PureBlogging

It’s tempting to think that the internet is all about the now. We set up RSS readers so that we can keep up with the latest posts from our favourite blogs. If we get a few days behind then we mark them as read and forget about what we’ve missed as if it never existed. It’s just an extension of the throwaway society. There’s always the pressure to be setting the trends or ahead of the game – and yet …

Perhaps we’re doing ourselves a disservice by ignoring the information that’s been around for a while, particularly on our own blogs. I don’t know about you, but some of the issues that come up on my blog today are the same ones that came up a couple of years ago, and the answers I gave then are just as true now.

What Are You Hiding?

The trouble is that no one’s going to look around to see what you have hiding in the archives – or they won’t unless you make it easy for them to do so. So what do you do to release the hidden gold that’s in your archives? One suggestion from Darren Rowse is to create a sneeze page which encourages readers to find your old posts. He suggests that you do this by collecting posts around a theme, a time (like posts of the month, quarter or year), a series (I’ve used the In Series plugin to do this) or comments.

Highlight The Good Stuff

Another way to tackle this is provide a list of the most popular posts in a particular category, or to place a weighted tag cloud that people can use to find other posts on the same issue. Sometimes, just choosing the right theme for your blog can make a difference. I’ve changed one of my blogs to the Structure WordPress theme by Justin Tadlock. On the home page I’ve now got links to popular posts, recent posts and the two latest posts in five categories.

Promote Your Content

You can also get some juice out of your archives by joining sites like BloggingZoom and submitting some of your old gold to it. I’ve submitted a couple of the posts that got a good response from readers, and I’ve found a few more readers and subscribers because of it.

The point I’m making is that you shouldn’t assume that a blog post is worthless just because it was published before last week. There are some true gems in your archive and it’s up to you to unearth them for your readers.

Popularity: 14% [?]

The theory of invisible competition essentially says that the globalization of the world (assisted by Internet development) has led to a situation in which each individual is facing a much greater level of competition from people who can’t be seen or known. This world connects us to a great number of different opportunities; but because it connects so many others to them as well, we face greater competition from strangers in every area of life from dating to employment. The bad news is that this can create fear resulting from the fact that the “enemy” is unseen and therefore harder to compete against. The good news is that bloggers may have the skills necessary to fare well in a society based on invisible competition.

The theory, as laid out by Tyler Cowen over at The Wilson Quarterly, touches upon every aspect of our lives. Basically, anything that you can do online is something that millions of other people can do as well. In employment, for example, you used to have to go to a local shopkeeper to get materials made and can now go to the global marketplace. This means that the local shopkeeper is competing against the entire global market rather than just the store owners in his hometown. A point that Cowen makes is that this type of market favors certain personality traits, personality traits which may be held by many bloggers.

Cowen identifies four types of individuals that may do well in this “new world”:

1. People with advanced planning skills. These are people who are able to strategize their competitive approach in advance. What’s interesting is that these may not be particularly competitive people but rather people who think and organize well on their own and so have little regard for the competition. Their ability to order their thinking without attention to the greater world can come across as innovative.
2. Web 2.0 addicts. Anyone who is willing to be the first to test out new ideas and technologies will have an edge up over the competition. People with imagination and innovation will be able to get an edge up on the competition by identifying what the future holds and getting to it first.
3. People who can seek out and manage their own feedback. A main problem with “invisible competition” is that you don’t know what you’re up against. People who can seek out feedback from their employers, clients and fans and then act on that to regularly improve themselves will fare better than those people who need external stimulation to do better than their average.
4. Smart folks who don’t do well in real life situations. Anyone who has a temper, is socially awkward or is painfully shy may be doing poorly in the business world. Being able to be one of the faceless competitors can help them do well on the Internet where social skills are entirely different.

Cowen points out that a number of bloggers have these exact traits required in the new market. A good blogger can plan out an approach to blogging and modify that approach based on reader feedback and user tracking. The forward-thinking blogger uses Web 2.0 technologies to identify and partake of new trends that boost the blog’s traffic (such as the currently-popular Entrecard). And while it’s not necessarily true that us bloggers are geeks who don’t socialize well in the real world, we do tend to be people who thrive particularly well in self-directed environments created on the Internet.

As the marketplace changes, certain people are going to have trouble adapting. Those individuals who are used to competing in small business circles in their own towns will have trouble finding solid work when competition goes global. Luckily, those people who are already making their business (part-time or full-time) in Internet work like blogging will have an edge up over the others who are coming to join the hordes of invisible competition. To maintain this edge, bloggers must remain forward-thinking, self-motivated and organized. The key is to always push yourself to your own limits in order to be able to edge out those people who are only doing the bare minimum to compete in this new landscape.

Popularity: 15% [?]

For most of us, time is a precious commodity. There just doesn’t seem to be enough of it to go around. It takes a great deal of self-discipline to get through all of the things on my to-do list. I don’t have a lot of time time to squeeze it all in, so I have to be careful not to let distractions pull me away from the tasks at hand.

In some ways, I would imagine the problem is even worse for those who write full time either as freelancers or bloggers. Because I work full time, I come home in the evening knowing that I don’t have much time. It serves as a motivation to settle in and get into my writing. As a stay at home writer, there is more time available to get caught up in following rabbit trails. It takes a lot of self control to stay focused.

We all have different things that pull at us when we know we should be writing. Here are my biggest distractions.

Television

This is a biggie for me. Television is an addiction, and I am a TV junkie. Although it may sound funny, research has shown that television can have addictive qualities, just like video games. While you are sitting there mindlessly taking in your favorite show, the images are affecting areas of your brain that stimulate pleasure centers, and can cause an increase in your adrenalin levels. What that means is, if you are in the room with the television turned on, your mind is drawn to whatever is happening on the screen.

I have tried taking my laptop with me when I am watching TV, and there are some things that I can accomplish, but writing isn’t one of those things.

Here’s another of those well known, but largely ignored tidbits of fact: humans do not multi-task well. We work best when we focus on one thing at a time. Working in front of the TV distracts me. I work slower, I don’t think through things as well, and the quality of my work suffers.

E-Mail

Here is another sad little truth in my life; there is nothing going on in my little world that requires me to check my email accounts as often as I do. There just isn’t anything that is all that pressing that I need to respond within minutes of getting a new email. This is especially true when you look at the makeup of most of the emails I get. I am not going to check out Tiffanie’s hot new web cam, and I’m not going to send my manuscript to a publisher who feels the need to spam for new business.

Most time management gurus suggest that you should schedule set times to check and respond to emails. I’ve read that Tim Ferriss of “Four Hour Work Week” fame suggests that you should only check emails twice a day. I’m not willing to go that far, but I do need to cut back. Constantly checking my email is a distraction. It breaks my train of thought, and pulls me away from whatever it is I am working on. For some people, the same can be true for the telephone, but for me, it’s email.

Internet “Research”

This is a great way to lose an afternoon. In a lot of ways, the information superhighway is a collection of rabbit trails waiting to be explored. While life as a writer does require a fair amount of research, especially when you are coming up with new material, or are writing about an unfamiliar topic, you have to each a point where enough is enough. It’s not a good use of my time to spend two hours reading material for a 500 word article that will not pay enough to cover the research time.

Researchers have discovered at least two problems that come from having too much information: “Information Overload”, and “Analysis Paralysis.” Both of these problems are a result of having so much information to deal with, that you become mired down in all of the stuff you have to wade through. Information overload leaves you feeling like you don’t know where to begin, or what parts to put in or leave out of the piece your working on. Analysis paralysis comes from always having more research to do. You never get started, because you never finish your research.

Set a time limit on how long you will spend reading. Depending on how in-depth the project is, you can make the time longer or shorter, but make sure it is appropriate for the scope of the project.

RSS Feeds

It is so easy to add RSS feeds to my reader that I end up with far more feeds than I can possibly keep up with. I’m sorry, but some of you are getting the axe. While it is a great way to keep up with new trends and innovations, you reach a point of diminishing returns, and quite frankly, many of the blogs in my reader are not all that innovative. Other peoples blogs can be a good source of new ideas if you do it right (check out what Steve Snell wrote about this on Monday), but I do have to limit the amount of time I spend on it. Quite frankly, I don’t need the guilt of opening my reader and seeing a couple hundred unread posts.

Limit your feeds to the blogs you actually read, and that you can get real value from reading.

Twitter

I can easily Twitter the time away. Like email, it can be a big distraction. I know it is all the rage right now, but I don’t have the time for it. I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot. I do use Twitter, and I’m really just getting into how it can help me from a marketing/SEO stand point.

Twitter does have a purpose, but I predict that it will soon lose the freshness and the hype will begin to fade. I have enough on my plate with my busy life that I can’t spend the time following what everyone else is doing every minute of every day. So in my ongoing effort to keep my schedule under control, I will need to limit the amount of time I spend checking out what other people are Twittering about.

Falling back on the old “I don’t have enough time” excuse for not getting your work done just doesn’t cut it. We all have the same amount of time. It’s how you use your time that is important.

What are your time wasters?

Popularity: 27% [?]

In my building a business blog series, I have told you how to choose the right host for your business blog, discussed how to create content, gave tips on how to make your business blog Search Engine Friendly, and last week I revealed tips about some of programs that could help you make more money with your business blog. This week, for my final post in the series, I’m going to discuss a few of the many ways you can promote your business blog. After all, you have built it, and now I am sure you would love for people to discover it.

Networking

1. Connect with other business owners as well as potential customers through social networking sites. For a great list of social networking sites, see Social Networks for Businesses.

2. Register for social bookmarking accounts. Through social bookmarking, you can bookmark your own posts and invite your friends and blog readers to do the same. In addition, you can place the social bookmarking links at the end of every post (see the links at the end of this post as an example). If you write quality and informative content, then many of your readers will click on the social bookmarking links to share it with their friends. After all, word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising.

Some popular social bookmarking sites to consider are Stumble Upon, Del.icio.us and Digg.

3. Take time to visit other business blogs and leave comments. When leaving a comment, share any additional tips they may have missed or let them know if they helped you learn something new. If there wasn’t a place on their comment form to insert a link, then leave the link to your business blog at the end of your comment. Remember, don’t spam!

4. Networking also takes place through forums and message boards. Search the internet for forums and message boards related to your business blog. Then, after you become a member, offer advice and answer questions. Again, don’t spam. Instead, create a signature that includes a link to your blog. Your signature will appear at the end of all your posts and replies. If you offer advice and answer questions, other members will want to check out your blog to see what other helpful information you provide.

Become a Member of Entrecard

Just this week I became a member of Entrecard, and my blog traffic has already doubled. I have even had a few newcomers leave comments. To discover more about Entrecard, read Entrecard: A One Month Review, by Sharon Hurley Hall. Sharon gives a great explanation of Entrecard and its features!

Use the Internet to Promote Your Business Blog

1. As soon as your business blog is ready to go live, distribute a press release announcing the launch of your business blog through sites such as PRWeb, Pressbox, USA News ($10 fee) and I-Newswire. Also use press releases to announce any contests you run on your business blog, sales and anything else you feel is newsworthy.

2. Advertise in newsletters, e-zines and e-mags relevant to your business blog.

3. Submit your business blog to web and blog directories. This will also help get your business blog picked up by search engines more quickly.

Promote Your Business Blog Offline

1. Every time you send out a letter or promo materials, include a link to your business blog on the letterhead.

2. Place the link to your business blog on your business cards, brochures and flyers, then follow the advice in On the Road Website Promotion.

This concludes my series on Building a Business blog. If you missed any of the posts or would like to save them to refer back to later, see the Table of Contents below. As always, feel free to share any tips you have on how to promote a business blog in the comments area. Best wishes and happy promoting!

Table of Contents

Introduction: Building a Business Blog
Choose the Right Host for Your Business Blog
Creating Content for Your Business Blog
Making Your Business Blog Search Engine Friendly
Make More Money With Your Business Blog
Promote Your Business Blog (This Post)

Popularity: 15% [?]

Hey, want to make money blogging?

Normally I’d be writing some deeply philosophical post about blogging and What It All Means. But all I want to do here is show you something good to help you monetize your blog via advertising. I’ll get right to it:

Mark Wielgus of 45n5 is one of my favorite make-money guys online, because he’s the real deal: just a dude with a knack for programming and good marketing chops. A lethal combination (like ShoeMoney and Dillsmack combined). He really does make good money and he truly wants to help you make money too. He has a habit of simply building the tools he wished existed. Just so happens they’re great ideas.

Show Your Ad Here is the latest project. It’s a free ad server service. You can be a publisher and display ads on your site, or you can be an advertiser and run ads on the network. Mark’s got a dedicated server–blazing fast for this. He’s got a bunch of new features ready to roll and wants feedback for more.

And get this: 75% payouts! Not only that, but the payouts are instant and happen as soon as an ad is sold. See what I mean about building the tools he wished existed? It almost makes me want to put ads on my blog.

Here’s the deal:

• Free hosted ad server. Serve up affiliate banners, or any banner, all day long, on them.
• If an ad is sold, the publishers keep 75%. (plus they cover the PayPal fees).
• Instant Payments. When someone buys an ad, you get paid!
• Rotate your own ads with ease. (cuts down on banner blindness and makes split testing a breeze).
• GeoTargeting – You choose who sees your ad.
• Manage ads for multiple adzones and multiple sites all from one place.
• Feedback system. Buyers and sellers can leave messages for each ad.
• Social ratings. Add or substract from each person’s community score with each ad buy. See who is new, good, or bad to deal with.

By the way, Mark didn’t ask me or pay me to do this. These links are not affiliate links. I’m pimping this because he’s one of the good guys and because, well… everybody wants to make money blogging. I get nothing for this. I’m doing it to provide you with a new and potentially profitable resource for making money online from blogging.

So… is there a down side? Sure. It’s new, and doesn’t have big traffic yet, so you’re taking a bit of a chance with that. And although this may not matter to most people, it matters to me: I have to confess the site is pretty ugly. I’m sure Mark will get it spiffed up at some point. After all, 45n5 is a decent-looking site. I think he’s got other things on his mind, right now.

Again, that’s Show Your Ad Here.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Constantly coming up with new ideas for posts is one of the biggest challenges for most bloggers. For this reason many bloggers wind up regurgitating the same content over and over again. On the other hand, those that are able to consistently develop new, creative and unique ideas for posts will be well on their way to achieving success as a blogger. Quality of content is obviously critical to blogging success, and having original ideas to write about is equally critical to creating quality content.

The struggle for new ideas is something that I face on a regular basis. In addition to maintaining my own blog, I write for several others each week, so I can never have too many good ideas for posts. One method that I have used recently has been especially helpful, and it can work for any blogger regardless of the industry or niche.

If you’re like most bloggers you keep tabs of your favorite blogs through an RSS reader just about every day. Other blog posts are frequently used as a source of new ideas, but I try to stay away from this as much as possible because it can obviously affect the originality of your posts, plus it puts you in the habit of relying on others for ideas rather than using other methods to generate your own. Although I try to avoid getting ideas from the subject of their blog posts, I’ve recently used post titles to help come up with ideas.

Many effective blog post titles could easily be changed or converted to apply to a completely different subject, and I have found this to be a good spark for new idea generation and brainstorming. I’m going to go through a sample process with some headlines that have come through my feed reader this week.

First of all, I use Google Reader, which has a “star” feature that allows you to tag specific posts that you want to store for the future. By clicking on the star, you will be able to find that post again by going into the folder of your starred posts. Quite simple, but very handy for this process. Whenever I come across a post title that catches my interest and may be usable to me, I’ll star it. Then when I have some time to work on post ideas I’ll go to my starred folder and ther are several great post titles waiting to help me out.

Ok, so let’s take a look at some titles that I’ve found this week and see how they can help. For the purposes of this exercise I’m going to come up with some sample post ideas using the titles of the posts that are featured. Since it’s Super Bowl week I think I’ll use the subject of football for this experiment. If you don’t like American football, I’m sorry, you don’t know what you’re missing. The idea of the exercise, however, is to show that you can do this with any subject that you write about.

First, Shana Albert recently wrote 26 Reasons Why I Love Twitter – Plus 27 More Just in Case. This is a type of post title that can easily be adapted. If I were looking for some post ideas about football, I could contemplate the following article ideas:

• 15 reasons why Bill Belichick is the most annoying coach in the NFL.
• 10 reasons Notre Dame will still suck next year.
• 5 reasons why Brett Favre will play another season and 2 reasons it will take him 6 months to decide.
• 3 reasons Eli Manning will never be Peyton.
• 3 reasons the Dolphins should trade the #1 pick and 1 reason why they won’t.

Daniel Scocco wrote a “how to” article at Daily Blog Tips, How to Write Scannable Content. Of course, “how to” articles are nothing new, but they can be extremely effective, and they can be adapted to any topic. Here are some examples:

• How to beat your friends at fantasy football every season.
• How to take half a second off your 40 yard dash time.
• How to find tickets for any sold out football game.
• How to properly execute a screen pass.

Copyblogger recently published an article titled A Three-Step Approach to Strategic Content Development. If you’re looking for titles to work off of, Copyblogger is probably the best source you will find. For this example, I could work on the following ideas:

• A three-step approach to getting noticed by college recruiters.
• A seven-step approach to more effective off-season training.
• Five steps to beating the New England Patriots.
• Three steps to handling the ball in bad weather conditions.
• Fixing the BCS in 4 Simple Steps.

Dustin Brewer published The Best Free Web Development Add-Ons for IE6 and 7. From this example, the following ideas are possible:

• The best source of free scores and updates on your mobile phone.
• The best free telecasts for watching football online.
• The 3 best sources of free football news.
• The best places to find free football wallpaper for your computer.

Keep in mind that the idea is simply to get some ideas flowing. These titles would most likely not be the titles of finished projects as they would probably need to be refined to be more effective. Also, many of them may not be good ideas for posts, but they will hopefully get your mind rolling and lead to better ideas. With this approach you can easily find a few sample titles and quickly fill a sheet with ideas for new posts.

Popularity: 40% [?]