Want to capture all the content you share both as content and Search Engine Optimization [SEO]? You want to add RebelMouse to your site…
Which blogging tool should I use; WordPress.com or tumblr?
The answer is yes! While I normally advise clients, students and readers to “never use two tools were one will do” here is a case here is a case where using both is not only acceptable but desirable. Here’s why:
- WordPress.com is great at Search Engine Optimization [SEO] but it does not allow JavaScript or iframes amongst other things
- Tumblr is not as good at Search Engine Optimization [SEO] but it does allow JavaScript and iframes amongst other things
- For whatever reason — technical or political – tumblr is available as a sharing option where WordPress.com is not so you can pick the best tool for the job
- ‘Curation’ via tumblr’s bookmarklet is a little easier than WordPress.com’s ‘Press This’…
- They can be linked together from a technical perspective in a way that makes them appear to be one website to Google
- They can both be scripted by ifttt.com
- Both have great – but different – fans [which will give you more exposure]
- You can have a unified WordPress/tumblr site for less that $20 per year
…and I’m sure there are some other reasons that I’ve overlooked!
Let me talk you through some of the issues here:
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Can a Website Have Too Much SEO?
…and what the hell is ‘over-optimization’?
Personally, I think Matt Cutts and the Google Webspam team have waaaay too much power [which means you’ll probably never see this post!]. Watch any videos of him speaking about how the Google Webspam team treats specific technical issues and I think you’ll see what I mean. Struggling with the issue of how to adjust client sites for the latest release of updates to the Google search engine, I came across this:
Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Google is working on a search ranking penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” or “overly SEO’ed.”
Matt announced this during a panel Search Engine Land’s Editor-In-Chief, Danny Sullivan and Microsoft’s Senior Product Marketing Manager of Bing at SXSW named Dear Google & Bing: Help Me Rank Better!. The audio for the session has been published where I learned that Google has been working on a new penalty that targets site’s that overly optimize for search engines for the past few months.
Matt Cutts said the new over optimization penalty will be introduced into the search results in the upcoming month or next few weeks. The purpose is to “level the playing field,” Cutts said. To give sites that have great content a better shot at ranking above sites that have content that is not as great but do a better job with SEO.
Source: Too Much SEO? Google’s Working On An “Over-Optimization” Penalty For That
Here’s a video clip of Matt discussing the issue…
And, if you really want a scare do a search on the phrase “Google penalizes” and you’ll see that Matt and his team have mafia-like powers to ‘disappear’ people and websites!
Now, here’s my issue. Can anyone define for me exactly what constitutes ‘over-optimized’ – even Cutts skirts the issue because defining the term would be to reveal too much about the Google search algorithm would be my guess. The question I have is this, then: if most sites are ‘under-optimized’ then are sites that follow best practices ‘over-optimized’?
Take for example a website that uses a tool like RebelMouse or Twylah to capture their tweets and other social media shares as Search Engine Optimization [SEO] by adding those tools as a cname extension, or one that adds a blog to a static website using tumblr or WordPress using the same approach – are these sites ‘over-optimized’ because the webmaster is clever?
See what I mean? Search Engine Optimization [SEO] is a moving target and Google-style ‘leveling the field’ means content creators are shooting at a moving target in the dark. What do you think?
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- Top 5 Videos from Google’s SEO Guru, Matt Cutts (business2community.com)
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5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts
Tammy Kahn Fennell has a nice post here:
Whether you’re actively posting or just browsing through your social streams, things move pretty fast. A post is often there one minute and gone the next. With hundreds of millions of status updates and tweets sent every day, finding them later is next to impossible. Here are 5 tools to help you hang on to those updates through archiving social media posts you’d like to save.
Do check out her original post here: 5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts.
I’d like to suggest that the best of them all is a tool that did not make her list. It’s a tool with a name so silly I fear that many will not take it seriously, but it’s called RebelMouse… Continue reading “5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts”
A 3-Step Process for Painless Keyword Research
Beth Hayden @ CopyBlogger has a great post I’d like to share with you…
Keyword research is one of the most important types of research you’ll do throughout your content marketing career. It’s also one of the most difficult.
In this series, we’ve already discussed the fact that research isn’t sexy, glamorous, or fun. We’ve also talked about how you need to do research consistently — just like you need to work out in a consistent manner in order to see the real physical fitness results you want.
But there’s something particularly arduous about conducting keyword research. Many of the tools available are confusing and counter-intuitive. We don’t know what we’re supposed to be looking for, and we often don’t have a system in place for how to do keyword research effectively.
But, in putting this series together, I took a very close look at the process of keyword research, and I realized that there’s a better way to find the keywords I needed for my work … without tears, gnashing of teeth, or the desire for hard alcohol.
I always seem to get lost in the data of keyword research. I feel like all of the information I find is incredibly important, and I can’t figure out what to focus on and what to ignore.
Sometimes I make a half-hearted effort to research the keywords I should use in my content, then get aggravated and toss my lists aside in favor of doing less frustrating work.
In the next two posts of this research series, I’m going to give you the solution to your keyword research woes. I’ll teach you …
- How to stay focused when doing your research
- How to avoid getting bogged down in the stuff that doesn’t matter
- How to take a shortcut that will save you tons and time and energy
Let’s get started…
Get focused on your goal
Your goal when conducting keyword research is to identify the topics that matter most to your target audiences, and then discover the exact language they use when they search for information and discuss their questions on social networking sites.
To reach that goal, you need a simple, effective system for keyword research. Follow these three steps to clear up the fog of procrastination and confusion that surrounds the process of finding target keywords for your content.
Full story at: A 3-Step Process for Painless Keyword Research | Copyblogger
Discovering the exact language people are using is the key to aligning your writing with the value demands of your target audience. You may want to elevate your status by calling yourself a ‘purveyor of fine previously owned automobiles’ but the target audience is just looking for a good used car. If you don’t discover what people are looking for and bring your message into alignment, you’re whistling in the dark! Get a grip by following the link and reading the rest of Beth’s perspective. I’m always here to help, too! Comment below or connect with me so we can talk about how this applies to you and your situation…
Time for a course correction? Updated 12/13/2012
Here’s another post in an infrequent series that I do to give back to the WordPress.com community…
A famous comment usually attributed to Lord Leverhulme goes: “I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I’m not sure which half”. The same is true of your blogging and social media time! How can you tell if you’re on track? Which 50% is working? What can you do if you’re off course? Well, the simplest way may be to check your WordPress.com stats for the past year and see what links people are actually clicking on…
…then give them more of what they like and less of what they don’t! @jonswanson reminded me that reviewing your mosts popular posts and doing more like them is a good review do to as well!
Another interesting way is to add twitter tool Twylah to your mix. Twylah brings your brand message into focus, extends the life of your tweets, and helps you get discovered beyond Twitter. Twitter you say? I don’t even use that! Well, you might want to start! I use the sharing feature in the WordPress settings to send every WordPress post to Twitter as a way of amplifying my posts. I also use Twitter to share articles that I don’t feel like sharing on the blog. Together — my blog posts and my tweets — create what I call a lifestream and Twylah is the place where I put that lifestream. Twylah automagically organizes my lifestream by topic and gives me a pretty good indication of how the internet views my lifestream. If the topics are way off, it might be time for a course correction! If the topics look like who you want to be known as, then Twylah provides that validation as well…
Another reason why I love Twylah in closing is that I can host Twylah on my domain so that I can effectively add Twylah to my WordPress.com blog and get Search Engine Optimization [SEO] benefits from my tweets as well. Oh, and did I mention that Twylah is free?
Blogging in the WordPress.com community is fun, but if you actually want to be recognized as an authority in an area and get found when people are looking for you, these two tools may be all you need to amp your internet presence! Oh, and by the way if you’re looking for WordPress.com or ‘thought leadership’ marketing coaching, you can stop by my business site at http://e1evation.com/services/…
Sometimes, I think I post more about how much I love Twylah than the folks at Twylah do. Whether that’s true or not, I’m a huge fan and the main reason why is Twylah is the only social networking tool I know of that actually adds Search Engine Optimization [SEO] to your domain simply by tweeting. Still, if the DNS manager of your domain host is unfamiliar territory you may not be getting the maximum value out of Twylah and Twitter. I talk you through it here…
So, in summary, the three things you must do are:
- Use Twylah
- Add the Twylah widget to your WordPress sidebar
- Host Twylah on your domain
Questions? Feedback? Comment below or connect with me so we can talk about how this applies to you and your situation…
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Ever heard of the Pareto Principle? Mostly likely you have but may not know it by that name. “The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.” In the ‘e1evation workflow‘, 80% of my results come from having mastered just three tools. Why is this important? My clients include thought leaders like author Nilofer Merchant, author and professor Philip Auerswald, author and professor Timothy Kastelle, consultant Gretchen Jahn and professor and TED Fellow Nina Tandon; people like that don’t have the time or patience to learn an infinite number of tools — they need to know the three that will yield the most effective results…
I teach them [and all my clients] that if I could only use three tools for effective content marketing there is no confusion in my mind as to what they would be:
- Google Reader
- WordPress
- Twylah [Twitter]
Why? No other combination of tools covers the basics of content marketing better. Google Reader helps me find great content that deepens my expertise. WordPress and Twylah help me document my expertise by turning everything I create or curate into content marketing with Search Engine Optimization [SEO] value for my domain. Let me explain…
Here are all the tools I use in the ‘e1evation workflow’:
And here are the 20% that yield the 80% of my results:
Questions? Feedback? Comment or contact me to talk more about how this applies to you and your situation…
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Going back to our Getting Things Done [GTD] decision diagram for a minute…
The in basket I’m using more often than not is Google Reader. When I see ‘actionable’ content, I decide where is the best place to share that content using the following diagram:
I focused in an earlier post about sharing via Twylah and other tools — today the focus is on curation and blogging as a means of Getting Things Done [GTD]…
How do I decide that something is bloggable? Well here are some guidelines that I use…
- When I come across content that is so brilliant that I could have written it myself if I would only take the time. Seriously, when I come across really good content that I want to expound upon and call out to my clients and readers…
- When I find a great illustration or infographic
- When I find a great YouTube video
- When commenting on this content gives me a change to share something about my brand by agreeing, disagreeing, adding or subtracting…
You get the idea, right? Anything I find on the Internet is fair game as long as I remember to do three things:
- Block quote and indent the content I am curating
- Provide a link back to the original source
- Be ready to move the content if requested by the owner
I firmly believe that when you curate effectively everybody wins. The original author gives exposure to my readers. My readers get a different perspective. Finally, my post is easier to write and I get the Search Engine Optimization [SEO] benefits from the content I curate…
Here are some thoughts from Suzanne Bird-Harris and a few others on the rationale for curation and some ideas on how to structure a curative post along with a screencast on how I do it using Windows Live Writer, a free blog editor from Microsoft…
Personally? I think curation is one of the best ways to supplement the original thinking on my blog. Here are some thoughts on curation in the blogging process…
Personally? I think curation is one of the best ways to supplement the original thinking on my blog. Here are some thoughts on curation in the blogging process…
Personally? I think curation is one of the best ways to supplement the original thinking on my blog. Here are some thoughts on curation in the blogging process…
http://storify.com/e1evation/thoughts-on-getting-things-done-gtd-in-curation
Here’s the diagram from the video…
Jeff Bullas has some interesting thoughts on how to become a better blogger:
Blogging plus Social Media
The rise of social media has allowed bloggers to display and market themselves and their content globally without having to pay a cent to a newspaper, television mogul or to the mass media elite.
Bloggers that were previously undiscovered became global brands on topics as diverse as food, fashion and technology. Marketing your blog was no longer restricted to building an RSS or email subscription list.
Publishing and marketing has been democratized. Freedom to express yourself globally is available in seconds and it is also mobile.
The age of the printing press is now threatened after 573 years. Print media marketing has now been surpassed by digital media for the first time in history.
So How do you Become a Better Blogger?
It is quite simple really.
- Blog late or early
- Blog while travelling
- Blog on holidays
- Blog even when your friends think you’re mad
- Blog on the bus
- Blog on the plane
- Blog when the boss isn’t watching
- Blog when your partner nags you to stop blogging
- Blog when your passion has taken a holiday
- Blog when you think no one cares about your blog
Get more here: 10 Simple Tips to Becoming a Better Blogger | Jeffbullas’s Blog
Jeff has a great perspective on the importance of blogging. Comment below or connect with me so we can talk about how this applies to you and your situation…
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I think someone must have peed in David Meerman Scott‘s cornflakes a couple of weeks back. He was so hacked off that he went off on a rant on content curation:
You may have noticed that content curation has grown very quickly as a way for people and organizations to publish on the Web.
Sure, there are some benefits to this effort. But as a strategy for generating attention for yourself or your business, content curation is nowhere near as powerful as generating original content.
Content curation
Unlike writing your own blog post or shooting your own video, content curation simply involves pointing to others’ work.
Services like Scoop.it and Paper.li have sprung up to make it easy for anyone to publish an online magazine by linking to anything on the Web.
Yes, there is value in pointing to others work. But that is the point – it is other people’s work, not your own.
Many organizations use guest writers to create content, which in my mind is another form of content curation. Nothing wrong with having a guest blog post now and then, but if you never showcase your own peoples’ ideas, I think it is a mistake.
Original Content: The focus a successful marketing [sic]
The best way to generate attention is to create original web content including text based information (sites, blogs, a Twitter feed), video content, photographs, infographics, and the like.
You brand yourself as an organization worthy of doing business with. Done well, an added bonus is that the search engines rank the content highly and people are eager to share the content on their social networks.
And hey if you generate some interesting stuff, then the content curators will link to you!! Wouldn’t you rather have the links come in?” via Content Curation: A Poor Substitute for Original Content | Social Media Today.
Now David’s a really smart guy — I even own his book “The Rules of Marketing & PR” — but this article doesn’t reflect that especially on the topic of curation…
The kind of curation David talks about is only one kind of curation — linking to other people’s content. This post is another type of curation. Sure, I point to David’s site and quoted a couple of his paragraphs but I’m adding my own value by pointing out that there’s another form of curation that David chose not to consider but that actually adds value. It looks alot like this…
There is a ‘wrong’ way and a ‘right’ way to curate and a lot of it carries over from the ‘wrong’ way and ‘right’ way to write a term paper; correctly leveraging a quote is appropriate and brings power to your writing and your Search Engine Optimization [SEO] done properly. Like this post.
Before and after; Nilofer Merchant site ‘TBO’
What is TBO you ask? Why ‘total beauty makeover’ of course! Wednesdays are the days we talk about high-performing websites at elevation and today I like to share with you some recent work that I did for friend and client Nilofer Merchant…
I enjoy telling people that I have worked with Nilofer since the days when she was a mere mortal when our paths crossed at Apple in the late 90s. Since then, Nilofer has gone on to become an author, corporate director, and speaker while I became a humble social media mechanic. About 18 months ago, Nilofer had a ‘brochureware’ website and was blogging on Posterous. I ask ‘what’s a nice girl like you doing using sites like these’? Nilofer considered my question and came back a month or two later asking if I could guide her through the process of consolidating her Internet presence on WordPress. The picture you see above was the result of our first collaboration and it served her well for almost a year…
A month ago Nilofer approached me with the idea of giving the site a total beauty makeover in preparation for her September 12 book launch of 11 Rules for Creating Value in the #Social Era. Nothing could have made me happier because helping Nilofer promote her thinking is truly a labor of love!
As we talked about the new site we both agreed we wanted something simple and straightforward that would accurately communicate her brand. We chose a simple but powerful WordPress theme that would showcase images reflecting the different aspects of Nilofer’s brand. I really wanted the website to “get out of the way” so that people could see how beautiful SHE really is. I wish I could take credit for the images but she worked with Cooper Bates Photography to get what we needed and their images really carry the site. It was pretty easy going from that point forward; here is the result of our collaboration:
What about you? Does your website accurately reflect the beauty of your brand? If not, I’d be happy to work with you as well! You can use the contact form below to connect…
How to Balance Your Blogging Tasks Without Going Crazy
Blogs consume their publishers.
They require intense concentration and time. There’s always something to do and not enough time to do it. Blogs are the only marketing tool that requires such a huge intellectual and emotional investment. I’ve heard many people compare their blogs to children. I agree.
Like children, authoring posts and growing a blog is deeply gratifying. I still remember the day I saw Pushing Social mentioned in another blog post. I still read my first comment. I’ve kept the drafts of every blog post I’ve ever written, like a photo album of my “baby’s” progress.
The problem is that our blogs aren’t children. They are tools that help us achieve tangible goals. Like any other tool, we must keep our blog in perspective. We also need to stay mindful of the tremendous effort a blog requires and balance our energy and time investment accordingly.
Get more here: How to Balance Your Blogging Tasks Without Going Crazy – Pushing Social
Just in time for this ‘milestone’ post, Chris Brogan provided this handy list that I’ll use as a preamble to what it is that I already wanted to share with you…
If you would like to get further into blogging, here is a brief primer:
- Get a blog. (Easy: tumblr.com, wordpress.com, blogger.com. Better: host your own -affiliate link.)
- Pick an area of focus, but one that has broad sides. (Mine: helping people do digital business in a human way.)
- Start writing.
- Start by planning to publish 1 post a week.
- Get daring and try for 2 posts a week (eventually).
- Make the posts more than 100 words and less than 1000 words most days.
- Spell-check.
- Delete the sentences that don’t matter.
- Realize that posts that are helpful to others get shared more than posts that are merely interesting.
- Never write a “sorry I haven’t written” post. Ever.
- Posts that just comment on other people’s posts and sum things up aren’t all that interesting.
- Do NOT get hung up on the tech. Get hung up on passion.
- The best way to write better is to read more. Second best: write more (often).
- Don’t try to copy other people’s style. Try to copy their proliferation.
- My best (most popular) posts were the ones I spent the least time writing.
- My least popular posts were the ones that took me more than a half hour to write.
- Pictures are a great place to start a post idea.
- Inspiration is a verb and a muscle.
- Lazy is, too.
- You’re doing it wrong. So is everyone.
- There’s not a single rule on this list that isn’t breakable. Break all the rules you want and enjoy yourself.
There. Write. Stop what you’re doing. Don’t comment. Don’t even share this post. Go write. On whatever came to mind. Delete it, if you hate it. But write. Now.
Source: A Primer for Blogging
Far be it from me to take issue with the great Chris Brogan, but regarding #1 I’ll say choose WordPress.com if you’re just getting started. Tumblr and Blogger are nice, but if you’re looking for traffic, nothing is better for Search Engine Optimization [SEO] than WordPress.com. You can always graduate to the self-hosted version of WordPress later if you want…
Regarding #2, sooner or later, you’ll have to face up to the fact that if you want to get good at it, your blog will have a brand. What is a brand?
“A brand is a “Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” Branding began as a way to tell one person’s cattle from another by means of a hot iron stamp. A modern example of a brand is Coca Cola which belongs to the Coca-Cola Company.” Source: Brand – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Simply put, if you’re going to find faithful readers, you’ll have to curate or create information on a narrow scope of topics so that people will know what to expect from you – what they come to expect of you is your brand. A blog gives you a share of voice on the internet which gives you a share of mind which may ultimately give you a share of market if you pursue it. You might even become a thought leader like Chris Brogan if you work your blog well enough! Thought leader? To me that’s a recognized expert that can be found in Google search. To become one you only need to do two things well; deepen your expertise [continuously learn – stay on top of your craft] and document your expertise [blog and engage in social media].
Regarding #11, I think curation is an important part of thought leadership and I think Chris ‘sums up’ more than he realizes! In this age of information proliferation, you have the ability to become a source that people trust through your blog by consistently curating and creating information that is useful to them. Also, I’m following rule #21 by breaking rule #11 and quoting Chris himself twice in this post! Here’s another great post he did this weekend about having a plan and working it;
“It’s a gorgeous and sunny day as I write this. I would like to be outside, maybe grilling up some steaks and drinking a beer or 12. But I’m working because that’s the plan. I have a short window of time to get a bunch of things done before I hit the road again, and because part of my business is to create media, that means writing and creating information that might be useful to you. Work the plan. That’s the message of the day. Work the Plan My media plan says I should be writing one of six types of posts:
- How to
- Vision/Perspective
- Promotion
- Interview
- Do it Better
- Review
In this case, I’ll call this post a “how-to.” It’s not the best I’ve ever written, especially because it’s so self-referential, but it proves the point. If your goal is to reach into the heads of the people you hope to reach, you’d best have a plan. If your goal is to make money, and this digital strategy is part of the plan, then what are you doing to stick to it?” Source: Work the Plan.
Only you can decide if my summary of Chris’ posts is ‘not all that interesting’…
btw, yesterday, I passed the 3,000 post milestone on my personal blog and I’m fast approaching 5,000 on my business blog but these are just the posts that have been published! Counting other blogs that I’ve done since I started 7 years ago I conservatively estimate I’ve created over 20,000 posts. I’m no Chris Brogan, but I have developed an efficient ‘lather rinse repeat’ cycle of blogging using Google Reader and WordPress. This screencast above shares some of my best blogging secrets with you – I promise you’ll learn at least one time-saving tactic if you watch the whole think [‘typo’ intentional]…
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A Primer for Blogging; thoughts on 3,000 posts…
Just in time for this ‘milestone’ post, Chris Brogan provided this handy list that I’ll use as a preamble to what it is that I already wanted to share with you…
If you would like to get further into blogging, here is a brief primer:
- Get a blog. (Easy: tumblr.com, wordpress.com, blogger.com. Better: host your own -affiliate link.)
- Pick an area of focus, but one that has broad sides. (Mine: helping people do digital business in a human way.)
- Start writing.
- Start by planning to publish 1 post a week.
- Get daring and try for 2 posts a week (eventually).
- Make the posts more than 100 words and less than 1000 words most days.
- Spell-check.
- Delete the sentences that don’t matter.
- Realize that posts that are helpful to others get shared more than posts that are merely interesting.
- Never write a “sorry I haven’t written” post. Ever.
- Posts that just comment on other people’s posts and sum things up aren’t all that interesting.
- Do NOT get hung up on the tech. Get hung up on passion.
- The best way to write better is to read more. Second best: write more (often).
- Don’t try to copy other people’s style. Try to copy their proliferation.
- My best (most popular) posts were the ones I spent the least time writing.
- My least popular posts were the ones that took me more than a half hour to write.
- Pictures are a great place to start a post idea.
- Inspiration is a verb and a muscle.
- Lazy is, too.
- You’re doing it wrong. So is everyone.
- There’s not a single rule on this list that isn’t breakable. Break all the rules you want and enjoy yourself.
There. Write. Stop what you’re doing. Don’t comment. Don’t even share this post. Go write. On whatever came to mind. Delete it, if you hate it. But write. Now.
Source: A Primer for Blogging
Far be it from me to take issue with the great Chris Brogan, but regarding #1 I’ll say choose WordPress.com if you’re just getting started. Tumblr and Blogger are nice, but if you’re looking for traffic, nothing is better for Search Engine Optimization [SEO] than WordPress.com. You can always graduate to the self-hosted version of WordPress later if you want…
Regarding #2, sooner or later, you’ll have to face up to the fact that if you want to get good at it, your blog will have a brand. What is a brand?
“A brand is a “Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” Branding began as a way to tell one person’s cattle from another by means of a hot iron stamp. A modern example of a brand is Coca Cola which belongs to the Coca-Cola Company.” Source: Brand – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Simply put, if you’re going to find faithful readers, you’ll have to curate or create information on a narrow scope of topics so that people will know what to expect from you – what they come to expect of you is your brand. A blog gives you a share of voice on the internet which gives you a share of mind which may ultimately give you a share of market if you pursue it. You might even become a thought leader like Chris Brogan if you work your blog well enough! Thought leader? To me that’s a recognized expert that can be found in Google search. To become one you only need to do two things well; deepen your expertise [continuously learn – stay on top of your craft] and document your expertise [blog and engage in social media].
Regarding #11, I think curation is an important part of thought leadership and I think Chris ‘sums up’ more than he realizes! In this age of information proliferation, you have the ability to become a source that people trust through your blog by consistently curating and creating information that is useful to them. Also, I’m following rule #21 by breaking rule #11 and quoting Chris himself twice in this post! Here’s another great post he did this weekend about having a plan and working it;
“It’s a gorgeous and sunny day as I write this. I would like to be outside, maybe grilling up some steaks and drinking a beer or 12. But I’m working because that’s the plan. I have a short window of time to get a bunch of things done before I hit the road again, and because part of my business is to create media, that means writing and creating information that might be useful to you. Work the plan. That’s the message of the day. Work the PlanMy media plan says I should be writing one of six types of posts:
- How to
- Vision/Perspective
- Promotion
- Interview
- Do it Better
- Review
In this case, I’ll call this post a “how-to.” It’s not the best I’ve ever written, especially because it’s so self-referential, but it proves the point. If your goal is to reach into the heads of the people you hope to reach, you’d best have a plan. If your goal is to make money, and this digital strategy is part of the plan, then what are you doing to stick to it?” Source: Work the Plan.
Only you can decide if my post is ‘not all that interesting’ because I ‘summed up’ Chris’ post — obviously I think it’s beneficial or else I wouldn’t do it…
btw, yesterday I passed the 3,000 post milestone on my personal blog and I’m fast approaching 5,000 on my business blog but these are just the posts that have been published! Counting other blogs that I’ve done since I started 7 years ago I conservatively estimate I’ve created over 20,000 posts. I’m no Chris Brogan, but I have developed an efficient ‘lather rinse repeat’ cycle of blogging using Google Reader and WordPress. This screencast shares some of my best blogging secrets with you – I promised you’ll learn at least one time-saving tactic if you watch the whole think…
25 Blogging Tips for Newbies and Veterans
Goins, Writer via 25 Blogging Tips for Newbies and Veterans.
In Monday’s epic post I mentioned the UM Dartmouth study on the death of blogging. Here’s the response I should have written if I were as smart as Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks…
When I speak to CEO organizations, I typically run through a series of quick slides that show where technology is right at this moment.
For instance: There were 107 trillion emails sent last year, Facebook is at more than 900 million users, Pinterest is closing in on 15 million users, and there are three billion videos streamed on YouTube every day.
I do this to show how many people are using the web, to preempt the “My customer doesn’t use the Internet” conversation (yes, I still hear that).
But the stat I want to talk about today is the number of blogs on the Internet. According to Technorati, there are 158 million blogs floating around, which is partly why I’m so surprised to keep reading that blogging is dead.
I get it. It’s not an easy think to keep up. My guess is many people or companies say, “Let’s start a blog!” and then do nothing with it after a month or two because it’s so labor intense.
So, let’s say for argument’s sake, half of those blogs never see the light of day, either because they’re abandoned or no one reads them because they’re too self-promotional. That leaves us with 79 million blogs, which isn’t a small number.
USA Today reported this morning that more companies are abandoning their blogs in favor of Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter.
Add to that, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth released a study earlier this year that says the percentage of companies that maintain blogs fell to 37% in 2011 from 50% in 2010, based on its survey of 500 fast-growing companies listed by Inc. magazine. Only 23% of Fortune 500 companies maintained a blog in 2011, flat from a year ago after rising for several years.
So, I see. Based on Wall Street and fast-growth companies, blogging is down, and now it’s time to claim the whole blogosphere is dead.
Here’s the thing, though. Those companies aren’t blogging because it’s hard. It’s hard to generate good content even once a week. It’s hard to cultivate a community. It’s hard to grow traffic. It’s a thankless job most days. So people throw something up there that talks about how great the company is, if only to check off “blog today” from their check list.
And the blog fails.” Full story at: Is Blogging Dead or Are Companies Not Trying Hard Enough? | Spin Sucks
Go to the source if you want the rest of Gini’s perspective…
Thanks, Gini, for connecting the dots in a way that makes sense. Me? I always tell my clients that blogging is one of those things that takes more time than money and the organic Search Engine Optimization [SEO] is better than paying for Search Engine Marketing [SEM]. Gini, however, did a much better job deconstructing the UM Dartmouth study…
Related articles
- Corporate Blogging Hits the Skids (marketingpilgrim.com)
- Corporate Blogging Declines As Twitter, Facebook Take Over [STUDY] (mediabistro.com)
- Reasons why big companies should be blogging (adigaskell.org)
How To Easily Include Images In Your Posts…
I coach a lot of people on how to use WordPress effectively for ‘thought leadership’ marketing. One of the most important things to include in every post is a relevant picture. Why?
Go to the source: How to easily include images in your posts… | e1evation.
More ideas for my WordPress.com blogging friends…
Out of ideas for your blog posts? Make them come to you using Google Alerts!
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your queries. Google Alerts – Monitor the Web for interesting new content
You’ll find a fine list of Google Alerts tutorials here…
If you really want to take it up a notch, learn how to use Google Reader to create a virtual newspaper to track the sites and searches that interest you. I’ve written a free ebook on the topic of ‘personal news aggregation’ or ‘How to create your own personal news agency’. It’s free for registering at http://e1evation.com/pna/. Oh, and I started a new category called ‘blogging tips’ for you. If you want more, come follow me at http://e1evation.com…
Questions? Feedback? Get on it! :-D
The first commandment of social media is ‘share, share, share’. A blog should be designed in such a way as to facilitate that sharing, both for the author AND the reader. Here are some practical tips on how I use sharing from my blog to drive traffic and engagement…
In previous posts I’ve talked quite a bit about how Twitter has become much more important in my ‘thought leadership’ marketing workflow. I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to tell you about two tools; one not so new and one that that just popped up on my radar recently. They are Paper.li and Twylah. I’m sure I saw Paper.li pop up over a year ago — Guy Kawaskaki was the first person I saw using it well. Twylah is a different story — I stumbled across Nilofer Merchant’s Twylah page only about a month ago. Both are great tools, but in the final analysis I think if you’re looking to use your tweets as part of your Search Engine Optimization [SEO] strategy, you’ll decide like I did that Twylah is the tool for you. Here’s a little riff I did for you outlining the reasons why…
What people are saying…
What people are saying…
What people are saying…
What people are saying…
What people are saying…
What people are saying…
What people are saying…
What people are saying…
http://storify.com/e1evation/paper-li-and-twylah-the-roundup
Related articles
- Twylah, Link Building Using Twitter (seopositiveltd.co.uk)
- Use Your Tweets To Create A Website Using Twylah (makeuseof.com)
- Twylah Creates A Website Out Of Your Tweets (alltopstartups.com)
- Trending tweets with Twylah (sciencetext.com)
Bright, shiny objects! 
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