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Social Media and Your Blog - Some Thoughts and Commentary

BloggerSavvy — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:12:25 +0000

“I don’t get a lot of traffic to my web site”. Is this statement familiar? If so, you might be unaware of the value of social media in promoting your blog! What is social media? It’s the use of other people (social) to promote your blog (or web site), improving its traffic and therefore improving your business. Social media is a very powerful force in current online marketing strategies.

In my opinion, the lack of understanding the importance of social media is one of the biggest contributing factors to the lack in targeted web traffic, of any volume. All too often it seems, a web site or blog is launched and there’s almost not effective growth plan or activities that capitalize on the benefits of social media. To be quite blunt, I’m not aware of any other low-cost effective blog promotional venues that has the capability and reach of social media.

For those not familiar, by social media venues, I’m referring to avenues such as Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Friendster, Facebook, and the like. Sites and services that are able to connect large communities of people in any given niche. Remembering of course that the better you can cater to a focused niche, the more pre-qualified your traffic is going to be.

With regards to social media marketing (or the lack thereof), I think each of us falls into one of four categories:

Fully aware and know how: Individuals who are fully aware of the value of social media and use it consistently to build their blog.
Aware and don’t know how: Individuals who are aware, but do not know how to effectively take advantage of it.
Unaware and don’t know how: Individuals who are unaware and do not understand how it works.
Don’t care and not interested: Individuals that simply avoid social media or don’t realize the value of it.

For those not familiar with social media or it’s impact, the following video illustrates the forces that shape it:

Regardless of which category of social media usage any of us fall into, it’s important at times, to be reminded of two primary inherent benefits social media offers bloggers. For those of us not familiar, the following may be an eye-opener!

Social media has a direct impact on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). How? It’s quite simple, social media builds (increasingly) the number of links back to our blogs. The more links back, the better the ranking. You might be thinking “Wait! I participate in paid link exchanges that can improve my ranking” . To be blunt, paid link exchanges that claim to improve SEO (in my opinion) are a worthless exercise and waste of financial resources. I’ve worked with numerous sites that have garnered no real benefits. In fact Matt Cutts of Google has often commented on this very issue: “Text links and PageRank” and “SEO Mistakes: link exchange emails“.

In my opinion, the most important issue with regards to social media based link building is that the links are not paid, they are permanent and of course obtained in a natural manner. By natural I’m referring to another site or blog linking to your blog as there is a genuine relationship or discourse between the two blogs. Such links are in essence a vote of trust and confidence in the value of your content. As such the more genuine links (or votes of trust) you garner from social media, the higher the authority of your blog.

I know from experience, the birth of a new blog with no traffic or social media buzz, has a difficult time to garner traffic and back links. One of the most effective ways to build them is to participate in the social media sphere! Join twitter, digg, technorati, linkedin, stumble, and so on… develop contacts, communicate, share. These are the activities that are going to help you grow your blog traffic and help you appeal to your target niche. From experience, here is one trick DO NOT ONLY POST LINKS TO YOUR CONTENT. Doing so is obvious to others in your social sphere; that you are only interested in self promotion.

Think of it this way. If you’re at a dinner party and the conversation from your side of the table always revolves around you, wouldn’t that make other guests think you’re self centered? Key issue: You’ve got to give if you want to get. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. That’s how it works. If you want others to help you, then you’ll need to freely help them. Therefore, when you’re twittering, stumbling or digging though the web, make sure you twitter, stumble and digg the content of blogs or sites you enjoy; other than your own.

Initial primary traffic encourages secondary traffic. What does this mean? Think of it this way, the more you socialize, the more contacts you make. They tell their friends, who tell their friends, and so on… Remember, social media is not about making money, it’s about making friends. Every blog, web site, business, group, organization, etc. needs friends, that’s what brings us the secondary traffic that can enable us to grow. Perry Belcher’s video (blunt language and all) expresses this very clearly (for those interested, Mr. Belcher’s blog can be found at perrybelcher.com):

As I’m sure you’ll appreciate from the video your house is your blog. That’s the place where you invite your social media friends too. That’s where you focus on your content and on listening to your readers. If your social media mission is to make money and get traffic, that’s just not going to work. Think about it this way, if you go to a party, is your “mission” to have fun or to garner followers?

The crux of the issue is that most blogs (and the businesses associated with them) seek to grow, becoming more profitable. Social Media can collect a core group of supporters (along with their peers) who can effectively recommend your blog to others. As such, it’s often these others who help grow your sales (as they were referred) and who in turn refer others through their social media networks.

Finally for those who don’t care and are not interested in Social media, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, right? Wrong… as the video below will clearly explain:

In conclusion, the more social media friends you have, the faster word of mouth will spread (with regards to your blog). Social media networking is an extremely effective manner with which to invite people to your blog. Your traffic will grow in leaps and bounds when there are a group of readers ready to answer your call to action. Readers that you found via Social Media.

What are some of your thoughts, commentary? Do you agree or disagree with some of the ideas above? How do you approach the issue of social media and blogging? Feel free to include your comments below.

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How to measure Twitter traffic

BloggerSavvy — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:00:39 +0000

I responded to an interesting question on LinkedIn, posed by Henk-Jan van der Klis asking:

“How to measure traffic to tweets & twitter profile? On regular web pages you can include some tracking codes to generate traffic reports, click-through%, etc. (Google Analytics, eXteme, etc.). How can I measure the traffic to individual tweets and my Twitter profile?”

It dawned on me that all of us who use twitter to increase our business (or personal) visibility have no tool that measures traffic going to our twitter profiles or individual tweets. For my readers who are not on twitter yet, the video below will explain, what twitter is, and should allow you to realize how important and effective it can be in promoting your business; and increasing your visibility to existing or potential clients:

Back to the question at hand, unfortunately until twitter allows its members access to such data, I don’t see a way that we could gather statistics that show the traffic to our twitter profiles or specific tweets. In my opinion, a great solution would entail twitter having an agreement with Google Analytics to that end. That would be a win-win-win scenario. We win by garnering access to such statistics, Google wins (as we need an analytics account to access our twitter profile and tweet statistics, thereby increasing their user base) and twitter wins by becoming even more valuable to the business community (and in turn increasing membership).

The only immediate advice I could offer (and offer to you) was:

“I’ve not seen twitter release access to that in their API. Currently the only method I see is in my own stats (looking at the referrer), which at least gives me an idea of who clicked on the link (in the twitter profile) to reach your page. I also, don’t think there’s a way to track traffic TO individual tweets (again, that would mean twitter would need to allow access to that data).

Since you mentioned Google Analytics, this link (following) should at least give you something: Twitter and Google Analytics: What to Track

Also helpful: Simple Way to Track Your Twitter Tweets Using Google Analytics

Please remember that methods such as this are only of value to track actual click throughs to your designated pages.”

I’m hoping the powers-that-be at Google and Twitter pick up the idea on this post and try to make it work.

What tools do you use to track or analyze traffic from twitter? Do any of you have a tool, code, idea or an existing web based service that can provide statistics to your tweets and twitter profile? Thoughts, comments? Feel free to ad them below.

Oh… and one shameless plug, please follow me on twitter to keep an eye on what’s going on in BloggerSavvy and access the tons of useful and helpful links, tips and tools I find on the web.

Keeping Your Focus Effective and Targeted

BloggerSavvy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:40:53 +0000

One issue I encounter from time to time, are individuals (or groups) who are keen to establish or improve their web logo, site or blog design, content, etc. but have little or no experience in current web trends, online marketing strategies, effective web branding, graphic design, copy writing, etc. In many cases the development scenario plays very much like the video below:

As I’m sure we can appreciate, humourous as the video may be, the end result is not the fault of the developer (or so we might initially think), rather the input of the clients. It’s one thing to provide valuable input (and we should), it’s quite another to assume command as if we are a graphic design or web development professional. Let’s elaborate on some of the issues in this video the majority of which have been mirrored in actual projects I’ve worked on:

Over analyzing.
Too many cooks in the kitchen.
Unrealistic time line expectations.
Changing the parameters mid-stream.
Adding parameters that are not related to the targeted message.
Too much information.
Use of copyrighted or trademarked material.
Obtaining the advice of people without knowledge and/or outside the target niche.
Assumptions without supportive facts.
Assuming personal ideas are paramount and effective.
Providing conflicting information or directives.
Impractical expectations.
Assuming we’re in the drivers seat.
Use of unresearched an unrealistic ideas.

Over analyzing, resulting in a loss of focus. When we are creating (or changing) a logo for our business, keep it’s message to the point, clear, neat and understandable. Not all ideas are good, a professional, effective graphic designer will be up front and tell us if an idea is horrible - and why. We need to (really) listen to the professionals we’ve retained. Remember, from an experience perspective they work in the graphic and online industry day in and day out, we don’t.

Who’s in charge? Ensure that one team member in our group is in charge, and the liaison with our designer. Prior to flooding a designer with all our ideas, let’s weed them out amongst our team members. Remember the old adage, “garbage in, garbage out“. To many ideas are confusing and again facilitates the loss of focus. If there are too many cooks in our kitchen, we need to remove some of them.

An effective developer or designer can give us a realistic time line to project conclusion. Expecting a Valentines Day period launch, for example, should be considered four to six months earlier for most projects. The point here is that it’s up to us to ensure we provide enough time to allow our web contractors to complete a project on target.

Once a project is in development, it is not a good approach to change the parameters. This increases costs, lengthens development time and further confuses and loses the focus of our original message. Additionally, the inclusion of new, extra materials, ideas, etc. not only delay the completion of our project, they also further muddy the focus of the intended message. This would be a time to pause and consider that our “additions” should be part of a separate project.

It’s a good idea to provide our developers, designers, copywriters, etc. with as much relevant and pertinent information as we can. However, ensure that we do not overwhelm them with superfluous information. We should feed information that retains the focus of our project message.

No, we cannot use copyrighted or trademarked information, etc. unless there is written authorization from the legal owners to do so.

When inviting input from third parties, ensure that we’re asking the right people. Namely, the very people who are our intended niche and whom our message is targeted towards.

The old adage “When you assume, you make…” is applicable here. Remember, and idea we think might be good is exactly that… “might be”. Find out, do our research, gather the facts. Listen to the individuals we have retained to service our needs. They can very quickly provide us with feedback, in great part because they have broader exposure. Remember, just because we like something does not mean it’s going to be effective, also, it does not mean that our target market is going to like it as well.

When we provide conflicting directives and information, that should be a clear sign that we’ve lost focus of the message and it’s objective. Stop, stand back, organize and then return. Remember, an effective contractor is one who works with us, not for us.

Remember, common sense and practicality are effective approaches. Expecting impractical fixes or changes, things that work opposite to their intended or standard fashions, etc. are often impractical, silly, add extra cost and frustration to us and our target market and provide no other function than to move focus to bear upon these inconvenient “things”. Again, we really should listen to the advice of the professionals we’ve retained.

Key point, when we retain the services of a graphic designer, web developer, copywriter, etc., we are not the boss. They are. Our job is to provide them with the tools they need. It is their job to lead the project and bring it to successful fruition! They are the experts in their fields and should not be fettered. We rely on their expertise - That’s why we hired them, as such, we should not be trying to do their job (by constantly telling them what to do and/or how to do it). Instead we should be providing feedback based upon our own research.

Granted, we’ve discussed a fair bit of what we can do to ensure our focus remains effective and targeted, but as depicted in the video above, I noticed several failings of the developer among them are the following four:

He never indicated or further clarified conflicting information.
The designer didn’t seem to communicate that the initial message was becoming lost in the graphic flotsam being added.
Frustration seemed to be increasing for the designer and he should have approached the client to discuss and avoid the issues that were creating frustration (he should have said something).
Above all, the designer should have alerted the client that their ideas are obscuring their initial focused, targeted message and that it is putting the final success of the project in jeopardy.

Conclusion? Prior to even considering a project, we should already have documented our plan and fully researched it. We should have an action plan in place (much like writing a business plan) and be able to effectively communicate and answer the questions from the professional we retain. On a personal note, the best client I ever had was one who had a web site plan developed . She gave it to me to read (and it read almost like a business plan). It listed all the information and answers to questions. It was well organized, very focused. It was designed in a way that clearly outline the objective, goals and needs, while providing the freedom for me to complete the site in a professional manner, as I needed (so as to meet the objectives).

What’s your take on this? Agree? Disagree? What would you add, remove or suggest? Feel free to comment your input below.

Top 10 Blog Traffic Tips

BloggerSavvy — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:18:32 +0000

In an earlier post, Scott Mahler of Datex Media commented asking about the newest strategies of increasing blog traffic. While there are some new aspects, I think for many of us, it’s important to first “hammer home” some of the best tips blog owners can use to help ensure traffic growth. This blog post invites your comments! What’s new in blog marketing? What works for you? Let us know below.

The #1 strategy to garnering more traffic to your blog is:

“Write good quality, in-demand content“. (Remember you are writing too people, not at them).

And of course some of the activities I successfully use are:

Use social networking tools such as: StumbleUpon. Run an advertising campaign via StumbleUpon. Use twitter. Ensure you provide tweets of value and customize your twitter page to match the branding of your blog. Never complain needlessly on twitter (do you want to spend your day with a whining sour-puss?) Invite people to follow you on twitter. You may find my earlier post “Common Blog Traffic Sources?” to be of interest - Hint… Google is NOT my biggest traffic source .
Include information about your blog in the signature of every email you send (including the URL).
Use subscription systems on your blog. Plugins such as Comment Approved Notifier and Subscribe2 can help you accomplish this. More useful plugins can be found in the post “25 Most Beneficial Wordpress Plugins“.
Enhance your update services. When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the site update services you configured. Here is a robust list of 145 Update Services for Blogs.
Use your blog information and URL in forum signatures.
Comment on other blogs. However, don’t comment just for the sake of obtaining a link, doing so is often very obvious, instead, provide valuable feedback, thoughts and ideas.
eMail readers and thank them for visiting.
Post new, quality content regularly. Doing so keeps readers interested and momentum going. Additionally, ensure you provide valuable links to external resources as well as those within your blog.
Trust your readers. Often it is very annoying (and a bit of a turn off) to wait for comment approval every single time, when they participate (comment) on your blog. Instead, it may be better to “lift the embargo” for those who have provided valuable comments before. If a comment from those individuals is inappropriate, you can always edit or remove it later.
Use lists on your blog. Lists are attractive as they are scannable, easy to use and link to; and easy to add to later.

I’ve been following a fair bit of the happenings in the blogsphere (and for me some of them are new). Of note is the changing landscape where word of mouth seems to be successful whereas viral marketing appears to be waning.

Most importantly, we’d like to know what some of the new strategies are, that you use or recommend. How do you approach them? What do you do or recommend? What’s your perspective in new blog promotion strategies? Comment below. Also, for a bit of link love, comments added to this post will have the no-follow tag removed as I move them into the post with your credit. So… don’t be shy.

Word of Mouth - Here to stay?

BloggerSavvy — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:26:11 +0000

I received a message from Erica DeWolf of eMarketing & New Media this morning and read an interesting post on her blog “Word of Mouth Marketing: Measurable?“. The discussion revolves, in part, around the various aspects of viral marketing vs. word of mouth. While there are pros and cons to both methods (and they both have their place and uses), I did not agree completely with the statement from Seth Godin: “…word of mouth is a decaying function…”

While I visit Seth Godin’s blog regularly (it’s a valuable resource!) and value the information and resources (he’s been blogging longer than I have), unless I’ve misunderstood, I just can’t agree that word of mouth is decaying, instead I think it’s a matter that less people are realizing, or learning how to use it effectively (my opinion of that blog post is that Mr. Godin appears to favour viral marketing over word of mouth; in this case). On the other hand Erica DeWolf’s post continues to quote Dave Balter, where he surmises that:

“Viral marketing is typically reserved for programs where the advertising is talked about as opposed to the product itself. A good example are viral videos, where the humor trumps the brand, ala Cadbury Schweppes drumming gorilla video—humorous partly due to the Phil Collins soundtrack, of course—and the parodies which followed.

Word of mouth is the actual sharing of an opinion about a product or service between consumers. Your viral marketing only works if it gets people talking about the product itself. If it doesn’t, you might create some laughter and awareness, but there won’t be a change in sales.”

Again, while these individuals have been blogging longer than I and certainly have had longer career’s within these arenas, I think a key point he makes in a very subtle way is that word of mouth is a real person-to-person sharing of an opinion - and the mere nature of that sharing is understandably powerful. He also points out that viral marketing has an Achilles heel, in that awareness does not change sales. Personally I’ve often seen viral videos of a product, service or public statement that are very funny, so much so that I pass them on. However, if asked what the product, service, etc was - I’d not have a clue! I’ve also often seen this on television advertising, the adverting is so funny and amusing that it captures 100% of my interest but 0% of knowledge retention. And here’s the funny thing, if someone specifically tells me about a good product or service - I remember it! Is word of mouth here to stay? I think it is!

This leads me to the opinion that both tools (viral and word of mouth) have their uses. The old saying “Find the golden middle-way” comes to mind. In my opinion, viral advertising is better used for short term traffic volume to garner awareness. Word of mouth, in my opinion, is a tool best used for long term steady traffic growth.

Dave Balter (founder of BzzAgent) authored an incredible, readable, useful book, (which you can download a free copy, as a special treat to my readers): The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II. While the book is available for download through various blogs, I wanted to include it here for your ease and because I think all my readers should at the very least take a peek.

I’ve found the book to be valuable as it’s not written from a simple, knowledgeable perspective. It’s different! Instead, it’s written by an individual who lives and breathes “Word of Mouth”. I’m learning from his book, how “managed” word of mouth can help me reach my goals. In my case, I’ve learned that the products and services I provide do not promote (or speak) for themselves, rather the use of managed, guided word of mouth will better enhance my exposure and awareness (by other people of my products and services).

To be honest, I initially did not think the book would be worthwhile, but downloaded it anyway. It was only after I scanned a few pages that I thought it was good, and began reading. I also found it particularly useful in that it presented me with good ideas and interesting arguments. whether you’re aware of it or not, you’ll want to download a copy as well. I’m not suggesting that 100% of the content is for you (as there were some parts I did not focus to much on while reading as I was familiar with them), I’m sure that there’s at least one gem that will help you!

Overall, I found it also helped me to broaden my own perceptions and ideas while giving me some useful tips. And I don’t mind saying that it was also a good read.

But don’t take my word for it (or dare I say pandering?); to make my point, what’s unusual about the photo below and why?

Download: The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II and read the book to find out! Please don’t forget to share the link on twitter!

What’s your take on the book? Do you agree with my opinions? Feel free to add your thoughts and opinions below.

Putting Things in Perspective

BloggerSavvy — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:13:24 +0000

Just over a year ago, I was sent a thought provoking YouTube link “The Machine is Us/ing Us“. Not only was it educational in describing how the web is used, how we use it to use us, but also an eye opener in terms of how we need to redefine our thoughts and values. It was one of those moments that made me as a blogger stand back and think “Wow, there are a couple of things I can change”.

Today I received another link (from the same group), the video is below (”A Vision of Students Today”). The specific topic deals with the characteristics of students today. While this may not be directly related to blogging, some of the comments and suggestions within this video are not only moving but also provocative in that (I think) bloggers, such as myself, need to stand back from time to time and put ourselves in someone else’s shoes (such as our readers). Doing so perhaps can empower us to provide content that is more meaningful and useful (among other things). A case in point from the video, “18% of my teachers know my name”.

About the only intelligent response to the video that immediately comes to mind is: What are we doing?!

Given some of the statements such as: “I will read 8 books this year, 2300 web page…” in my opinion implies (to me at least) that bloggers need to maintain a higher quality of content and ethics.

Again, while this video may not be directly related to blogging, I thought it provided a message that we all need to stand back and listen to, in many ways it was also moving.

I think we need to put things in perspective.

Saving Your Data When Disaster Strikes

BloggerSavvy — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:50:35 +0000

For years, I’ve always believed that keeping your data safe is critical. Without a safety net, there’s no fast method to recreate years of blog or web site content additions and updates. I’m sure you’d agree with me right? Right! I’ve rarely had any issues until recently. Do you want to avoid some of these costly issues for your blog?

As some of you are aware, I recently experienced two disasters that effected my blog and how I worked. The first disaster resulted in the initial loss of my blog (and several hours of work it took to write the initial content). The second resulted in the near-loss of data on my computer and a loss of my Internet connection. Both issues lost me time and cost me money.

Issue #1 - Software Related

The web server was configured to automatically create file and database backups every 24 hours. I even received the daily email messages, indicating the backups were created; and faithfully downloaded the new backups each day. Shortly after a I launched this blog, a scripting issue on the server caused all databases to be dropped (deleted). Normally it would be a simple fix to use the existing backups to restore the blog, without much stress.

The reality:

The backups were not overwriting the old ones. So while I was able to use the backups to obtain lost content, the actual data was old (and therefore out dated). Needless to say, it was upsetting to think that I may have lost all my content for a newly launched blog. Unfortunately, the database backup only contained the default blog post and comment entries that are included with the basic Wordpress installation. I did have the files (they were also on my PC), but again, the most important aspect of the blog was the posts (contained in the database).

Fortunately I was saved by the Google Cache, Windows Live Cache and Yahoo Cache using the search term “site:bloggersavvy.com”. If you need to reclaim your posts from the cache you can use the same command to obtain copies of your lost posts using the same search syntax (site:your-domain-name.com). That search term will list all the pages of your site that the Search Engines have indexed and cached. As this was the only recourse, I was lucky to recover 100% of my posts and pages! It took about 8 days for all the content to appear in the cache. One thing I noticed was that I had to search several times a day to catch cached pages, as in some cases cached posts disappeared quicker than I expected (so keep monitoring and save your lost pages right away).

What I learned:

Do not rely or trust in the accuracy of automated backup scripts. Actually read the contents to confirm accuracy.
Do not rely on one or two copies of backups, have a third (independent) “fail safe” to save your posts if your primary backups fail.
Always have an action plan in the event of such a disaster, if you have a plan you will avoid the stress of trying to determine a solution, when things are not working. Speaking of which, finding solutions when you are under stress is not as productive as finding them when things are okay.
Solve the problem before it happens, be proactive. Had there been a third independent backup system operating, chances are the recovery would have taken a couple hours at most (instead of a week).

Issue #2 - Hardware Related

I configured my computer to automatically download all data, every 24 hours. This resulted in backups being created on my PC (which I later forwarded to another small file server on my local network). This resulted in me having a second off site backup of all my blog posts and files (the first backup remains on the hosting server). Also because I would copy the backups (on my PC) to another file server, I had a third backup. A backup of the backup so to speak.

The reality:

While I was diligent in ensuring I had off site backups (with current data), I failed to plan effectively for a hardware failure. My computer has two hard drives and both of them started to fail! My operating system became crippled and it was hard to boot up the PC. I used a bootable diagnostic disk from the hard drive manufacturer and their diagnostic confirmed the hard drives were failing. To further compound this issue, I had a switch on my network (it acts like a hub to allow more than one computer to access the network - and internet), which failed, resulting in me not being able to access the Internet.

Replacing the switch was easily accomplished by a quick trip to the PC hardware store. I had to order 2 new hard drives to replace the failing ones and reinstall the operating system along with the applications. Before doing this, I needed to reclaim the lost data (as the file server only had some of the data copied to it). After phoning a few data restoration companies, who gave me (in my opinion) excessive and expensive options of $250 - $3500 CDN, before even working on obtaining the actual data, I decided to find out other options. I send a few messages on twitter from a friend’s computer and used Google to search for some self-help options. I found a good solution for about $135 CDN, called “Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recover“. I downloaded the demo version first, just to see if it could access the drive (it did) and then paid for the full version to recover my lost data (which automatically sent it to the working file server). One issue I had to deal with was the constant reboots of the system (not because of the recovery software) but because of the failing drives (which the operating system was also on). It took almost four days to finally reclaim just about 100% of my data.

I also opted to install a proactive solution and purchased a D-Link DNS-321 network storage unit, to which I added two more hard drives again, and had one mirroring all it’s contents to the other. In the event when one of those drives fails - and eventually they will, the second drive in that unit will be a duplicate of the failed drive.

Waiting for parts, installation of software, etc. cost me about a week of lost time and work. But using the data recovery software and replacing the hardware fixed all issues.

What I learned:

Always plan for unexpected hardware failures. Moving parts (such as hard drives) do eventually fail.
It is unrealistic (for home users or small business operators) to keep extra hard drives on hand, so make sure there is a separate storage unit (that is a backup of your existing data).
Keep 3 sets of blog backups at the very least. One on the web server, one on your PC and the third on a separate system (or backup network storage unit). Doing so is proactive and resolves data loss issues before they happen).
Be nice to your web hosting support team! - If you are nice to them, they will be nice to you. Capiche?

I should note that there are online solutions as well, such as:

However, I have not actually used their services, so have no idea of the support or service level quality. I’d appreciate (we all would, I think) comments below from anyone who does use online backup services. Are they effective, easy, affordable, etc? Please let us know in your comments.

Side note: I also use a Wordpress plugin that supports automatic backup scheduling of my blogs database and emails me a copy of the database every day, it may help you too.

In conclusion, I cannot stress enough the need for all blog owners (such as myself) to have a disaster plan ready. Doing so will reduce stress and down time. Additionally, the second factor that needs extra emphasis is to ensure you operate in a proactive manner. Remember that your data (and the blog requiring it) can be effected by software failures, hardware failures, malicious activities, and so forth. As such, I cannot stress enough the peace of mind that comes with the knowledge that redundant backup systems bring.

Here’s a helpful how-to backup video from BetaFlux Studios on YouTube: “…it will show you how to create and run a very important backup utility in your operating system…”:

Have you had any issues similar to these? How did you resolve them? Did I miss anything in this post? Or do you provide related solutions that help blog owners? Feel free to answer below!

Top 15 Software Applications for Windows Bloggers

BloggerSavvy — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:31:17 +0000

As some of you may know, my primary blogging applications are on Linux based PC’s, however a large portion of my clients and visitors are Windows based and several have asked me what I think would be the best software for Windows based bloggers - To improve productivity, safeguard information, enhance research and communication. I prefer to take a frugal approach to answering such questions, after all, why incur extra costs when you don’t have to?

Side note: Many of these applications are also available to my Linux friends (and Mac) too.

For all those who asked, and those interested to know, I’m sure something on the list below will be useful:

1) eMail Communication.

Thunderbird is an email client that features intelligent (learning) spam filters, spell checker and customizable layout. It provides IMAP/POP support, HTML email composing, email search, address book, advanced message filtering, address completion, import tools, and multiple email and (RSS) newsgroup accounts. You can add extensions for extra features including:

Quicktext email template creation and for super fast addition of predefined text snippets to an email message.
Display Mail User Agent so that you can better see what application is sending you email. This helps in avoiding spoofed email. For example, Google is never going to send you email using Outlook Express.
Duplicate Contact Manger helps you avoid duplicated contacts in your address book.
Multi Language Dictionaries allow you to customize your spell checking option.

2) Web Surfing.

Firefox helps you browse web pages faster (for improved researching), more safely, and more efficiently. Some good features are pop up blocking, tabbed browsing to let you view multiple web pages in a single window, and opening links in the background so that they’re ready for viewing when you’re ready to read them. Again, there are several plugins I use, which may also aid you. Some of the ones I find most helpful (among others) are:

Add Bookmark Here 2 is an extension that facilitates adding your bookmark to any category without wading through the menu system.
Colourful Tabs creates a different colour for each tab. It makes tabs easy to see and easy to switch too when I have an excessive number of tabs open. (Which happens often when I’m conducting online research).
Copy Plain Text helps me avoid the formatting when I am copying text between pages and blog posts. Nothing’s more annoying then copying text to find it’s also duplicated the font, colour, font size, etc. This extension gives you the choice to copy something as plain text only.
Kgen allows us to see which keywords are strong on our blog post and pages. Then we can use them on social sites as more effective (and relevant) tags or for SEO (Search Engine Optimization.
PrintPDF enables a simple print to pdf function for Firefox. Simple and useful.
Read It Later is one of the tools I use the most! Sometimes I don’t really need to keep a bookmark of a page; I just need a way to flag it for later reading. This extension does just that, it helps me avoid cluttering my bookmarks with pages I’ll probably only read once or twice.
Reload Every will reload a web page every so many seconds or minutes (that you set). It is very useful for pages where the content is changing. For example, I use it when sniping items on eBay, (this allows me to place a bid at the last possible moment). It’s an automated way to keep refreshing content in your browser window.
SEOQuake is a robust tool that helps with SEO and Internet promotion. It’s an intelligence and investigation tool that simplifies your access to pagerank, indexing, keywords, social site inbound links and other features.
TagSifter is a way to tag each bookmark you make (with one or more tags). This makes searching for bookmarks or related bookmarks, faster and simpler.
Update Scanner is useful to us when a site does not have an RSS feed as it monitors site changes. It also helps us monitor changes to pages (also when the changes won’t be found in a site’s RSS feed).

3) File Uploading.

Filezilla is an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) application that allows you to upload and download files to and from your server. One useful feature is the ability to resume (in case the connection to your web hosting server is interrupted. Most of us will use the Filezilla Client (not Server).

4) Content Mirroring.

HTTrack helps keep a local copy of all your blog content on your local PC. While I always stress that you must keep an off site, current backup of your blog files and database in your possession at all times. This tool will maintain a full copy of your blog content on your PC, or on your laptop. It also allows you to display your blog when a web connection in unavailable.

5) Web Browsing Safety.

PeerGuardian helps protect us form visiting bad sites as it maintains an IP blacklist. If a web site or blog is hosted on a blacklisted IP, PeerGuardian will intervene to safeguard you.

6) Offline Blogging.

w.bloggar is a tool that I can take with me (on a USB flash drive). It allows us to edit posts when we are not connected to the Internet. It also allows us to create posts when not connected to the Internet. Our content is save locally. When we have a connection we can simply publish our changes and new posts and voilà, they will appear in our blog.

7) Healthy Blogging.

Workrave helps me in preventing of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). It frequently alerts me to take small pauses, rest breaks and restricts me to my daily limit. I find I’m in front of the PC all day and this application helps me avoid not only wrist, arm, shoulder and neck pain; but also helps avoid eye strain.

8) Accounting Information.

GnuCash is a personal and also a small business accounting package. I like it because it is cross platform friendly (meaning I can use it on Linux and Windows). It’s easier to use than the name may suggest. .

9) Presentation Creation.

Wink is a great tool for those of use who need to create tutorials and presentations for our blogs.

10) Traffic Building Tool.

TweetDeck, being one of the most recent applications I use to monitor twitter as well as communicate with twitter users. It’s simpler to use (in my opinion) than some of the other applications I’ve tried. It helps me break down the communication into manageable chunks, that way I’m not spending excessive time on twitter.

11) Document Creation.

OpenOffice helps me create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. I use it to create seminar presentations and documents for my blog clients. Again, there are a fair number of extensions that allow you to improve upon features and enhance your blogging productivity: Open Office extensions.

12) Graphic Creation.

Gimp helps me retouch photos or create new images. It also comes with a long list of plugins, from which you can select and install.

13) Time Tracking.

ToDoList facilitates time tracking using timers you can activate when you are working on a task. It helps make time tracking painless and improves productivity (as you can see where your time is spent and where you could better spend it). You’ll notice it has lots of other features too.

14) Desktop Publishing.

Scribus is a desktop publishing software that with an intuitive interface; usable for press-ready documents. Again it’s cross platform ready, so I can create print page layouts on Linux, Mac or Windows.

15) Data Backup.

BackupPC is my favourite automated backup system. It back up all the important data on my blogging computer to another server (which in my case is on an internal network). It helps prevent data loss if my PC fails (saving my contacts, documents, bookmarks, images, PDF’s, etc.)

As may be evident, there’s not a lot of “extra” software installed on my “Blogging Box” (the PC I use exclusively for blogging). It’s a lean, mean machine. Humour aside, one aspect to good applications and good productivity is to eliminate the “fluff” and interruptions in your work flow. Again, one huge benefit is that all the software is free, there is no cost.

While I’m sure many of you may have seen or use other applications I’ve not mentioned (or may not have considered), this list is by no means exclusive. What applications do you think are good for bloggers? What big omissions have I made? Comment below and let us know what else should be on this list.

6 Simple Tips to Encourage Blog Comments

BloggerSavvy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:33:00 +0000

One question I often field is how to encourage more visitors to comment on your blog. In particular it seems, many of the people I’ve spoken to seem demotivated because “…nobody ever sends feed back… there’s no response…” Does this sound like you? If so, the following six tips are just for you.

1) Ask for Comments.

I can’t make the statement any simpler. I’ll say it again, if you want something, ask for it. In my opinion, the best place to ask is right at the end of you post. If your visitor has read this far (if the content is good quality, they will), you’re more likely to garner a response. Most importantly, indicate that you respect their opinions, make sure you respond. This is commonly referred to as a “Call to Action“. Once you’re blog post is finished, empower your readers to add to or improve the content. Empower them to ask questions. Also, enable them to easily follow up by using the Subscribe To Comments Wordpress plugin. This plugin allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.

2) Remove the Barriers.

Nothing is more annoying then spending extra time writing a quality comment, and then finding out you have to register! Most people will not do that (in my opinion). Remove features such as forced registration, login first, etc. As a blog owner you have the ability to moderate messages before they appear live on your site. There are also anti comment-spam plugins (such as Akismet). The point is to make commenting easy.

3) Add some Controversy.

This is dependent on the content you’re writing, as such, it’s not always easy to do. In a sense it’s akin to link baiting - That is providing some sort of motivational thought to illicit a reaction. In this case you may have comments contrary to your post and other comments agreeable to it, the point being that there are comments.

4) Respond to Comments.

Providing a quality response, when necessary is a good way to encourage comments. Additionally, one tool you can use may be a Wordpress plugin like Show Top Commentors which you can use to display your top commentors in the sidebar (display a link to their web site or blog etc). Blog about a comment. That’s one method I have used on this blog and on others. It promotes discussion and… more comments.

5) Provide Recognition.

Visitors who comment on your blog, enjoy recognition (like the “Show Top Commentors” plugin I mentioned above). If you want more visitors to comment, you’ll need to show them what’s in it for them. Show the benefits. I’ve even seen some blogs run a contest wherein the best comment wins a prize. You can reward commentors in other ways by emailing to thank them, sending them a free ePublication, etc.

6) Participate in the Community.

A good way of garnering comments is to make them! Both on your blog and on others. Keep in mind that when commenting on other blogs, simple comments don’t garner nearly as much traffic and comments on your blog as quality, thoughtful comments do.

As I’m sure you realize, these activities are not difficult to complete. One thing I’d like to point out, if your blog is relatively new, don’t expect an excessive burst of comment growth - Remember, you need to grow blog traffic first. But, keep in mind to have these tools and ideas in place before you grow your blog traffic.

Did I miss anything? What do you do to encourage comments? Are there better plugins than the ones I listed? We’d all be interested in learning what you have to say in the comments below.

145 Update Services For Blogs

BloggerSavvy — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:19:37 +0000

I just received an email (about a new blog post earlier today). The questions was “…you mentioned [blog] update services and pingomatic, what is that…?”

For those of us who use Wordpress, it’s a feature you can configure in the writing settings of your blogs administrative area. Simply log in and go to “Settings” - “Writing” and look near the bottom. You will see the following:

“When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services. For more about this, see Update Services on the Codex. Separate multiple service URLs with line breaks.”

Many readers subscribe to such services and will see that you have new content posted. By default, Wordpress only notifies rpc.pingomatic.com. The list below contains another 145. Make sure you back up your wordpress files and database BEFORE adding this to the “Update Services” of your blog.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc/
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/

Please let me know if there are any others! - Cheers.

Common Blog Traffic Sources?

BloggerSavvy — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:23:31 +0000

I had an interesting discussion about blog and web site traffic sources with a colleague of mine over the weekend. He was looking at the changing landscape of web traffic, especially how his blogs were outperforming his “traditional” web sites. He alluded to an earlier post of mine “Why Blogs May Be Better Than Traditional Sites“, and suggested that the changing face of how data is accessed, shared, exchanged, mashed up, etc. should also be reflected in the web statistics of blog owners. He suggested (among other things) that traditional linking, wherein you ask a site owner to exchange links is an antiquated method that simply does not hold true in today’s changing webscape. I disagreed until he suggested I take a look at the number of social web sites that are driving traffic to any one of my blogs.

I chose my Linux (Ubuntu) based blog, selecting the statistics for a full year (July 17, 2007 to July 17, 2008 - Since it I didn’t start promoting it until July) and was rather surprised by a couple things. I assumed that Google would still be the prime traffic source. I also assumed that all the links from other (non-blog, “traditional” sites) sites would rank high. I was surprised in both cases. I personally found it interesting to note that you get a good statistical perspective on a day-to-day basis, but you’ll get a more accurate view if you stand back and look at the big picture over a longer time period. Here are the results below:

As you can see above, Social Media sites took the lead (just a tich ahead of Google). I also found it significant that inbound traffic from other blogs had a clear lead over inbound traffic from “traditional” (static) web sites. Equally surprising was how I saw that Google outperformed inbound search engine traffic by a massive lead.

The specific driving force within the Social Media (36.41% traffic), without question was StumbleUpon, which championed a massive lead of social media based traffic at 85.56%. Just look at the Social Media results breakdown below:

One thing I found interesting to note is some users of StumbleUpon shared some of the post links they saw in Reddit and Digg. So… while some posts that went viral, Digg and Reddit produced traffic spikes, they were only significant for a short time period. Instead, social media sites (primarily StumbleUpon) saved those “traffic spiked” posts and subsequently that blog enjoyed long term, year round traffic.

What did I learn from our discussion and an examination of the blog statistics? Among several things, below are some of the points that were more predominant.

There’s a lot of discussion about to benefits or lack thereof, with regards to using sites that can provide instant massive traffic volume (such as Digg). While sites such as Digg may provide short term spikes (for the average blog). Visitors to sites such can and will share your post link with others. As such, don’t discount the power of sites such as Digg. Short term effect, but a long term social effect.
Google still loves me. Humour aside, SEO or the lack thereof can have a large effect on traffic form search engines - I think we know that. More to the point however, I noticed that the posts that are heavily shared on social sites have a much higher page rank than those which don’t, appearing higher in search results. It seems to me therefore, to continue providing quality content that is of value to the “community”.
Continue to participate in blogging and other dynamic platforms. Convert the remainder of my old-fashioned static site to dynamic packages (blogging, CMS, etc.) Why? When you post a blog, it pings site update services (such as pingomatic). Static (”traditional”) sites don’t do that. Each time a post is published RSS readers obtain the updates, automatically. These are things that help drive repeat visits (subscribers). Many of which might be adding your posts to various social sites.

While I’m fairly sure many blog sites may follow the general pattern I’ve seen with my traffic sources. I don’t think they will all follow the pattern established in the social media site rankings. This is mainly an issue of blog character, readership, blogsphere area and so forth. Not all blogs are in the same neighbourhood and have the same types of readers. For example a blog that focuses on internet marketing, I would assume might have more traffic from Sphinn, for example.

All too often, I find business owners (and site owners) oblivious to the power that dynamic sites can bring them, and how they are better able to make use of social media sites. In other cases, business owners simply don’t believe what they are being told as they appear not to have a good grasp of how the Internet really works and how their potential market really uses it. My previous post “Why Every Business Can Benefit Form a Blog” for example, shows that a UK survey indicates “…66% of businesses believe that blogs are becoming more influential as an information source…” While this number is UK based, I assume it may be similar in other geographic regions and , more importantly, will to grow!

It will be interesting to see how the trends change over time. Perhaps one of the upcomming issues that search engines will need to address even further than they are now, is the inherent appeal of sites (such as blogs) that are better equipped to address the needs of site visitors. What new tools will be available to blogs desiring visibility in a growing webscape? As the video in my prior post (link at the top) suggested, we’ll need to rethink ourselves.

25 Most Beneficial Wordpress Blog Plugins

BloggerSavvy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:33:18 +0000

I’m often asked what plugins are the best for Wordpress, or if I know of a plugin that provides some specific functionality. A reader commented in one of my earlier posts, asking “…if there were some plugins that would work well with marketing and other stuff…” (10 Steps to Effective eNewsletter Marketing).
Some of the benefits of the plugin list below include:

Enhanced blog visitor experience.
Increased traffic and blog promotion.
Improved security and blog performance.
Simplified blog management and productivity.
Better visitor communication.
More effective search engine optimization.
Greater integration with popular Internet communities and services.

Where to get it:v

http://sivel.net/2008/10/better-howdy/

Adds an AJAX rating system for your WordPress blog’s post/page.

Why I like it:

It allows visitors to rate content, which helps you to see what is most in demand. As such, you’re better able to provide the content that visitors want. In a way, it’s another traffic building tool.

Where to get it:

http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-postratings

21) WP-PostRatings Widget

Works in conjunction with WP-PostRatings above. Displays the most rated and/or highest rated posts and/or pages on your sidebar.

Why I like it:

It helps visitors queue into the most highly rated content. It helps them find the hotest content right away.

Where to get it:

Remember to install and activate WP-PostRatings first. http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-postratings

22) WP-Sticky

Adds a sticky post feature to your WordPress’s blog.

Why I like it:

I can display announcement and sticky posts only when viewing categories or not. I can display an announcement banner or display the date instead of the announcement banner (on announcement posts).

Where to get it:

http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-sticky

23) WP Super Cache

It’s a very fast caching module to help improve blog performance. Why have the server create your pages every time there’s a visitor? This plugin will cache previously created pages, to speed up surfing through your blog.

Why I like it:

I can turn it on or off as needed (even partially on). I can specify how long to keep cached content for. I can even prepare the blog for an expected spike in traffic by enabling the lock down feature. When this is enabled, new comments on a post will not refresh the cached static files. The lockdown feature is only useful if you are expecting a major Digg or Slashdot level of traffic to one of your posts or pages.

Where to get it:

http://ocaoimh.ie/wp-super-cache/

24) Wordbook

Allows you to cross post your blog posts to your Facebook Wall. Your Facebook “Boxes” tab will show your most recent blog posts.

Why I like it:

It’s automated and helps build traffic while letting Facebook visitors know when valuable content has been posted.

Where to get it:

http://www.tsaiberspace.net/blog/2007/07/29/wordbook/

25) Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Returns a list of the related entries under each blog post, (based on a unique algorithm) using titles, post bodies, tags and categories; with RSS feed support.

Why I like it:

It easily helps visitors find other content that may be of interest to them, and it’s also works automatically.

Where to get it:

http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/

Again, these are the 25 I’ve found to be most beneficial not just to this blog, but others as well. Of course there are tons of other Wordpress plugins that benefit us. Have a suggestion? Use a good plugin that I’ve not listed? Please, include the links in your comments below.

Update:

I’ve tested another plugin and it’s working great. It’s called What Would Seth Godin Do.

Why I like it:

It displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and another to return visitors; and I can place it at the top of posts and pages. I also like it because it automatic. (I like automated tools). Needless to say, it’s a good tool to promote features on a site, inform visitors, make announcements and lots of other benefits.

Where to get it:

http://richardkmiller.com/wordpress-plugin-what-would-seth-godin-do

Top 15 Qualities to Consider When Hiring a Blog Writer

BloggerSavvy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:43:23 +0000

Whether you’re going to write your own blog content or hire a copywriter to create content, it’s important to ensure that the writer is a good fit for blogging (your blog). While blogging (in my opinion) ranks among the most powerful web promotion tools, it’s by no means the end all and be all. Let’s face it, some people are just not a good fit. They may not be interested in writing, they may be inconsistent posters, be more sensitive individuals with regards to feedback, are better talkers than writers, and so on.

Quite frankly, some solutions might be a better fit for your organization or personnel; such as Video streaming sites, wikis, forums, “traditional” static (hard coded) sites, etc. And (as a side note) all of these can be integrated into a blog. Irrespective, you may have your heart set on blogging, and have decided that a blog is the best tool for your needs.

What are the best traits of successful bloggers? What qualities do you need, or need to ensure your blog writer has? One of the most common issues I’ve heard from my clients and the public at large is the discouraged feelings some of them develop after launching a blog and it shows in their low traffic. They seem to focus on garnering traffic, when they should focus on the blog, it’s contents and how to make the blog stand out in the crowd. It reminds me a bit of the wise business budgeting adage “Look after the top line and the bottom line will take care of itself”. I think all to often that some bloggers are focusing on the bottom line instead.

But what traits will serve blog writers best? What skills, experiences, etc.? Below are fifteen of my opinions that I always consider when someone asks for advice. I’m certainly not suggesting that you or whoever writes your content should be strong in all 15 traits, rather I’m suggesting that these are the best facets to consider in yourself or your blog writer.

So… here are the top 15 qualities I consider:

Be a Good Reader. That’s right! Reading! Why? In my opinion a good listener is able to provide superior content. He or she reads what others write, becomes informed, increases awareness and is able to ascertain which content may be in demand in your online communities. Personally, I find myself reading more than I expected - I actually read way more than I could ever hope to write!
Enjoy Writing Articles. I’m sure you’d agree that’s a gimme. I think it goes without saying that you should enjoy writing - OFTEN. That you could best capitalize on developing your own righting character and style. (Side Note: While blogging for the most part is primarily text driven, I’ve seen an increasing trend toward video blogging, and have worked on several video streaming sites to facilitate such solutions - So… if you’re a better speaker, consider video blogging or podcasting).
Be Disciplined. Let’s face it, blogging is an ongoing activity you participate in to help reach your goals. You have to be able to remain motivated to regularly post new content to your blog - Doing so consistently.
Communicate Well. Have the ability to get your understanding across. Remember that communication is NOT the exchange of information, instead it IS the exchange of understanding. At the very least, you should have the communicative skills to impart valuable, in-demand information, in a logical and understandable manner.
Remain Genuine. Being honest in your blogging endeavours. Remember, blogging is a public, community driven environment. Lots of people are looking at you, therefore you should conduct yourself in a professional manner and treat those around you with respect.
Remain Organized. I can personally attest to this from the experiences in launching my Ubuntu Linux Help blog. When my first post went viral, I was not prepared for the responses. I received lot’s of comments and email messages. I followed up on sites that were linking to me as well as monitoring RSS feeds. And most importantly writing follow up posts. There were also technical issues, such as automated blog and database backup management and code tweaking, etc.
Make Time. I’ve been just as guilty when I catch myself saying “When I have time”. That’s the wrong way to think! I should make the time I need - Use a schedule and follow it. Remember, you’ll have to ensure that you respond to post comments, read post on other blogs, do research, communicate with the people around you, etc. Most of the advice I’ve read seems to indicate new blogs should post content every day. While I do agree with that, I’ve had to consider my schedule and make room to post on a consistent basis.
Be Focused. From time to time I have followed blogs that successfully maintain a consistent writing style and topic focus, only to suddenly change. Doing so can come across as a bit “dizzy” and slapstick. Remember, you’re communicating with your readers, losing focus or changing reader expectations can in the long run, reduce readership. If you have a great “thread” that really needs exploring, has unlimited potential and is not within the intended focus of your current blog; consider the possibility of launching it as another separate blog.
Maintain Technical Skills. While I’d not say this is a must, it does rank high. If you don’t have the technical (server) skills, work with someone who does. For example, how do you automate backups? What do you do if your browser starts displaying “Error 500″ type messages when visiting your blog? What about redesigning your blog theme? How to move your database or re-import a database backup? What about server security? Updates and patches? And so on…
Relaxed. Don’t be overly sensitive when you read something you may not agree with. Visitors will provide criticism, both constructive and negative. Other blogs may also create blog posts about you or your blog. Take both the positive and negative in stride. If you get too caught up emotionally, then blogging might not be the best venue for you and your piece of mind.
Enjoy Hard Work. That’s right! Hard work can be enjoyable. It’s just like playing sports or pursuing a serious hobby. You’ve got to enjoy the work. I know from experience that many sites I work with do not instantly garner the owners the results they want. Some of them have to work very hard indeed to reach their goals. A blog is an investment not a display object.
Encourages a Learning Atmosphere. You’ll be happier (and more successful) if you enjoy learning new things. While you may be an expert in your blog’s subject, In my opinion, bloggers can learn even more by communicating with visitors and other blog owners. The operative word is “sharing”, and in doing so, you can learn a bit more about your own subject (doing a bit of networking along the way).
A Creative Thinker. Some of the most successful bloggers are able to think creatively (out of the box). Regardless if your blog is a technical blog or an abstract blog, the ability to think in an innovative manner will serve you well. Think about it this way… There may be thousands of blogs that discuss similar subjects; as your blog. What do you do to stand out from the crowd. What spark can you provide that makes your readers feel the “Wow” effect?
Enjoy a Gregarious Nature. Blogging put’s you in view of the general public; you’re under the spotlight and everyone is watching the performance. As such, people will form opinions and may even discuss them online. Every thing you present or write in your blog, becomes public record. If you goof, it’s next to impossible to remove that. If you’re somewhat more outgoing and enjoy people, you’ll probably be better able to capitalize on the inherent benefits (and drawbacks) of constant observation and analysis.
Entrepreneurial Spirit. Are you a go-getter? Is your time management good? Are you a self-starter? Maintaining the motivation and initiative to keep plugging away to launch and continue the growth of your blog, is arguably one of the best traits to this end. It’s one thing to ensure you have all the tools and automation solutions in place and in use, it’s another matter entirely to motivate yourself and consistently provide new content and community connections - even when you don’t feel like it.

While I’m sure many may agree that there are several more that could be added to the list, these are just some, that are in my opinion, the most beneficial. So much so, that when reviewing my list, I felt compelled to add a bonus 16th point:

You’re a Messenger. The whole point of blogging is not to aimlessly provide unrelated, disjointed content. Rather it’s to communicate specific, targeted, focused information. I’ve often talked to people who were excited to launch a blog as it was trendy and “the fun thing to do”, but invariably failed to provide any worthwhile communication, and message. If you or your blog writer are not “messengers”, perhaps some of the other traits above may help.

For those of you who personally know me, in addition to my technical (Network Engineering) background, I’ve also a strong background in training and curriculum development. That’s where I draw upon much of my thoughts when placing pen to paper (so to speak).

Do you think I missed something important? Do you have something to add? Thought, Comments? Say so below. Thanks.

Why Every Business Can Benefit from a Blog

BloggerSavvy — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:56:17 +0000

Most business owners are well aware of the role SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plays in promoting their web site. That’s actually the number one issue raised by every single client I’ve ever had. They all want to rank high in Google. Some are so focused on SEO, to the exclusion of more effective site promotion tools, that they actually do their site harm! But they all want traffic…

Given the lure of increasing traffic to your web site and the inherent increase in revenue that traffic can bring, it’s no wonder how this seems the priority focus when attempting to increase traffic (and revenue leads). SEO is but one aspect that can benefit any business, there are incredible tools to this effect, one of the most beneficial is to use a blog.

Side note: Don’t know what a blog is? Then, you might be interested in my earlier post “What is Blogging? What’s a Blog“. That post also has a short video showing how a blog performs.

In another earlier post on this blog (Quality Content is Not “the” Key to a Blog Success), I suggested focusing on the intangible elements to help further increase traffic. It may logically follow therefore, that one of the biggest benefits blogging can provide business owners is the opportunity to develop a personal rapport with blog visitors. Like any business relationship, purchasers like to get to know their suppliers or providers a bit before investing in products and services. People are more likely to spend if the garner an inside peek - it’s a personal exchange. It builds confidence and trust among other things. Think about it for a moment… A web site, in essence is like a multi-page brochure. While that’s good to describe services or products, it does relatively little in terms of interaction, rapport building, social networking, and so forth. There’s really no Call to Action as each visit shows the same old content. Blogs on the other hand, encourage interactivity, communication and repeat visits as content is added on a regular basis.

A web site is one way communication. A blog is two way (actually it’s multiway communication). The blog owner (that’s the business) can talk to the visitor, who can respond AND visitors can communicate with each other as well.

For business owners, that content can include product or service updates, notifications, announcements, videos, personal introductions, podcasting, contests, guest writers, and the list goes on. Think of the scenario this way:

A potential client enters your business, you give them a brochure, they say nothing and leave. They may or may not return. That’s a web site.

No let’s look at the same scenario, from a blogging framework:

A potential client enters your business, you provide them the specific content they require. If they need content you don’t have, it’s a snap to add. The client communicates with you, and you respond. Both of you respond to another client, who replies. That sounds much more like the way things are supposed to be. Dynamic, interactive.

Over the years, I’ve seen time and again how blogs are able to better garner the traffic business owners are looking for. Why? That’s what they were designed for over the years - to be a social platform that allows people or businesses to communicate and build their connections. It’s one thing to read a book (or web site), but much more beneficial to communicate with the authors and visa versa.

To use an example, about a year ago one of my clients launched a web site and a blog a few weeks apart. To this day the blog is obtaining almost double the traffic of the web site. Statistically that seems to be supported in my opinion, when observing all of my clients sites and blogs. All of the blogs are at the top of the list traffic wise, with the sites trailing behind.

Obviously, due to privacy, I cannot divulge specific statistics of clients, I did take a look for some stats, to see if some of these observations are mirrored elsewhere. I found some pretty interesting results. Expansion+ (an Internet Marketing PR site) reported on a Business Blogging Survey. Did you know that “…Almost 89 percent of U.S. respondents and nearly 83 percent of U.K. respondents believe blogs are an important digital communication…”?

Also from their site:

“Ultimately, what this survey revealed was a need for communication professionals in both countries to step up to the plate and start integrating blogging practices into their strategic approach,” said Jacki Vause, managing director of Peppercom’s London office”.

While the survey they were discussing was specifically about “Business Blogging Survey Reveals Corporate Attitude to Social Media” and was intended to “…compare and contrast blogging communication practices in the U.S. and the U.K. and identify best practices…”, I couldn’t help but note some of the prevalent points.

I also looked at another site, which was more targeted to the subject of this blog post. Neville Hobson’s post “Blogs drive business opportunities: UK survey” where some of the key findings he noted included:

50% of companies undertake some form of blogging, either having a blog, or encouraging employees to comment on blogs.
80% of blog users visit blogs within work hours. Most blog users visit blogs at lunchtime (31%), or first thing in the morning (29%).
66% of businesses believe that blogs are becoming more influential as an information source.

Visit the link to his post (above) to see all his other noted findings (as they’re a good indicator of how business owners seem to deal with blogging).

Statistics aside, blogging is a great way for any business to increase traffic. It’s an interesting point to note, that when I conduct training seminars, a fair number of people seemed to have visited both my blogs, already garnering some feel for my business and my professional background - And it makes communication much more effective when I meet with them!

For business owners (actually for anyone) considering launching a blog, I’ve mentioned in other posts, but it’s apt here - Make sure you focus your blog towards a specific niche and target audience (within that niche). Obviously conent from my other blog (a Linux blog) would not work in this blog as it’s not of interest. Therefore, by using a blog, you’re able to provide an added benefit by targeting very specific audiences and therefore garnereing traffic that in many mays could be considered as “qualified leads“, since they may already be looking for what you’ve got.

What do these blog visitors want? I also found (via Google) the results of a German study about corporate blogging. For those who do not speak German, some of the key findings were:

95 % of respondents found it important that the blog they read be updated regularly.
91% of blog readers expect a fast, relevant/appropriate reply to their questions and comments.
90% of readers thought it was important to indicate a difference between commercial and private content.
58% of readers, read them to find news and information they can’t find elsewhere.
57% of respondents were interested in the personal opinions of the authors.
54% of blog visitors formulate their opinions about products and companies from blogs.
51% of readers visit product and/or corporate sites as a results of reading blogs.
43% of visitors were interested in the blog discussions.

Those are some eye opening numbers, that show how important blogs are to business owners. For example, would you like visitors to find out more about your business, it’s products and services elsewhere or from your blog directly? - A blog that can help them formulate an opinion about your business and it’s offerings.

I should note that one point not addressed in the site I reviewed was ROI. All business owners should be aware that the cost of operating a blog is drastically less that a traditional web site. You don’t have to spend the time to learn web coding or invest in designers and developers to update your site content. Using Wordpress, it quite easy after the engine is installed. It’s very much like typing your content in an online editor and then clicking publish - Easy!

In conclusion, given the above, it appears that blogging provides the following key benefits to business owners.

Targeted audience.
improved PR (public relations).
Enhanced pre-sales.
Increased traffic due to social interaction.
Community building.
Cost effective ROI.
Improved brand awareness.

In my opinion, businesses that want to compete for attention and traffic in today’s online arena could best leverage the value of their investment by using a blog.

After all, do you want to be communicating with interested people and building your business or would you rather be standing on the corner handing brochures out. In my opinion, the choice is a no-brainer. ;)

How to Deter Scrapers and Hotlinkers

BloggerSavvy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:56:41 +0000

When I launched my first blog (a Linux based niche blog) at Ubuntu Linux Help, initially I did not have much content. As content built and traffic grew, I ended up writing some posts that went viral. Three of them were:

I enjoyed the traffic those posts provided (and still provide to this day) as they helped my blog grow. I think they were popular because they provided a valuable resource as well as elicited fair bit of discussion, as some of the posts and resulting comments were very outspoken and opinionated. One of the above posts (Why I Quit Windows and Switched to Linux) was a very personal story describing some of my career experiences and how they effected my professional life and thoughts.

Imagine my surprise when I found another blog with the identical content on it. So much so, that the author who scraped my content claimed it as his own! At that time I had more than enough technical knowledge to initiate actions that would catch-out scrapers, but I’d not yet fully experienced some of the nitty-gritty administrative aspects such as contacting the hosting providers, filing DMCA notices et al.

For that matter, why would this be an important issue? Why should bloggers (or any web site owner for that matter) take actions to mitigate such issues? Well a few good reasons immediately come to mind:

It’s annoying. A blogger puts a fair bit of work into his or her post, only to find it copied elsewhere and used to earn revenue (usually via advertising) for the content thief.

It can impact your web hosting cost if you have a busy site. Remember, most hosting accounts have a monthly bandwidth allowance. Exceed the monthly bandwidth and the blog owner incurs extra cost. But wait!… How did scrapers cause my cost to increase? Simply put, they copied the text content onto their blogs and linked the images (in that content) from my blog. This resulted in the text being duplicated on their site and the images being stored on my hosting account. When a web browser viewed the content on their page, it was pulling the images (for that content) from my hosting account, for which I had to pay the bandwidth.

It can reduce your Google (SEO) ranking. How does that happen? When Google finds content, it tries to determine if the content is original (not copied from another site) and proceeds to provide it with page ranking data. It is conceivable that content can be copied and receive a page rank (and inclusion in Google search results), without the original blog article being yet found by Google. If it get’s found by Google later, how can you ensure that your original becomes noted as the original post? Don’t misunderstand me, search engines like Google do try to remove duplicate content, but it becomes difficult when your original content becomes listed as the duplicate.

One important issue I realized is that you cannot be overly emotional about such actions. When trying to fix such issues, you need to work with various parties such as Google DMCA, Hosting Providers, etc. Sending them flippant or angry letters is not going to get you the help you need. Remember, large organizations and businesses deal with such issues daily and they are not impressed with theatrics. You need to have these people on your side. Remaining calm, assertive and professional goes a long way to getting support (as does courtesy).

Let’s define a couple things before we move on…

A scraper is someone who copies your content and places it on another site, without your permission. In essence this is theft of your intellectual property.
A hotlinker is someone who displays your images on another site, and uses the coding on their page is such a way so as to pull the image that is stored on your server (hosting account), for display on another page. As I mentioned earlier, this is tantamount to bandwidth theft.

I’m often asked how I discover that my content has been scraped or hotlinked. There are several tools that when used on a regular basis, can help you reduce the amount of content thieves.

Review your web statistics.

All good hosting accounts have built in web statistics. In my opinion AWStats ranks highly. AWStats has a feature that displays “Links from an external page (other web sites except search engines)”

The display will show you the URL of the page linking to you as well as the number of hits to your page. It will also tell you how many page loads (of your pages) that URL initiates. For example if another site URL causes 10 hits on my site, then there should also be 10 page loads. If not something’s up. Take a look at the image below (clicking on the image will show you the large version).

AWStats hotlinker example

What you’re seeing in the edited image above, is that another site has displayed something (from my site) 1645 times but never actually sent a visitor to my site. In other words my content (an image in this case) was shown on another site, but no page visits (referals) were ever recorded coming from that site. I visited the URL in question, and sure enough, the site was hotlinking to one of my images.

Use online services.

One service I’ve experimented with is Copyscape. They are a site that provides a service which scans other web sites, providing you with the URL of copied content. In my case I found scraped content (stolen from my other blog) during the writing of this very post. That is… one of my original blog posts, was found via Copyscape to be duplicated verbatum on another web site in another country. They were using it to sell their advertising space and also had hot linked to all my images. While they did include a link to my original post and did list my URL as the “Original link”, they did so without permission and were using my complete work for their own profit.

A Google search will provide you with a plethora of other sites that provide such services, I’m only mentioning Copyscape as one good example. To further take advantage of such tools, its most advantageous to include a very unique sentence in any given post and search for it in Google (that’s often a very quick method to catch sites that copy your valuable content).

Once you’ve been able to isolate a specific URL that has hotlinked and/or scraped content, what can you do about it?

Here’s how the process should work:

Find and isolate a specific URL that is using your content.
Evaluate the need to take action. Are they still sending you traffic or referrals in some fashion? The bottom line question you could ask yourself is “Does their copied content really do my blog enough harm that I have no option but to follow through?” If you’ve answered yes, action is the next step.
Take action.

But wait! What actions are there? Can I really protect myself from a scraper or hotlinker in another country?

Before moving into they types of actions (tools) you can use to protect your content, it’s important to keep one salient point in mind:

If you have some content that is so important, private or valuable, etc. and you do not want other people to copy it, then DO NOT POST IT ON THE INTERNET. If you post something of excessive value on the Internet, no measure of copyright protection is going to prevent an individual from accessing it and copying it. But (there’s always a “but”), there are ways you can impede the profitability and earning power of copied content and in some cases injecting your own revenue generating systems into content copied from your site.

So what kinds of actions can we take?

Make sure you provide appropriate copyright notifications within every page of your blog. If you intend to permit your content to be shared, Creative Commons provides a great copyright tool wherein you can specify how your content is shared. You’ll find that tool at Creative Commons. You can select your jurisdiction in a drop down menu on the upper right side of the home page.

Is the copied content being served by Google Adsense? If so, you can issue an infringement notice at Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Google AdSense. I’ve found the best method is to fax the notice to the number they provide. In practice, I’ve found that it takes a few days for this to work through their system. However, they have always acted professionally, responsible and have indeed taken action.

As a side note: If you are looking for notification templates you can use, take a look at Copyright Law and SEO Part 3 (Sample DMCA Notifications, in HTML and MS Word Format), found on the McAnerin International web site.

Personally, I’ve experienced an excessive number of blogs copying content to Blogger.com based blogs. If you review their Blogger Content Policy, you’ll also find that notifications are to be sent to Google at Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Blogger. Again, I’ve found the response to be incredibly fast and Blogger.com is very quick (in my experience) to remove the violating content.

Many scrapers capture and repost your content by tapping into the RSS feed of your blog.

Side note: If you’re not very familiar with RSS feeds, Commoncraft has a great video, RSS in Plain English.

The fact that they are simply capturing and re-posting your RSS feeds may be indicative of an automated system (with little human intervention), where the scraper may not necessarily read your copied content. If that’s the case, you could try embedding a link back to your blog. There’s a great Wordpress plugin that will automatically do just that: RSS Footer. (One helpful thing is the RSS Link Tagger for Google Analytics, which helps with the tracking of non-adwords advertising campaigns. If you log into Google Analytics and go to your created campaign and view the traffic sources information you’ll garner more information).

Try earning a bit of revenue from your stolen feed content. If you’re a Google Adsense publisher, try the “AdSense for Feeds” option within your “Adsense Setup”. Additionally, the RSS Footer plugin above, I think can also be used to embed advertising content from any other affiliates or advertisers you subscribe to.

For those who are a little stronger at coding issues, you may want to try out a great little Wordpress plugin called “From RSS?“, where, as their site says: “…do something extra for your RSS subscribers, you might want to give them a little bit of extra content, or simply leave out some annoying footer about subscribing to the RSS feed. This plugin facilitates that…”

You can of course Report a Spam Result to Google which they use to help “…maintain the quality of Google search results.”

Finally another tactic that’s available is to report the site to the hosting company. There must be a ton of resources to help isolate who is the ultimate network provider (for the server that hosts the offending web site), of which I primarily use two:

Whois lookup and Domain name search and
Netcraft’s Search Web by Domain.

Using the domaintools.com site, I can see which DNS servers are managing the domain (ostensibly indicating who’s hosting it). And with Netcraft’s tools, I can determine who owns the IP address block that the website and server is one, thereby opening another venue of recourse.

In conclusion, I’d like to remind everyone of on salient issue. There may always be hotlinkers and scrapers of our content. I don’t think anyone can stop all of them, as doing so would in all likelihood prevent legitimate visitors from viewing your content, instead the primary objective of this post was simply to impart the concept of DETERENCE, so as to reduce such activities.

10 Steps to Effective eNewsletter Marketing

BloggerSavvy — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:36:16 +0000

I received an email message from a client asking me if I had any solutions for an eNewsletter system that could be run under their own domain name. Some of the feature suggested were:

Automated subscription management (subscribe/unsubscribe).
Statistics/Click through rate.
Ability to send in both text and html (at the same time).
No installation of software on their PC.
Automated server transmission of email.
Automated server management of bounced email addresses.

And the list goes on…

Suffice to say, it did make me think about some of the aspects I’ve experienced in emailed newsletter subscriptions, good and bad. In many cases I’ve observed individuals launch a newsletter - full of excitement! Only, later to find that they did not garner their anticipated results. Inevitably, after review, it became evident that the root causes of an unsuccessful newsletter system was in poor planing.

In every public seminar I present, I almost always touch on the importance of solid planning (and sticking to the plan!). It does not matter how small or large the project is, it always needs a plan. Which brings to mind the old adage…

“If you want some exercise walk around, if you want to get somewhere, plan your route!“

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting this particular client has poor planning skills (quite the opposite in fact!), rather it led me to posting about my experiences and how I’d suggest people could build an effective, successful online newsletter system; one that best promotes their business, interest, web site, blog, etc. Hopefully some of the points will help you.

Note: While I am a Certified Network Engineer (MCSE, N+, MCP+I), I’ve endeavoured not to delve too much into the technical aspects. However I don’t mind fielding such questions as I do operate my own servers as well as providing web/blog development, online solutions and hosting services for other clients.

In my opinion one crux of a successful newsletter must be to ask yourself “Why do I want to launch a newsletter?” Remember that the potential subscriber of that newsletter is going to ask themselves “What’s in it for me?” - Make sure you provide enough benefits to answer their needs; and in doing so, remember the mantra:

“Benefits sell, features don’t“.

What makes your newsletter better than any other newsletter? - Do something that makes you stand out and get noticed.

When I first read their email and considered the newsletter angle, several questions jumped to the forefront:

Why don’t they just promote their RSS feed? (They don’t have one - For those that don’t know, here is a great resource showing you what an RSS feed is: RSS Feeds in Plain English).
Why don’t they just blog about it? (Their site is not a blog platform).
Newsletters are not an “A <-> B” conversation, rather one-way. (Sure but newsletters remind readers to return).
Newsletters are old-fashioned. (That may be, but they are familiar venues to many people).
Newsletters are simply sending information already on the web site or blog, that’s not interesting is it? (It is interesting if you use the newsletter to build interest - such as announcements about what’s coming, etc. - or Information not currently on the site).
The content may not be of interest to all the recipients, many will simply delete the email. (But that’s really a benefit! You can target specific “groups” of readers with specific “targeted” content - You’ve always got to try and look at the upside of things).

For a moment, let’s expand on some of those questions and comments.

One thing I learned from my other blog, is that I had (and still do) a lot of one-time visitors. These are visitors that find my blog via search engines (Google) or from links in other blogs, forums, etc. They visit my site and on average view 3.25 pages and then leave, never returning. On tool that could help turn them into repeat visitors is a newsletter. I’m not suggesting that every one of them will subscribe, rather a blog (or web site) containing quality content and a well written subscription “call to action“, may motivate some of them to subscribe. Much in the same way that product manufacturers work to improve brand loyalty, newsletters are one tool you can use to promote reader loyalty.

As I mentioned, newsletters have the ability to share information that is not yet on the site. They compliment the site. One way of facilitating this could be to induce interest by keeping your readers in the loop on new events, upcoming features, etc. This can be very powerful as it helps to build media buzz and interest. Just look at how the movie industry uses this… They announce an upcoming movie and let you see just a few of the really good bits as teasers, then you’re kept in suspense, interest captured until the new movie is finally available and your able to watch it.

Newsletters help you to build a community or business network, so much so, that a good newsletter should actively encourage feedback (and perhaps, pre-stage that membership for a future forum environment ). In my opinion, people like to be part of a community; and they arguably will be the most loyal visitors, who will encourage others to become regular visitors. (Nothing like a good debate or discussion elicited by your newsletter).

Obviously there are several reasons (or motivators) why we would want to launch a newsletter, once we’ve made the call however, there are several things to consider in order to bring our newsletter plans to fruition.

In my opinion, there are ten steps to successful and effective enewsletter marketing.

1) Plan your key objectives and stay within them.

What is the purpose of your newsletter? What tangible, measurable goal(s) are you building towards? As I’ve mentioned, there are several objectives your newsletter can be used to help reach, some examples being:

Are you building a business network or community?
Improve/Increase traffic statistics of your site or blog?
Garnering greater public awareness?
Elicit greater feedback and interactivity?
Enhance media PR marketing?
Appealing to a new niche of specific people?
Capturing readers who do not use your feeds (RSS)?

Many of us will try to include more than one objective. I learned the hard way, always have one primary objective that you work towards. It should take precedence over some of your secondary objectives. I’ll say it again… ALWAYS focus on the prime objective.

2) Create content that is scannable.

Most individuals (including myself) quickly scan the contents of messages first. Doing so helps us to evaluate when the message should be acted upon (the importance level) and if it’s interesting enough for us to read. Think about it a moment, when you pick up a newspaper don’t you quickly scan the article to see what it’s about - and then read it if it captures your interest?

Scannable content does not just refer to the text itself, it refers to the visual (esthetic) elements as well. Elements such as bolding, icons, highlighting on backgrounds, etc. Ever used a magic marker to highlight key text when studying? ;)

3) Tell people what you enewsletter focuses on, what it’s about.

I’m sure you’ll want to keep your subscribers. Tell them up front what the newsletter is about, what topic ranges it covers and how the newsletter will benefit the reader. And stick to that commitment! Time and time again, I’ve subscribed to newsletters that promised content, features and benefits that I was interested. And time again I’ve unsubscribed because they did not deliver. This brings to mind a very salient issue:

It’s better to have a smaller number of subscribers who receive the content they expected than those who unsubscribed because you didn’t follow through with your offerings (some of whom think they got - forgive the expression - suckered into signing up with empty promises). Be genuine… that small group may help your newsletter marketing more than you realize.

4) Be consistent and regular.

If your newsletter is monthly, make sure you always deliver.
If your newsletter is quarterly, make sure you always deliver and so on…

There’s nothing worse than haphazard delivery. For those of us who have printed newspaper subscriptions, I’m sure they can attest to the annoyance when the newspaper fails to be delivered or is often delivered late.

By consistent, I’m referring to the style and content. It’s a good idea to use the same style of writing as used in your web site or blog. Why? That’s probably what people expect. There’s nothing wrong with having a guest writer contribute (that’s often a good idea), but think for a moment, if people like your site content writing style, then they’ll also like that same style in your newsletter. In some ways, this also touches on branding issues (albeit that’s a whole discussion in itself) - branding does not refer just to graphics, rather your whole packaging - including the writing style.

5) Build interest with titles.

Newspapers are the masters of capturing interest with titles and describing the content with titles. They’ve had centuries to perfect. Your title is a critical component as it will be the primary deciding factor as to whether someone will read your newsletter or not.

Using RSS feeds as an example, I subscribe to about 12 feeds from various blogs that I am seriously interested in. Each morning I review the new articles and decide which I will return to read in the evening, and which I delete. The only thing I read is the title, that’s it! If the title captures me I save it for reading, if not, I delete it right away.

Note: In addition to titles, please keep in mind that content in the top of your newsletter (above the fold) will receive more immediate interest than below the fold. Similarly, links near the top will also be clicked more often. This is also a good SEO strategy, namely to pack your best punch in your first paragraph.

One caveat to watch out for with newsletter (as opposed to RSS feeds) is the title you give your newsletter blast. It’s important to be able to “brand” and identify your newsletter right away (because readers are expecting it and need to easily find it within their email), however there also needs to be some description of the content itself. Try experimenting to achieve a balance between the two. If BloggerSavvy had a newsletter, I’d initially try an enewsletter subject line that reads something like this example:

“BloggerSavvy Newsletter - 10 sizzling marketing tips, New blog contest, How to get featured on Digg, and more…”

The above example clearly indicates who the newsletter is from and highlights some of the top content that may most capture interest.

6) Use standard, reliable tools.

Evidently a component upon which you should place a fair bit of emphasis is the engine that runs your newsletter and subscriptions. While many people use a third party subscription service, I personally don’t think that is the best way to go. Why? In my opinion:

It’s a privacy issue. Third-parties do not need to control my database of subscribers.
In the past I have had large numbers of people unsubscribing because the domain sending newsletters was not the same domain as the one that creates the newsletter.
In my opinion (with regards to point #2) it also looks very unprofessional when my domain is xxx.com but the domain sending the newsletter is yyy.com - it just does not come across as professional (in my opinion).
It’s not the best choice to operate a newsletter under the behest of a third party. What happens if they change the rules, sell their business, go out of business. (Who owns the actual database?)
From personal experience, I have often encountered unreliable services from such providers.
Using third party services often increases your costs.

What would I suggest?

Use you own newsletter service. I often suggest PHPList as a viable, reliable alternative; in great part because you can install it under your own domain and it easily integrates with the premier blogging platform, Wordpress. Some of my favourite phplist features are noted on the home page of their web site as:

Double opt-in subscription mechanism
Scheduling
RSS
User Specific Content
Click-tracking
Attachments
Bounce management
Domain Throttling
Server Throttling

While a search on Google should provide you with dozens of systems, I’ve personally found that this package works both in terms of reliability and features. One benefit is that the system is virtually automated (including double opt-in - more about that below) and all you have to do is provide content - It will even archive your newsletters! More features of that package are here: phplist.com/details and for all the Wordpress users the plugin to integrate the system (into Wordpress) is called WP-PHPList. It’s also interesting to note that this open source package also integrates into many other platforms, including ecommerce, forums and CMS related engines.

Bottom line, while third party relayers, I’m sure do provide good service, in my opinion, I’d prefer to retain control of my own subscribers and manage them under my own domain and branding - for many of the reasons I listed above. In my opinion, this is a much more professional way to operate enewsletter transmissions.

7) Monitor and track your results.

Ensure that you use a combination of tools to monitor your activities; both from the newsletter system and the resulting server (your domain) that provides content such as images, video, audio, etc. I would suggest using the tracking tools that come with the newsletter mailing list (such as phplist) with Google Analytics and your own servers statistics. In my opinion, one of the better server based statistics package is called AWStats. Using a combination of tools (and not relaying on one tool) helps to provide a more realistic “picture” (as different tools gather and correlate data in different ways).

Paying attention to which links are clicked, will give you insight as to which pages provide the most in demand and valued content. They will also help when you’re “experimenting” with your content style and placement, etc.

As a quick practical example, knowing which content garners the greatest click through to a page will quickly tell you which pages and content could best be used to “announce” things to your readers. It will also tell you which content you may want to follow-up on or further capitalize upon (because of the heightened interest).

8) Ensure your newsletter provides double opt in subscription.

Double opt in is a subscription feature wherein the subscriber enters their subscription email address and then confirms that subscription via an email sent by the newsletter server. It’s primary purpose is to ensure that subscribers truly wish to subscribe. I think that here in Canada this (double opt in) is a requirement (but I’m not 100% sure about that).

You will want to do this as it prevents damage to your blog (or web site) occurring from users who are added to your subscribers list without permission.

I have often entered my contacts into only the subscription databases that I directly control, and always have the tools in place that allow them to unsubscribe. While technically this is a grey area, I’ve never had issues or complaints as my subscribers were always generally intelligent, forgiving individuals.

I have personally seen other newsletters fail because they purchased lists of email addresses and added them to the database, as such they ended up with a poisoned database that was overflowing with unqualified readers who did not care and were not interested in the content. In one case the domain name became blacklisted as a spam domain, which irreparably destroyed that blog’s brand and reputation.

9) Grow your benefits and quality.

There are several ways to help keep readership growing. Obviously, one way is to continue providing high quality, in demand content. Consistently give your readers something of value, something that benefits them.

You could provide them with new content in each newsletter or revisit existing content on your blog/web site (or both). Personally, I tend to use a bit of both.

Why?

Statistics show me which topics are hot and would benefit from a follow-up.
New content keeps things fresh and interesting and provides incentive to subscribe as the content does not have appear on the blog until after the subscribers have received it.

One key is to always remain consistent, don’t procrastinate. As I alluded above, it can be very annoying (and make your newsletter appear really “flaky”) if it’s operated in a haphazard manner and if the content is not targeted. Content should be targeted.

Quite often newsletter content is not so much a matter of “What would I like to include in the newsletter this time?” rather it’s (in my opinion) more of an issue of “What do my subscribers want to read about?” “What interests them?” In other words select targeted content for targeted readers, that’s effective.

This leads to the final point… #10

10) Talk to your subscribers and get feedback.

Communicating with your readers may be an eye opening experience. While we can garner a fair bit of intelligence from review statistics, we can obtain some insight through reader input.

Don’t be afraid to contact your most loyal readers, ask them how you can improve the newsletter. Ask them what they would do. I’ve often been surprised at some of the beneficial things I’ve learned.

Equally, talk to those who have unsubscribed ask them if they wouldn’t mind telling you why. Sometimes you may not like what you hear, but if you listen, really listen, you’ll often discover other areas of improvement.

Obtaining feedback helps to ensure the effectiveness of your newsletter marketing as you’ll remain in touch with your readers. You will be talking to them, not at them.

You’ll be empowering them as a community and building brand loyalty and pride in ownership, which is probably one of the most powerful aspects of effective online newsletter marketing!

Geographical Tools and Social Site Promotion for Your Blog

BloggerSavvy — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:41:18 +0000

When I first started using social media to reach out to people, one of the things I found difficult was to determine which media were geographically, best for my blog. As my first blog (Ubuntu Linux Help) was in English, I assumed that it might not be of interest to Chinese speaking people, for example. While later I realized this premise was completely false, I did learn that such analytics were very beneficial if I needed to market to a specific geographic area.

Side note: I found that there were a huge number of translation services visiting my Linux blog and translating it into other languages for those who did not speak English. Incidentally, it’s prudent to note that most people visiting your blog who’s native language is not English, will still speak English as their other language. For those interested in online translation or site’s where multilingual content is posted I’d suggest the following:

However, let’s get back to the subject at hand…

For this blog, I’ve tried to appeal to a specific (albeit huge) area. I needed to determine the most popular social media networks globally. One resource is provided by a British web design business that hosts such information here: href=”http://www.oxyweb.co.uk/blog/socialnetworkmapoftheworld.php” target=”_blank”>Social Network Map of the World

Their map is beneficial in that is displays the highest ranking social networks in each country by traffic alone.

This resource is a good tip and I’d recommend you bookmark it as it will help you determine which social media sites may work best for your area; a good quick resource to help save time in researching where best to leverage your blog exposure. I use it to garner a quick snapshot.

Note: It’s important to realize that such tools do not necessarily drive traffic to your blogs, rather they contribute. You must still ensure you build your brand, content, etc. one bit at a time. It’s the “big picture” (your master plan) that yo should always keep in the forefront and build towards.

But what if I have some time to do a bit of research? What if I’m not looking for a quick snapshot? What do I do if I’m also intersted in targeting cities via social networking? Well grasshopper… there’s a super tool which does all that (and more)!

Google’s Insight, is one tool I don’t hear near enough about (I think it’s still in beta). Google Insights for Search, as their site says, provides the ability to “…compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames…”.

Let’s look at a quick example by determining where Facebook is the most popular. The following link will provide the search inputs we used. Namely:

Facebook
2008
Online Communities and
Locations

Here’s the search link:
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=299&q=facebook&date=1%2F2008%2012m&cmpt=geo

Google Insights Search - Country

The results showed that Turkey appears first in the list for “Regional Interest for Facebook”. Realistically, I found that the map was far more useful that the lists. Clicking on a country map (Canada for example), provides a further breakdown of Facebook within Canada,

Google Insights Search - Province, State, region

and incredibly, if I click on a province within Canada (Ontario), I’ll see which cities have the most interest in facebook.

Google Insights Search - City

Needless to say, Google Insights for Search (google.com/insights/search/) can be a very powerful tool in your web site or blog promotion strategy. Combining the insights Google provides with the powerful exposure that social sites can provide is a very good traffic building tool.

In my next post, I’ll list some of the Wordpress plugins that can best help you garner exposure of your content withing the social networking word. These plugins will be sure to help you automate much of your social media promotions (and that saves you time!)

If you don’t want to miss that post, please subscribe below and you’ll automatically be notified. Easy!

Quality Content is Not “The” Key to a Blog Success

BloggerSavvy — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:48:34 +0000

Last week I was presenting a seminar to the local business centre. The seminar explored the use of quality content to improve and increase search engine traffic. For years I’ve always espoused that one key element is content, content, content! That it’s a primary must to ensure that a web site (or blog) always ensures that the content is of high quality, that it’s in-demand, remains current, and fills a specific niche (preferably one with less competition, if possible).

I’m taking a couple months reprieve from the seminar track as I’ve a fair bit of work to catch up on. Doing so also presents me with the time to develop my seminar track for the next year “Blogging to Grow Your Business”. While developing the content (and bouncing ideas off some of my seminar regulars) on of them challenged a chapter I working on. In particular was the issue that the success of a blog (for that matter a web site too), was NOT incumbent solely on quality, in-demand content. Several others also voiced similar issues, and it occurred to me that we’re comparing apples and oranges.

Most would agree that in the most basic terms we can appreciate that search engines find quality content attractive, thereby directing more traffic to the page containing such content. That may have been a more realistic perception for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but certainly not in today’s Social Web! Your online presence very much follows the general rules within the tangible world. Think about it… When I meet a prospective client in a brick & mortar environment, I need to be just as personable and professional as I am in my online blogging and web development environment.

The value and importance of networking does not end when we include online solutions (such as blogs) to grow our businesses. It’s the networking we do that in part that helps to ensure our blogs success. You could have all the content in the world, but are you really going to grow traffic if nobody knows about it?

Is it realistic to expect your sole source of traffic to be search engines? Of course not! The days of “Build it and they will come”, are long gone.

Needless to say, there were a flurry of email messages, so much so that I thought I’d post some answers.

First, lets break the issues down to the “features” and “benefits” issue. One of my mantras has always been:

“Benefits Sell, Features Don’t“

Think about it for a moment, all blogs have content -That’s a feature!

A blog that shows you how to save money or save time (for example), and thereby reach more people - Those are Benefits!

Which brings to mind the salient question (I think) all business owners should be asking themselves:

“What benefits can a blog provide my business?”

“If content is simply a feature and not the primary element of blog success, what’s in it for me?”

Subsequently this leads to some of the immediate questions that arose in our discussions, questions that I strongly feel are of the most basic surface benefits and do not really grasp the deeper concepts (which I’ll raise towards the end of this post).

Where do I get traffic (readers)?
Where do I get inbound links?
How do I become visible? and so on…

It’s important for any business owner contemplating a blog to remember some of the basic aspects of business (and blogging) promotion:

Design/Branding.
Titles/Content.
Interaction/Personality.
SEO/Structure.
Promotion/Marketing.

An aesthetically pleasing blog environment is one “surface” cornerstone. You could call it your packaging or “branding”. Your branding broadcasts a lot about you and your business. Blog branding directly reflects your business. If it looks horrible, that’s the message your sending to readers.

Titles are critical. Newspapers are masters at this. Think about it, when you look at a book, magazine or newspaper, the title is probably one of the first things you read. If the title captures interest, then readers will dig deeper into your content. Titles should try to include a call to action.

Interaction has always been a successful strategy. Using a blog to educate, inform, guide, demonstrate and so forth… is much the way successful business owners promote their operations. The same holds true in the virtual environment. Interaction shows that somebody is there to serve your clients.

SEO, if search engines know where your content is, what your most important content is and how to access it, this (among other SEO facets) goes a long way to helping search engine users (remember the focus should be on the people) find your most valuable content. The easier your blog is to navigate, the more likely readers can find the content they are looking for.

Promotion and marketing have always been important. Every business that has a blog is able to join the crowd. But, how do you get noticed in a crowd? You don’t. It’s important to bring to fruition the most important aspects that make your blog stand out and get noticed. Nobody is going to give you leadership, you have to earn it.

As I suggested, these are (in my opinion) some of the most common questions, the answers of which don’t really address the deeper aspects. Aspects that show us that it’s no longer content that’s the key to success, but rather a related web of elements.

In my experience, there are four intangible elements that contribute enormously to a blogs success. And arguably may be considered some of the most important elements!

Luck/Karma.
Charisma/Leadership.
Confidence/Trust.
Professionalism/Genuine.

Luck/Karma.

I kid you not! My other blog had several posts go viral. In one case (shortly after I launched the blog) it was sheer luck that a reader posted the link on Digg and that the Digg community moved the post to the front page. That truly was luck. (Update: I’ll blog about this later, but another aspect of good luck was during the launch of this blog, I lost all my content - But Google cache and Live cache returned copies to me).

But can we control luck? Can we make it work to our advantage? I think we can. While this could easily be a separate discussion altogether, I’d still suggest that one way to illicit good luck is to communicate effectively. Tell everyone what you need, plan your goals towards your desires, be optimistic and relax, doing so will allow you to approach any setbacks with a positive attitude. In turn this will help you to turn lemons into lemonade (as your mentality will already be in a positive zone).

Charisma/Leadership.

Participate in your community. Be the mover and shaker. Earn leadership through your insight and wisdom. Don’t micro-manage, rather stand back and look at the whole picture. Connect the people around you into a community and empower their participation. Your blog can be among the best tools to this end.

Confidence/Trust.

When you blog about a topic, mean what you say and follow through. Be genuine in your relations with readers. Always be professional. If you’re writing a controversial post, do so in a positive fashion, comments written with negative or combative language, do not build confidence in you or trust in your blog. Invite guests to contribute content to your blog, doing so goes a long way to building trust and ensuring confidence.

Professionalism/Genuine.

Impart your knowledge in a positive manner. It’s not what you know, but how you express it that helps build your blog success. I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert in online business promotion, network engineering, web development/coding or even Linux blogging. But I’ve had years of training and/or experience in these areas. In particular, my linux blog has taught me that some of the most valuable content on occasion comes from my readers!

Finally, I’d like to clarify again, I’m not suggesting that the value of content has fallen by the way side. Rather that more blogs are savvy to the issue of quality content. Therefore an area that can further a blog’s success is to focus on empowering the four intangeable elements to your fullest potential. Doing so, in my opinion, is one step towards becomming bloggersavvy!

How Can I Make My Blog Grow?

BloggerSavvy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:50:44 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to one of my clients who operates a security consultancy business. In an effort to increase traffic to his web site, he launched a blog.

I remember months earlier indicating that he should have content posted regularly and ensure he broadcasts his blog URL everywhere. For those curious, the blog is called Predictable is Preventable and was launched in January, 2008. During our chat, he indicated that there was not much commenting and it seemed that there was no return in blogging. Throughout the discussion, his comments consistently raised two key issues in one way or another:

How long does it take for to start having constant readers and comments?
It’s unmotivating to post something really informative and not any response.

I must admit, that these are in all likelihood a couple of the most common, and in many ways most difficult beginner issues to deal with. Think about it, you have a business operation running and it feels like launching a blog (to help promote the business), is starting from scratch and developing contacts all over again. In some ways it could be construed as such.

Personally, I encountered the same issues when I launched my Linux based blog. I had zero traffic and it seemed like I was writing posts for myself. I felt like I was the only one reading the content. Laughingly, I guess I was! Humour aside, I realized that traffic is only going to increase if I get out there and make some noise.

One immediate approach I took was to email almost everyone I knew, asking if they’d be interested in my blog. I included some excitement in my message as well as a note to pass the email on if they new anyone that would be interested in my niche blog. This did encourage some traffic, but I noticed it was one big spike and then a sharp drop. But… there was a small group of regular readers (but nowhere near the amount of visitors I would have liked to have had.

Another approach I took was to join several forums related to my blog as well as a few other online (related) communities. Posting reply’s to questions for help and including links back to my blog, garnered much better results! One thing I learned the hard way (actually, two things, now that I think of it) was:

When joining communities such as forums, wait a bit before posting links back to your blog. Joining and posting back links right away, looks very much like blog spam (and in some situations it is). Remember, it’s important to preserve the integrity of your blog, not have it relegated to spam status.
Also, if you’re going to post back links, make sure there is enough content to capture interest and repeat visitors! Or if not, then in the initial, stages make sure you post quality content every day. (This way new visitors are more likely to bookmark your blog and return; as they see new content keeps appearing).

The two activities above really helped to initiate growth. One thing I learned that was highly appreciated was answering peoples questions in forums (or on their blogs), and answering them WELL. Then posting a link to an in depth article exploring their questions and answering them even more. Needless to say, I already had the in depth post written and published before answering their questions and inviting them to read a full, in depth post on the matter. This combination worked great for my Linux blog. I spent about 2-3 hours each day interacting with various forums and other online communities to build traffic. If you are working, even 30 minutes or an hour a day will provide results. The point I’m trying to suggest is not so much the time you spend building your traffic, but rather that you do so consistently! If you can only spend 20 minutes a day or a couple hours a week, so be it. But do it consistently and without fail!

The growth of my blog became very organic, in the sense that people were passing various blog post links around to others. In one case I had very good fortune luck in that someone posted one of my articles on Digg and it ended up on the front page. The majority of visitors from Digg were not repeat visitors, but the exposure did garner several readers - More importantly however was the discovery that the post was featured on hundreds of other web sites and blogs that monitored what appeared on Digg’s front page. My traffic shot up to unbelievable numbers. And again, out of those, I garnered even more readers. Again, the organic growth issue became obvious as I saw people recommending my blog posts to others.

One important aspect, which I’ve been trying to express to my client is the need to keep posting new content. You don’t want your blog to become like a book, read it and put it away as there’s no more to read. Your blog must, to use the analogy, be a never ending story.

I think, in my client’s case, that motivation may be one issue. I know from my own experience, that you cannot motivate people. You can give them all the tools and do your best to reach out to them, but at the end of the day, we have to pick up those tools and use them ourselves, nobody can do that for us.

In some fashion I think he’s not sure what to post about. I went through a phase myself, where it was a labour to figure out what I was going to write about and then formulate ideas and a resulting post. I hated doing it and began to procrastinate - because it was hard work. Hard only because I made it that way! It was my own though process and attitude that created a negative blogging environment. I was able to enjoy blogging and provide better content when I wrote with the same excitement that I spoke. I wrote from me, my experiences, not about them.

On some level, I think that perhaps he’s not sure if his traffic is not at the level he wants because of his content or simply because the blog is too young (it’s not even a year old yet). I remember long discussions on Skype and via email, helping to massage some content. And I actually enjoyed that as I found he has a stronger grasp of some things than I thought. He has a bright intellect and is excited about his experiences. Reflecting this into your content is important. Remember you’re writing to interested people, not at them. Your interested in garnering their participation not their unresponsive attention. In his case (and I experience similar), perhaps he’s so focused on his work and the actual content that he’s too quick to judge his content as ineffective or substandard. I’ve been guilty of this myself and think the best approach is to ask those around you to proof read your pending post. Find out what they think about it… I don’t mean if they like it or not. I mean the really nitty gritty, the guts of the content, for example:

Is it missing some key issue or concept you’ve not considered?
Could it be improved by hitting some mark closer?
Is it something that can really be discussed or is it just facts?
Does it provide some specific value and impart that to the reader?
Could there be more detail and less generalization?
How genuine is the content, does it provide a fresh perspective?

The above thought are just some of the things proof readers help me with. Their opinions really count. Anyone can point out spelling mistakes, but it’s valuable input like this that’s going to help your blog grow. Sometimes what you hear will by great, dynamite! Other times not so much so.

In terms of his blog, I think one key to help grow it is to try taking a different approach. Look at his competitors, see what they are doing. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Try moving in that new direction for a bit and see where it goes. I often make suggestions to clients and I often hear all sorts of reasons why something cannot be done. Instead we should all be focusing on how we can do something. To further address the point, in the immortal words of Yoda:

“Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try”

While I may repeat this quote somewhat with tongue in cheek and a smile, it’s actually quite apt.

In conclusion, among the best ways to grow your blog is to write in a way that makes you satisfied with the result. For example, something that you can tell a client to visit and read for more information when they ask you a question. Never write with the intent to garner sales, advertising revenue, and so on; as this will translate into your content. Remember your state of mind always effects how you write, just as much as how people perceive you in the offline world. Growing a blog takes time, it’s like nature, you can’t rush it.

You can grow your blog in great part by:

Self promotion.
Having faith in yourself.
Accepting constructive criticism.
Asking for help.
Help and educate people with your content.
Hold confidence in your knowledge and abilities.
Interact with your readers.

Protecting Your Domain Name

BloggerSavvy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:43:22 +0000

Your domain name is an important (and critical) feature to your blogging success. Without a registered domain name, nobody would be able to access your web site. Additionally, to ensure your maximum exposure (search engines and the like), your domain should be:

easy to remember
be related to the content
reinforce your branding
not easy to confuse
easy to spell

All too often someone has spent the time to thoroughly research their domain name and had someone register the name on their behalf. Another scenario is that the developers have researched and registered the domain. But what happens if the relationship breaks down or the developer’s business closes?

I’ve often encountered domain name issues , as well as mediated such disputes between clients and their former site or blog developers. Invariably the scenario involves a breakdown in communication in which the rightful owner realizes that they don’t have control over their domains. In other cases the domain name is held for ransom and in others the original developer is no longer in business, among many other scenarios.

Recently I was contacted by a client who needed more cost effective and responsive hosting. The primary issue at hand was that the original developer had passed away and there was nobody to update their site or tend to hosting related issues. Upon examination, I found that the domain was not registered directly to them and as such (from a technical perspective) they did not appear to be the rightful owners. This resulted in the inability to move to a different hosting provider. They had no usernames or passwords to access and edit the domain name records, they had no current payment receipts proving their ownership, nor did they even know who the real hosting provider or domain registrar was. The hosting service was a resold account from a third party provider. The domain name was also resold from a third party. I was able to return control of the domain back to them, but it took three weeks of phone calling and faxing to the registrar to accomplish this, additionally it did help to garner the support of the hosting company.

How did this happen? What are some of the caveats?

When you have a domain name registered on your behalf by a third party, make sure that the email address used for the “Administrative Contact” is YOUR email address. This ensures that any transfer of the domain (to someone else) needs to be approved by you (because you get the email request). Additionally, this also enables you to change other information pertaining to your domain name registration record.

In the above case, the client did not have their email registered as the Administrative Contact (or as the Registrant). In fact the developer used his name, email address and other personal credentials within the registration record. In my opinion this is a big no-no! What happens if the developer is unable to provide services? Can a blog or site owner really wait for an extended time period to gain access to their domain name so they can move to a new hosting provider?

I’m not suggesting that the world of web developers or designers is frought with unscrupulous characters intent on seizing control of your valuable domain names. Rather I’m suggesting that you ensure you’re involved in the registration process, that you ensure you protect your interests. For those not familiar with hosting systems, there will always be a learning curve. Avoiding that learning curve could in some cases be very costly!

When registering a domain name, or having someone register it on your behalf, make sure you are aware of the following:

The Registrant is the legal owner of the domain. The Registrant should always be you, your business, etc. NOT your web developer, web designer, hosting company or anyone else. Period!

The Administrative Contact has the credentials and access to change the domain record information. This should be you, your business, etc. NOT your web developer, web designer, hosting company or anyone else.

As I alluded above, the web developer had listed himself as the owner and administrator of the domain, which resulted in the client having to wait an excessive time to garner access to the domain. And I may add it was only through shear “consideration” on the part of the registrar that they obtained access to their domain prior to it’s expiry and (hopeful) re-registration.

The Technical Contact should be the individual with the technical knowledge to resolve issues with the domain (commonly the hosting provider).

Are you currently listed as the Registrant and Administrative Contact of your domain name? If not, your name could be at risk. Here is one of the tools I use to help clients view their registration records: whois.domaintools.com

What is Blogging? What’s a Blog?

BloggerSavvy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:39:34 +0000

Whenever I present a seminar at the local business centre, one of the first questions I’m asked are what a blog is. Such questions are commonly asked by new business owners who are not as web savvy as they’d like to be. After all, they are experts in their own industries, not in blogging or Internet content dissemination systems in general.

I received a few email messages from friends this morning, after I told them about a new blog launch. To answer such a question, I could dive into the technical aspects (I’m a certified Network Engineer MCSE among others), as much as the practical aspects (that would perhaps, make more sense to the business owner).

While googling does provide a lot of definitions, I’m not really sure that they grasp the meat and potatoes of blogging. To define a blog in its simplest terms:

A blog empowers a business to reach a wider audience and continue a conversation with them, by providing readers with in demand, quality, syndicated content. Blogs are beneficial in that they allow business owners to add content to their blogs as needed, without requiring the services of a web site developer or designer (to update the content). Therefore two evident benefits, are that blogs save business owners money and help market products or services.

Blogs are a way to continue a conversation with the audience. This is accomplished by the use of features, just some such of which include:

Readers providing comments and feedback.
Surveys and Polls.
Content written by and submitted for posting by guest writers from the audience.

In terms of features, many of them are beneficial. For example, blogs provide RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. What’s an RSS feed and why is it beneficial? Wikipedia has a great blurb.

From wikipedia:

…Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content quickly and automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader”, or “aggregator”, which can be web-based or desktop-based…

In other words, when we update the content in our blog, subscribers (of our RSS feed) are instantly notified!

One (initially) less visible benefit of blogging comes into play as the volume of quality content grows. The greater the amount of quality content available, the greater the amount of traffic (visitors) to the blog. Therefore, over time, a blog can become an increasingly powerful tool for the business owner!

To further clarify, I visited YouTube and searched for “What is a blog”. The first and best result returned was a great video from “CommonCraft”, titled “Blogs in Plain English”:

I should add that they also have a great video explaining RSS in Plain English.

Another video describing different types of blogs may also further explain some of the diversity in blogging:

In conclusion, it’s not a far stretch to realize that maintaining a conversation with your audience is the best way not only to grow traffic to your quality, in demand content, but also an incredibly effective way to promote products, services, charities, hobbies… in fact an endless list!