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Archive for June, 2009

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“Should I quit my blog and start Lifestreaming, Videocasting, Social Messaging/Networking etc?”

There’s been another round of ‘blogging is dead’ posts doing the rounds of late and as a result I’ve had a number of emails hitting my inbox over the last week from bloggers asking if they should stop blogging.

Here’s some of the advice I’ve been sharing:

• Blogging is not dead – it’s evolving.
• You should be evolving too (read Blogs are Out of Beta, But Bloggers Should always be in Beta)
• Keep being useful, keep solving problems and keep meeting needs – whatever the medium this is key.
• Keep producing content – people continue to search the web for content in huge numbers. It’s not all about networking and bookmarking – whether it be text, video or audio – keep producing content.
• Experiment with different mediums – to the best of your ability keep abreast of the ‘new’ mediums that are emerging.
• Build a ‘Home Base’ – many people flit from one medium to another and end up with nothing of their own (read more on the Home Bases and Outposts that I use).
• Build a Brand – the mediums are tools. They’ll come and go in time – the key is to build something that lasts beyond them.
• Don’t be Precious about your ‘Blog’ and be open to change – there’s no one ‘right’ way to blog. Blogs can have comments or not have comments, have full RSS feeds or partial ones, look like a traditional blog or act and look more like a lifestream or portal. The key is to know what you want to achieve and let that shape what you do with your blog.
• Don’t abandon your blog too quickly – your primary efforts may move into a different medium but blogs can be an important part of the mix of what you do online. Don’t abandon your blog – build upon it, let it evolve, leverage what you’ve already built and use it where appropriate in the mix of what you do.

My last piece of advice is particularly for those with limited time or capacity to fully engage with all of the mediums and tools that are currently at our fingertips.

I get the sense from a lot of bloggers that they feel that they’re being left behind – that all this new stuff that is emerging is beyond them – that it’s hopeless to keep on blogging. My message to you if you’re feeling this way is to keep at it. Even as a full time blogger/web entrepreneur I don’t have time to fully engage with all of the new technologies that are currently emerging. I too feel some of those ‘overwhelming’ feelings.

I think the key is to engage with the new technologies to the point that you’re able but to know when to stop and focus upon what you already have in front of you.

The problem as I see it is that whether it be a blog, a Twitter presence, a podcast or some other kind of website or presence – it takes time to build these things up to successful levels. If you only give a medium a short time before moving to the next one you’ll just end up with a trail of abandoned accounts and sites behind you.

I see a lot of people running from one thing to the next and not really achieving anything. They live in a constant state of distraction and experimentation. There’s nothing wrong with new things and testing them out – but unless you’re fortunate enough to have a lot of spare time or an amazing capacity not to sleep there comes a time where you need to choose a handful of things to do (or even just one) and to do it to the best of your ability.

For me – this means focusing mainly upon building blogs. My blogs are evolving and looking less and less like blogs as I experiment with different ways of presenting the information on them and play with different technologies on them – but I try to keep my focus steady upon the long term goals that I have. As a result I’ve managed to build them into profitable properties.

Yes I’ll continue to experiment with other technologies but for me they are only about adding value to my primary web properties.

What do you think? How are you approaching what you do in this ever changing web?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Should I Quit Blogging?

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Here is the thing I don’t get about twitter.

People follow people they are interested in and want to know what they are doing (unless I am missing something).

What I don’t get is why people follow me, but then bitch about what I say… repeatedly…. and often times will say “Who gives a shit” in response to my tweets. Well I guess you do jackass or you would not follow me.

Here is a good example… Last Friday I went with my wife and daughter (it was my daughters birthday) and she REALLY wanted me to get my toenails painted.

So I put up a twitpic of it:

and this jackass incredibill who has been following me for years but is always the first one to bitch comes out with:

Now don’t get me wrong. I am all for free speech and if this failure at life wants to spout his bigoted comments at me then go ahead. He is one of many that like to make personal insults I receive every day. I am a big boy and have put myself (and my toes) in the public spotlight.

What I don’t understand is why people devote there resources to following people they do not like.

Maybe someone can explain it to me?

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

What I Dont Understand About Twitter Followers

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Gyutae Park of Winning the Web has just launched a new Internet marketing training program today called Winners Circle.  And at first glance, I think it is pretty awesome.

Winners Circle is a members-only site with exclusive Internet marketing case studies, interviews, and community.  Currently, there is one case study up and a new one is released each week.  There are also a few interviews with top Internet marketers (released bi-weekly), a special bonus report called “4 Steps to Finding the Perfect Niche for Your Online Business”, and a forum which gives you direct access to Gyutae and other like-minded Internet entrepreneurs.

What sets Winners Circle apart from other Internet marketing sites is that it uses specific case studies and examples of successful sites (in various niches using different business models) to show you what works and what doesn’t.  You really can’t find this type of information anywhere else.

The cost of the membership is normally $47 per month but as a special promotion, Gyutae is offering a rate of $27 per month to the first 200 members who sign up.  There is even a 30-day money back guarantee and a fast action bonus for the first 50 people to sign up where Gyutae will personally audit your sites and provide 3 custom recommendations for SEO, traffic, and monetization.

To take advantage of the limited $27/month price and bonuses, you just need to head here and sign up!

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

Winning The Web Announces ‘Winners Circle’

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Mid last week a lot of blog owners saw their RSS subscribers count drastically decrease. I had seen this before but it never lasted more then a day (that i saw). I was surprised to see the issue still going on several days later as it started to pop up on forums, blogs, and on some Google Groups that Feedburner was no longer showing your Aweber Blog Broadcast Subscribers.

I talked to a friend who works at Feedburner and he said he was not sure the exact reason they stopped showing but that Feedburner in general was cleaning up questionable services that might not be reporting properly.

I think this was kind of funny as seeing as how they just started reporting friendfinder… anyway…

Earlier today Aweber’s CEO responded to me and John Chow’s tweets on Twitter:

I do hope its a temporary glitch. If its permanent it would be a huge blow to Aweber.

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

Feedburner Drops Aweber From RSS Counts?? Or Not??

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Remember the movie West Side Story? It was one of the best musicals ever made. Well, the good forks at College Humor has created their own version call Web Site Story that is nearly just as epic. How College Humor comes up with this stuff, I have no idea. Whatever they are doing, they need to keep it up.

For those who don’t know, West Side Story is a musical Romeo and Juliet story. It was released in 1961 and was the winner of 10 Academy Awards. I highly recommend you watch if you’re into tragic love stories where the guy gets killed in end. Fortunately, Web Site Story has a much happier ending.

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When it comes to auto-following people on Twitter (either manually or with third party applications), there are basically two camps: those who claim it is a bad idea, and those who claim it is a good idea.

People who say auto-following Twitter users back is a bad idea use the following arguments:

• When you auto-follow everyone back, in a matter of weeks you will be following thousands of people, and it is impossible to keep track of what they will tweet.
• If you auto-follow you will end up following spammers, scammers and bot accounts that are automated, with no real humans behind them
• Even if auto-following will give you more followers, those followers will have low quality, because you won’t be able to build real relationships with them.

The folks who think auto-following is a good idea, on the other hand, have the following arguments:

• Auto-following will increase the number of followers that you have, so you will be able to leverage a bigger audience on Twitter (for whatever goals you might have)
• Auto-following is also polite. If someone takes the time to read your tweets, it is only fair that you do the same with theirs.
• By using Twitter tools and applications it is still possible to follow a large number of people, get value out of their tweets and interact with them.

I thought that it would be interesting to see what percentage of our readers auto-follow everyone back, and what percentage does not, so let’s have a poll. You are also welcome to write a comment if you want to share your opinion on the issue.

Do You Auto-Follow Everyone Back on Twitter?(trends)

Poll: Do You Auto-Follow Everyone Back on Twitter?

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I used to think being “right” was a big deal.

I had to say the right thing, dress the right way, know the right people, read the right books, live in the right neighborhood, go to the right school. It wasn’t because I wanted to, exactly, but because I thought it was a prerequisite for success.

If you want other people to respect you, then you have to look and sound a certain way, right? Makes sense, if conformity is all you’ve ever been taught.

What no one tells you is the cost. Yes, conformity gains you a certain type of approval from others, but it comes at the cost of losing your sense of self.

You have to systematically search out everything that’s a little bit “off” about you and bury it as deep as you can. You know that you can’t get rid of it — it’s a part of you, after all — but maybe you can hide it so deep that no one will ever see it, so that a world that only respects the “right” will never realize how “wrong” you really are.

Maybe, just maybe, you can fool everyone until you’re in a position of power and no one’s opinion matters anymore. Then you can be free. Right?

Umm… no.

The Power of Misfits

The people we pay attention to aren’t the masters of doing what’s “right;” they’re the misfits who have the courage to be wrong. They take whatever everyone else is doing in their industry and turn it inside out.

It’s not just about differentiation; it’s about perverting the norm, destroying sacred traditions, and screwing with the way people think. It’s about doing, saying, or living something that’s so completely unexpected that people can’t help but pay attention.

It’s about realizing that most people spend their lives breathing stale, recycled air, and then spending the remainder of your life finding and opening windows to make that air new again.

• Who would’ve thought a movie that told a story backwards would become a cult classic that people would talk about for decades? But that’s what Christopher Nolan did with Memento.
• Who would’ve thought paintings consisting of nothing more than splattered paint would sell for millions of dollars? But that’s what Jackson Pollock did with his art.
• Who would’ve thought a Jewish guy from the UK would become famous by playing an anti-Semitic, socially-retarded Kazakh? But that’s what Sacha Baron Cohen did with Borat.

The one trait they all have in common: the courage to be wrong.

The Fallacy of Right and Wrong

By saying “wrong,” I’m not saying you should pander for attention, make lewd jokes, or otherwise do something bad. What I’m saying is you need to realize “right” and “wrong” exist only between quotation marks. Every day, the world decides their definition, and every day, we have the opportunity to influence what that definition becomes.

Revolutionaries don’t just burn the rules. They write new ones. In destroying the standard, they create the standard. It’s creative destruction at its finest.

Will some people dislike you? Sure, that’s the way it works. Real leaders are willing, even eager, to be disliked and even hated, not because it makes them feel important, but because they know it’s the price of change, and no one can pay that price but them.

Do you have that kind of courage?

If not, it pays to find it. No one pays attention to a coward for very long.

And if all you do is what’s “right,” then a coward is exactly what you become.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on Twitter.

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When Google carried out the brand update on Google.com in March we carried out a study to see where Britains most trusted brands ranked on Google. The idea being that if Google was boosting brands either on purpose or as a side effect of a change in the authority algorithm we would be able to see in the search results.

At the time we concluded that brands were ranking where we would expect based on normal SEO factors but in view of the recent Google.co.uk brand update I thought it would be interesting to see the changes.

The interesting thing about this study is that in most cases the keywords are things that we wouldn’t expect many brands to actively be targeting so it’s a great test of whether Google associates brands with keywords without looking at the normal SEO factors.

As you can see a few of the brands have moved up particularly for major keywords such as “chocolate”, “credit cards”, “airline”, “mortgage lender” and “opticians”.

A good case study of how the brand update has affected the search results is to search for “hotels” and look at the results for Travelodge and Hilton. Neither of those sites even has the word “hotel” in their homepage title tag and they also don’t appear to have been actively building links either.

Not getting the rankings you want? Hire us for Search engine optimisation

Britains Top Brands & How They Rank On Google

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This weekend I was doing a little housekeeping on some of my domains and hosting accounts and decided to test and see if it was possible to get a website indexed using XML Sitemaps and no external links.

Since some piano player in New Jersey owns the domain MichaelGray.com I had a few options but the best was to go with my middle initial and byt the domain MichaelAGray.com. Since I’m all about wordpress as a CMS I put the files up, put up my theme of choice thesis, tweaked it with the thesis reputation skin, and installed the XML Sitemaps plugin. I set it up to ping all of the search engines as shown below:

Within 4 days the homepage for the domain was showing in Bing and Google as shown below (yahoo just didn’t love me enough)

I’m a big advocate of using sitemaps, and I think this demonstrates their effectiveness. Unless you have a really small site or really good site architecture, chances are some parts of your website aren’t as exposed, or well linked as others, and this helps you spoon feed the search engines your content insuring better crawling.

That’s not to say you should use sitemaps and not worry about spiders being able to crawl, because internal anchor text can play a huge role in SEO. However use on XML sitemaps as a redundant backup plan to help make sure you fully crawled and indexed.
photo credit: D?ri

Need SEO help with your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

Can You Get a Website Indexed with No Links and XML Sitemaps?

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3. Google Guide to SEO – Are Social Media Links on Death Row? I was read

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by Jennifer Laycock

With more and more people signing on to social sites like Twitter and Facebook, companies are working overtime to figure out how to make the companies, products and offerings go viral. While I’ve written quite a few article about the theories behind preparing a campaign that’s likely to go viral, the truth is that some of the most effective viral campaigns are also the simplest. Sometimes it’s less about creating a great idea and more about enabling the spread.

I saw the perfect example of this earlier today while hunting for a pair of sandals. I was looking for a pair of slip-on Croc sandals to replace a pair that broke last week. Since I’m going camping with friends this weekend, I wanted to make sure I had replacements before we head out on Thursday. There aren’t any local stores here in Canton that sell this style of Crocs, so I headed to Zappos, knowing I’d get fast, free shipping. Unfortunately, Zappos doesn’t carry Crocs.

That sent me to the Crocs site, which had my shoe in stock, but charges a hefty fee for shipping. That’s when a Google search turned up Shoebuy.com. The site advertising free UPS ground shipping both ways, plus they carried the Crocs I was looking for. On top of that, they were offering $20 off a $50 purchase if I used PayPal. That alone would have been enough to make me mention the site to at least a couple of friends. After all, giving people a great deal is a key way to get them to talk about you.

In fact, I pretty much expected to see the standard “send a discount to friends” option pop up after I checked out. I wasn’t disappointed. But the folks at Shoebuy.com score in the viral realm by taking it a step further.

Give the Consumer Control

If you look up in the top right corner of the checkout page, you’ll see the discount code for friends. Clicking on that discount shows where they take things a step further and do them right. They not only offer me a discount for my friends, they give me the ability to share that discount in any way I’d like.

If you look closely at that screen shot, you’ll notice the standard “email to friend” form. The nice thing is the line of options along the top of the window allowing me to share it via several other social media outlets. As a woman, I love this. I’m not keen on giving the email addresses of my friends to a random company. (I’m more than happy to TELL my friends about a company, but I don’t like handing those email addresses over.)

The folks at Shoebuy.com give the power of the message to me. No email? No problem. I clicked over to the Facebook icon and filled out the form to share it with my Facebook friends.

A few seconds later, their coupon and my personal endorsement broadcast to my list of Facebook friends.

I clicked through the list, looking at the options and ended up shooting the link and a quick plug out to my Twitterverse as well. Making a perfect example of how this type of enabling of your customer can take word of mouth or viral marketing to a whole new level. Had the Shoebuy.com demanded email addresses for me to give friends the discount, I likely would have given them just three or four addresses. My best friend, my mom and maybe one or two others. But with these options…it got broadcast to a few hundred Facebook friends and to a few thousand Twitter contacts.

Heck, they even gave me a simple “embed” option complete with code, so I’ll go ahead and share it with all your Search Engine Guide readers as well.

Here’s $10 off at Shoebuy.com

“”

Save on shoes, accessories, handbags and apparel at Shoebuy.com. We’ve got something for everyone and for a limited time, you can save $10 on that special something. Valid on purchase of $50 or more.

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Put More into Enabling than Inspiring

I watch companies put tons of time and creative energy into coming up with a brilliantly catchy video, or an enticing blog pitch. Marketers preach viral like it’s the key to free advertising, but we try to convince business owners they have to create the next big thing to capture a viral success. While that’s one way to go about it, most companies will see a dramatic improvement if they just start with something as simple as creating a really great social media friendly “send to friend” option. Give people a simple and easy message to spread, then give them the tools to spread it. You might be surprised at how far it takes you.

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