At SES London I got chatting to someone who works for Louis Vuitton, I joked that I would never blog about the brand “Louis Vuitton” just incase the lawyers sued my fat lazy arse.. of course I was just joking around and the conversation turned to what I would do if I was Louis Vuitton [...]
Louis Vuitton open letter is a post from: Dave Naylor’s SEO Blog.
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Louis Vuitton open letter
Back in 2005 I asked my readers a question that surprised some for a blog like ProBlogger – I asked readers to talk about what was wrong with blogging.
I introduced the question by sharing a story of a debate between a Christian group and Pagan group where each group was asked to not argue FOR their own belief system but to share what they disliked about their own Faith perspective. The result of that debate was fascinating.
Instead of it ending in an angry fight where everyone just had their beliefs reinforced the debate was actually quite constructive with both groups coming away having learnt something about the other and more importantly themselves.
Similarly the responses to my question about blogging were insightful also (in fact I’ve asked this question twice previously – in 2005 and in 2006 and both times were fascinating).
There were a couple of things that came out of those discussions:
It’s been 4 years since I asked the question last – so in the hope of a productive conversation I thought it worth asking again.
What are the limitations of blogging as a medium? What are its weaknesses? Where does the blogosphere and/or blogging tools need to improve? What are you main challenges as a blogger that you don’t think you’d have in other mediums?
Hopefully in answering this question and deconstructing the medium of blogging a little we can play a part in the improvement of blogging as a whole. By identifying what’s wrong perhaps we can improve it.
Like last time the rules are simple – say anything you like about blogging as long as it’s not positive (note: I’m not inviting you to critique individual bloggers – but the medium itself). You can do this in comments below or by writing a post on your own blog (just leave a link below so we can find it). There are no wrongs and rights and everyone’s critique of the medium are valid and welcome.
So – what’s wrong with blogging?
Over to you!
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
What’s Wrong with Blogging? [Take 3]
So tonight myself and Mikkel did another live episode of Strikepoint on Webmasterradio. Apologies for the slight lag in the show, sometimes it’s really hard to keep the conversation flowing when there is a time delay but we try to work around it, plus in the last segment I dropped out for a few minutes [...]
WebmasterRadio.fm Strikepoint Show February 8th is a post from: Dave Naylor’s SEO Blog.
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Yahoo Promotes Hacked site ! wtf : I was doing quick search for the Strikepoint radioshow and saw thisThe Jobsite is a hacked server and Yahoo are giving them a side box listing what the HELL ! When I click the link I get 100’s of hacked server pages :Dave
Buy windows 7 – part2 is [...]
Buy windows 7 – part2 is a post from: Dave Naylor’s SEO Blog.
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Buy windows 7 – part2
Conversation in social media is supposed to be “open source,” right?
We’re supposed to gain energy and excitement from being open to the entire internet, to ideas that come to us from literally every corner of the globe.
But too often “social media” turns into a predictably closed circuit of the same people having the same conversation.
Finding your own tribe can be a wonderful thing. It can also make your blog unbearably boring.
The move from “wonderful” to “boring” happens when we fall into a pattern of always interacting with the same people, always talking about the same topics, and always reinforcing existing networks. There’s no growth, only stagnation.
I’ve seen this happen often with myself. I think that I’m growing and cultivating, but all I’m doing is reinforcing what’s already there.
So, here’s another idea.
Awesome things can happen when we consciously branch out beyond our habitual circles of association.
Instead of just aligning with people with the same skills and strengths as us, we can seek out those with different talents that complement our strengths.
Instead of reinforcing the same patterns of conversations, we can move beyond our comfort zones and make more meaningful connections. We can find new and interesting ways of approaching tired problems.
Instead of reenacting the same mental synapses, we can actually diverge and possibly . . . just maybe . . . innovate.
Who knows, maybe a lawyer could teach you how to build a better case for selling your product. Perhaps a teacher could help you communicate better with the beginners in your audience. Maybe a politician could teach you how to better dodge questions and avoid dealing with real issues.
OK, just kidding with that last one.
When we make a conscious effort to continually bring in fresh ideas and voices, we grow. We break the patterns that we’ve created. We move beyond plateaus to higher ground.
We can only change the game when we change the rules we play by.
And if we do, then just maybe, we can create something that’s really new. And isn’t that what we live for?
About the Author: Jonathan Mead is a writer, martial artist and trafficker of truth. He recently released a free ebook called The Zero Hour Workweek, aimed at helping people find freedom from the 9 to 5.
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How to Quit Hitting the Snooze Button on Your Blog
Recently, I was reading a post about sponsored Tweets, which sparked debate in both the comment section and on Twitter. The debate boiled down to whether or not a sponsored Tweet, or any sponsored content for that matter, is ethical.
Social media has a long history of being uncomfortable with making a profit. People believe there is some noble benefit to be gained from “taking the high road” and giving everything away for free.
If you’ve read Copyblogger for any length of time, you’ll notice that they talk a lot about content marketing. In essence, how to build an audience and gain trust and authority by giving content away.
It should be obvious that the goal of that process is to actually make a sale and pay your bills. But for some reason, that’s the part that people struggle with.
There is a certain percentage of the population that views any business pursuit (outside of the 9-5 workday, mind you), as a case of profiteering and being greedy.
In the conversation I mentioned above, some people have declared that they’ll stop following the “guilty” party. Some have said that they are completely turned off by all affiliate marketers. And others have stated that all the profits from this venture should be donated to charity.
Of course there’s more to life than making money. But I’m also not opposed to making a profit. If I have something of value to contribute, why should my family live in a van down by the river?
Money is useful for a lot of things, including charitable work and finding the cure for cancer. Like it or not, it makes the world go around. And there’s nothing particularly noble about relying on someone else’s money to lift us up.
What is it that makes one place acceptable for commerce, and another “sacred”?
Why is it now considered OK to monetize a blog, but not OK to monetize a Tweet?
And why does being generous with free content lead so many people to get angry when we try to monetize?
I’ll give you two examples.
Chris Brogan has given away a ton of fantastic free content for 11 years. In fact, his primary audience isn’t even a consumer of what he’s selling.
But that doesn’t matter . . . he still gives, freely and generously, every single day.
When he asked his readers to reciprocate and support his book, Trust Agents, (for a whopping 15 bucks), what happened?
His audience put his book on the bestseller lists, yes. But there was also a considerable backlash. Apparently, a vocal minority thought he was supposed to give for free forever, and never ask for anything in return.
Gary Vaynerchuk gave free content to his Wine Library TV viewers for years before he asked anyone to buy anything. Sure, he offered wines for sale, but he never pushed them. He consistently cared much more about his audience than he did about making a sale. In fact, I’ve never met someone more passionate about community than Gary V. You can hear it in the way he talks . . . it’s in his blood.
But when he launched his book, Crush It, people all over Twitter begged him to shut up about it. They wanted him to tone it down and relax. (Like Gary V. is ever going to do either of those things.)
These two men gave generously for years before asking for anything in return. And when they did, it was small change compared to what people spend on beer, coffee, movies, or video games. And even smaller change compared to what people make for their companies as 9-5 employees.
For some reason, it’s OK to make money at a day job. Don’t ask any questions, just sit in your cube and do what you’re told.
But when a passionate entrepreneur uses social media to create relationships and ask for money, that’s over the line. I guess the line of thinking is: I can’t make any money on my blog, so why should he?
I realize I’m preaching to the choir here, but there’s a reason for that. It’s simple really:
Our dream is under attack. The way of life that many of us are working toward is under siege by people who don’t have the courage, desire, or dedication to make it happen.
How can we let someone come into our house and talk smack? How can we not stand up for what’s right?
Making money, whether with affiliate links, sponsored content, or creating products, is not evil. It’s simply a byproduct of our desire for self-actualization. The world is better because of entrepreneurs, not worse, and it’s time we made that known.
So, are you with me?
About the Author: Nathan Hangen writes about web entrepreneurship at NathanHangen.com, and about how to use social media to fuel your brand at Making It Social. Follow him on Twitter @nhangen.
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Your Dream is Under Attack
Conferences are a hub of learning, growth and progress in the SEO industry. They’re part of the glue that connects members of the community, offering a cherished opportunity for forging relationships and friendship.
And no matter how many conferences they’ve been to, most attendees almost always walk away from a conference with new professional knowledge in their head or with new business connections stored in the BlackBerry.
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But if there’s a lesson in human nature to be learned from time spent at a conference, it’s that when interacting with an audience there are two channels to pay attention to today. Forget the fact that you’re interacting face to face, because there’s also a conversation happening right behind your back.
In a blog post for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Marc Parry writes about tweckling, or heckling a speaker on Twitter. It was during a higher education conference last month that one episode of tweckling lit up Twitter like a Christmas tree, the episode becoming the poster child for the dangers of disgruntled audience. Scratch that. The audience didn’t even have cause to be disgruntled. They were just bored.
Bored and looking for entertainment with other sympathetic or tortured audience members on Twitter.
The incident was enough to make conference organizers consider new ways to integrate the Twitter stream into the event.
Steven W. Tally, a strategic marketing consultant at the university, points out that people are accustomed to commenting about articles they read online. Now they want to comment in real time about speakers, too.
“We’re going to have to get used to the fact that you’re not speaking to a group now — you’re really leading a conversation,” Mr. Tally says. “And if you’re not listening to the other people who are participating in that conversation, it’s not going to have a good outcome for you.”
Now take a trip with me over to the Econsultancy blog for their analysis of Razorfish’s Digital Brand Experience Report. After surveying a thousand Internet users about how they engage with brands, the findings showed what we all could have guessed: digital interactions matter.
According to the study, 65 percent of participants said they made a first purchase from a brand due to an online interaction. And a whopping 97 percent said that their decision to buy or not by a product has been influenced by an experience online.
Mosey over to Marketing Pilgrim to read up on PostRank’s blog reader engagement study. The gist is that on-site engagement is dropping off while off-site engagement continues to climb. Brands may have enjoyed the measure of control afforded by keeping the conversation on-site, but that’s not really up to them anymore.
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Learn the lesson taught by poor Mr. Galper at the higher-education conference. No, not whatever he was sharing in his keynote presentation that day. I’m talking about the lesson being acted upon by the conference organizers in the fallout of that infamous presentation. In planning for future conferences, some organizers would like to see Twitter feeds broadcast on the screen as the speaker talks. Not only would it lessen the chance of snarky anonymous Twitter commenters bashing the event, it could prompt speaker-audience interactions.
There’s no ignoring the online channels, and why would you want to? At best, you gain customers, visibility and brand credibility. At worst, you become the laughing stock of the playground. And there’s little consolation in the fact that you didn’t know they were calling you names in the first place.
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Sticks & Stones May Break Your Bones But Ignoring the Online Convo May Crush You
Do you feel like you’re fighting for every page view your blog receives?
Do you wonder why you’re struggling to find readers when other bloggers seem to just hit “publish” and the world comes running?
It may be tempting to throw up your hands and say, “those other guys have all the luck,” but it won’t get you anywhere.
The truth is, those “lucky” people are doing something you’re not doing.
(Or they’re doing what you are doing, but better.)
If you want to get lucky, you’re going to have to give up the “poor me” attitude and make some changes. Here are some ideas.
Two guys walk into a bar (humor me here). The first guy walks up to a woman and says, “Hi. I make a lot of money and drive a really fast car, so you will definitely want to go out with me. Here’s my number. When you’re ready to go out, call me.”
The second guy sits down at the bar and listens. He hears the woman next to him complain to the bartender that the last Italian restaurant she tried was terrible, and that she couldn’t seem to find good Italian food nearby. When there’s a break in the conversation, he says, “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing about your bad experience with some of the local Italian restaurants. Have you tried Davio’s Cucina? It’s really excellent.”
Which guy is more likely to end up with a date?
I’m betting on guy #2. Instead of just blathering on about himself, he waited and listened for an opening. He started a conversation based on a shared interest. And because he’d been paying attention, he found a great angle to quickly capture the woman’s interest.
When you’re trying to get people to read your blog post, newsletter, or free report, the biggest mistake you can make is to assume that other people are just dying to learn about you and your product (or service). They don’t care about you.
Figure out what they do care about and start there.
You know those cheesy pick-up lines you occasionally hear in bars? Lines like:
Each of these lines must have worked for someone, somewhere, at some point in time. But that doesn’t mean you should use them.
There’s a lot you can learn by studying successful copywriters and marketers, and you should learn as much as you can. But you can’t blindly copy what they’re doing.
Swipe files and traditional copywriting techniques are only useful if you can intelligently translate them to your market.
That means you have to figure out how to apply those techniques while still being yourself. And you have to make sure that your content is still something your audience wants to read about.
Let’s say you’ve just moved to a new city and want to throw a party at your place. Should you (a) sit in your condo and yell, “Hey! I’m having a party!” and then wait for people to start showing up, or (b) go to the next condo association meeting, mingle with the neighbors, and invite them to come by this Friday evening for drinks?
If you think the answer is (a), you seriously need to get out more.
If your blog is getting 20 visits a day, you can’t just keep posting stuff there and praying for more readers. You’ve got to get out and meet some new people.
How? Join a LinkedIn group in your niche and start answering questions. Write a guest post for a popular (and relevant) blog. Comment thoughtfully on other bloggers’ posts and start to make friends. Ask your Facebook friends to forward your stuff to people they think might enjoy it.
The point is, you have to go where your people already are before you can get them to come to you. Find them, talk to them and then invite them back to your place.
You might just get lucky.
About the Author: Traci Feit Love is a writer and communications consultant specializing in content marketing and smart copy. Visit her website for more information or to sign up for her free e-course, “How to Get More High-Paying Clients.”
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How to Get Lucky With Content Marketing
That How to Get Started with SEO post that I published last week has a little backstory: It was inspired by a series of interviews I’ve done lately about SEO with members of the press. Each interview was about SEO and small businesses, and in each case I ended up talking about how a small business can begin to tackle SEO.
The fruits of each interview are now online, and if I had to pick a favorite, it would be this article from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It’s a profile of All About Spelling, a small business that I’d never heard of until the article was published online.
Possessing neither deep computer skills nor deep pockets, the Eagle River couple have built a thriving little enterprise on do-it-yourself Internet marketing.
After not quite three years in business, their home-based publishing house is bringing in $75,000 a month, supporting them and allowing them to live in northern Wisconsin as they always dreamed.
Small business owners — please read this article, and pay attention to the two-step process that this small business used when starting out online:
That second point is important, because writing great content isn’t enough; you have to promote it, too.
After you read the article, have a look at the All About Spelling web site. When I look at it, I immediately see a couple things on the home page that can be improved — the page title and the anchor text of the internal links, for starters. But there’s some good stuff going on here, too. Consider:
If you’re a service-oriented small business, and expertise is your primary selling point, you should be able to learn some things from their web site.
As I mentioned, there are a couple other articles online in which I talk about SEO and small businesses.
Digital Journal recently posted a Q&A with me. It’s an abbreviated version of the conversation, and I fear some important stuff got left on the editing room floor and/or lost in transcription.
I was one of several people quoted in a pair of articles about SEO that were recently posted by SmallBusinessComputing.com. Here’s number one, and here’s the second one.
Advertisement: WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool delivers more keywords, faster than paid tools and always 100% free. Try it today!
This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.
Meeting the Press, Talking SEO
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Meeting the Press, Talking SEO
The folks at HubSpot di a little digging into their client stats to compare how companies without a blog fare against companies that have a blog. The results, after looking at more than 1,500 companies, are pretty staggering. Companies with a blog have:
Blogging isn’t for everyone, but it’s quite often one of the first things I recommend to clients and prospects that want to crush their competition. Sure, Facebook and Twitter are all the rage these days, but I still say that a well-written blog is one of the most powerful weapons in any online marketing plan of attack.
Head over to the HubSpot blog post to see more charts like this, as well as the conversation happening in the comments.
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This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.
Blog Benefits: Traffic, Links, and Indexed Pages
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Blog Benefits: Traffic, Links, and Indexed Pages
En esta parte podrás poder cualquier cosa sobre ti ó sobre tu sitio, una pequeña introducción ó algo que desees hacerle saber a tus lectores. elsonar.es
Look out, Big Apple. Search Engine Strategies is coming to town
Moderator: Matt Van Wagner , President, Find Me Faster Speakers: Meagan Rochelle , Search Solutions Specialist, Microsoft Nicholas Ward , Product Manager, Range Online Media How many people are using Bing Cashback, Matt asks? About a quarter of the audience raises their hand. The rest are interested to find out how it might work for them.
The first big search conference of the new year, Search Marketing Expo West , is just around the bend. SMX West takes place March 2-5 in Santa Clara, California. Bruce Clay, Inc.
I’m a day late in climbing out from under the ever-piling heap called my feed reader — but hey, if Punxsutawney Phil can claw his way to the surface today, I can too. Here’s the search news from over the weekend through today, with a special focus on local and mobile news. Local Events Added to Bing Maps The Local Events application in Bing now features event listings
Oh happy, glorious, liberating Friday. We’re so glad you’ve come back! What’s in store for the recap today? Truth be told, I don’t even know