Blogging for your business – It’s a numbers game

In Blogging for your business I shared that one of the reasons a business blog is a valuable business building tool is because you can quickly and easily publish content to the web.  The value of this ability is often lost upon those who don’t eat/breathe/sleep the web.

The Web Game is Just Another Numbers Game

Most “ordinary” business people think that a single web site with only three or four pages can effectively compete when it comes to the web.  What they frequently overlook is that many of the results returned on the first few pages of a search query are often web pages which are part of mega sites with hundreds – in some cases – thousands of pages.

Take for example – Wikipedia.  Do a search for specific information and chances are – a Wikipedia article will  be listed on the first few pages of the search.  According to Wikipedia – the official count for the number of articles which appear there numbers in the 750,000 range. Because these articles are very specific in scope – they often provide exactly the information a web visitor is seeking.

This is why I sometimes have been known to snarl and foam at the mouth when a blog owner who has written 5 blog posts over the past year complains to me that his or her blog is not “working” because it’s not appearing at the top of highly competitive searches.

Winning the web game is in part a numbers game.  Wikipedia has over three quarters of a million “articles” in there competing for a top spot when the search engines provide a list of links containing the information the web visitor has entered to search.   Most of those articles link liberally to other articles on the site.  Because the articles are frequently displayed on the first page of various searches – blog owners and webmasters liberally link to the articles as well.

Compare this “winning” web strategy with the typical “set it and forget it” static web site preferred by most business owners.  The business owner creates a web site and populates the three to ten pages with the content a copywriter created years ago for the company brochure.  The content was stale before it was published to the web – and it continues to languish in the deepest, darkest corners of the web.   It’s like buying 10 tickets for the lottery on the day you launched the website – and then not buying any more tickets yet expecting to win.

Winning the web game is a numbers game.  The business blog with 300 blog posts – created over the course of three years – stands a much better chance of coming up on what is known as a “long tail search”.  Long tail searches are words not searched upon frequently.  Often, these “long tail search” terms are often performed by people who are actively researching a purchasing decision.

For example, 1,000,000 people used the term “lower back pain” to search the web last month.  That’s a LOT of people searching for information on lower back pain.  However, while there are a lot of people searching for the term “lower back pain” there are relatively few who are searching for “lower back pain relief in Boca Raton, Fl.” If you’re a chiropractor – you want to be sure your business web presence is one that is seen by the person who types those words into a search engine looking for answers.

If you’re a chiropractor with a blog though – it’s easy to create a blog post on how chiropractic can help relieve lower back pain.  By the simple act of creating this informative blog post – you instantly create an “article” much like the 750,000 articles which are featured on Wikipedia.  This blog post joins your other blog posts – where you’ve written about how you’ve helped patients with severe lower back pain, chronic lower back pain, and even lower left back pain.  Before you know it, by simply blogging about the different conditions you see in your practice – you’ve created a robust library of helpful “articles” (a.k.a. blog posts) on various specific topics which your prospective patients might use to find information on the web.

Will you create such a robust repository overnight?  Of course not – but one of the best reasons to begin blogging for your business is over the course of time – you can create a robust online resource which will continue to provide a stream of prospective patients long after you’ve written the initial post.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  Start blogging today so tomorrow your blog posts have a chance of “showing up” when your prospective customers/clients go searching for answers on the web.

Your Business Blog is Good for Business

I’ve been saying for a long time that business blogging is by far the best investment of time/energy/resources you can make for your business.  Well’ now it’s official –  a recent study proves that your business blog is good for business.  Emarketing commerce reports:

Majority of Business Blog Traffic Comes From First-Time Visitors

Two-thirds of respondents to a survey conducted by Compendium Blogware found that more than 80 percent of all of their blog traffic was from first-time visitors.  For the survey, Compendium Blogware, a social media and search platform provider, gathered data from 266 companies about blogging traffic, visitor trends and Twitter usage. … First-time visitors come from two major sources, Compendium said: referring sites and search engines.

These results are hardly surprising.   Blogs – especially the WordPress variety – are extremely search engine friendly in their architecture.  Combine that with the fact that the act of blogging about your business tends to create content which is rich in the keywords your desired prospective customers/clients are using to find the very solutions you and your business offer.

However, the fact that your business blog can be found more easily by your ideal customers is just the tip of the iceberg.   Once those prospective customers/clients discover your business blog – the blog posts you’ve created over the months/years go to work establishing your authority.

So if blogging is indeed good for business – why aren’t more business owners blogging?

One of the most common objections I hear from business owners about blogging is that they don’t have time to blog.  Sometimes this objection is based upon the mistaken belief that to “blog” means to write incessantly – creating multiple blog posts each and every day.   However, it’s been my experience that most objections about perceived time poverty are instead a cover for the “real” objection to business blogging: not knowing what to write about.

In Unseen Business Killers, I offer a sure fire way to determine if  “I don’t have time to blog” is a reason or an excuse.

It’s easy to determine if “I don’t have time to blog” is an excuse or a reason.  If you really don’t have time to blog for your business, you can either

  • hire someone to blog for your business or
  • hire someone to assume some of your duties so you can find time to blog.

It’s just that simple.  You can usually find time to do what’s important – and blogging is important for your business.  It’s a great way to get found by prospective clients/customers – and it’s a great way to establish enough trust with them so they’ll take the next step and contact you.

The act of business blogging can be as simple as reworking emails you (or members of your staff)  have sent to both current and prospective clients/customers. As a matter of fact, sometimes the subject lines of those incoming emails make GREAT blog post titles.

Once you’ve got a great blog post title that gets your blog found by the search engines, then get to work creating relationships.  Once people find your business via the search engines, they then needed to form a relationship with the people behind your business.   Building a relationship is part of  the whole TRUST thing I go on about here.  Building trust is what social media does best.

THAT is why business blogging is so darned good for your business.  Not only can those blog posts act as bait to bring in first time visitors who are seeking the solutions your business provides – those same posts can also carry some of the “trust building” weight as well.  Prospective clients/customers find your blog – read your blog posts – and decide after reading a few dozen articles that – yeah – you really can help them achieve their Goals – quench their Desires – or solve their Problems.  In other words, not only can your blog posts act as bait – they can also start to work on establishing your connection to your prospective client/customer’s GDP.

No wonder business blogs are so good for business!

Shameless Self Promotion in a Graceless Age

There was a time, not so very long ago, when female cultural icons were the likes of Grace Kelly and Jackie O.  These two women were not only stunningly beautiful, but both were the epitome of class and grace.

The AMC series Mad Men is a critically acclaimed television series for good reason.  The superbly written and acted scripts provide a behind the scenes glimpse into the lives of people working at a second tier ad agency in the early 1960’s.  This was a time when Marilyn Monroe was controversial,  Grace Kelly was the “it” girl and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy’s monogram didn’t include an “O”.  In one episode, a client of the fictional advertising agency refuses to allow their spot to run during a controversial television program episode.  In the “too hot to handle” program the word abortion was mentioned.

That was then – and this is now.  Heather Rand sums it up beautifully in her post Marketing in a Graceless Age:

This idea of grace, of making informed decisions and acting with poise and self-awareness, a countenance of dignity and beyond reproach has me thinking of Grace Kelly and Jackie O.  These ladies seemed the epitome of class, and represent a bygone era where acting with circumspect and moderation were important self-governance attributes.

In her post – she’s railing against Pepsi’s New Suicide-Themed Ads and makes the observation that marketing in the new millennium seems to be “continuously pushing the boundaries of propriety”.  (Thanks Liz Strauss for introducing me to Heather’s blog!)

This is an age where our cultural icons are Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan.   To get noticed, to create a marketing message that “goes viral“, you’d better be pushing the boundaries of propriety.   It seems that morality is joining traditional media in the death march to extinction.   Unfortunately in the age of reality television, that feat is becoming more and more difficult to achieve without making the commitment to acting like a Filthy Marketing Whore.

Well – there is another way and that’s to file a frivolous law suit – which is exactly what Liskula Cohen, a Canadian model, has done.  If you’ve never heard of Liskula Cohen – well, you’re not alone but that’s about to change because she has obviously embarked upon a campaign to raise her visibility.  Her act of shameless self promotion is a graceless age is to sue Google because one of it’s many blogger blogs is the now infamous Skanks in NYC.

This act of shameless self promotion has been remarkably effective.  According to Caroline McCarthy over at Cnet news:

Meanwhile, the search terms “Liskula Cohen” and “Skanks in NYC” skyrocketed to the top of (ironically) Google Trends, earning “on fire” ratings. Hey, considering that I’d never heard of Liskula Cohen before, and I’m sure that I’m not the only one, this might’ve been the best thing that ever happened to her.

Gyutae Park assures me that being Snarky will come back to bite those seeking shameless self promotion in a graceless age.   Tom assures me that authenticity is still the necessary ingredient in the search for success. Stacey assures me that this too shall pass.

I certainly hope they’re right.

Smart Business Blogging and the Smartest Dog Contest

This is a GREAT time to start a business, as long as you don’t create a bad product (Windows Vista anyone), and try to promote it with a poor marketing strategy and a website that does almost nothing.

Running a bad business poorly usually doesn’t make the news.  However, when it’s a HUGE company in the US which chooses to embrace a relatively recent phenomenon of expecting the government to come to the rescue them from their own bad business practices, the story definitely makes the front page.

GM’s recent holiday charity request of the US government was recently denied,  which brings to mind a joke which recently made the rounds.  This joke illustrates a truth we all embrace and that’s the difference between “government” and “business”.

The joke begins with four men who were  sitting at a bar one night.  As the alcohol flowed, the four men started bragging about how smart their respective dogs were.  One thing lead to another and before you know it, a challenge was issued.  The next night, the four men arrived back at the bar with their dogs to prove whose dog was indeed the smartest.

The first man was an engineer who called to his dog, “T-square, show these jerks what you can do.”

T-square took out some paper and pen and promptly drew a picture of a two story home.

The other men were impressed and all agreed that T-square was a pretty smart dog.

The next man,  an accountant thought his dog could do better. He called his dog and said, ‘Spreadsheet, show these guys what you can do.’

Spreadsheet went into the bar and returned with three dozen peanuts. He divided them into 6 equal piles of 6 peanuts, each perfectly stacked into a carefully constructed pyramid.

All the men agreed that Spreadsheet was pretty smart.

But the third man, who was a chemist thought his dog could do better. He called to his dog and said, ‘Precipitate, show these guys what you can do.’

Precipitate brought out a quart of whiskey from the bar, got a 10 shot glasses and poured each shot glass to the brim without spilling a single drop.

All the men agreed that Precipitate was pretty smart.

The fourth man was a government employee – and the pressure was on.  He called to his dog and said, ‘Bureaucracy , do your stuff.’

Bureaucracy jumped to his feet

  • pooped on the paper
  • ate the peanuts
  • downed all the shots of whiskey, one after another.

When he finished the final shot, he then proceeded methodically to hump each of the other three dogs with enthusiasm previously unseen.  However, in the middle of the act with the third dog, Bureaucracy yelped and  then collapsed to the ground.  He immediately announced that he had injured his back.

Bureaucracy filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions… applied for Workers Compensation… and went home for the rest of the week on sick leave with full pay.

AND THAT ILLUSTRATES WHY EVERYONE WANTS TO WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT!!

Jokes like this make us smile because we can recognize that the story perfectly illustrates what goes on when a “company” doesn’t have to answer to “customers”.   The business that doesn’t respect its customers is destined for closure unless that “business” is a form of government!

Unfortunately, GM has been operating their business like they’re a branch of the government for the past few decades.

The “problem” with this business model is that GM doesn’t have taxpayers which have no choice on whether or not to support the business.  Instead, GM has customers who cast their “vote” in the market place every time they purchase an automobile.

Unlike government, GM has competitors who are making cars that customers want to buy.   Unfortunately (for GM), they don’t have easy access to the US taxpayer’s tax dollars.

Fortunately, the representatives in Congress must face their own “customers ” a.k.a. the “voters” decided it was best to just say “No” to yet another charity request from a bloated inefficient business.

I personally think the uproar in Web 2.0 is part of the reason for the recent denial. I honestly think that if there hadn’t been a thousand voices speaking out in the blogosphere about the facts that the vote would have gone much differently.  Not only were blogs pointing out the fact that GM just received a huge sum as recently as in September 2008 – but they were also pointing out the fact that the unions weren’t participating in the proposed “bailout” at all.  I believe that bringing those “facts” to the public attention played a HUGE role in the vote.

If you’re wondering what all the “fuss” about blogging is all about – the information disseminated by tens of thousands of blogs may have actually changed the course of US history.

With that in mind – you might be tempted to think that perhaps a business blog, properly launched and leveraged,  might actually be a powerful and effective of a marketing tool.   Maybe your buisness blog won’t change the course of history – but it might just change the course of your business.

Shedding Light into the Darkest Corners of the Web

If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out – either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time.

David M Ogilvy

If there’s one HUGE disadvantage to doing business on the web it’s that it is REALLY easy for people to be – well, let’s say “less than authentic”.

Unfortunately, it’s very, very easy for those who are NOT “web savvy” to be taken in by someone who “baffles them with BS!”

A few weeks ago, I was “virtually introduced” to a small business web marketing consultant and SEO “expert”   During the initial introduction, this small business web marketing consultant and SEO expert shared that she wanted to talk to me because she would like to enter into the dazzling and exciting world of blogging.

This statement is causing red flags are going up ALL OVER the place for me.

A small business web marketing consultant and SEO expert needs MY SERVICES to set up a blog?!?!?!?

No, no, no.  My clients are people who use Hotmail and AOL because they can’t figure out how to set up Outlook Express.    My clients want an easy to use and effective internet presence because if it’s not easy, they can’t use it.   A few of my clients don’t know the difference between an email address and a URL -yet they’re successfully blogging – blogs rock! My clients are the reason I wrote my 8 Week Power Blog Launch course… because once they “mastered” the mechanics of blogging, they didn’t know what to do next.

One thing is certain, my clients usually do not proclaim that they are small business web marketing experts  OR experts in SEO!

One of the things I share in the course are the “secret authenticity discovery tools” available for free  which allow you to see exactly HOW much someone who claims to know SEO really knows.   I mean, if you claim to be a nutrition expert, then I don’t expect you to have a six digit or less Alexa ranking, but if you’ve written books on SEO and claim to be an expert, I really expect to see better than a 4.6 Million Alexa rank.

Yet again, another reason I LOVE blogs!!! 

Blogs can act as a great “authenticity” meter.

Since the small business web marketing consultant and SEO expert doesn’t have a blog, all you can do when you get to her website is to read the three articles on her website or buy a copy of her book.  Did she write the articles?  Who knows – she doesn’t write regularly enough to see if she wrote that copy or if she stole it from someone else.

Did she even  write a book?   (There’s no link to purchase it on her website – but she references it frequently in her email to me.)   Again,  I have no idea, but one has to wonder how “authentic” her expertise on SEO is with an Alexa ranking of 4.6 Million.

There are plenty of people who hire others to write for them.  There’s nothing wrong with this practice – unless you’re hiring someone to demonstrate expertise that you in fact do not possess.

As I was publishing my book I discovered someone was doing just that with articles I had written and published on my old static website.   Turns out a web development firm in New Zealand that had copied every single word of my old HTML static website and published it as their own work.  After I got over the shock, I had to laugh.  The secret spy tools told the whole story.  Let’s just say it was obvious that GOOGLE was giving me credit as the original author of the content.

Here’s the deal – you can hire the “published author, small business web marketing consultant and SEO expert” I recently met who has an Alexa ranking of 4.6 Million to act as your virtual mentor.  You can go to her website, read a few articles and if you want, call her to set up an appointment.  (Oh, good luck with that – you have to schedule an appointment with her VA to talk to her – her time is VERY valuable!)

OR you can have Naomi Dunford of the blog IttyBiz with an Alexa Ranking in the  100K range give you advice on building your online business and SEO.  I’ve never tried to call Naomi but she responds very quickly to email – unlike the “expert” above!

The kicker – you can access Naomi’s “wisdom” by picking up a copy of her SEO Ninja course OR you can pay 10 times that price to book an hour of the SEO pretender’s time.

TRUST -TRUST-TRUST-TRUST-TRUST!

If you get the feeling I don’t “trust” this new contact – you’d be correct!   Oh, and if you get the feeling that I do trust Naomi – well, you’d be right on the money again.

I trust Naomi because of MONTHS of reading her regular blog posts – post I miss now that she’s gone “big time”.

I’ll bet there are people you trust because you’re a regular reader of their blog as well.

Which is why, if you’re selling your expertise and you don’t have a blog – you need one.  There’s no better way to demonstrate your expertise.

Sneak Peak at WordPress 2.7 Dashboard

If you’re using an updated version of WordPress, you’ve been seeing what is known in the trade as a “beg” screen asking you to update to WordPress 2.6.3 for the past few weeks.  (If you’ve been ignoring the previous beg screens, you should have noticed the message changed recently.)

It’s really important to keep your WordPress installation current.  These beg screens help to remind self hosted WordPress blog users that part of using the world’s best CMS software is keeping your installation current.

A self hosted WordPress blog installation is the closest thing to web site marketing magic you get – and when you’ve got something that is that powerful AND easy – well, the “bad guys” on the internet will want a piece of that action.

Imagine if there was a possibility that you could gain back door access to some of the most highly trafficked sites on the internet.  Imagine that if you could find this golden ticket, you could gain access and inject high PR sites with code to link that site to websites of your choosing.   Wouldn’t you be constantly searching to find that hidden way in too?

The WordPress development team is faced with the challenge of matching wits with those “bad guys” every day.  They’re working tirelessly to make WordPress even better AND easier to use.

THANK YOU WordPress Development Team for all your hard work!

(I’m going to bitch and whine a bit later, so I wanted to preface that whine and bitch session with an expression of gratitude!)

If you’re one of my clients, don’t panic when the beg screen appears asking you to update WordPress to the 2.7 version.  I’ll be “testing” it thoroughly on my test blog before I update yours.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  WordPress 2.7 is not ready for production blogs yet!!! Wait until your “beg screen” tells you it’s time before you update.

I just installed the beta version on one of those test blogs.  Here’s the screenshot of the new and improved dashboard:

If you aren’t my client and aren’t familiar with my business model, I work with people who need tutorials to be able to use WordPress.  Because I’m a SUCKER for customer service, I prepare these tutorials in the format my CLIENTS desire (PDF) , not the format which is easiest for me to create (video).

I won’t leave my clients on 2.6 for any longer than necessary – and that means I need to get started creating a whole new suite of tutorials – created with “regular” people in mind

WARNING:  BITCHING AND WHINING LIKE A PRE-PUBESCENT GIRL STARTS NOW:

This change in the dashboard is effectively rendering the last Blog Post Tutorial I created EXTINCT!  WORTHLESS!!!

Just like the ones I created for all the versions that have come before!

I HATE IT!!!  I’ve got other things I need to do!

I know why they made the changes. The new dashboard IS more intuitive and is easier to use.  However, I enjoy the comfort of the familiar.

In the movie, V for Vendetta, V begins his address of the nation with:

Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption.

I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke.

Fortunately, the new WordPress isn’t promising you order and peace, nor is it demanding your silent, obedient consent.   However, ignoring this update will no doubt create chaos and confusion in your future.

With the update will come the usual minor and temporary chaos.  I’m sure that popular plugins will cease to function and some themes will stop working as a result of the update.   However, it’s SO WORTH IT when you consider how much you gain by using WordPress.

My sister owns a Mercedes.  NOTHING is cheap when it comes to the care of that car.  A simple lube oil and filter runs almost $200.  However, she has deemed the car essential to her business AND her professional image so she accepts the costs associated with owning  a Mercedes.   IMHO, the same applies to WordPress.

Social Media Warning: I am Rubber – You are Glue …

Remember that chant – back when you were a child. Someone would say something mean or hateful, and your response would be the sing-song, “I am rubber – you are glue! Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to YOU!”

Web 2.0 gives us a real opportunity to share our thoughts spontaneously. Whether it’s posting to your own blog, making comments on other blogs or sending bulletins via MySpace – sometimes we might share things we wish we hadn’t. If we’re lucky, the rest of the world will be so self absorbed that most people won’t notice when we expose more than we planned.

I recently got a notification about an article which is getting a lot of attention on one of the various social networking sites to which I belong.  The article was written by a member who is telling business owners to get control over their personal spending lest it ruin their business. I think I’ve gotten more insight to her spending habits than she may have been planning on providing.  I thought it was just common sense, but if you want to promote your services as a financial manager, don’t tell me how many checks you’ve bounced in the past few weeks!

Meanwhile, the article makes me laugh because I am currently working with a client who has EXACTLY the opposite problem. This client is processing her own credit card orders manually because she doesn’t want to PAY an assistant to do this menial task for her. As a result, it’s taking WEEKS for some orders to get processed – money that could be safely in her bank account – less a small fee for hiring an assistant to handle the order processing.

We’re in the process of automating this process for her, by the way so she doesn’t have to hire the assistant – however, she’s reluctant to make the investment needed to make this happen.  Her business is relatively new and she’s having trouble making the transition from “requisition forms” to “you’ve got to spend money to make money.”

I can TOTALLY relate to my client because I too have battled trying to achieve balance between the art of bootstrapping and being silly.

For example, I remember that I worried for MONTHS over the prospect of spending $35 per year to register my domain name (way back in 1998) and the subsequent hosting fee!  It took me a long time to get used to the idea that I had to SPEND money to MAKE money. I’ve learned that it’s just a part of the transition from “employee” to “business owner” and for some of us, it’s a tough hurdle to overcome.

Meanwhile, the world is full of therapists involved in horrible relationships who spend their days “fixing” other people’s relationships – doctors who smoke, drink and abuse drugs but reach out selflessly to heal their patients – accountants who can’t keep their own finances in order. The list goes on and on but a key player in this kind of behavior are the MMO bloggers who aren’t making any money.

While it’s true that “The cobblers’ own children rarely wear shoes,” if you want to convince others that you know your stuff – you’d better have some impressive samples.

As always, this is going to come BACK to blogging.  One of the reasons I ADORE blogs is that it’s hard to “fake” expertise over the course of 100 or more posts.  When these MMO pretenders post their monthly earnings and think $89 a month is a sign of their success – well, it’s yet another reasons I ADORE blogs!

If you’re not authentic – or if your SOLE purpose is trying to fleece the masses – then don’t launch a blog and DO NOT participate in social media marketing.    If you’re a pretender, your blog will expose you as one!

If on the other hand, your business is in the business of helping people solve their problems, achieve their goals or placate their desires – the step right up to blogging and Web 2.0.  While you won’t find OVERNIGHT success, you’ll find it’s a fun and fulfilling path to travel.

Your blog won’t be a 30 minute solution to your marketing dilemmas – it may not even earn $89 per month in direct income for you, but it will be great way to begin spreading the word about the solutions you offer!

Beating the Baby Blog Blues

While the mechanics of blogging are amazingly easy to master, creating a successful blog is actually much HARDER than it looks.

Yesterday, my email box was filled with people who are suffering from what I call the “Baby Blog Blues”.

These bloggers are not web development professionals, but they’re average every day business owners who want to use their blog to promote themselves and their businesses.   They’ve been blogging (some regularly, some not so regularly) and they’re frustrated.  In some cases, they’re getting traffic but no comments.  In other cases, they’re not getting traffic OR comments.

In one case, the blogger who wrote to me desperately wants to build a strong community, just as Cath Lawson, Liz Strauss, Barbara Swafford, and Hunter Nutall have done.    She wants loyal readers who contribute regularly to the discussion.  She wants to give a topic and allow others to discuss – which is exactly what happens in the strong communities above.

At the moment, her blog just isn’t “established” enough to achieve this and I’m calling this syndrome the Baby Blog Blues.

I’ve come up with this “word picture” because I can’t TELL you how often I’ve had potential clients who announce, “This blog  HAS to be generating a four figure income in less than 6 months or I don’t want to do it.”    After 10 years, I’ve FINALLY learned to say “Thanks for contacting me – good luck with that.”

When you first launch your blog, it is like a baby.  Few parents expect their newborn infant to generate income to cover their expenses.  (I had to re-write that sentence to say “few” instead of “no” because – well, the tabloids are FILLED with stories of parents who had children with the sole intent of turning the baby into a cash machine – the last names Lohan and Spears come quickly to mind!)

In the beginning, your blog is a baby! It needs time and effort invested on your part to make it grow. In the case of a human baby, time will work its magic and your child will grow even without top quality nurturing.  The passage of time guarantees that your newborn will grow into a toddler.  Allow more time to pass and the toddler will grow into a child.  Eventually, in the cruelest twist of all, the child will grow into a teenager.  While time is the biggest factor in a child’s development, time is not the sole predictor of blogging success.

In the case of my aspiring blog client, she’s got an infant “blog” sitting on her lap and she’s watching Cath, Liz, Barbara and Hunter with envy as they prepare for their blogs for the senior prom.

What this client doesn’t recognize is that these successful bloggers spent a lot of time creating blog success.  They have spent their time blogging in the dark.  They have spent weeks, months perhaps YEARS posting article after article with few if any comments.  Most bloggers learn to blog through trial and error.  The faster you learn the essential “tricks” of the trade, the quicker you can get moving in the direction of blog success.

Trust me when I tell you that all of the bloggers I listed above did a LOT more than just post to their blog once a week and wait for the traffic to come to them. Like the mother of a newborn human infant, these successful bloggers have gone through the 4 hour feeding schedules and diapers phase with their blogs.

While the passage of time will eventually transform a human infant into a teenager, the same doesn’t hold true for your blog.  If you don’t nurture your blog, it won’t grow – it’s as simple as that.  The GOOD news is that you can ignore your blog for months and then when you begin nurturing it again it will spring back to life.  In other words, no matter how sick your blog is now, you can always resurrect it.

By the way, the client with “blog envy” purchased the 8 Week Power Blog Launch program 2 weeks ago.  Over those two weeks, her Alexa ranking has already decreased almost 800,000.  (Alexa is a highly flawed system which ranks web sites from 1- 24 Million where  #1 is the best, 24 Million is the worst so a rapidly FALLING Alexa rank is a GOOD thing!)  In the course of 2 weeks, her blog went from the 2.4 Million range to the 1.6Million range and has passed more than 3/4 of a MILLION other websites in the race to number one.

She’s definitely on her way to achieving blog success – I just have to keep her focused on the fact that it takes TIME to create a successful blog.

Blog success is not an overnight proposition.  It takes TIME and it takes EFFORT – just like parenting, except when your blog achieves “teenager” status you CAN put it to work generating income – unlike human teenagers!

Google Chrome – Time for a refreshing dip in the cesspool!

I love blogs. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love blogs -especially blogs where I can learn from someone else’s mistakes!!!

Today, my love and heartfelt affection goes out to the SEO 2.0 blog. Now I know that downloading the New Google Browser is a Bad Idea.

THANK YOU!

Thank you for diving headfirst into the cesspool that is Chrome!

I feel very, very WISE right now because I’m learning from someone else’s mistake, which appears to be an apt description of the new Google Chrome browser – a mistake.

In 10 Scariest and Most Annoying Facts about Google Chrome I learned that Google Chrome will make changes to my registry file and they’re sketchy about what they’re going to do with the information they obtain from gaining access to my computer.

Because of a blog, I personally can avoid taking a shit bath in the cesspool that is Google Chrome!

Patrick over at Spinning Silk wrote in the post What browser are you using? that he would be tuning in to the Google Chrome announcement.  I’m sure that Patrick didn’t see any of the things the SEO 2.0 blog pointed out during Google’s sales pitch for the new browser.

That’s the beauty of Web 2.0.  Go ahead… make your pitch.  Spin it any way you like.  Once people begin USING the product, the truth WILL come out.

Personally, I’ll stick with Firefox.  It ain’t broken and as such I don’t need to “fix” it by adopting Chrome.

What browser are you using?  Have you tried Chrome?

What is Alexa? It’s a Website Traffic Spy Tool

One of the GREAT things about being involved in a “social networking site” such as Biznik is that people can communicate PRIVATELY with you.

I recently got a question privately there from someone who visited my blog and read my post Business Success Isn’t Determined by Your Alexa Rank. A well respected marketing expert, he wasn’t familiar with the Alexa tool and asked me to blog about it. Since I’m all about educating my clients and other readers, here we go.

What is Alexa?

Alexa is a product developed by Amazon (yes, the internet book selling giant and internet retailing pioneer). It’s a way to “spy” on the traffic of other competing websites.

increasing site trafficAlexa “ranks” websites in order based upon traffic from 1 to 24+Million. (I’ve seen TWO sites in the past 2 weeks that were in the 24 Million range.)

The last time I looked, Yahoo was #1, Google was #2 and YouTube was #4 according to Alexa.

If your Alexa ranking is above 1Million, you can congratulate yourself. You’re in the top 5% when it comes to rating traffic of the 24+ Million sites indexed by Alexa.

With that said, Alexa doesn’t get real interested in your website until your site breaks into the top 100,000. Once you break into the top 100,000, you can see your daily reach, rank and page views.

A Brief History on Alexa

The way Alexa used to collect the information it needed was via a plug in for MSIE (Microsoft Internet Explorer), Window’s internet browsing software. The plug in installed a toolbar in the user’s browser. While it offered a way for users to “spy” on the traffic of other websites, it also provided a way for Alexa to TRACK toolbar users movements on the web.

If you think about it, it makes sense that the only people who really CARE about what kind of traffic other websites are getting tend to be part of the techno-geek crowd. Very few sales training professionals CARE about the web traffic of any particular website. On the other hand, people who create websites are PASSIONATELY interested in the traffic ranking for a site. As a natural progression of events, in the early days the Alexa tool bar was used almost exclusively by web professionals or devoted web amateurs.

increasing site trafficAs the web has grown, so have the number of “non-tech” users. Many of these “non-tech” users didn’t have the Alexa toolbar installed in either MSIE or any other browser. As a result, the results of Alexa’s ranking became rather “skewed” statistically. Sites targeted towards technical users tended to do much better than websites that dealt with non-techy matters such as organic foods.

Meanwhile, new Web 2.0 businesses are popping up left and right. With the explosive growth of blogs has come advertising management services which will allow you to sign up and place ads on your blog via their network. Since ads are sold based on the number of impressions, many of these networks rely heavily upon the Alexa ranking of a website to determine traffic. (Log files can be altered, but Alexa is an unbiased third party.) Also, bloggers are popping up who aren’t blogging about the latest Tech Toy who are developing quite a following. These popular “non-tech” blogs were crying “foul” when it came to Alexa’s method of collecting data.

Recent Changes in Alexa

Back in April, Alexa responded, either to these cries or to the increased competition they were facing. (Compete.com comes quickly to mind.) Alexa changed the way it gathers data for its rankings to try to reflect what was happening in Web 2.0, where it’s not only geeks who roam the web for hours on end. ( Read more here Alexa’s New Ranking System Hurts Some and Helps Some.)

If you go to Alexa, you too can install this tool bar in your web browser. When you do, you’ll be contributing to Alexa’s data collection efforts. In other words, you can spy but you’ll also be spied upon.

blogs as money making marketing toolsThere’s actually a plugin for WordPress which will display your current Alexa ranking in your blog if you want the world to see. (Personally, I’m waiting to break into the top 100,000 to activate that one.)

If you don’t want to install the toolbar, you can always go to the Alexa.com site and type in the URL you want to check.

The most important thing to remember with Alexa is:

a) It’s an estimated traffic count

b) It’s a NUMBER and nothing more.

There are people whose blogs were ranked in the Alexa top 100K who have shut down their blogs and gone on to get real jobs because they weren’t making money from the traffic they had. On the other hand, I recently wrote about a business who is RAKING in the dough whose website is ranked in the 24 Million range.

For me, checking Alexa rankings could be called an addiction. I have a similar addiction to Diet Coke and coffee. (Caffeine FREE Diet Coke… I’m trying to be in “balance” because I drink a pot or two of coffee every morning. Screw moderation, I’m seeking “balance”.)

It’s only recently that I’ve come to recognize NEITHER my drinking habits or my Alexa checking behavior is productive. So before you install the Alexa tool bar in your browser, proceed with caution!