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Easter Release Link Love

March 22, 2008

It’s time for another version of link love here on Easy WordPress. Since the last post about blogger comment recognition was received with so much gratitude I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do it again. Consider it a little Easter bunny present. Commenter’s are every blogs life and blood and without them we would simply dry up. One of our most active commenter’s here is Life is Colourful. Unfortunately I have no idea on whether LiC is a he or a she so I will have to revert to address the person as LiC. LiC blogs about Life, Technology, Reviews, SEO, the Internet and making 2 cents per minute. I love this, since most people brag about how they make $100/minute. At least LiC doesn’t throw around big income statements to mislead people. But when you read the post February 2008 Proved to Be One Significant Month of Earnings you will soon find out that LiC actually earns a lot more than 2 cents/minute. If you head over to the LiC blog, there is some sound information to be found and an active commenting community. Read more

Written by Monika Mundell · Filed Under design corner, wordpress news | Comments Off 

Blog Promotion - Reader Submitted Tips

March 21, 2008

Last week I ran a series with five tactics for promoting a blog that I’d use if I were starting out again in blogging. To finish it off I asked readers to submit their own blog promotion tips of things that I didn’t include. The comments left were great and I wanted to highlight a few that particularly caught my attention (comments in italics are mine): 1. Frugal Dad writes - “Here are some lessons learned with Frugal Dad:
  • Spent too much time trying to get attention from “big name” bloggers (link exchanges, etc.). Should have partnered with small-medium size blogs in my niche, or related niche earlier on.
  • Invested too much time commenting, making attempts to network, etc. Should have been writing more, and focusing on good content.
  • I completely ignored the power of social networking sites for the first 60 days, and it cost me in slow readership growth the first couple months.
  • Spent too much time fooling around with advertising links, banners and Adsense before I had the traffic to justify it. I put the cart before the horse.”
From Darren - I agree with Frugal Dad that sometimes it’s better to aim a little ‘lower’ when networking and interact with other bloggers on a similar level than the so called ‘A-list’ who are constantly bombarded with attempts at networking. I also think that getting the balance between promotional activities and writing good content is key. Spend too much time doing non writing activities and your blog will suffer. A holistic approach to blogging is key. Read more

Written by Darren Rowse · Filed Under brand positioning | Comments Off 

StumbleUpon Traffic Generation Guide

March 20, 2008

stumbletrafficbookStumbleUpon.com is a great way to get traffic to your site, and previously I’ve already covered some StumbleUpon traffic tips in my interview with Daniel Scoco.

Now Matthew Sherborne has launched his “Stumble Traffic” guide that further explores this topic. According to Matthew getting traffic from SU depends on a few things:

  1. The page you submit. Is it interesting, compelling, and appealing to the eye. Try adding a relevant image near the top of the page to get attention. top of the page
  2. One of the ways to make sure your StumbleUpon submissions get the most traction is to properly set up your Stumble profile. Adding a cool looking picture will give the impression that you’re not brand new to the site.
  3. Add relevant friends. You want to add friends who share your interests and who are interested in the topic of the website you’ll be promoting. By adding friends who share your interests they will be more likely to thumb up your site submissions, giving them more traction and exposure.
  4. Make sure the friends you add are active. If the person hasn’t been using the site very often then chances
    are they aren’t getting your submissions. Only add the people who will be around to see your site.
  5. Don’t submit only your site. That’s right you can get penalized for submitting only your own pages. Make sure you are using a ration of 10-1. In other words submit one of your pages for every 10 from some one else.

Get it: Stumble Traffic Book

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Written by Gobala Krishnan · Filed Under brand positioning | Comments Off 

How to Promote Yourself (and Your Blog) at a Conference

March 20, 2008

Conferences can be a prime space for bloggers to recruit new readers. Last week at SXSWi it was fascinating to watch hundreds of bloggers attempt to standout from the crowd, network and develop fruitful relationships with others there. In this video I point out 5 of the better strategies that I saw:
  • Unique Business Cards
  • Elevator Pitches that Solve Problems
  • Utilize Your Badge
  • Interview People that You Meet
  • Do something Out of the Box
    • Watch this video also on Youtube.

    Share This

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    Written by Darren Rowse · Filed Under brand positioning | Comments Off 

    SEO Tip: Almost 7 Ways To Re-Optimize Your Posts

    March 18, 2008

    re-optimize-blog-posts.jpgThe following SEO Optimization post was submitted by Linda Bustos fromElastic Path. Smart bloggers often use keyword research tools to brainstorm “long tail” opportunities and keyword niches. These keywords are then worked into blog post titles, image attributes, headings and body copy as part of an SEO strategy, knowing that this “low hanging fruit” can drive some very valuable traffic. While this is a great strategy, it’s not without its downsides. Keyword research tools are often expensive, the data can be unreliable or too general to reflect your readership. If you use Google Analytics, you’re sitting on a very valuable keyword research tool that’s free, accurate and can tell you so much about your readers. I’d like to share a “hack” with you - how you can use Google Analytics to identify your most valuable keyword referrals, and how you can re-optimize your posts to raise your rank and drive more traffic for these keywords. Read more

    Written by Darren Rowse · Filed Under brand positioning, top tips | Comments Off 

    Maintaining your Personal Brand Online

    March 17, 2008

    This seems like a really subtle thing but it's something that I've tried to do and that is establish a personal brand and maintain it throughout all of my online activities. Maintaining a personal brand using your own name or alias can actually be easier than maintaining a corporate brand, especially when it comes to social networks or blog comments. Using a company name within blog comments or setting up Facebook groups for a company often has that "spammy" feel to it. You look like your trolling for links instead of being an unbiased contributor to the conversation. I've been lucky in that my last name, Snook, is relatively unique and memorable. Ironically, as a teenager and with my desire to fit in with the crowd, I didn't want that uniqueness. I even thought changing my last name might be an option. Luckily, I didn't make that mistake and have finally in recent times come to embrace the name. I've been slowly expanding on that to the point where people just call me "Snook" (or Snookums, affectionately). And that's a good place to be. Here's a quick list of things you can do to help maintain your personal brand online: Read more

    Written by Jonathan Snook · Filed Under brand positioning | Comments Off 

    If YOU Were Starting Out in Blogging from Scratch - How Would You Promote Your Blog?

    March 17, 2008

    Blog-Promotion StrategiesOver the past week I’ve shared five strategies that I’d use to promote my blog if I were starting from scratch again today. We started off by looking at how the majority of your efforts need to be focused upon Readers You Don’t Already Have (obvious but important) and then looked at the five strategies of:
    1. Guest Posting
    2. Networking
    3. Advertising
    4. Social Media
    5. Viral Content
    Together I believe that these five strategies pursued together would give a new blog a good start (note: pursuing just one of them might have some impact but together they are more effective). Read more

    Written by Darren Rowse · Filed Under brand positioning, top tips | Comments Off 

    Biz Growth Live: How To Master Online Marketing

    March 8, 2008

    One of the things I have come to realise when considering implementing social media marketing strategies to build your brand and attract more clients is that many organisations have still not mastered the basics of online marketing. In fact at a recent workshop that I led, less than 50 percent of the business leaders of small professional services practices had taken the first step in building their brand online and attract more clients. The problem they faced was that they did not know where to start in creating a presence on the web. What is more disturbing is that some of the people that are teaching entreprenuers in Ireland through workshops being held by the Enterprise Boards in Ireland to build their business online have an ineffective presence themselves. In fact I was speaking to one person last week who runs an ecommerce training programme for a number of the Enterprise Boards and their website actually consists of a PDF uploaded online. So they are definately not teaching ecommerce from a position of expert knowledge. Read more

    Written by Krishna De · Filed Under brand positioning | Comments Off 

    Bringing Your Brand To Life Through Your Visual Identity Online

    March 1, 2008

    Krishna De - Biz Grwoth news original banner_1.jpg

    For some time I’ve been wanting to do a major overhaul of my visual identity online.

    So this year I am planning to develop a number of my personal website and business blog sites and try to bring them back to the core of my personal brand.

    I would always recommend that you start with looking at the corporate identity of your business and work from there, but since my personal brand is so intertwined with the corporate identity of my business and the fact that most people come to know me through “Biz Growth News”, I made a decision to start with a redesign of this site.

    Read more

    Written by Krishna De · Filed Under brand positioning | Comments Off 

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