerns, or desires of a well-defined target market. Vague, fluffy or irrelevant junk isn’t going to cut it.
• Be a meaningful extension of the relationship you’ve already created with your audience.
• Stake out a compelling position in the marketplace.
• Reflect the confidence of top-notch content.
• Provide an exceptional return on investment for buyers.
• Be supported by an intelligent marketing system that fuels your customers’ need to buy.

The enemy of the successful ebook

So to create an ebook that works today, you’ve got a few more steps to take.

First you’ve got to research your market. Then you need to build a list and drive buying readers to your blog. (There can be a big difference between fans and customers.) Then research, outline, and actually write the book. And then you’ve got to figure out the whole launch thing: creating buzz, recruiting and managing affiliates, writing a sales page.

We bloggers are pretty good at taking action. We can do any of these things individually. And to tell you the truth, none of them is all that hard.

But take them all together and we find ourselves overwhelmed.

Before we know it, it’s been six months or a year, and we’re still trying to make it happen. Not because it’s beyond our abilities, but because without a detailed map, it’s easy to get lost in the process.

How to get it done

When I first picked up How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook, I didn’t read it right away. I figured I knew everything that would be in there, and I had so much on my plate.

When I finally got around to taking a close look at it, I was surprised. This wasn’t a simple connect-the-dots guide for newbies. There was real meat here. A lot of which was, in fact, incredibly useful to me.

I know the course creators and I’ve been consistently impressed with them, so it’s not like I thought it was going to be garbage. But I was still surprised at how extensive the course turned out to be.

How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook was created by launch expert Dave Navarro and small business marketing rockstar Naomi Dunford.

(Don’t worry, it isn’t full of curse words despite Naomi’s involvement. In fact, I think the missing word is Heck, don’t you?)

In five concise modules, How to Launch covers the entire process of writing an ebook that sells.

• How to research your market in 30 minutes or less. (If you don’t get this part right, you’re dead before you begin.)
• The simple strategy to drive targeted buyers to your blog.
• What to do when you don’t have enough time to write, and dozens of techniques that will keep your momentum going.
• How to convince big names to review your ebook.
• How to create a sales process that works.
• How to pick the right affiliate program, and how to find affiliates once you’ve made your choice.

The course is quite comprehensive, so I won’t bog this post down with the entire table of contents. But the thing that impressed me most was that wherever you might happen to get stuck, they’ve got the information to get you moving again.

True confessions

• Naomi and Dave are both friends of mine, and Naomi and I do business together. I’ve been following their stuff for a couple of years now, and I think they do exceptional work.
• The links in this review are affiliate links. So Copyblogger will make something on the sale, although not nearly as much as you will if you implement the advice you get in the program.

The worst confession is how long I’ve been sitting on this, because I’ve been meaning to review it for ages. But in light of the conversations Brian and I have been having about what kind of material we’ll be recommending from this point forward, I thought this was just about the perfect time.

Click here to get more details about How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

Canadians are a funny lot.

They use strange words and spell with a U. They kiss cod. They enjoy being frozen solid nearly 8 months a year, and they call their money Loonies and Toonies.

Don’t get me wrong; they’re nice people just the same. They’re nature lovers and humanitarians and they like things simple and friendly.

And contrary to popular belief, they’re actually pretty smart.

But there’s just one problem. Your marketing strategies? You notice how they’ve been changing? That the old-school methods aren’t working anymore . . . at all?

Well, I’ve figured out whose fault it is.

Blame Canada

You see, Canucks have a strange mindset. They’re gentle people, and mostly kind of quiet. If you drove up to the frozen tundra and started screaming, “Buy my stuff!” at the top of your lungs, you’d probably startle the wildlife and be ushered off (politely) by Mounties in red coats and really great hats.

It’s happening all over. Those wily Canadians are causing a marketing revolution, and it’s spreading too fast to contain.

Think about it for a minute. All of a sudden, your potential customers hate screaming and being pushed around, don’t they? It’s almost like they’ve been influenced by an evil foreign power.

And no one wants to be told what to do anymore. They want to be persuaded, gently convinced that what you have to sell is really good for them.

It’s those Canadians; I’m sure of it.

If you were trying to persuade a Canadian, he’d listen — as long as you were making sense. In Canada, they know when you’re pulling the wool over their eyes. They like to hear good reasons they should trust you, and they observe you for a while to see whether you actually mean what you say.

Now everyone’s picking up on that. Your potential customers are looking for good reasons to trust you, and they’re watching every move you make.

They’re thinking more, too, damn them. And getting slower to make a decision to buy.

They even want you to be a nice person.

That whole “nice” thing

I’m noticing the “nice” thing cropping up all over the place these days. And once again, I blame Canada.

You see, Canadians have a reputation for being really, really nice. They take care of each other and they ask if anyone needs help.

They actually like doing it, too. The whole “no man is an island” saying? They actually believe that in Canada. They’re all about caring and sharing and being kind to the animals. (Especially the moose. They’re kind of obsessed with moose.)

Well, that do-good attitude is leaking all over. You might have noticed it yourself. Customers expect you to be nice to others and ethical in general and do the right thing. They want to know that you actually care about their well-being. Then they’ll think about buying from you.

Tough stuff. Customers who want you to care before they buy.

Yeah, I blame Canada.

It gets worse

The other thing about those Canucks? They like to help other people. All the time. It’s like a compulsion.

If you need information, directions, help . . . You can’t go wrong up north. Everyone’s so nice and helpful that it would almost make you cry.

So now everyone wants you to be helpful like that. They want you to give them valuable information and tell them directions and hold open doors for them. They need to know that you’re willing to give before you receive.

No more me, myself and I. It’s all about asking what you can do for your customers today.

Don’t forget to ask in their language, too. No fluff. No fancy words. No jargon.

Canadians hate that. And now everybody tunes you out if you use fancy fluff and jargon. You have to learn to speak in words your target market understands. Yes, even words like “aboot” and “hoose.”

So if you have to change how you’re reaching your customers, I say blame Canada.

If you have to learn how to simplify your message and talk in the language of your target audience, blame Canada.

If you have to become more convincing, quieter, and more ethical, blame Canada.

Oh, and when you start reaching more people, gaining more readers, and making more sales?

Beauty, eh?

(Happy Canada Day, everybody.)

About the Author: James Chartrand is an unrepentant Canuck who survives exclusively on maple syrup, poutine, and beer. He is unfailingly polite and helps entrepreneurs and freelancers earn a decent living online at Men with Pens (dot CA, of course).

I used to think being “right” was a big deal.

I had to say the right thing, dress the right way, know the right people, read the right books, live in the right neighborhood, go to the right school. It wasn’t because I wanted to, exactly, but because I thought it was a prerequisite for success.

If you want other people to respect you, then you have to look and sound a certain way, right? Makes sense, if conformity is all you’ve ever been taught.

What no one tells you is the cost. Yes, conformity gains you a certain type of approval from others, but it comes at the cost of losing your sense of self.

You have to systematically search out everything that’s a little bit “off” about you and bury it as deep as you can. You know that you can’t get rid of it — it’s a part of you, after all — but maybe you can hide it so deep that no one will ever see it, so that a world that only respects the “right” will never realize how “wrong” you really are.

Maybe, just maybe, you can fool everyone until you’re in a position of power and no one’s opinion matters anymore. Then you can be free. Right?

Umm… no.

The Power of Misfits

The people we pay attention to aren’t the masters of doing what’s “right;” they’re the misfits who have the courage to be wrong. They take whatever everyone else is doing in their industry and turn it inside out.

It’s not just about differentiation; it’s about perverting the norm, destroying sacred traditions, and screwing with the way people think. It’s about doing, saying, or living something that’s so completely unexpected that people can’t help but pay attention.

It’s about realizing that most people spend their lives breathing stale, recycled air, and then spending the remainder of your life finding and opening windows to make that air new again.

• Who would’ve thought a movie that told a story backwards would become a cult classic that people would talk about for decades? But that’s what Christopher Nolan did with Memento.
• Who would’ve thought paintings consisting of nothing more than splattered paint would sell for millions of dollars? But that’s what Jackson Pollock did with his art.
• Who would’ve thought a Jewish guy from the UK would become famous by playing an anti-Semitic, socially-retarded Kazakh? But that’s what Sacha Baron Cohen did with Borat.

The one trait they all have in common: the courage to be wrong.

The Fallacy of Right and Wrong

By saying “wrong,” I’m not saying you should pander for attention, make lewd jokes, or otherwise do something bad. What I’m saying is you need to realize “right” and “wrong” exist only between quotation marks. Every day, the world decides their definition, and every day, we have the opportunity to influence what that definition becomes.

Revolutionaries don’t just burn the rules. They write new ones. In destroying the standard, they create the standard. It’s creative destruction at its finest.

Will some people dislike you? Sure, that’s the way it works. Real leaders are willing, even eager, to be disliked and even hated, not because it makes them feel important, but because they know it’s the price of change, and no one can pay that price but them.

Do you have that kind of courage?

If not, it pays to find it. No one pays attention to a coward for very long.

And if all you do is what’s “right,” then a coward is exactly what you become.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on Twitter.

What a wild three-and-a-half years, huh?

Copyblogger started out as a way for me to demonstrate what I knew and could do in order to collaborate on new media projects with others.

Now it’s the hub of a business enterprise that supports three families, two single guys, one single mom, and a host of domesticated animals.

And we’re just getting started. Of course, that means having a clear picture of where we want to go is pretty essential.

Guidance from the Wise Bald One

I’m not going to pretend that Seth Godin and I are best buddies who hang out on weekends and major holidays. But if there’s anyone I’d point to as a mentor, it’s him.

For years that came solely from his books, which in many cases was more than enough. In the last couple of years, however, Seth has been very generous with his time and wisdom when I needed guidance.

A couple of months ago, an email from Seth arrived with some unsolicited advice. Actually, it wasn’t advice, but a question:

What kind of tribe are you building?

Over the last 8 months, we’ve been experimenting with stretching the bounds of what Copyblogger covered, reviewed, and recommended. I think Seth thought we had gone off track, or lost the path. In hindsight, maybe he was right.

At first, I was annoyed. Then, I started giving it a great deal of thought. Finally, Sonia and I started to talk about it . . . a lot.

The result was what’s become known as the Two Tribes post. And that turned out to be a defining moment.

The Intersection of Pragmatism and Progress

Sonia and I are both students of online marketing. Not any one particular kind of online marketing, mind you, other than marketing that works.

That doesn’t mean we adopt things as is. The key to effective marketing is to be context appropriate, regardless of the tactic or strategy. So we’re very good at creative adaptation when it comes to taking, for example, an effective tactic that is being used in a sleazy manner, and making it non-sleazy. Or seeing a touchy-feely social media concept that makes sense, and tweaking it so it can actually convert prospects into customers.

To put this in context, Copyblogger has always been extremely selective about what we recommend to you in terms of paid offers. We had to be convinced through our own direct experience with the product or service that it had value and worked.

Products or tools have needed to be extremely useful. We’ve only recommended products that made it easy to make your money back, within a realistic timeframe and with skills that we are confident you already possess.

We didn’t necessarily care how those products or tools were marketed. We figured you’d just creatively adapt the tactics or strategies in a context-appropriate way.

That’s not enough any more. From this point forward, we’re only going to recommend and promote products that truly embody what we stand for.

It’s all about the Third Tribe.

What Does the Third Tribe Stand For?

We seek to combine the practical, solid techniques of the Internet Marketing so-called “gurus” and the ethical, content-focused, high-quality approach of the blogging world. It’s what we call the Third Tribe, and you’re going to be hearing a lot more about it in the coming months.

In practical terms, it means you’ll be seeing many more Copyblogger products, and far fewer from other people. My greatest satisfaction comes from knowing that we strive to make our in-house projects like Teaching Sells and Thesis not just good enough . . . but as good as we possibly can (and that’s an ongoing process).

One of the best ways to ensure that standard is to do more product development ourselves. So that’s what we’ll do.

If we do make an outside recommendation, it will be for someone who “gets it.” They may not be household names . . . yet. But they’re creating solid tools that work for real people, without hype and nonsense.

Copyblogger products will be created for smart businesspeople (even if you’re not too sure of your business skills yet), not naive “business opportunity” seekers who are constantly looking for the newest magic pill.

They’ll be products for people who take action, not dreamers who think about making millions overnight. The money really does roll in while you sleep with the right online business model . . . but only after you put in the time and hard work to get to that point.

Anyone who tells you differently can’t be trusted.

Over the past few years, Copyblogger has grown thanks to a very high standard for the free content we produce, and that’s not going to change. It’s just that we feel that an even higher standard applies to things you pay for.

Thought you might like to know. Especially since without you, there’d be no reason for us.

Thanks for everything: past, present, and future.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

Welp, it’s time once again to log out of WordPress and turn out the lights.

Once again, blogging is dead.

Seems at least once a year, a flurry of discussion erupts around the imminent demise of blogging. And then the rest of us shrug our shoulders, grab some coffee, and get back to creating content that further solidifies our web presence.

Don’t get me wrong… as always, change is definitely happening. But it doesn’t mean blogging is dead this time around anymore than it has every other time this discussion pops up.

Reports of Blogging’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Like the last time I addressed this topic, the basic argument is that the rapid growth of Facebook and Twitter has dampened the urge to blog. Since social networking is much easier than creating long-form content, why bother blogging?

Chris Brogan delivered the immediate logical response—that while snack-sized social networking content has its place, from a marketing standpoint it only works in conjunction with longer, more thoughtful content. And while blogging veteran Steve Rubel worries about long-form content in a short-attention-span world, he’ll continue to blog—because he knows he has valuable ideas to share that don’t fit in 140 characters.

The impact of Facebook and Twitter is a powerful trend that shouldn’t be dismissed (in fact, content creators should be using at least one of them). But the story remains the same: people who mainly want to socialize, share links, and post pictures of their cat should be using social networks instead of blogging, and that’s exactly what’s happening.

Those of us with different aspirations continue to blog, and smartly use social networking sites to promote our content while adding value in those venues. Whether you’re trying to build an online business, market your stuff, or promote a cause, those who seek maximum influence know that creating valuable longer content is the way to go.

Charles Arthur of the Guardian pins this donkey of a discussion on the tail:

People are still reading blogs, and other content. But for the creation of amateur content, their heyday for the wider population has, I think, already passed. The short head of blogging thrives. Its long tail, though, has lapsed into desuetude.

So, are you in the short head (or “short tail”) of blogging?

What’s the Short Tail of Blogging?

When people think of the “short tail” of blogs, they generally think of the large blogs that reside in the Technorati Top 100. The blogs that are really new media versions of traditional publications, but have a lot of unique social media characteristics that set them apart from mainstream media (at least for now).

I think that definition of the short tail is short sighted.

Big blogs that rely on a CPM advertising model are naturally prominent, because they have to attract massive amounts of traffic to make any real money. But there are plenty of business-oriented blogs that drive significant revenue without massive traffic, because they use content to attract prospects and convert them into new customers. Software, training, freelance services, real estate, wine, art and more are sold thanks to the power of attraction, trust, and conversion that blogs possess (when done well).

Those who recognize the decline in casual blogging also admit the power serious blogging retains:

It’s also essential to remember that unlike the transient nature of Twitter and the great walled garden of Facebook, blog posts are effectively conversations that are eternally visible through Google, meaning they have more inherent value to brands.

In the broadest sense, a “brand” is anyone with a message with a point beyond what you’re having for lunch. If that sounds like you, better stick with the blogging.

Even if you never call it that.

It’s Content Marketing, Right?

Here at Copyblogger, we’ve been teaching the intersection of content and copywriting for three-and-a-half years. We started well before the term content marketing came into vogue, and yet content has been the driving force behind online marketing since the inception of the web.

Content marketing is really what this is all about. Blogging (in the sense of the software and the best practices that help content spread and community grow) is simply the centerpiece of the effective and efficient practice of online content marketing.

So forget blogging as a movement, if you’d like. But keep the content marketing rolling.

UPDATE: Steve Rubel has apparently changed his mind. This is a bold move for even a social media pioneer with a large existing following (and a job). So I’m afraid it would be a colossal mistake for a business trying to attract customers to mimic this approach.

Image by Hugh.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

“Hey man, spare some change?”

Rain or shine, the professional panhandler works a busy corner every day in my neighborhood. He sets up shop right by the ATM, on the theory that people who have just withdrawn a hundred bucks are more likely to give him a dollar or two.

The location is good, but prospecting is tough. Day in, day out, he sits on a stoop, asking people for a couple of bucks. He sees it as a numbers game – 98% of the people who pass by will say no or just ignore him, but if he asks enough people, a few will pony up.

Is panhandling effective?

Strictly speaking, I guess you could say it works . . . but most of us would agree that asking random people for money isn’t a great career choice. You have to deal with continuous rejection, your income is wildly unpredictable, and you get wet when it rains.

Too Many Marketers are Like Panhandlers

“Hey man, spare some change? Check out this great offer I’ve got . . . it’s just what you need, you’ll love it, really.”

On an intuitive level, most of us understand that it’s better to deliver our message to the right people. We know that we shouldn’t panhandle – but then we go out and do the opposite of what we know is right.

We model ourselves on the salesman who goes door-to-door hawking vacuum cleaners. Sure, he might sell a couple by the end of the day, but do we really want to be that guy?

I call this approach evangelism. The goal is to change someone’s mind and convince them to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do.

Why Evangelism Doesn’t Work

Most of us have deeply-held beliefs about everything from religion to politics to what kind of sandwich we like to eat for lunch. You probably aren’t going to change my mind about almost anything, and I’m probably not going to change yours.

So let’s not try to sell unwanted vacuum cleaners to each other.

The alternative to evangelism is recruitment. Instead of knocking on doors or begging for spare change, recruitment is all about opening your own doors to the people who are already naturally predisposed to your message.

Instead of needing to be sold, these people are dying to hear what you have for them.

At its best, recruitment involves welcoming a select group of people and challenging them to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

When people feel simultaneously welcomed into a group and challenged to go above and beyond their current limits, you’ve got a group that’s eager for your attention.

I call this a small army of remarkable people. Seth calls it a tribe, Gretchen calls them super-fans, Sonia calls them a village.

Regardless of terminology, these are the people you want in your group. You can think of them as your basic church choir. And preaching to the choir is a good thing.

“Come if You’re a Good Fit” Instead of “Come As You Are”

Recruitment also requires the gentle filtering out of people who aren’t a good fit for what you offer.

Wish them well . . . then wish them to go somewhere else. Most people won’t pitch a dollar in the panhandler’s bucket, and most people probably aren’t suited to what you have to offer.

That’s okay. Ignore the atheists outside the church. Rise above the noise, recruit a choir of your own, and start preaching.

Here’s wishing you well in your next sermon.

About the Author: Chris Guillebeau preaches to a choir of remarkable people at the Art of Nonconformity site. His 279 Days to Overnight Success manifesto offers a free case study of how to build a career in new media. Follow Chris on Twitter @chrisguillebeau.

Back when we asked you about your blogging frustrations, getting a decent amount of traffic to your blog was one of the top concerns (among many others). Yaro Starak has carved out a niche for himself helping beginning bloggers make the move to a real online business, and he practices what he preaches. If you’re having a hard time, Yaro can help.

As you might guess, this great free content is a lead-up to Yaro’s paid course - Become a Blogger. We here at Copyblogger don’t offer any sort of entry-level blogging course, so I’ve always partnered with Yaro over the years so our newer bloggers could access this kind of training. It’s a valuable education in the fundamentals of smart blogging presented in a clear and compelling fashion.

• Watch the traffic video here.
• Download the blogging report here.

The big news yesterday?

Blogging is finally being taken seriously.

The Federal Trade Commission announced that they will begin going after bloggers - as well as the companies that compensate them - for any false claims or failure to disclose compensation, free gifts, and other conflicts of interest.

This isn’t really a surprise.

Content marketing is the most powerful online advertising strategy there is, and the FTC regulates advertising. Arguably, the FTC could go after bloggers who don’t disclose compensation for reviews and endorsements right now, without issuing these additional guidelines.

In fact, I made that suggestion way back in December of 2006 (wow, has it been that long?). As a former commercial litigation attorney who tangled with the FTC for clients, I’m familiar with the existing “endorsement” guidelines, and saw how they could apply to anyone (even so-called “amateurs”) who received compensation for reviews or recommendations of products or services.

The new FTC guidelines will show that’s a fact, Jack.

Like it or Not, Affiliate Links Must be Disclosed

Many of my friends in the affiliate marketing industry did not take kindly to my legal observations at the time. And a lot of people are upset right now, but the FTC will still remove all doubt about the fact that disclosure of compensation and conflicts is required.

Now it becomes clear that even something as small as an Amazon affiliate link to a book or DVD requires disclosure. That represents a big shift in the way things have worked so far.

Not everyone sees this as a bad thing. Izea has been requiring disclosure from its bloggers for years after an initial rough entry into the uncharted waters of compensated reviews. Izea CEO Ted Murphy is happy to see that everyone plays by the same rules.

When Ted asked me and other high-profile bloggers/marketers such as Chris Brogan, Wendy Piersall, Jeremy Schoemaker and Missy Ward (among others) to serve on an advisory board for Izea, he didn’t want a bunch of cheerleaders. He wanted a group of people who knew the space to candidly tell him if Izea was screwing up, so the stock options we were granted wouldn’t become worthless.

Wait, what just happened there?

Disclosure Doesn’t Have to be Bad

Let’s face it… things have changed online since CDNow pioneered affiliate marketing in 1994 and Amazon popularized it in 1996. People are more savvy, and less trusting, of online content and advertising.

What gets you past that?

More trust.

And you develop more trust by (wait for it)… telling the truth.

And I don’t mean telling the truth back on your heels like you’re ashamed of what you’re recommending to your readers. I also don’t mean putting some stupid distracting notation like (aff) next to the link, either.

I mean disclosing with confidence.

Disclose With Confidence and Make More, Not Less

When I mentioned Izea above, I did the right thing… I disclosed that I serve as an advisor to the company and that I have the prospect of making some money if the company succeeds. You’ve never seen me promote Izea anywhere, because that’s not my role… and I was candid about that as well.

I wasn’t shy about it, either.

Being completely frank with your readers about compensation can be scary, because you think people will think less of you. But in a cynical world where everyone thinks everyone else is on the take already, honesty becomes a selling point.

Take a look at this disclosure I did for a review of the ebook Desperate Buyer’s Only two years ago:

I once commented on a review of Desperate Buyers Only that this is the ebook about creating ebooks that I would have written had I been inclined, so I have no problem recommending it to you (and using my affiliate link).

Disclosure? Check.

Truth? Check.

Did it enhance the recommendation?

Check.

No matter how you do it, the key is disclosing with confidence. If you’re delivering value to your audience on a regular basis, they should have no problem with you being compensated for an occasional affiliate review or recommendation.

Here are some other examples of confident disclosure from people who make real money from affiliate marketing:

• Fitting her personality, when Rae Hoffman does a review or tutorial that includes an affiliate relationship, she’ll say something like “Damn right it’s an affiliate link.”
• Frank Kern goes to absurd lengths to entertain his followers even while disclosing, using tactics such as this: “<<----- BIG scary affiliate link!”
• Chris Brogan says “If you buy this from me, I get some beer money (not enough for a pony).”

Rather than hiding the compensation, the compensation is presumed to be fine, and therefore revealed confidently.

What gets you there in the first place is the value you deliver and the trust you earn. So yes… monetize with affiliate marketing.

But deliver the value and build the trust first.

Are You Afraid of Your Audience?

So many bloggers want to make money from their blogs. And most have realized by now that banner ads and AdSense ain’t gonna cut it.

And yet they’re scared to death to level with their readers and say “Look, I’m working my ass off delivering value to you. I know about products and services that you’ll be interested in, and I’ll make some money by doing it that will help me keep this rolling.”

What happens here is that good people end up hiding things out of fear. They end up treating their readers worse than if they had just been honest, and now risk legal liability.

If you’re delivering constant value, most people won’t mind… as long as you’re honest. Sure, you’ll have a few vocal readers with an enlarged sense of entitlement who expect you to work for free, but ignore them.

And if it turns out that the majority of your audience actually does mind you making some money for your efforts while delivering honest reviews and recommendations…

Perhaps you’ve attracted the wrong audience.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

This weekend, my mother-in-law asked me to enter a life of crime.

Not in the real world, of course - she’d like the father of her grandkids to remain jail-free. No, instead she invited me to play that Mafia game that’s so popular on Facebook.

Not interested in the game, I politely declined. But when my mother-in-law, who has just joined Facebook, becomes part of an online trend, that’s a sure sign that it’s hitting critical mass in the population at large.

Facebook is quickly becoming the immovable object that will soon butt heads with Google’s irresistible force.

Strength In Overwhelming Numbers

Facebook claims that its subscriber base over age 35 doubled in size between February and April of 2009 - just sixty days. That’s not only impressive for a site as huge as Facebook already is, but it means that your mother-in-law is likely on Facebook just like mine, and one of them is probably about to order a Mafia hit on the other.

That growing audience means traffic to any website that gets a link on Facebook. How much traffic? The analysts at Hitwise claim that celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton now gets more traffic from Facebook than from Google - more than 7 million pageviews from Facebook alone. If that trend increases, then the current wisdom about web traffic is about to get turned on its ear.

How Facebook Kills SEO

Traditional search engine marketing seeks to draw the attention of people searching for particular terms in Google, Yahoo, or other search engines. And that’s going to continue to be useful for a long time.

But the rise of Facebook creates a growing segment of the web that’s completely invisible to search engines - most of which, Facebook blocks - and can be seen only by logged-in Facebook users. So as Facebook becomes ever larger, and keeps more users inside its walled garden, your web site will need to appear in Facebook’s feeds and searches or you will miss out on an important source of web traffic.

What’s the best way to keep your links in front of Facebook users? The ever-more-important linkbait strategy.

How Linkbait Gains Us the Favor of Our New Facebook Overlords

Regular readers of this and related sites are already familiar with the linkbait strategy, which is this: create content that multiple outside sources will link to because it’s funny, controversial, interesting, or otherwise compelling.

In other words, generate great content.

Now, once you’ve got your compelling content posted - or ideally, even before you do - you should have some way of injecting that content into the Facebook sphere. Perhaps you’ve built up a large network already, for yourself or your site. Perhaps you’ve got a widget on your page that allows readers to post your link directly on Facebook. Or maybe you just ask a few friends to post the links on their own, and hope it takes off from there. Your tactics may evolve over time, but the most important part is that you’ve got to write something people want to link to - the essence of the linkbait strategy.

The Hits Just Keep on Coming (We Hope)

So… as linkbait becomes more important for Facebook (and, let’s not kid ourselves, Twitter, too), what does this mean for future traffic trends?

It means that, more than ever, you’re going to have to continue to generate timely, quality, compelling content that attracts Facebook links as well as non-Facebook links. And once Facebook users get to your page, you’d better have a plan for how you’re going to keep them on your site, and keep them coming back later.

Why is that? In part, because Facebook links are invisible to Google - and therefore don’t contribute to your PageRank. Facebook links make no lasting direct contribution to your site’s SEO, and as Facebook drives an ever-larger percentage of traffic to your site, that means quality content will overshadow all other SEO techniques.

Facebook wants to be the Google killer… don’t let it kill your site, too! Start planning today to get Facebook users to your site and keep them coming back for more.

UPDATE: Six hours after this post was published, Wired released an article that provides extensive additional information about the enormous amount of data and links that Facebook is keeping from Google.

About the Author: Michael Alex Wasylik is a Florida lawyer with the firm of Ricardo, Wasylik & Kaniuk PL. He blogs at the Florida Foreclosure Fraud Weblog.