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Things were going pretty well until I bit into my hamburger.

Ow.

Something was really wrong.

“Are you okay?” asked my date.

My eyes started watering. I was so confused, but I nodded.

I bit down harder and suddenly the hamburger flew out of my hands. I’ve never been so bewildered in my life. Only when I held my hand up did the sorry truth stare us in the face.

Somehow, my left ring finger had slipped inside the bun of that burger. I bit down on it. And when it hurt, the cause wasn’t immediately obvious, so I bit down harder . . . so hard I forced myself to drop the hamburger.

When I realized what had happened, I laughed really hard. She didn’t.

“Aren’t you embarrassed?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding, “but this is kind of how it is. And this stuff can’t be taught.” Then I finished the hamburger in dainty bites, making sure that no other errant appendages strayed between the bread.

“It must be kind of liberating to know that,” she said.

In a non-glorious footnote, the rest of that date went exactly nowhere.

But authentically idiotic is still authentic, which brings us to the point today:

There are things that bloggers can and can’t be taught

As my traffic climbed from modest to less-modest, other bloggers began asking me if I could help them build their own blog traffic. At first, I wasn’t sure I could, even if I wanted to. But I decided I’d try.

Before I was willing to work with someone, I asked one question:

Why do you think I can help you?

Their answers told me a lot. Not just about their expectations and thought processes, but about a lot of what’s wrong with the blogging mindset in general.

A few answers I’ve gotten

• You love what you do and can help me love what I do
• You know where you’re going and I want to go to the same place
• You’re passionate and I think that might rub off on me

What I didn’t hear from them was:

• I love what I do and think you could help me do it better
• Here’s where I want to go and I’m not sure how to get there
• I’m passionate about this idea and I want to bounce some ideas off another passionate person

Maybe that’s silly of me, but those are questions I could have approached more easily.

By the way, I’ve decided I’m not a very good coach and I doubt I’ll do this again. In fact, I think I suck. Don’t hire me.

(OK — I’m actually really good at some things. But I’m writing this post as a snapshot of this experience, not a sales pitch.)

Let’s take a look at those answers I received.

“You love what you do”

I do, but you cannot pay someone else to help you love something in the way they love it.

I love blogging, but I write my blog, not anyone else’s. And I don’t play for stakes, I play for fun. I would not love another project as much.

How do I know? Because I didn’t pick another project.

If you are seeking help with your blog, there is nothing wrong with trying to take the steps of someone who has achieved what you want. Why else would you be reading Copyblogger today?

But do not assume that their goals resemble your goals, even if they have numbers you would like to have.

“You know where you’re going”

No I don’t, other than up.

I know that I will publish a post every day and I will try to do lots of guest posts. I will be nice and helpful to everyone I can, lift a bunch of heavy stuff, and try to laugh a lot.

That’s what I know, that’s what I’ve done, that’s what I’ll do until it’s not fun anymore.

Whenever someone has had some success, many of us — me included — assume that the success is the result of a plan. That’s not always true. Dumb luck can play its role in anyone’s good fortune. Just keep an open mind. There are a lot of variables that go into whatever we decide “success” is.

“You’re passionate”

Once I took a mambo class taught by a guy whose passion nearly melted us all. He was like a combination of Beto from the Zumba commercials and Pepe Le Pew. He was amorous, passionate, and all swiveling hips. I love dancing, but I didn’t leave the class with that guy’s passion for mambo. But he tried!

The secret ingredient to a great blog

We like to give authority and credibility to other people. We want other people to have the answers.

Sometimes this creates brilliant coaches who are worth every penny. I have no doubt that if I hired Naomi Dunford and I had a plan, she could help me execute it.

But sometimes our need for answers spawns “gurus” who are freaking travesties of ethics and exploitation.

So what should you do to make your blog better?

Now that I’m done writing this post, here’s how I’m feeling:

First: If a consultant out there says “I can help you love writing,” or “I can help you write like me,” or “I can teach you passion,” the quickest way to escape their clutches is with a perfectly timed throat-strike.

(Don’t bother aiming for the groin — cowards and exploiters have no feelings down there).

It’s great to get help and advice if you need it. But don’t expect anyone to do all the thinking for you. And don’t trust anyone who tells you he can or will.

Second: However much advice you may get along the way, there is one secret ingredient to the great blog recipe. And that secret ingredient is you.

Finally: There’s only one test that really matters, and that can be solved over lunch:

Can your consultant eat a hamburger without harming himself?

About the Author: Josh Hanagarne is the twitchy giant behind World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog about living with Tourette’s Syndrome, kettlebells, book recommendations, buying pants when you’re 6’8”, old-time strongman training, and much more. Please subscribe to Josh’s RSS Updates to stay in touch.

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The Secret Ingredient to an Irresistible Blog

Yesterday I wrote a post about some of the factors that bloggers might consider when deciding whether to end a blog or not.

Today I want to continue the theme and look at some options available to bloggers who have decided to end their blog but who don’t quite know how to do it.

Here are some of the most common ways that I’ve seen people end blogs:

1. Sell It

Before you decide to delete your blog, or simply decide to stop writing – consider whether it might have some commercial worth. This might not be appropriate for all blogs (for example if you have a more personal blog you might not want to give it over to someone else) but if your blog is more commercial/entrepreneurial in nature you’ll probably find that it has some value to somebody else.

There are a variety of places where you can sell blogs and websites online but one of the best that I’ve had a little to do with is Flippa which has regular auctions of blogs and sites running. A quick survey of blogs listed there over the past few months has seen blogs sell for anything from two digit numbers right through to some pretty large sales (I just saw one that went for $60,000).

Obviously the more traffic and income your blog has the better but you might be surprised what people are willing to pay even for smaller blogs that have been around for a while and which have some page rank and incoming links.

Another option if you’re not willing to give away your content but still have a domain with some commercial value is to simply sell the domain without the content. Again – if you have a more established domain with lots f incoming links pointing at it you’ll find that some will be willing to give you something for it.

2. Hire a Blogger or Take On a Partner

If you’ve lost your passion for the topic of your blog but it still has potential to generate traffic and income you might want to consider hiring another blogger/bloggers to write for your blog (or even the run the whole thing).

There would be a variety of levels that you could do this on – from hiring a blogger to write a certain amount of posts per week which you edit, to hiring someone to write and do all the editing, to hiring someone to take on everything (including managing ad sales, maintaining the blog’s platform etc).

The model for this might be to pay a per post rate or you might choose to make it more of a partnership where you share ownership and income with the other blogger.

3. Transition it to a Community Blog

This is similar to the last option but if you have a blog that does have a group of loyal readers it could be worth handing the blog over to volunteers from your community to help you keep it running. In a sense it will become a blog which is largely made up of guest posts from readers.

This approach will only really work if you have an established readership who feels strongly that the blog is something that they believe in and want to keep running – even if it costs them some time to contribute to.

4. Relaunch

One option that I’ve not seen done many times but which could be considered is to refocus or relaunch your blog. This will probably only work if you have a domain name that is suited to more than one niche but instead of completely scrapping your site and starting again from scratch on a new domain perhaps you could build upon the Google rank that your blog has and start a new one on the same domain.

Again – there would be some branding considerations to keep in mind here and it work work best with a small shift in topic, but it could work in some situations.

5. Stop Writing But Let the Blog Sit as an Archive

I’ve done this a number of times – instead of just deleting my blogs I generally will just stop writing and then let them sit on the web in archive mode.

The benefit of this over completely deleting your blog or letting your domain name lapse and someone else grabbing it is that you keep the option open of using it again later and if you are monetizing it you have the opportunity to keep earning a little money from it in the mean time.

The other benefit is that you still are making your content available to readers who might be loyal to your blog and who want to keep referencing what you’ve written previously.

I’ve seen a number of people take this approach and also take up a more aggressive monetization of the site, do some link building to it and treat it virtually like a more static website that targets search traffic.

6. Redirect Links to a New Project

Another approach to consider if you’re starting a new blog on a similar topic is to set up your old blog and get it redirecting its permalinks over to your new project to help that new project get established with a little extra SEO juice and forwarded readers.

This is something I’ve seen a few SEO types do quite successfully and could be well worth doing instead of deleting your blog and not building upon what you’ve already done.

7. Delete it

This would be my last preference for most blogs but could be an option if you don’t want to keep paying for a domain/hosting and don’t care if your content disappears for ever.

I would probably sell my blog before doing this (or at least sell the domain) but I suspect that this is probably the most common approach among bloggers who simply let their domain names lapse and/or switch off their hosting.

What Have You Done with Old/Dead Blogs?

I’d love to hear what approaches you have taken with your old/dead blogs? Have you done some of the above or have you tried something else. Please share your experiences of ending blogs in comments below.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

7 Ways to End a Blog

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7 Ways to End a Blog

SEM Synergy this week will be live, and Bruce Clay will be talking to callers and answering questions on the show! People that hang out in the WebmasterRadio.FM chat room during SEM Synergy each week (and really, why aren’t you there?) know that I’m asked “Is this live?” about once per episode. How excited am I to be able to say “YES!” this time around?!

SEM Synergy, our weekly radio show and podcast here at BCI, is actually going live for a very special reason: our 100th episode! (Pay no attention to the episode count on iTunes. It’s a little thrown off because the episode from SES San Jose 2008 was eaten alive by technical issues…)

In the 99 episodes that have happened since the first show came together in April 2008, we’ve been privileged to interview some of the SEM industry’s most respected authorities — privileged not only because our industry’s experts are fun, witty and beyond bright, but they’re also exceedingly generous with their time and knowledge! (And if you needed more proof of the SEO community’sgenerosity…)

I mean, I’m always amazed when I consider the SEM Synergy library is chock full of brain nuggets from the likes of Avinash Kaushik, Matt Cutts, Vanessa Fox, Danny Sullivan, Bryan Eisenberg, Tamar Weinberg, Michael Gray, Marshall Simmonds, Dr. Ralph Wilson… oh heavens, I could go on, but that’s what the archives are for. A serious gold mine of expertise, if you want my opinion. Thanks to all our guests, both past and future, for donating their time and minds to the show!

We really hope you’ll be there as we celebrate our milestone and continue in the industry’s tradition of education and sharing. It’s going down live this Wednesday at 3 Eastern/noon Pacific. And just so you know, there are quite a few ways you can join the party!

• Call WebmasterRadio on the phone at 866-916-3423
• Call WebmasterRadio on Skype at webmasterradio.fm
• Join the WebmasterRadio chat room
• Send a Twitter message or reply to @SEMSynergy

See you there!

100 Episodes of SEM Synergy! was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

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100 Episodes of SEM Synergy!

I’m not so tech savvy as to know how to carry out any hacking or utilise backdoors (the Pentagon can sleep easy tonight) but when I was looking around for a particular filename when Google suggested these interesting options:Like I say, I’m no hacker, but that looks like a list of backdoors to me! Out [...]

Using 4Ðw0rÐ$ to sell hackz? LOLZ is a post from: Dave Naylor’s SEO Blog.

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Using 4Ðw0rÐ$ to sell hackz? LOLZ

The entertainment and CGI world has been fawning over the movie Avatar for months, and it seems you can’t watch any entertainment news program without hearing about James Cameron’s groundbreaking 3D epic.

And even if Cameron went home last week without the armful of Oscars he expected, directing the highest-grossing movie of all time probably takes the sting out.

But despite the movie’s brilliant effects and the unique world it creates, you’ll likely feel as if you’ve heard its underlying story before. In fact, you may very well predict the ending about an hour into the film.

So what makes “Avatar” so special? Why did it create such a fanatic following, and what can it teach you about creating a following with your own blog and marketing content?

What’s old is new again

The basic premise of Avatar involves the protagonist learning the ways of the “enemy” but ultimately gaining a deeper understanding of what’s at stake and siding with them to destroy the hero’s original allies.

Avatar’s storyline has been likened to science fiction stories from Edgar Rice Burroughs and dozens of popular movies, such as 1990s blockbuster Dances with Wolves.

Avatar’s plot has been done before, clearly. But audiences still made it a box office leader.

Instead of being bored to death by the same plot told over and over, we’re all suckers for a good story — even if we can guess what’s going to happen at the end.

Just because you might be a little tired of your tried-and-true message doesn’t mean your audience is. Put their needs first.

Put your old content back to work

Take a look at your older content — even things you’ve written which haven’t been published online.

And you don’t have to stop there. The public domain is practically bursting at the seams with sage advice and workable suggestions from well before the Internet, television, or even radio existed.

Or, like I’ve done here with Avatar, you can take something people are thinking about and imagine a new slant on it.

Ask yourself — Is there a way you could put a fresh new slant on any of these and make them relevant for today’s audience?

Walt Disney made a fortune repurposing old fables and fairy tales into animated stories. He added a few tweaks to make them more memorable and interesting for a new generation of children, but the core plots remain unchanged, even hundreds of years later.

Here are some great ways to rework your content:

• Rewrite your headline. You’ve come a long way with your writing (you’re reading Copyblogger, right?). It’s time to see if that great old post with a boring headline from the early days could use some magic.
• Create a bulleted list. Lists are easier for your readers to scan and get workable ideas from. Lists seem to talk to your readers, rather than at them, the way some paragraphs can.
• Turn it into a series. If you find that what you have to say about a particular older post becomes a little longer, why not rework it into a weeklong series? These can make for some of your most valuable cornerstone content.

Making the connection

In Avatar the native inhabitants of the planet can connect with other plants and animals so that connections can be shared at the speed of thought.

When it comes to reworking your existing content, don’t hesitate to make your own connections by tapping into social media networks and getting ideas and feedback from your target audience.

Create your own version of a social media digital campfire and start looking for exciting ways to stir up the enthusiasm in your readers. No matter how many ways they’ve heard the information before, you might just hit upon that “light bulb moment” that makes it all click!

About the Author: Sherice Jacob is an author, copywriter, and designer who makes it her life’s mission to improve websites. For more writing insights, follow @sherice on Twitter.

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What Avatar Can Teach You About Repurposing Your Content

Your office pool is fun, but how about competing against fellow search marketers far and wide? It’s time for the 4th Annual “SEO Madness” College Hoops Pool, where we all make our March Madness picks, and the winner gets the links.

Teams and brackets are being announced today and you can sign-up now.

Here’s what you need to know:

What’s it cost? Nada. Free. All you need is a Yahoo account.

Where do I join? Sign-up here. This link should put you directly into the SEO Madness 2010 group, but if not, you’ll need this info:

Group ID: 60624

Group password: seorocks

That’s all! Get yourself signed into the SEO Madness group and then tell your friends on Facebook or Twitter — the more, the merrier. May the best man/woman win!

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This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

College Hoops: SEO Madness 2010 is Here!

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Are you in the mood for some videos? My collection of odds and ends from surveying the Web this week came up heavy on the videos. Nevermind the stats that people have been viewing fewer videos online lately, according to comScore. I bet we can edge that number back up with this blog post alone!

At SMX West last week, Jennifer Lopez of SEOmoz and Dana Lookadoo of Yo! Yo! SEO interviewed a handful of attendees with a series of five questions. I was honored to be asked to join in, though completely petrified at the prospect of being stumped on camera. Note the visible sigh of relief as I answer each question. Otherwise, it’s super entertaining to hear these notable Internet marketers’ answers!

One of the featured interviewees in the video above is Ian Lurie, who, among other things, is the blogger at Conversation Marketing. On his blog, Ian takes a cue from Lindsay Lohan, who is suing E-Trade for using a character named Lindsay in their Super Bowl commercial. To avoid Ian’s litigious wrath, avoid all words that contain the letters “I”, “A” and “N” in succession. Thankfully, my name squeezes through the censors by a hair!

Ready for another video? Bruce sat down with WebProNews while at SMX West to talk about everything SEO under the sun. Attracting links, driving conversions with social media, the inner workings of local search, the effect of page speed, and optimizing for personalized search are all on the agenda in this 20 minute interview. If you’ve ever wanted to pick Bruce’s veteran SEO brain, watching this interview may just scratch that itch.

Microsoft Advertising released a whitepaper on the effectiveness of digital advertising for brand campaigns. Microsoft’s research proves a connection between the amount of time a user spends with an online ad and that user’s interaction with the brand, including visits to a site, pages viewed and time spent on-site. Not bad to have this research at your disposal when a client wants to know “Why SEM?”

While we’re on the subject of ads, Huffington Post has compiled a gallery of Google ads that bring on the lolz. Looks like eBay’s the market leader for auctions on virgins, lost children, and wives. I believe it. (Susan thinks this issue was addressed years ago, but stay on the lookout for AdWords oddities!)

Next video! What is the state of the Internet, you ask?

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

After weeks of hyping an upcoming product that would revolutionize the Internet forever, Cisco announced it was upgrading its routing system to “CRS-3″. SiliconANGLE gives us a recap of industry analysis, and from the look of it, no one’s all that impressed.

The jet packs are here! The jet packs are here! Thanks to Martin Aircraft’s persistence, for just $86,000 you may soon be able to have your own personal flying device. Just a matter of time before hover crafts and sky highways, I tell you! [Yay, we're finally in the future! --Susan]

If you lost your iPhone, would you consider it a tragedy? Ever cuddle up with your iPhone before bed time? According to a survey of 200 students, 75 percent of iPhone owners have an inappropriate relationship with their phone. That’s crazy talk. I mean, just the other day my iPhone and I were at lunch and you’d never believe what we saw a Nexus One and its owner doing! In public!

Susan’s posted her SES New York liveblogging schedule and we’re both excited to hear what the day 3 session Spotlight on Fashion: Blogging for Style will reveal. Here’s one real-world example of fashionable tech: a Vivan Tam designed digital clutch. It matches so well with my pretty, nifty things aesthetic.

As does IdeaPaint. Talk about nifty! IdeaPaint is paint that lets you dry erase. Make every surface in your home or office your creative drawing board — literally! I’ve ordered up the free sample and will let you know once I try it out!

Here’s another special offer worth sharing around. Search & Social Spring Summit is coming up in Tampa, Florida on May 3 and 4. Susan attended last year and found the intimate event to be one of the best search marketing conferences she’s ever attended. The team at Search & Social wants everyone to be able to enjoy this high-quality educational experience, so they’re offering a 15 percent discount on the conference pass when you use the discount code for Search Engine Journal readers. I guarantee every penny is worth it.

If that wasn’t enough, it just so happens that Tampa is #44 on The Daily Beast’s list of America’s craziest cities! Did your city make the cut?

After you’ve found the answer to that question, take a moment to answer a few more in the name of feeding the hungry? FreeRice asks you questions, and for every one you get right, 10 grains of rice go to the World Food Programme. You can even pick your category: art, chemistry, English, geography, languages and math. To be honest, it’s so much fun you might actually forget it’s for a good cause. [The language options are good to see how much high school French you remember. Surprisingly, I can still tell my ils from my nous. --Susan]

Here’s another warm and fuzzy. As Susan noted when she shared this with me: zombie elephant! The elephant baby that zoo staff believed had died in its momma’s womb made a surprisingly lively entrance into the world this week. May you grow humongous and prosper, little pachyderm!

And for your final video I present a little story we can all relate to:

Where the heck did that come from?! Have a great weekend!

Friday Recap: Pop-Up Video Edition was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

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Friday Recap: Pop-Up Video Edition

ClickZ is running an article today about Yelp’s current legal troubles. I’m quoted in the article (at the end) and I come across as a staunch defender of Yelp.

While I do admire the loyalty they’ve built up amongst users, I’m actually more in the middle than the article portrays. I really believe Yelp needs to improve its overall messaging to small business owners if it wants to gain wider adoption and acceptance as a marketing channel. And, as I posited in my earlier post on Yelp this week, I definitely wonder if “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” applies to Yelp. It very well could.

But aside from how I feel about Yelp, the bigger issue is the impact of these legal troubles and claims on Yelp’s trust. The ClickZ piece gets into that a bit, but I think this post by Mike Blumenthal today says a lot more about it. Mike interviews a small business owner about reviews, and here’s what the business owner says about Yelp:

We avoid them like the black plague. You can find a lot of articles on the subject so I won’t get on a soap box…but we’ve had around 30 satisfied customers post positive reviews on Yelp and none of them posted to our profile. When we asked why we were told that the customer has to be an “active Yelp user” or the reviews will not show up. When we asked what constitutes an “active Yelp user” we were told that formula was proprietary and confidential. Of course, this didn’t stop them from making a sales call and offering us assistance in getting more positive reviews on our account. After doing some research and realizing this was a much bigger problem with other business owners, and that they were involved in a class action lawsuit for similar accusations, we just decided to avoid them all together.

I’m guessing that attitude is more widespread than we think. And it speaks to one of Yelp’s fundamental flaws: The mysterious algorithm has a natural bias against first-time reviewers. It’s the old job search catch-22 — you need experience to get a job, but you can’t get experience if no one will hire you.

How can Yelp reach its full potential if it regularly punishes new users by not posting their reviews? There’s a trust problem here with small business owners who see real reviews from real people being zapped from the site, and from people who’d like to become regular users, but have a bad experience when their first taste of Yelp is essentially, “We don’t care what you have to say.”

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This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Yelp’s Trust Problem

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Advertisement: Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts. #6

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How to Handle Old Directory Listings, Links and off Topic Traffic

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