Chris Garrett
Build your business by sharing what you know
One of the great things about the internet is the fact you can connect with people from all around the world with diverse backgrounds and interests. In fact I think technology has followed a very human drive for connecting, when techies connected computers together they were really connecting people. Only yesterday I was telling someone …
Since I wrote about how bloggers make money I have had three different people asking about the controversial topic of paid links. I know from past experience when one or two people ask there are usually many more people who are interested, so here are my thoughts and a small poll to see how you …
I consider myself a pretty clued up geek but since my Social Media Marketing roundup I have been learning loads about my favourite social media internet tools. One new find for me that I am quite interested in is the discovery on CornwallSEO that you can send your Stumbleupon pages to your friends If you …
Social Media seems to be quite a popular topic, you guys seemingly had no problems submitting your social media links. Thanks to all who submitted and for anyone who did not get featured, please try on the next one, better luck next time! So What Is Social Media? The main problem seemed to be from …
I have just been going through and editing the Social Media Roundup for tomorrow (submissions closed by the way). As part of the process I have gone through the major social media sites for insights. One thing that is common to almost all of them struck me as missing from Facebook. What is it? Discoverability. …
In my last post I asked “Does Your Site Frighten Readers Away?“. When you think about websites that attract or distract, what do you think of? Imagine if your website or blog was as friendly as one of these … Take a good look at the picture above. What do you see? Consider what the …
When someone arrives at your website, be it a corporate site, personal site, or blog, they have a couple of questions on their mind: Where am I? What is there to see/do? Why should I care? Many times a potential reader will have these additional thoughts: Woah, what is this guy talking about? This looks …
There are still people who believe the “build it and they will come” idea. That all you need is great content. Unfortunately it is not true. Look at the examples they provide and you will see what I mean. I challenge anyone to come up with an example of content that required zero promotion. There …
Branding, love it or hate it, try to ignore it, or embrace it, it’s there and we have to deal with it. Every part of our blogging, professional and personal lives is impacted by what we do, what people say about us, the brand we create. Below are some of the best links I was …
How do you know when your brand is successful? A successful brand comes in two parts: Recognition Feelings While those two properties are powerful, they are also imprecise enough to be frustrating for many people. How do you quantify feelings? How important is recognition? Recognition can be achieved simply enough. Repeated interactions with consistency. Just …
Body Language, or Non-Verbal Communication, is the majority of communication. Never more so than online. OK, if you publish video or you are a podcaster you have more expressive possibilities. For the rest of us though we have to be more careful to put across what we mean, who we are, our brand. Your blog …
Branding is about being memorable. It’s about staking a claim to a specific part of your prospects brain and putting up a little white picket fence around it. In the last post of this series we looked at finding your uniqueness, in this one let’s look at a simple way you can stand out. Your …
Branding exists in the mind of your prospects and customers. It is not about what you say, it is what they experience and remember. Branding is how people feel. Brands make promises. Branding is what people think of when they hear, see, touch, smell. Your brand “means” what they think it means, not what you …
Online advertising should be your best bet in terms of confidence. There is little you don’t know about performance of internet advertising campaigns. No hoops to jump through here, everything you need to know should be automated and available. So why is it people waste their advertising budget on no-hoper campaigns that generate lots of …
Why have I selected Aweber as my newsletter software over the free service from FeedBurner or FeedBlitz? I have thought a fair bit about this before taking the plunge, particularly because making a choice between fee and free is never easy for someone with a tight budget! Perhaps my thinking might help someone else who …
This post was created and queued for later viewing. As I write this I have just quietly launched a small experiment. In a news roundup post I have slyly tucked away a link to an email newsletter signup form. Yes, you read correctly, I have launched an email newsletter. I have no way of knowing …
Last night I had the rare treat of going out to a gig. I don’t go out much so that might have been treat enough but it was an especially enjoyable night because this was one of my favourite bands, Marillion. You might not have heard of them, especially if you are under a certain …
Authority blogs are not easy to create or grow, so why choose this way over seemingly easier types of websites and blogging?
Since my limitations post yesterday I have had a couple of people ask me how they can blog about their work without breaking confidences or getting fired. Writing on your blog is not gossip. While you could get plenty of traffic from your industry by spreading juicy titbits about your competitors and colleagues you will …
I have had this discussion before. You might remember it. Let me try again. “All you need is good content. Content is king. Write good stuff and the visitors will come” “Ugly sells” “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. Yeah, right. We think we buy products but what do we actually buy? Packaging. Promotion. …
Picture a riverbank, popular for fishing. One part is beautiful, sunny, nice grass verge. A great place to just sit and soak up the atmosphere, let alone fish. Another part of the river is muddy, dark, cold. People do not even like to walk their dogs through there. Sam turns up one morning. Some old …
In this business and indirect monetization blogging series I have been talking about how you can use blogs to gain attention and generate sales leads. Now we should really take a look at some examples. Here are five great blogs that sell. english cut: bespoke savile row tailors Just take a look at this quote. …
Blogs and online marketing. To even separate the two phrases in my mind feels weird. Bloggers are online marketers. You can’t blog successfully without online marketing. Online marketers who ignore blogging are entering a marathon with their shoelaces tied together. A similar (and just as confused) debate is about Blogs versus Websites. The question makes …
Selling with blogs? It’s not so long ago that I might have gotten myself lynched for merely suggesting such a distasteful thing. Slowly though the blogosphere is coming around to the idea that commerce is not necessarily evil, that in fact businesses need to make money and that they do that by selling stuff. Blogs …
Professional networking with blogs is something people do largely unconsciously. How can we use blogs for networking more intentionally? In this series I have been revealing how blogs can boost your business. Most businesses at some point will do the drinks, nibbles, business cards and handshakes thing. You might note I am not super excited …
This is the third post in my series about blogging for business. In the first instalment I talked about how blogs can help your business profit and in the previous article I showed the ways blogs boost your website traffic. Now I am going to talk about using a blog to generate more fame, credibility …
In the first post of this series I showed you how blogs generate indirect profits, publicity and leads for businesses. Let’s take a look at how. A primary motivation for anyone to set up a business website is to gain visibility. They want people to visit. Blogs are well suited to achieving this. How Blogs …
You have heard them “Build a list”“The profit is in the list”“It’s all about the list”blah blah. Most people who have read up on internet marketing will have come across this idea. But then blogs, or rather RSS, came on the scene and confused the issue. Several people have asked me if they should close …
I have been asked a question by many business people over the last couple of months. While I am still working on what my answer ought to be I have developed some thoughts. One of the great things about blogging is if you don’t know the answer then your readers will usually fill you in, …
What is Squidoo? Squidoo was a website-building and blog platform from Seth Godin. Squidoo blogs were called “lenses” and there were over 1.5 million lenses before the platform was sold to HubPages on August 15, 2014. Squidoo Blog Advertising Although all the tools are there and costs aren’t always super high, it is rare to …
In part 1 we looked at how web prospects are a lot like tourists visiting a foreign country for the first time. In this post we will look at how we can make it easier for our visitors to find their way without wandering down any dark alleys or tourist-traps. Making a destination decision Even …
When you are thinking about visiting a new place, what do you do? And when you get there, what do you look for? Picture it. You are sat on the floor with brochures all around you. Each picture and blurb seems more appealing than the last. It’s hard to make up your mind. Who is …
It’s been said so many times it has lost all meaning. Focus on the content. Content is king. Write! Fine. Why then do some people create crummy but popular content? How is it that brilliant writing is often overlooked? So it can’t be just about the content. Something else is necessary. Do you buy bottled …
Recall my interview with Sean D’Souza? Since the interview I have been poking him with a pointy blogging stick and he has finally started his blog to stop me nagging at him. He has already posted some great stuff, like this one about getting your customers to actually consume what you deliver them … Why …
In my last post I said I loved Seth Godins blog but hated that he doesn’t have comments enabled. He responded to my complaint with an email saying he reads and responds to his own email. I’m honoured. That’s great. It’s good to hear, but who would know? The public perception is still, and please …
I know this blog is not a success just yet. Why? People do not hate it. Wuh? It’s true. People do not dislike it so bad that they just have to tell me about it. There is no “love” feedback either. I just don’t get those sorts of messages. Sure, I get plenty of “You …
Every day I get emails from people asking I go look at their blog, or swap links. Some work and some do not. This post is about why. Actually let’s take a step back. The first type of request says “please look at my blog” but actually means “please link to me”. I can tell …
Why do I answer every single comment made here? A couple of people have asked why I did my Reader Appreciation post. Some have even implied that I have a big enough audience to not need to do this. What is it about comments I am so obsessed about? There are three critical aspects that …
This week I was pulled up on my comment links having the default “no-follow” attribute. This led to me installing the WordPress “do-follow” plugin and also to questions about if no-followed links have any value. First of all let me explain what “no-follow” means. The idea was hatched to prevent spammers profiting from carpet-bombing blogs …
Something a bit different for this post. The other day I had an opportunity to talk to Sean D’Souza, a cartoonist, marketing guru and expert on sales psychology based in Auckland, New Zealand. We cover a fair amount of ground but some of the highlights include: Why he doesn’t believe in advertising How he is …
