You've heard it a thousand times: the money's in the list. If you're serious about getting results online, you need to build a list of people who are paying attention to you, typically an email list. So how do you get people to sign up for your email newsletter? You probably already know the answer to this one: Reward them. Give subscribers something great as a "thank you" for signing up. This is usually some form of content " a useful video,

About 80% of your blog's success comes from "ass in chair" time. That's the time you spend writing posts, editing posts, finding the perfect image, connecting with fellow bloggers, answering comments, shaping up your SEO, and all the other tasks we teach you about here on Copyblogger. You've got to get that stuff right. But great blogs are not built by "ass in chair" time alone.

When I first had the insane brilliant idea to start a business and get out of the alleged safety of the corporate world, I started by reading everything I could find. I wish I could remember where the thread started for me. It might have been Dan Kennedy, it might have been Michael Port, it could very well have been the Personal MBA . Each good resource led to three more. At some point, I found Copyblogger and Problogger and Seth Godin .

Like everyone else on the social web, I just read Seth Godin's new book Linchpin . It's a big book, not so much in number of pages, but in number of ideas. One core theme is the idea of emotional labor " bringing more human feeling and connection to your work, some essential part of yourself that can't be automated or outsourced. It strikes me that this gets to one of the key distinctions between different models for doing business online.

Those of you who subscribe to the Internet Marketing for Smart People email newsletter found out on Monday what Brian and I have been up to for the past few months. We knew it would be cool, because, well, we designed it to be cool. We wanted to build something people would really get value from. But still, when we saw what people were doing inside after the first day, we all looked around at one another and pulled a Keanu. Whoa.

Do you know this story? A scorpion needs to cross the river. He asks a friendly-looking frog to carry him across. "Do you think I'm stupid?" asks the frog. "You're a scorpion. You'll sting and kill me." "No I won't," says the scorpion. "That would be completely against my self interest. If I sting you, I'll fall in the river and drown." The frog sees the sense in this and agrees to carry the scorpion across the river. Halfway across,

If you've got something to sell, at some point you're going to need to present an offer . In other words, you'll need to tell your prospective customer what you've got, what it's going to do for them, and what you're looking for in return. Sounds simple, and it is. There's just one problem. Too often, we get caught up in how much our prospect should want what we're feeding them.

Feedback is the cornerstone of community-oriented, kumbaya-style blogging . Like a beautifully polished mirror, we take our best ideas from the wants, needs, and desires of our readers. So as we all know, the smartest thing content creators can do to is to solicit feedback. If our readers unsubscribe, cancel, or stomp off in a huff, we want to know why so we can make our content better. Right? Actually, I don't think so.

Copyblogger is about to go on our annual holiday hiatus. We'll be taking a break from posting while we catch up, get rested, and get excited about what we've got in store for you in 2010. You may be taking a little time off yourself. Or you may still be going into the office, but the last week of the year is often a time when routine tasks slow down or stop altogether. So what's the smartest, most productive use you could make of the next seven days?

Earlier this week on TechCrunch, Michael Arrington wrote an alarmed post about "fast food content that will surely, over time, destroy the mom and pop operations that hand craft their content today." Mom and pop operations and hand-crafted content sounds an awful lot like you and me, doesn't it? So is this actually something we need to worry about? Is what Arrington calls "the rise of cheap, disposable content on a mass scale,

Earlier this year, Brian and I created a course called Freelance X Factor . It was designed for the "typical" Copyblogger reader. )Smart, interested in writing, pretty savvy about social media . . . but possibly "not there yet" when it comes to packaging all of that up and turning it into income.( The course is designed to give you a "business model in a box," to take what you're great at and start using it to make a better living.

Are you guilty of spamducation? Spamducation is a white paper, special report, video, podcast or manifesto that claims to solve a pressing reader problem, but is in fact a thinly disguised ad. Jon Stribling describes them as "compelling headlines and disappointing content written by amateurs or second-rate copywriters." The content is too often a lame version of work done by a real expert. )You know,

So I've created something brand new, and it occurred to me it would be pretty silly if I didn't let you know about it. I put it together in response to a lot of frustration I was hearing about overwhelm. We've got hundreds of great resources. All kinds of good advice about this big, complicated problem of marketing . But it's like trying to drink from a firehose. There's too much, it's coming too fast,

One of my favorite posts from around the web last week came from our own Associate Editor Jon Morrow. He recorded a 20-minute video post for Problogger about how he works with speech recognition software to do all of his blogging. I do an awful lot of writing every week, and I've been thinking about trying speech recognition out in order to speed up the process. But like most people, I was afraid it was going to be more trouble than it was worth to get it working.

I'll admit it. I have a soft spot for Thanksgiving. First, because it's an excuse for me to bake for three days. )If you need a last-minute recipe for the world's best chocolate cream pie, I've got you covered .( And second, because it reminds me to quit grumbling and start noticing all of the amazing stuff I've got in my life. Here's my list of 10 things I would humbly recommend you add to your own "gratitude list" this year.

Last Friday I was in Atlanta, where I gave a talk on social media marketing at Dan Kennedy's InfoSUMMIT conference. I'm something of a fish out of water at a Glazer-Kennedy event. For example, unlike at Blogworld, I'm the only person in a room of 800 who has pink hair. I wasn't sure they'd be too receptive to what I had to say, but they surprised me. They were warm, welcoming, and extremely interested in my no-shortcuts,

This week marked the 40th anniversary of the breakthrough TV program Sesame Street. I've written before about some of the many lessons you can learn from this cultural icon, but today I'm going to zero in something new. You might have an Elmo blog, a Cookie Monster blog, or a Big Bird blog. )How you define those is up to you.( But some of the smartest and most successful bloggers out there bear more in common with the show's least-likeable character: Oscar the Grouch.

It's that time of year again . . . time to get your trick-or-treating gear ready. Trust me, this year you're too old to troll the neighborhood begging for miniature Twix bars. Your neighbors are wise to you and your "Eminem costume." Instead, how about putting a little thought into what your blog will be this Halloween? Sure, you can go the cheap and easy way and get a Perez Hilton mask , but where's the fun in that? Instead,

There are a million techniques to make your blog bigger, better, and more popular. )Heck, after four years, there are probably a half-million just here on Copyblogger.( Strong headlines, smart copywriting technique, celebrity gossip, telling stories, making readers laugh, stategic use of controversy, reviews of the latest technology, reveling in your love of Steve Jobs and all he creates. They each have their advocates, and they can all work.

Brian and I are heading out to the BlogWorld and New Media Expo this week, where we hope to meet plenty of Copyblogger readers. As you might know, one of the smartest things you can do at a conference is to see if there's someone you can learn from at the bar after the day's main events. Buy them a drink and you just might get a little bit of free and frank advice about your project. But since we know that trekking out to Las Vegas isn't on everyone's schedule,