Many people have been complaining lately about Digg. The “bury-brigade”, who bury stories just because they don’t like the subject matter, and bullying trolls who tear apart anything just for sport. Digg do not seem to want to do anything about it either, Kevin and co seem quite happy that they are pulling together an…
Are your doubts holding you back? Do you feel like a fraud? Talking to people just starting out I know these are common feelings. Here are some wise words from Bill Shakespeare, expert pro blogger of his time … Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Our…
You might have noticed under my posts a little cup of coffee icon. I am trying out a plugin for Ankesh called “Buy Me a Beer Plugin” … This WordPress plugin allows your readers to donate money to you via PayPal. The plugin is widget enabled. So the idea is if a reader likes your…
Another day, another memes (I invited anyone to tag me with a meme in return for a link and a free copy of my forthcoming ebook). Don’t worry, I am not going to tell my life story like yesterday, this one will be about you rather than me 🙂 Success is partly about good habits….
Bit of an autobiographical feel to this post. Don’t worry if this is not to your taste, there will be more tips tomorrow! In my post about what memes are I invited anyone to tag me with a meme in return for a link and a free copy of my forthcoming ebook. Bonnie tagged me…
As if I don’t already just give and give and give 😉 you can get more of my blog tips over at The Blog Herald in my new weekly “10 minute blog tips” series 🙂 First post is about getting more comments, let me know what you think …
The other day I challenged you to come up with a good Meme. Get my attention and as well as links and a help in getting your meme some traction, you will also get a copy of my forthcoming (really!) ebook. First, because I am a sucker for charity, is … the Charity Link Meme!…
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…
Blog Memes, what are they? I just got tagged with another Meme. Last time I mentioned Memes I got a bunch of emails asking what they were, so before answering this Meme let’s clear up what a blog meme is, shall we? In science, a Meme (pronounced to rhyme with “theme”) is a self-propagating unit…
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….
Remember my squidoffer? Remember just to get it seen I had to beg you for votes? Um, can I beg you to vote for my ad again? Squidoo just reset my votes back to zero. So my ad that I have paid for to show 12 weeks is not visible anywhere. Kind of sucks, when…
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…
Business and corporate blogs are powerfully effective and make up the “other” half of the professional blogging scene. Rather than showing adsense or banner ads, business and corporate blogs generate traffic, customer loyalty, leads and PR. Business blogs use indirect methods to turn a profit. Even if you don’t consider your blog a business, if…
Who is your blog for? What purpose does it serve? It’s good to have a goal when starting your blog. Knowing what you want to achieve helps keep you on track. Having an idea of where you are headed serves to guide your decisions. Focus on the prize, indeed, but not to the exclusion of…
Here are my top commenters for the month of April. If you were here in person I would give you all hugs, instead here are some links 😉 Mark Jack Jeff Jen Colbs Ashish Ashwin Marc Raj Chris Baskind
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…
More and more people are getting into blogging because they want to make money. To feed this desire more and more bloggers are writing about making money from blogs. I get asked how to go about monetizing blogs, and also why I don’t write more about the subject. This post will answer both questions. First…
Brian Clark and I are in a deadly blog battle over at Daily Blog Tips, please come to my aid with your vote clicks!
Are you waiting for me to get around to another blog critique submission announcement? Well if you want a review and can’t wait for me to get around to you a new site called UBlogMe has been set up especially to help bloggers get reviewed right now and for free. While they are still finishing…
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,…
If you ever get stuck for what to write about there is one place you can look that will provide post ideas that are Useful Original Valuable On-topic I have just been doing some much-needed housekeeping on this blog. Part of this process requires me to go through my comments. Wow, there is some good…
What is your productivity secret? Adam “monkatwork” Kayce has tagged me for the Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project. It’s a difficult question to answer. On the one hand, I do get a lot done. People often say to me that they wish they could also do this or that but they don’t have…
Yes, blog critique time again! It’s no secret than I am a fan of photography. For a couple of years now I have dabbled with my photography blog, been unhealthily addicted to Flickr and even have a couple of clients in photography and related industry. Portrait photographers are a special breed. While I have photographed…
What do most people do when they start a blog? They just start writing. This isn’t the wrong thing to do. Actually there is a lot to be said for just getting on and doing it. So what is the problem? You get whatever audience you attract. Lots of people are happy with any audience…
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…
Three interviews with little me, what is the world coming to? 🙂 I have started enjoying being interviewed lately, I think I am starting to be more relaxed and not stumble over my words quite so much. If you want to interview me feel free to ask, if you have interesting questions I will most…
A bit of a different blog to critique this time. Unlike my other blog critiques this is a blog attached to a network management product e-commerce store. Anyone with a corporate blog of any variety will likely be familiar with the challenges involved. The OPENXTRA Blog was launched in November 2006 judging from the archives….
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…
Today’s blog critique is the small business blog “Clever Start”.
“Diogenes” has asked me to respond to the following questions. Now, I don’t know who the questioner is but his or her questions are interesting enough that I thought I would answer them. What is a blog to you? Blogs are for me all about conversation. This is why I get so annoyed at fantastic…
Cool! My database tells me that Tamar weinberg made the 1000th comment on my blog 🙂 (on the post “Get a Real Job“). Thanks to Tamar and everyone who has made a comment, I appreciate it! Full stats from my Dashboard: There are currently 116 posts and 1,004 comments. Akismet has caught 2,213 spam comments.
Like most bloggers with a reasonable amount of readership I get some interesting comments. Most of my most … um … colourful come after a guest post or mention on anothers blog. One theme that seems to come up a lot is that I should “get a life” and related but subtly different, people earning…
In my last post I said blogs were an excellent content management system. A couple of people asked me to elaborate. What is a CMS and why are they a good thing? What is a CMS? A CMS (Content Management System) is simply a computer software package that makes it easy to create web pages….
Several people have pointed me to the Guardian piece about blogs by Victor Keegan. Sorry guys but you won’t find me getting hot under the collar, I don’t jump up and down defending blogs any more (I got that out of my system years ago). Here, since people asked, is my (hopefully calm) thoughts. If…
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…