Yes, I have been MIA for the last couple of months but that ends today.
Been a lot going on here and spent way too much time in doctor’s offices and the hospital with my better half. Add in other outside problems and my blogging here stopped.
To get started it is time to go back to basics. Time to refresh things here and overcome the digital dust and get things repaired. to do just that I will be starting a series on getting your blog started.
The basics are important and often overlooked as all the hype you here and see in your email is about special themes, the latest greatest plugins and the basics get over looked.
So I am back and will be applying some of the items from Nicole Dean’s Blog CPR which is a great way to revive your blog.
As always your questions and comments are welcomed. If their are specific topics you would like addressed please leave them in the comments.
Be back tomorrow. Really I will be .
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.
Another Sunday so time to see what we found worth sharing this week.
Each week I share some of the posts I find in my travels across the blogosphere that resonate with me.
Lets get going.
Our first stop is to Pro Blogger for a guest post from Martyn Chamberlin titled “Three Blogging Lessons from Leonardo Da Vinci“. A very kewl way to make a point using some obscure history. (At least to me art history majors probably already knew it )
Our second stop this week is to the KR Design Blog for a good post titled “Are Your Personal Relationships Affecting Your Brand?”. Makes some good points about the difficulty of sole proprietors (most of us) keeping personal from effecting your business brand.
There is a lot of balancing necessary in blogging.
Creating content takes time.
Creating links takes time.
Add in product creation and it can often be overwhelming at times.
Finding a balance can be really tough. Right now I am knee deep into working on some things that have really put a time crunch on me.
Finding that balance has been tough. One of the things that will be happening is less posts here. It will be an interesting test though.
Will be tracking results and see what cutting back a post or two a week will do to the traffic flow here. Look for more information on those results in the future.
So the number of posts may be less over the next month this will allow me to add (hopefully) more quality to those that do get added.
So put yourself on record here. Will this drop the traffic, increase the traffic or be a wash? 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.
Yesterday I took off to play taxi driver and take my Mom’s cousin to Mom’s house while she is recovering from hip replacement surgery. This is not the first replacement for her. At this point she has both hips and a knee replaced. (Why she is now the bionic Mom .)
There is something big to be learned here. One of Mom’s favorite things is to get out shopping. When they coined the phrase “Shop Till You Drop” they had her in mind.
Obviously problems with her hips and knee were keeping her from her favorite sport.
If you aren’t familiar with joint replacement there is always a good bit of rehabilitation that takes place to get things back to normal. Mom attacks it like a man that is thirsty crossing the desert upon finding an oasis. Often times, too much too soon but despite her age (no I won’t say how old as I want to be able to continue to visit her) she always ends up being a therapists dream patient.
She follows the routines to the max and the only problem they have with her is slowing her down so she does not over do it. We had that problem yesterday when we brought her home.
Now at this point I am sure you are wondering what the heck this has to do with anything about blogging. There really is a point here.
As your blog grows you will have things break down and not work well. It is a given.
It may be…
the way you are monetizing things.
problems with your theme
lack of your voice resonating with your readers
and many more things
You can attack them head on knowing that it will take some pain and it will take effort to get comfortable with doing new things. It often is not pleasant to make changes or you can stay comfortable and suffer because of it.
Are you always ready to address the things that seem to be stopping you from having the blog you want? Are you willing to go through the “rehab” of learning new things and making them part of your repertoire?
That is how you will improve your blog. Being wiling to go through learning curves for new things and being uncomfortable for a short time to become better is the key.
Guarantee you that Mom will be in perfect shopping shape in a few months and back to her “Shop Till You Drop” philosophy. Will your blog be improved over that time frame?
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.
Been beavering away in the background working on some new things. Before it goes too far though I prefer to get your input.
One of the things with WordPress and blogging in general is the speed at which things change. This creates a problem when it comes to creating products for it.
For example – When I first created WordPress Made Easy we were on version 2.0 of WordPress. As WordPress has changed the product has been updated.
Dealing with anything that has to do with plugins has been even tougher. Just went through this week end and went back to the original plugins I used to recommend. Except for Askimet there is not one plugin that I originally recommend. Not one.
When I started blogging and teaching it there was no My Space, Facebook, LinkedIn, Friend Feed or Twitter. All things that with the exception of My Space that I now use regularly.
As a product creator I wonder whether an ongoing membership that consistently updated would be better than creating individual products for this topic.
Now I would love your opinion and would like your input.
The other question is that if you did vote for the membership option would you prefer a higher single payment or an ongoing monthly/quarterly/annual payment?
As I am sure you can tell I am favoring a membership type way of delivering content but that ultimately is up to you the reader.
Appreciate 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.
Well another Sunday morning and the mind is out of sorts as I woke up about my normal time but the time change has me being an hour late. Yep the US started daylight savings time and now the confusion will start for the next few weeks.
Do recommend if you are in the US take the time today after you change all of the clocks to check any battery powered smoke alarms and change the batteries.
Well back to what caught my eye this week as I was trawling the web.
The first stop was a great resource post on HTML5 & CSS3. This may seem a bit techie for some but it is the way the web is going and some resources are always worth at least being aware of.
The post is on web3mantra by Shamuil and titled “HTML5 & CSS3 Tools“. Some good cheat sheets listed that can save you a bit of time if you, like me, occasionally get confused when tweaking out things.
So that will wrap up this list of recommendations for another week. Hope you enjoy them and if you found a great blog in your travels this week (other than your own ) share it in the comments below.
Have a great day.
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.
Now it is no secret to regular readers that I read a lot of blogs. Personally, I think it is one of the keys to writing better blog posts.
Feeding your mind helps you to get more ideas and often to take a slant that is uniquely yours.
There are 3 things that will increase the likely hood that I will read your post.
1. The headline
The first thing that attracts me is the headline. Whether I find a blog from my reader, Twitter, Facebook or Buzz that is the absolute first thing that gets me to open that blog.
Just like a sales letter, the headline creates an immediate response from me as to whether this post is something I want to spend my time with or not.
If you don’t sell me right then and there I am off to something else. After all you are competing for my attention with a lot of other content.
My reader on an average morning just for the topic of blogging and WordPress usually has over 150 new posts each day. Out of that number I usually only open and read 15 – 20 at the most. So only 1 in 10 is likely to get read.
Add in the social sites and the number of opportunities is massive. Time is our most valuable commodity so if you don’t have a rock solid headline the chances of attracting me is nil.
2. Formatting
Once I arrive at your post the next thing is how it is formatted.
Is it easy to read?
Are there subheads if it is more than 3 or 4 paragraphs?
Just this morning I went to a blog that the headline attracted me from my reader and as soon as I opened it there was one huge block of text. Guess what happened?
Yep I was gone. Now it may have been excellent information and it was definitely a topic I was interested in. After all the headline attracted me. Seeing 300+ words in one block makes it very hard to read and consequently not worth the effort.
It was an immediate turn off.
For me the general look and the formatting are key to getting me to take the time to read something.
If it is not easy to read on screen I am gone.
Now for me that means lots of white space, easy to read (black text on white background works best for me).
3. Use Images
Now this is less important than the formatting but if you are using images it gets my attention right away.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and it often can be.
The big thing that an image does with me though is it shows extra effort. When making the decision to continue to read when I arrive an image can make the difference between whether I continue or not.
The other advantage an image gives you is that sites like Google Buzz, Amplify and others will show the image and a properly selected image may just be the curiosity factor get me to click through.
So these 3 ways that can help you to attract and connect with new readers but it only works if the quality of your content delivers.
These 3 items are less important for readers that you have already connected with but aren’t we all always looking for new readers?
That is my thought. What is yours?
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.
Before I get started I am not taking sides on any political issues here. Just observing things that are happening. Not that I don’t have strong opinions this is not the format for it.
Not sure if you have noticed that WordPress.com has been fighting off a DDOS attack for the last couple days. Interesting that it seems to be coming from the Libyan government from some of the news stories I have been reading.
Seems those against the government have been using WordPress.com to communicate and coordinate their efforts. That is why the Libyan government is trying to shut them down.
Look at the social campaign run by Obama in 2008 to use a variety of blogs and social media to win the presidency and there is little doubt that if you can use blogs and social media you can have a huge advantage.
Egypt just had a change in government fueled by the usage of Facebook and Twitter.
There is no doubt that blogging and social media can be world changers. The question is are you using them to bring change about in your marketplace?
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.
Another Sunday morning here in the coal region. We had our teasing of warm weather and did get rid of most of the ice but we are back to winter again. Oh well it is February and two days above 50 F were a very welcome relief.
Though it may be cold outside that has not chilled off any of the great content I have found in my blogosphere travels this week. Once again had a hard time whittling the list to just 3.
Our first stop this week is a familiar one for regular readers but with a different author this time. We will start with a trip to Traffic Generation Cafe (a regular stop for me) and this article from James The Just titled “How To Write Titles With Teeth”. Enjoy this one. I did.
Our next stop in this week’s tour of the blogosphere is to Daily Blog Tips and a guest post by Diggy titled “The 10 Commandments to Successful Blogging“. Some really great tips and the last one is the most important for you to understand.
Our last stop today will help you generate ideas. A topic near and dear to my heart. This one comes from Experiments In Passive Income and is written by Moon Hussain titled “9 Sure-Fire Ways to Ignite & Generate Great Keyword & Niche Ideas“. Get your mind churning by applying some of these.
Hope you enjoy your travels. I did finding them for you. If you found posts that really resonated with you this week feel free to add them in the 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.
.
