How to Blog Day 5 – Reader Interaction
In Day 5 following the of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog, the instructions are to simply interact with your readers.
This can be done through e-mail or making a post on their website. I already do this. Everything would seem pointless without doing so. I’ve made friends, learned additional information, and even swapped some free help with projects.
When leaving posts, always try to add to their conversation. It’s good for their website as it adds to the content that Google will index and it’s good for your website because you get the all-important backlink.
Reader interaction is where the big news websites will probably continue to fail. It seems that they want to maintain authority and that by staying out of the blogs, they are above the questions and conversation. They simply want to set up the ability to blog, post articles from their writers, then get money from ad revenue. When you look at the low quality of their postings, you see the results of this type of thinking. If it’s not working for mega-bucks corporations, it’s surely not going to work for you.
The individual blogger actually holds the edge here and it’s driving the news organizations crazy. How many derogatory statements have you heard about bloggers on the news? Some even want legislation to stop us! They try relentlessly to push the stereotype that anyone willing to post their views on the Internet is a 40 year old who never left home blogging from his Mother’s basement. People know better. They can interact with the blogger. These types of statements take the news agencies to an even lower level of trust and the individual blogger is gaining ground.
Again, the take-away from this chapter would be to simply interact.
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How to Blog Day 4. Analyze a Blog in Your Niche.
Day 4 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog tells us to go analyze a blog in your niche. In my case for this blog, again I’ve violated the initial rule of not having a niche. I’ll have to go find another personal blog and analyze it.
The things there telling you to look for are”
- How to they monetize? Do they use affiliates, Ebay, Adsense, Amazon, etc.
- Their topics and style of writing.
- What type of reader engagement are the using. Twitter, replies, etc.
- Traffic and Search Engine Optimization Techniques. There could be volumes written on this, but they barely touch on it.
- Become an active reader of the blog.
The most important part of this chapter is that they finally tell you to be unique. You are only supposed to study what is being done, not copy it. To me, this would be the most important thing to walk away with. The Internet is clogged with failed blogs that are simply reposts of other posts. I don’t want to be any part of it and I see no future in it.
For those of you that think you’re above monetizing your blog, I think you’re crazy. This would be like saying that authors should write books for free or newspapers should be given to the public at cost(some are nowadays). I think my work is good enough to put ad revenue on and I’m going to enjoy the fruits of my labors. At the same time, I’ll attempt to place ads with at least some relevance to what I am writing about. With Adsense, the ads can get a little strange, but overall, they give the reader access to something they may be looking for anyhow.
How to Blog Day 3 – Blog Promotion
Day 3 of the 31 Days To Build A Better Blogbook instructs the reader to promote your blog post. Finally something really useful that many people overlook.
Some people are natural promoters, others barely talk to more than a small group of friends. Your blog is only going to promote itself to a very small degree. If you promote it, your efforts grow exponentially. When done strategically, it is the answer to “How do I get to the top of Google“. For the best answers on promotion, Google’s SEO Guide provides most of what you need to know. The problem with this book is that they only give you a few ideas on the subject when volumes could be written. I’m not going to be much help here either. For
The best way to promote your blog requires software. On my personal blog, I’m not going to go into the matters of which software I use or which is best. I don’t want to mislead and I’m not certain that what I use is best. I know what I use is very effective, but it takes an inordinate amount of time to master. The best advice I can give anyone about how to promote a blog is to start trying free and manual ways, then look for tools that automate some of this process for you. Search for “free SEO tutorials” and get started. Even a little work done in this area will go a long ways.
The sad part of promotion is that it’s not fun. It’s not what people get into blogging for. If you change your mindset, you can make it fun though. Look at it as a game. It is actually very similar to World Of Warcraft in the principles of what needs to be done. If you are blogging for dollars it can bring in some income too.
When promoting your blog, look for ways to promote that are helpful. When you post on others blogs, add meaningful content to the discussion when you make your posts. If your posting to Facebook, only post things there that you know a large number of your friends would enjoy seeing. For example, none of this “How To Blog” series I’m doing would be posted there. Only a handful, if any, would be interested. Bookmarking websites like Digg, Squidoo and HubPages types of websites, and many other Web 2.0 sites, that’s a different story. Blast away all of your posts at free for all websites like these.
If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go promote.
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TomTom XXL 530-S 5-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator
I found this for a friend looking for a larger screen GPS at Amazon.com
The TomTom XXL 530·S is easy to use XXL widescreen navigation. TomTom’s award-winning software means effortless navigation from A to B. Switch on and go right out of the box. Just enter the address on the touchscreen and start driving anywhere in the US or Canada. TomTom guides you door-to-door with turn-by-turn spoken instructions including street names. 3D graphics help guide you to your destination. Easy to use XXL widescreen navigation. Click to enlarge. Easy (more…)
The price is great on this unit. It keeps dropping so You’ll have to go to Amazon to see what the price is. It was under $150 with shipping the last that I looked. It’s not the top of the line, but it is very good for the price.
How to Blog Day 2. Write a List Post.
Write A List Post!
Seriously. That’s the day 2 instruction. How many list posts that really do not need to be lists have you seen? I’m blaming this book as the cause of it. We all know what a list is and how to use it. Some of us are now claiming to have lists fetishes. This is ridiculous, but here is my list post for ridiculous statements I’ve found in the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog
Write a list post like List Post King, David Letterman. Image via Wikipedia
- You need an elevator pitch. Not everything requires jargon. A good heading that tells what your blog is about would do the same thing wouldn’t it?
- You should write a list post. Wouldn’t that come natural if you were writing about something that required a list. Now every subject requires a David Letterman style approach.
- You should promote your post. Yes, and this book should promote promoting your post and give more details about the best approach. If nobody finds your post, you’ve wasted your time. This could be considered a “secret” and only slight reference to this is a great way to keep it that way.
- Go look at other blogs and do what they’re doing. I don’t think so. Sorry, it goes against my principles. I’m here to create my own blog. If I’m going to do the same things as others, I’ll just make a huge link directory and point folks elsewhere.
- Take a trip to the mall to improve your blog. What if your blog is about a topic that doesn’t have anything to do with the mall? Loitering at the mall? Is this one of the big secrets to 6 figure blogging?
Ok, this list gets the point across. Hang in there. There are some good points in the book. Most of them are sparse on details, but there is enough to get a beginner started. I’m started to think that this book would be very good for beginners and that they’ve completely missed their target with the inaccurate title.
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How to Blog Day 1. Create an Elevator Pitch.
I couldn’t resist buying the book 31 Days To Build A Better Blog
I’ve already glanced through the book. I didn’t find any secrets. I’m worried. Another book of secrets lacking secrets. Maybe I’m missing something in these secrets books. Just to be fair, I’m going to give the book’s suggestions a try though.
I’m going to test out some ideas on my personal blog. It’s been idle for a while, so I can’t really do any harm here. I’ve already switched it to WordPress and converted the Drupal content to WordPress. I’m going to test the outer-limits of conformity. According to the book, I’ll be setting pretty on a six-figure income at the end. That will be handy.
The first lesson = “Create An Elevator Pitch”.
An elevator pitch is the sub heading of every blog. It’s supposed to be a catchy little phrase that sparks interest and tells the reader what the topic is of your blog.
I have violated the general rule that tells you to make your blog about one specific topic. This idea is pretty worthless for a personal blog unless you truly are a person with a one-track mind. So I’m going with, “My Internet Stuff” as my elevator pitch. Nowhere to go but up from a line like that. It does inform, just fails to spark interest. I hope this doesn’t blow that six-figure income promised in the book’s “elevator pitch”.
Role of God With the Forefathers of the United States
There’s been much talk about how the forefathers were not believers of God. That’s all I’ve ever heard about the subject
from those how subscribe to the Godless idea, talk. The evidence is always lacking and they only have a few snippets from the country’s forefather’s writings to make their point with. There are volumes that say otherwise and here is a great conversation on The Glenn Beck Show to prove otherwise . “Glenn Beck? He’s a crazy man!”. I can hear it now. I’m glad they put out a transcript to the show because it condensed everything for everyone and eases the conversation on the topic.
What I find crazy is listening to college professors who use books with no or very few references and then founding your belief on them. Here’s a transcript of the Glenn Beck Show about religion and the Forefathers.
Follow the references and you’ll see that the argument that the majority of the Forefathers were indeed God fearing men, holds a lot of weight and volumes of evidence. I would say that they were enlightened by the Father himself to found America with a specific purpose in world history, but I understand that’s a bit much for folks that can’t get past the almighty preachings of their enlightened liberal professors. Sorry. I know that Liberal education was pricey, but not all of it was worth the student loan payment.
Drop in Motorcycle Fatalities Has Safety Experts Perplexed
There has been a sharp decrease in motorcycle fatalities and nobody can say why. After 12 years of sharp increases, the fatality rate plummeted.
After a year of heavy enforcement efforts for licensing and insurance, a dramatic plummet in the economy, lack of financing credit for motorcycles, and sharp decrease in four-wheeler travel, it makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly which factor was the most effective.
When an 18 year old can’t finance a Hayabusa, a 50 year old has had his fill of American Chopper, the inattentive four-wheeler decides he can’t afford to rocket the Family Truckster to the beach and run over anything that gets in the way, the drunken fool that’s acquired a motorcycle with no license gets his bike impounded, and some seriously money-hungry state troopers all come together in the same year, fatalities drop for bikers. It’s no wonder for anyone, but picking the exact method to push for the next year is tough. No matter what a safety expert says, someone can point to the multiple factors.
It sucks to be pessimistic, but I don’t think this years blip amounts to much. Every factor mentioned is short-term. Sooner or later every factor will go back to previous levels. The long term solution is motorcycle training and experience for the rider and attentive driving from the car driver.
If You Believe We’re Recovering From the Recession, Please Read.
I found this post called, Is America’s Economic Recovery On The Whole Based On A Rotten Sham? It covers an angle of our economic troubles that I had not considered before.
The housing mess was caused by people wanting much more than they could afford and not paying what a McMansion’s payments should be and buying things that we couldn’t afford with credit cards. The government allowed, encouraged, and even forced the banks to do it, and then bailed them out when all of the Ponzi schemes and phony scams collapsed. The details are complex, as details always are in scams and Ponzi schemes, but the basics of what happened are very easy to understand. What I don’t understand is how very few have learned anything.
As I delivered pieces and parts to the McMansions, I couldn’t help but ask who was buying them. I couldn’t help but wonder how so many people were getting so wealthy while I wasn’t. The more I asked, the more I found out that they weren’t wealthy, just in debt. I found that the road to where we are was a facade, and now the recovery is a facade as well.
If you read this and still believe the news that good times are just around the bend, you’re not paying attention.
It’s an old joke, but relevant to how I feel after reading this article. A helicopter pilot gets lost in the Redmond, Washington fog. He lands at the Microsoft headquarters and Bill Gates walks up to the chopper. The pilot asks, “Where am I?”. Gates replies, “You’re in a helicopter.”.
We know how things got where they are and most of us know the situation we’re in. The question would be what do we do? Human nature being what it is, the majority are going to fall for the false good news. Many more are catching on and doing some strategic failures of their own. Nobody wants to be a sucker and actually pay for things right? Should we make plans like are jobs, if you have one, won’t be here much longer? Should we just take the, “this too shall pass” attitude and go about business as usual?
Bush’s fault? Obama’s fault. Left or rights fault? All of the above and everyone in between. We all either participated or let it happen. I say let’s get past that and find a solution. Let the frat boys fuel their own yachts, the rest of us need to start acting like we were taught and do the right things.
Gaining More Ground on Twitter
I’ve posted on this before, but as soon as I think I’ve found a use for Twitter, my interest fades and I forget about it. Once again, I’ve ventured back and I’ve found out a few more things. I’m starting to “get it”. Don’t get me wrong, Twitter is one of the easiest tools to learn to use, it’s what to use it for that’s the hard part. If you’re already a Twitter veteran, there’s probably not much for you in this post.
I found Seesmic. It’s an application that puts everything into a desktop application. This eliminates the need for a browser window. I like Twitter much more when it’s just hiding in the corner of the computer with a simple alert when new posts arrive. After learning Seesmic in a few minutes time, I have removed the act of going to the Twitter website. This is a big deal because I just want a quick glance at anything interesting that someone I know may post and I want to see it as it happens. Problem solved.
The next issue is the question, “Who should I follow?”. Family and friends are a given, but who else? I had been following to many people posting to many things that I don’t care about. It’s not that they were posting anything wrong or bad, it’s just that I wasn’t interested. I was interested in them in the same level that I would bookmark their website. I want to see what they’re doing occasionally, but not every time they make a post. I am removing these people from my follow list.
Finding those I want to follow is starting to become clearer too. Seesmic has a search function. I find posts that are related to a topic with the search function. When I see that someone is tweeting consistently about things that I care about, then I follow them.
The big advantage would be how it all happens in real time. If I make a blog post, it could be a few days before Google picks up on it. Then, a person has to find the post by searching and that post my be hundreds of pages deep in the search results. With Twitter, if someone is searching, they get the latest posts right now. The quality of the posts is completely irrelevant, but it is great for finding the latest information.
Now that I have that figured out, I need to get the cell phone configured. It’s obvious to where the cell phone is important with Twitter now too.
If I’m correct, learning the benefits of Twitter isn’t that difficult to explain. I must still be missing something. If it were this easy, someone would have told me how I could use Twitter this way.
