Archive for Content
Blog like there’s nobody reading
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You know how the saying goes, dance like there’s no one watching, sing like there’s no one listening. I think the same is true for blogging.
A close friend of mine stared blogging many years ago. She was a pioneer, sharing her innermost thoughts with the world. Oh she got all the feedback about, “why share your diary with strangers?”, “what will your colleagues think?”, “Aren’t you scared of stalkers?” but she took sensible privacy precautions and opened her heart.
In the early days her blogs were a touch guarded and I could tell that she was holding stuff back in case a parent or family member was reading, but as time progressed and her style became more confident she would share more and more intimate details with her readers.
The results were self-evident, as she shared more, her audience became involved. A crisis at home, a fragile relationship with a friend or even a personal health “life-changer” moved from being an abstract concept to something affecting a “virtual friend”.
What had changed was the style, a style that started talking from the heart. Read More→
The In-Growing Toenail Blog
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Image courtesy of Scragz
Day 132: Travelling on Public Transport
Pain Level at Rest: 3/10
Pain Level if Provoked: 10/10
Visual Unattractiveness: 2/10
My toenail is affecting my relationships with complete strangers. It used to be my personal secret, an embarrassing disability that is the subject of humor in ‘Carry-On’ movies but recently its shifted up a gear.
I could pull on a pair of shoes and for all intents and purposes I was a regular member of the public, no outward signs of distress or difference until the subway trip.
It started off well enough with a relatively empty train, plenty of seats and the relaxing hiss of second hand i-Pod music allowing me to play “name that tune” from clues consisting purely of notes exceeding 20,000Hz and the occasional mumbled lip movement. However as the car filled up I was compelled to give up my seat and as each stop fills the train, commuting becomes more like a Japanese game show where they explore the limits of elevator capacity.
Then it happened, an unintentional placement of a hand made leather Italian instrument of torture was guided on to my toe with the force of a 170lbs focussed by stiletto and a gum chewing secretary. Read More→
Now You See It Now You Don’t – Backing Up Your Blog
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You’ve set up your blog. Everything is going fine, you’ve got some traffic, people are recommending your blog to friends. That picture of a cat juggling potatoes worked really well. Readers seem to respond to it. They must love cats. You’ve been uploading content for a month now and you have a respectable amount of content on your site. You sit back and relax, because life is just so good. After making yourself a delicious sandwich you log on to your computer and check your blog.
BOOOOMMM. Your blog is gone. You refresh the page and still nothing. You start to panic. You suddenly realize that a month’s work has transformed into an error page. All that time you spent looking for funny pictures of cats has been wasted. Your blog, like magic, has gone. Read More→
How To Make Money From Telling People About Your Crappy Day
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Wouldn’t it be nice? You sit down from a crappy day at work and type up your troubles into your blog where millions of readers await the latest update on your uneventful, tragic existence. Every wild and crazy story about your annoyance at noisy traffic and your frustration at the government for taxing people will be applauded by hungry readers around the world. Imagine the response. Okay, so maybe you can overlook my sarcasm, but the point is this- there are millions of confessional blogs written as a kind of therapy that make no money at all. So this begs the question- why should your personal blog make any money?
The key to money on the internet is traffic. If no one reads your blog then you have to be pretty inventive to make any cash. Actually I’ll be frank- NO TRAFFIC MEANS NO MONEY. How do you get traffic to your blog? Well, I won’t lie, sex blogs tend to due pretty well. Take Tucker Max and The Pussy Ranch. These have a cult following and have generated cash and fame for both authors. But it is important to look past the sex and see that these blogs tell great stories. Taking your readers on an emotional journey is the value you offer. Personal blogs must tell a great story. Read More→
How Niche is Your Blog?
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Images courtesy of Samlavi and Tark Siala
Niche blogging is the act of creating a blog with the intent of using it to market to a particular niche market.
Neither blogging nor niche marketing is a new concept. However, only in recent years has the concept of a niche blog come into being. Usually, niche blogs will contain advertisements of some sort (pay-per-click or products or both). In some cases, the purpose of the niche blog is to incite the reader into visiting another website which may then attempt to sell the reader a product or service. Read More→
Reviewing A Product For Affiliate Glory
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Once you’ve got some traffic going you may want to start down the affiliate path. Not too many people know how to do this properly as the affiliate world is one cloaked in secrecy and deceit. Some guys try to shove the product down the readers’ throat saying things like ‘Well, in my honest opinion I think this gardening ebook saved my marriage and I couldn’t recommend it more. Without it I would be half the man I am today.’ Some underplay selling the affiliate product by saying ineffective things like ‘You know you could buy this gardening ebook, it’s probably okay, but whatever, I won’t judge you if you don’t.’ Both of these examples are too unbalanced to sell your recommended product to the customer. After all, the customer isn’t stupid.
First off make things easy for yourself by recommending a product because it’s actually good and not just because it will give you lots of money. If you recommend a bad product, you may make money in the short-term, but long-term you’ll get negative posts about it, and you’ll lose the readers’ trust. If you’re in this for a sustainable income, you have to recommend products that you know aren’t complete hack jobs. Read More→
Blog post size doesn’t matter
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We all know the cliche “it’s not the size it’s what you do with it that matters”, the same is true for blog posts.
There are lots of opinions on the perfect length for a blog post with the general consensus being:
- Use whatever length suits your style
- Try to be consistent, it’s what your subscribers expect
- Don’t be afraid to mix it up occasionally
- You need structure (beginning, middle, end) whatever the size
I am reminded of the quote: Read More→
Seniors Blogging
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One of the miracles of blogging is its ability to flatten geography and demography. I’ve always been inspired by the way in which the Internet allows individuals with perhaps obscure interests to build a niche community forum and get participation worldwide.
But recently I’ve been musing on the fact that blogging allows another group who may suffer prejudice in the “real world”, to participate fully based on the content of their character rather than the wrinklyness of their skin. Yes, seniors.
One 80 year-old was quoted as saying, “My life would be dull without it.” Blogging has become a very popular trend for folks of all ages but for those who are older, the digital age has provided an alternative to shuffleboard and bingo. Many of the old bloggers mentioned in this article post on average to 4 or more blogs.
When you think about it there are numerous reasons why seniors have enormous potential both as consumers and contributors to the blogosphere. Read More→
Blogging about nothing
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OK so I’m far from the first person to reflect on the subject of meaningless blogging, but there are some inspirational precedents which may make you feel better on those days when you just can’t find a topic to blog about.
One of the greatest television programmes ever was Seinfeld , the original show “about nothing”. Seinfeld managed to say a lot about the life that happens in-between the times when we are doing stuff (stuff can be described as things you need to dress for or remember to take a camera to). Read More→
