We have been talking about content for the last week or so. Two more posts including this one to finish this series. (I think. Being old and bald change can happen I just may remember another point to discuss.)

What is the purpose of your post?

Seems like a simple enough question on the face of it. Can you answer it about the last post you wrote?

Often I wonder when reading a blog if there was a purpose or did someone just start writing?

If it is the latter, then I probably won’t last to the end. If I don’t get a feeling of where this content is going I have trouble finishing.

Now this may be a byproduct of the age. After all we have…

• The 24 hour cable news cycle.
• Conversations in 140 characters or less in Twitter.
• Text messaging
• Instant messaging (Skype)
• More conversations via Facebook then by being face to face

And many more short attention span items in our lives.

Because the attention span has become so short you really need to have a purpose for your post. Without that you will tend to lose your reader’s attention. Your reader’s attention is very valuable.

One of your first items when you sit down to post is to have a purpose for your post. Attention is at a premium and if you do not have a purpose you increase the chance of losing that attention.

Now there are a lot of purposes you can have when you sit down to post.

Some of the more common are…

• To instruct
• To get to take action
• To make them laugh
• To entertain

It does not matter which is yours just that you do have a purpose when you sit down to post and you double check that your post does what you want it to before you push the publish button.

Leave your comments below to let me know. I look forward to your input.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: blog content, blog post purpose, blog posts, create blog post

One of the problems with blogging can be the constant demand for new content. Using other people can be a great way to generate interesting content easily.

The first way is to have people guest blog. It is a great way to get content and it is great exposure for the guest blogger. A definite win win situation.

There are a few ways you can find guest bloggers.

1. Ask some of the bloggers you know that discuss the same types of topics you do. Most bloggers that are serious are looking for the opportunity to guest blog.
2. There are sites that match bloggers with guests. There are sites like My Blog Guest that match up blogs with people looking to guest post.
3. Ask in other places like forums you frequent or on social sites and you are likely to find people that will be willing to guest post on your blog.
4. Set up a page on your blog and advertise it for people to apply to guest post. After all if you don’t ask you will never know.

Another way to do this is to contact others and ask them to answer a question or two.

Nicole Dean does this well with Expert Briefs section. She will ask a few people to answer the same question and she creates a blog post out of the answers.

Of course she links to their sites and gives them a benefit by answering the questions – exposure.

Any thing you can do that will create a benefit for someone to give you content works. After all look at how many articles are submitted every day to sites like Ezine Articles. People will provide content for you if there is a good what’s in it for me for them.

What other ways can you create a win win to get additional content?

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: benefit, blog content, content works, guest blogging, Nicole Dean, using others content

Got the weekly rant out of the way yesterday and now time to get back to talking about content. Today I want to talk about voice and the importance of keeping it consistent.

Having a unique voice can be an excellent way to build community. Your visitors know what to expect and look forward to your unique perspective.

This is one of the ways you build loyalty.

With Seth Godin you know his content is going to be pithy and very concise. He never uses two words if one will do. It makes his content unique and is one of the reasons I read his content regularly.

Others use humor.

Now humor can be tough and it takes a great deal of skill to consistently write in that mode. That is one of the reasons that so many fail when trying to do this. If you want to see someone who really has the knack check out Dave Barry.

Although a newspaper columnist his strange twists have kept his column in wide syndication for years. Very difficult to do consistently and that is why he is so successful.

Now there are numerous other voices available but the key is to keep your voice consistently.

One of the problems that people have is when they don’t have a consistent voice. It is hard to create loyalty when your writing style changes again and again.

Your readers are never sure what to expect.

Maintaining your voice consistently can help you build an audience so it is important to be aware of it.

As always leave your comments and questions below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: blog content, create content, improve content, voice

There are a couple of things that I have gotten away from and I would like your input as to whether or not they should come back.

It has been quite a while since I did my Blog Talk Radio show. Is that something that would be helpful for you or not? Let me know if the comments below.

The other item is that I have not been answering very many questions of late. Not because I don’t enjoy it but there have not been many being asked.

Kind of hard to answer what is not asked. So if you have questions feel free to leave them in the comments below.

The final item today is something I have brought back is the Blog 3 Pack. This is 3 products packaged together at a very special price.

They are

• Keyword research
• SEO of your blog
• Monetization methods

This package will only be available until the end of the month. Check it out before it goes back in the vault.

Blog 3 Pack

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: Blog 3 Pack, Blog Talk Radio, questions

Every once in a while I come across something that just looks like it can add value and be fun to play with. WP Note seems like a plugin that can be very useful for this blog.

Quite often I use block quotes, bolding, italics and other texts to add little notes with in the blog post.

This is especially true when I am doing tutorial type posts. Something like

It is very important to back up your data base before starting your upgrade

or I could use a note.

It comes with 5 categories you can use besides the warning one used above.

You can use important

A regular note

You can use tip

Or for help

To use it you just need to use the type of note you want to use in [item] and use a closing tag after the content [/item] much like using billboard code in forums. Just substitute the type of note from the list above for the word item.

Looks like it may be a very useful item for making parts of your blog post stand out. A great way to bring attention to various points you want to make and break up the appearance of your blog posts.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: adding plugins, plugins, wordpress, wordpress polugins, wp note

Just spent most of the morning putting together the outline for this month’s conference for Profitable Blog Steps upgraded memebrs.

This month the topic will be “Finding products to promote”.

It will take place on Wednesday at 8 pm.

If you are a Profitable Blog Steps member I hope to see you there.

Each month I put together a detailed step by step plan and then answer any questions you may have on any blogging topic.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: find products, profitable blog steps, promote products

When I wrote the review of WP Twin yesterday I got a question about how it compared to Expert WordPress. A very good question by the way.

Expert WordPress allows you to automate the install of WordPress blogs if you upgrade in an easy way. The blogs it creates are well optimized and the process has automated the plugins and settings for you.

It is an excellent way to get a blog up very quickly that is very secure. It has a good batch of plugins and is very SEO friendly.

The disadvantage to it is that you can not easily import your themes and settings in an automatic fashion. This is a problem if you regularly use a complex theme that needs to have the options tweaked like Thesis or Flexibility.

Now it is easy to upload those themes after adding a blog but they take a lot of setting up. Because they have so many different settings this can be quite time consuming. If you use the same setup WP Twin will allow you to have it as part of your package and your settings will be automatically imported.

The advantage that you get with Expert WordPress is that it is kept very current. Alex and Dmitry keep the software updated regularly.

If you are using WP Twin you will want to keep a test blog with your settings and keep it updated. Each time you are going to use it you will want to pull the latest clone your self.

If you are using additional plugins that require you to set them up like OIO Publisher or any of the membership plugins like Wish List then the advantage would go to using WP Twin.

So it will really depend on the types of blogs you are using as to whether WP Twin or Expert WordPress would be the better choice.

As always your comments and questions on this or any other blogging question are always welcomed. Just leave your comments below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: blog, blogs, Expert WordPress, flexibility, thesis, wish list, WP Twin

Occasionally something comes along that catches my attention. When I first saw Jason Fladlien and Wilson Mattos on a webinar demonstrate this new cloning software it caught my attention. It is called WP Twin.

Now I use a lot of blogs. Probably have more than 50 WordPress installations and I have everything from sales letters to membership sites set up.

I install blogs for other people so having a quick and easy way to do that was definitely interesting to me. To be able to grab and be able to reinstall a blog in a couple minutes got me salivating.

Then when he used it to clone a blog but started by using Fantastico the alarm bells went off. Regular readers know that I have a problem with Fantastico and have written numerous posts complaining about it because of the hacking risk.

That is one of the reasons I have always recommended that people don’t use Fantastico but take the time to install the blog manually to make it be more secure.

So I almost ignored it but figured it was worth a quick support ticket. I wanted to know if I got this and cloned a secure WordPress install that it would automatically do all of the data base edits too.

The answer was that it would so I grabbed it. Started playing with it and created a clone of my standard settings and themes. Used it to create a couple blogs to test it out.

So after testing it this is a product that you should consider if…

• You use membership plugins that require a lot of set up
• You use a theme regularly that requires a lot of set up like Thesis
• You use the same plugin load and want to save set up time

If that describes you then this is a product I can very strongly recommend for you. This is perfect for those that use blog networks or are creating blogs in multiple niches regularly.

If you grab it from my affiliate link just send in a copy of your receipt to the support desk and I will send you the clone I use personally and the bonus clone with the sales letters that they provide with the security fixes I use.

Check out WP Twin

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: bonus, clone blog, niches, sales letters, security fixes, support desk, thesis, webinar, WP Twin

I love Twitter and it has been and continues to be a great way to interact with others and build relationships. Lately though someone must be teaching a technique that really pisses me off.

It used to be that the problem would be in your direct messages. You know the type of message “Hey thanks for the follow now go check out xyz to big red easy button copy here.”.

That was relatively easy to ignore and just interfered with me. Of late though I am seeing more and more people trying to use the mentions to get their message out.

You know the posts you see “@twitteruser Check out xyz to big red easy button copy here.”

Now if you want to recommend your item to your followers that is fine but you do not have the right to try and hijack my followers. I have worked hard to build a relationship with my followers by giving them quality resources and the occasional recommendation.

This type of thing was happening once every two weeks a few months ago but of late has become an almost daily occasion. Now it may be because I have a decent size following.

So the time has come to be proactive with these cretins. I have started blocking those that are doing this and will continue to do that.

Now I hate the idea of blocking people and hate even more recommending to others that they do the same. Unfortunately that is the only way to deal with these people so from this point on all of those adding these spam posts will be off of my time line and I hope you do the same.

That is my feeling. What do you think? Leave your comment below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: block twitter user, twitter, twitter spam

Time to revisit a topic that is a pet peeve of mine.

When I go through the comments there are still too many people that have not taken the time to set up a gravatar.

Now I would much rather have people reading my comments see my picture to the left rather than the default gravatar image to the right.

It is not hard to do and it is very powerful to have your face or icon show up when you are commenting. If you are using the same image in the various social sites like Twitter, Facebook, et al it becomes easy to brand yourself.

Now if you are bashful and don’t want to use your actual picture you really do need some image to promote your business.

To get a gravatar you only need to register and upload your image at http://en.gravatar.com/.

Sign up and upload your image and then when you comment on blogs it will pull your image based on your email address.

Having a consistent look across the various social media is important to growing your business and the few minutes it takes to create one is well worth the time.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: branding, few minutes, gravatar, pet peeve