Damien at the Speed of Life – DATSOL

One sided phone conversation with a new blogger:

Photo from: Coffee 2 Go

So you want to blog eh? Well, you’ve come to the right place. I love helping people start their semantic journey. It reminds me when I started making a personal website on Geocities way back in 1997. You had to do everything in HTML back then and the closest thing to a blog was a guestbook I suppose. It was still freagin fun! But let’s get back to you. I understand you are on Blogger. No, I don’t mean you smoked the ashes of someone who used to blog, I am referring to the free blog platform owned by Google called “Blogger.” You are? Oh ok great. Actually not great. Did you know most school and public institutions block that provider? Why? I don’t know, ask them. Maybe the word “chat” pops up too much who knows? Anyway, if you want a decent audience, that fact alone will cut back your chances considerably. Oh, and did you know you can’t really change the appearance much other than their small collection of templates? I know a format that will make your appearance choices virtually unlimited. Oh, one more thing, you should know that your Blogger account has the most obtrusive and difficult to fill out comment forms for your readers. You will have a lot of people turn away because it’s so complicated. The one I know of has a simple box at the bottom of each post. Oh last but not least, did you know your blog platform is not as SEO friendly as mine? This means the search engines will place you lower than Wordpress blog with the same topic. Ready to try something different? Ok then! Cool. What’s that? You say you can’t afford to pay? Hmmm. You can’t afford $8.95 a month? What if you made $100 a month on your blog? Something to think about.

If you are interested in making the jump to a self-hosted Wordpress blog, I’d be glad to help. Drop me a line.

If you want to set yourself apart as a blogger, you have to do a few things differently. These tips are the best advice I have to offer.  They are the result of two years of intensive blogging.  I welcome feedback as comments or questions.

1. Be mentored: offer someone doughnuts!
2. Monitor inbound links.
3. Don’t link out more than you have inbound links.
4. Write a a dynamite “ABOUT” page for your blog.
5. Have a “Best of” page.
6. Guest blog out there.
7. Host guest bloggers on your blog.
8. Write reviews with proper references (ie; IMDB for movies)
9. Optimize use of categories.
10. TAG by idea, not by words used.
11. Write great excerpts, summaries, and introductions.
12. Use search words in your title.
13. Pick a simple theme and then test, test, test.
14. Paragraphs no longer than 10 sentences.
15. Here today, gone tomorrow: remember your post is not a bestseller in process.  Write it and move on.
16. Submit your best stuff to social media.  Even better, ask your friends to.
17. NOFOLLOW when you should NOFOLLOW.
18. Outline your post.  Don’t “freewrite.”
19. Use pictures.
20. Get a picture hosting and posting routine you like.
21. Use Google Reader.  Leave comments.
22. Have a minimal sidebar.  Most the “flair” out there is so distracting and lame.
23. Make subheadings in BOLD.
24. Don’t “create” topics, wait for them to come to you.  be ready with a yellow pad or tape recorder.
25. Use the future posts timestamp feature of WordPress to get more than one post started in one sitting.
26. Schedule deadlines to be mailed to you through Google Calendar (No, I don’t work for Google … wish tho ;) )
27. Find your “niche” and become a slave to it.
28. Value SEO and learn things about it.
29. Set goals.
30. Monitor results of goals.
31. Spell check and correct basic grammar.  Try Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style.”
32. Make posts over 100 words, around 200 words and usually not more than 400 words.
33. Get away!  Time off captures ideas.
34. Go to the Library for inspiration.
35. Use RANK then do not pay any attention to it.
36. Value real readers not empty “click-through” traffic.
37. Know your stats.
38. Be entertaining.
39. Regularly post.
40. Be accessible as an author.
41. Blogging is not instant gratification.
42. Spend most your time working on your own blog and smaller amounts commenting and blog hopping.
43. Adjust as necessary, be flexible.
44. Don’t look for advertisers, rather look to be the type of blog that would have advertisers.
45. Check out addons and plugins available to you.
46. Take an official photo.
47. Be a brand.
48. Ask for feedback
49. Put ideas in your blog as “drafts” for rainy days.
50. Measure success on your own terms.

Follow these tips and your blog travels will be stronger than a Samsonite.

To keep track of the several income sources these blogs now have I like to do little progress reports sometimes around mid-month.  I know a lot of new bloggers out there reading could benefit by these posts, plus they help me stay focused on the important stuff to reach my monthly goals.  I want to give a shout out to my newest bloggy buddy Justin over at DragonBlogger.com He is really doing an impressive job toward his goals in a short time of his blog being live.  Another nod goes out to Katelynjane who has kept a really great blog for a while and lately she has achieved more of her goals than ever.  Another blogger I am excited to network with is AllRileyedUp.com she just migrated from a Wordpress.com and so far it’s been an exciting transition to watch. I am honored to be able to assist with and enjoy the growth of these three content-filled up-and-coming blogs.

Okay, back to my 3 blogs: If you’re new to these posts, you can read an explanation of my CAN blog rating system here.  The full post of September 2008’s goals I reference in this post is here.  This is a mid-month “check-in” on their progress toward monthly goals.

PFTFF

C – 6/20 incoming links
http://confidentwriting.com/2008/09/writing-advice-from-the-blogosphere/
http://www.itmightbelove.com/2008/09/02/chores-and-kisses/
http://dereksemmler.com/2008/09/08/speedlinking-sweetness/
http://www.dragonblogger.com/2008/09/blog-victim-stolen-content/ http://catatonickid.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/drumroll-please/
http://www.dragonblogger.com/2008/09/adding-google-analytics-wordpress-blog/

A  – 3,117/4000 visitors Wow! Some Stumbleupon spikes this month have helped.

N – $60/$400

I’ve got a ways to go with circulation and net.  Analytics is very well off already.  Nice to have something I can rest on.

DATSOL

C – 4/10 incoming links.

A  -  242/1140 visitors

N  -  $7/$50

DLP

C  – 2/3 incoming Links

A  – 163/500

N  – $9.63/$40

This are the “halfway mark” results Watch how I do in the rest of September. 

For a long time I’ve wanted a static IM chatbox in my sidebar and today I finally chose one. I tested every one on this list of 10 and found MeeboMe to be the best hands down. It has great features, good looks, and best of all it is integration with the major IM clients. I am a Yahoo! Messenger user myself and the transfer was seamless.

There are many other ways to interact in real time with your visitors besides chat. I also have researched a few ways to properly get “Asides” into my sidebar. I settled on the Twitter Tools Plugin by Alex King. Below is the code I use for that. In the event that Twitter goes under (which people in the industry have speculated might happen) I also have a dormant backup plan to use the Sideblog plugin for wordpress. You can see that option commented out below. I like this option but they stay as posts which can cause future feed and spidering issues. What you see below is from my sidebar directly if you want to grab the idea and make it your own:

I think the future of blogging and web 2.0 is the connections one makes through social media. After that, interaction with the blog owner will be a huge perk for people seeking knowledge and connections in the blogosphere.

A quick post-note: When I write “asides” I recognize that a 20-something created the term. That should be a charge for Matt Mullenwegg knowing he made that a blogging word. Of course, it isn’t quite as cool as how William Shakespeare first coined the term “lonely,” but it ranks up there pretty close ;) Good job Matt.