Do you find yourself Googling up words, phrases and especially jargon, when reading blog posts? I do. It happened to me about ten minutes ago.One of my current projects requires getting elbow-deep in Drupals innards. Drupal is a fantastic blog/community/content management platform. It has a vibrant community, that is very helpful. Quite often though the community is so soaked in the software, and so used to dealing with other Drupal experts, they make all sorts of assumptions when providing help … [Read more...]
Are You Making These Blogging Mistakes?
John Chow has posted up a list of popular blogging mistakes. Here they are without his commentary, do read his full post but before you do I will add my thoughts after the list:Not UpdatingBlogging Only For MoneyRushing a PostNot Being PersonalBeing a Copycat Not Replying To CommentsNot Giving a Full Feed RSSNot Reaching Out To Other BloggersWriting For Google Instead Of PeopleNot Reading John ChowWhat all of these points come down to in my view, apart from the cheeky last one, heh, is … [Read more...]
Better Blog Branding: What’s In a Name?
One critical consideration when launching a blog is what you are going to call it. Why did I choose to use my old chrisg.com domain rather than create a new one? Branding was part of the reason. OK, now I said the 'B' word some people will have clenched. Please relax. It is a much talked about, much derided and even more misunderstood topic. My personal take on branding is that it is what people think about you, your product or service. It's about giving the right impression. I don't know … [Read more...]
Another Good Reason to NOT Have a Blogroll
I don't like Blogrolls. While they do serve a fine purpose, allowing visitors to see other blogs they might like, and sharing the link-love is always good, I don't do them. My reason will be clear in a second, first let's read about the stink happening in the political blog world from The Galloping Beaver Amnesty is granted to those who are guilty of something. Their act could be construed as somewhat ruthless. They expunged their blogrolls of many of the smaller blogs. In a world where links … [Read more...]
Want To See First-Class Examples of Flagship Content?
People are starting to provide me with some excellent feedback on my free Killer Flagship Content ebook. One of the requests is for me to provide more examples. Funnily enough I was just reading Aarons (excellent) blog and saw his short video entitled "What is a Self Reinforcing Authority". As well as examples that illustrate his own point they also support the Flagship Content idea Some documents and websites build self reinforcing authority that make them hard to beat for their targeted search … [Read more...]
Blog Top Trumps: How Do You Define Blogging Success?
Lorelle over at The Blog Herald is asking about bloggers success criteria What is your definition of blogging success and popularity? What do you use to measure it?I think it is important when starting to blog to at least spend a moment to think about why you are doing it, what you will get out if it, what you hope to achieve. That said, my goals have changed a great deal with my own blogging and are different with every new blog I launch.The goal for this blog is quite simple. I am thinking … [Read more...]
Blogger, MovableType and WordPress Template Tag Cheat-Sheet
Aaron has posted an excellent reference for anybody interested in editing or migrating templates. In his Template Tag Reference Sheet he cross-references tags between the Blogger, MovableType and Wordpress platforms. Worth bookmarking and coming back to when you needed. It's a shame Drupal isn't in there. Hey Aaron, here are the Drupal equivalents (using PHPTemplate)"Non-Loop" (page.tpl.php)$base_url$site_name$site_slogan"Loop" (node.tpl.php) $content$teaser$name$terms Note: Some of the above … [Read more...]
The De-Geekifying of the Web
Interesting thought from Darren Barefoot today We're rapidly eliminating the technical barriers from web publishing. Publishing text to a website is already about as easy as writing an email. The customization ("make my website pink with scalloped edges") and intregation ("show my knitting photos and upcoming S&M events on my website") work isn't as simple as it should be, but we're getting there.I guess I started out as one of the guys Darren describes. Back in the early 90's we didn't have … [Read more...]
Markets Are Conversations? Someone tell Sprint/Nextel …
With more and more companies getting on board the blogging and social media thing you would have thought the point had already tipped for the Cluetrain. Then along comes another dumb company to give us a kick in the reality box. According to Consumerist blogging and comments will get you fired at Sprint/Nextel Sprint/Nextel employees caught commenting or contributing to online venues, blogs, or consumer report-venues would be researched, identified, and documented via Corporate Security team and … [Read more...]
Finally, a Smart Digg Button for your Blog
Just what we needed, finally Digg have released New —˜Smart' Digg Buttons It's smart enough to detect whether your link is a Digg permalink or a URL and whether or not the content exists on Digg already. If it exists, you'll get the familiar yellow Digg box with a real-time Digg count to suggest visitors Digg your story. If the story doesn't exist yet on Digg, the first person to click on the Digg It link will be walked through the submission process.They are easy to implement, just … [Read more...]
Hi, I’m Chris Garrett: I work with business owners and entrepreneurs to help them build lasting and profitable relationships with audiences who grow to know, like and trust them
