1. Imagine a person.
2. Think of a problem she has that you can solve.
3. Publish the solution at your blog.
4. Invite her to share your solution with others.
5. Reward her for doing so.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 forever.

Step-by-step tips on this topic next week.

Which step is the hardest for you?

Last week I surprised you with a $750 blog consulting contest here at Visionary Blogging.

The prize: a $250 blog consulting package to boost any professional blog, including:

• A 130-point blog inspection in PDF format
• A video screencast with blogging tips
• A 30-minute phone consultation to discuss blogging strategy

Entry was simple. All you had to do was answer my question, “How can I help you?”

Winners were to be selected randomly from among all entrants.

I promised you results today. Here they are.

I hope this list saves you some grief in your professional blogging.

10. Publish sporadically.

9. Spend too much time consuming content.

8. Spend too little time creating content.

7. Fail to plan effectively or not at all.

6. Expect the world to adore your blog without any marketing effort on your part.

5. Fail to pay close attention to numbers that indicate blog growth rate.

4. Fail to produce content that serves your intended audience.

3. Fail to serve the right audience.

2. Fail to love your audience to bits.

Welcome to the Visionary Blogging Links series!

What is The Visionary Blogging Links Series?

Every Friday here at Visionary Blogging, I’ll share the best URLs I’ve discovered over the past week that have to do with business blogging or professional blogging in general and blogging/social media strategy in particular.

I promise to only share links of the highest quality, and never more than 10 per week. You deserve the cream of the cream.

Since today is the second Friday of 2009, we’ll call this week’s edition “Weeks 1-2.”

By next week I’ll create a centralized page where we can keep track of all the links throughout the year and have them organized for maximum usefulness.

How can I help you?

That’s it. I just want you to tell me what I, Easton Ellsworth, could do for you. And I promise to do my best to do it.

I’d especially love it if you told me your burning desires related to blogging and social media, of course. But I’ve left my question open-ended so if you really just want me to fix your toilet or sing you a song, I suppose that works, too.

Three randomly selected people who answer the question above by midnight U.S. Eastern time at the end of Friday, January 9 will win a free blog consulting package worth $250 USD including:

• A free 130-point blog inspection in which I scour every inch of your blog for possible areas of improvement and give you my best recommendations (PDF format, $125 value)
• A video screencast in which I visit your blog and give you advice on how to improve your blog ($50 value)
• A free 30-minute blog consultation by phone with me in which we’ll go over your inspection and screencast and talk about a winning strategy for your blog ($75 value)

Winners will receive everything in the prize package by the end of January 2009.

Yesterday I answered the question, “Where is your blog community?”

It’s in the mind.

But minds scatter online attention across vast fields of URLs.

Which is why, for example, it’s not uncommon for your Twitter account to sparkle while your blog gathers dust or vice versa.

It’s not enough to just get more “friends” or “followers” or commenters in a dozen different places.

You’ve gotta unify the fragments and make each community member aware of each of them. You’ve gotta bring together the logs so your bonfire can be much bigger and brighter and hotter than any smaller fire could be.

With that in mind, here are 8 ways to unify your blog community so that your blog and social media profiles work together (not just apart) for your business.

Your blog community is at your blog, right?

Duh. That was easy.

Wait a second. No, it’s just centered at your blog, but it has octopus legs at your Twitter account and at your Facebook page and at all your other social media accounts, right?

Um … or maybe your blogging community resides at all those places and in your email inbox and at the blogger conferences you attend? Maybe it’s everywhere?

Actually, it’s nowhere.

I’ve just added another free guide to my growing blog consulting guides area (22 and counting).

It’s called How to Improve Your Blog Community. It includes my best advice from more than three years as a blog network editor, social media event organizer and new media consultant.

Specifically, it covers the following:

• What a blog community is
• Why your blog community matters
• 4 common aspects of all communities
• 10 ways to measure blog community growth
• 5 steps to building your blog community
• How to get “unstuck” in your community-building efforts
• 6 excellent resources for further reading

Grab the printer-friendly PDF version (848 KB).

Let me know what you think! More guides coming soon …

Happy New Year to you. Have a wonderful 2009.

It’s a new year. A fresh opportunity to ask yourself some serious blog improvement questions.

Speaking of questions, here’s one.

May I give you $200 cash?

I will if you help me find a new blog consulting customer in the next 14 days.

2008 is almost over. 2009 is about to begin.

Have you considered your blog improvement plan for next year?

Here are 7 strategy-related questions you should ask yourself.

1. What will I accomplish with my blog in 2009?

Set a few goals for the next 12 months. I recommend having at least one clear, measurable goal for your blog’s overall performance, plus at least one goal each for the following areas:

1. Blog content improvement
2. Blog design improvement
3. Blog community improvement
4. Blog traffic improvement
5. Blog RSS feed / Atom feed / email subscribers improvement
6. Blog search engine optimization (SEO) improvement
7. Blog social media optimization (SMO) improvement
8. Blog monetization improvement
9. Blog value / return on investment (ROI) improvement

Which means you’ll have at least 9 area-specific goals plus at least one overall blog goal for next year.