Seeing as it is a little while since the Summer Traffic Blog Project announcement I thought I would give you an update on what we have been discussing over at the Summer Traffic forum area: Your Traffic Goals and Mindset - Traffic on its own is not enough, discover how to think through your traffic goals and tactics so that you get the best results for your blog. Make Your Content Go Viral - Get more benefit from the traffic you already get, and magnify the results of your new … [Read more...]

Joanna Penn describes The Creative Penn as a site ... aimed at people who are interested in writing, self-publishing/print-on-demand and internet marketing for their books (in print/ebook or audio format). That is a great niche, there are thousands of people struggling to get their book written, published and sold. I know the pull of books very well myself. Joanna has self-published her print book using print on demand, and also e-books, along with marketing via clickbank, so she has … [Read more...]

A couple of people emailed me to ask why my big birthday competition was only open to email subscribers, why did I want email subscribers in particular? Well first of all I love all my subscribers :) There are just things you can do for email subscribers that you can not for RSS (currently). As many guessed, the first advantage of email over RSS is email subscribers are not anonymous. Being able to personalize and identify who you are talking to is very useful. The other advantages … [Read more...]

What is the difference between a popular blog and an ignored one? This is a surprisingly complicated question to answer. Great content is a given. No, that's not where it ends. It is not as simple as "content is king", no matter how many times that nugget is repeated. There are thousands of well written blogs out there with little or no traffic. So promotion needs to be added to the mix. Sometimes it is seemingly small things. On occasion tips and tweaks I suggest in my blog critiques … [Read more...]

In my last post I took the unusual step of suggesting there are people who should avoid blogging. While I am complete card-carrying, t-shirt wearing, tattooed on my brain blogging advocate, even I realize there are people who would be best off being blog readers than blog writers. It just is not for everybody, and that is fine. That said, who should blog? Have a passion? Something that you would stay interested in through bad and good times? Regardless of profit? Enjoy creating, … [Read more...]

Yes, you read that right. Why you should NOT blog. Blogging is not for everyone. There are some good reasons I have seen suggested why you should not blog: You don't have the time to do it justice. Blogging would add nothing to your business or life. Writing is too difficult or unpleasant. Your company is struggling to keep up with current order levels. Customer contact can never be in the culture. Change is out of the question. Colleagues can't be relied on to … [Read more...]

This blog critique is for Rob Nicholson of Humbled Eyes Photography. Photographers have the following main goals with their blog if they are going to be effective in attracting paying customers: Draw in visitors Generate interest Demonstrate professional ability Communicate personality Build towards action As you can tell from this list, it's not as simple as slapping a blog onto your site and watching the search juice kick in. Rob has done a good job of putting his … [Read more...]

I have come to a realisation recently that I wanted to check with you. I'm starting to think Reddit has overtaken Digg. It doesn't look as nice, doesn't have the big name, nor does it have the famous Kevin Rose, but as a user and as a Social Media type, Reddit seems to have edged out Digg, and I am not the only one who thinks so. Why is Reddit better than Digg? It Works - Breaking news really is breaking news on Reddit, not 2 day old news reheated. What is the point of this sort of … [Read more...]

As some of you knew, I am on vacation right now. Finding internet connectivity in this part of France has proven tough, but I have managed to locate a shaded, quiet corner with reasonable coffee and a free WIFI connection :) I should have brought business cards, it's amazing the conversations you can strike up just by displaying the Apple symbol around an internet hotspot! (If you want free blogging advice, this is the time to catch me, but you will have to do it in person, … [Read more...]

Last week I put a message on Twitter that prompted a couple of people to ask for more details: On way to sunny Reading, fighting through traffic and rain to see a client, writing blog posts on the road and trying to not feel car sick Yes, I was literally "blogging on the road" and it seems other people would like to do the same, so here is how I do it. My setup is comprised: Macbook Nokia n95 3G mobile internet tariff The Mac talks to the phone over bluetooth and uses the 3G … [Read more...]