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Wordpress blogs

This is How Web 2.0 Works…

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According to the Chinese, today is the luckiest day of the year. (08-08-08)

In China, the number 8 is considered extremely lucky, as a matter of fact, it’s the luckiest of all numbers and the competition for identification with the number 8 (the more the better) is fierce. From license plates to phone numbers, the more 8’s the better and some Chinese citizens are willing to pay a small fortune to possess a lucky phone number or a lucky license plate.

No wonder the Chinese are ecstatic about landing the 2008 Olympics and why the Olympic Games started at 8:00 AM on 08-08-08.

Samuel Goldwyn is credited with the quote, “The harder I work, the luckier I get. ” No where is that more true than on Web 2.0.

I recently received an email from a client who has launched one of those “easy” website builder type sites. About six weeks ago, she canceled her blog and now she now has four pages of unreadable (one big blog of text – obviously the p tag wasn’t an option) and forgettable content, but it’s a website she is able to set and forget.

set it and forget it websiteI’m not surprised by this series of events. Six weeks after the launch of her blog, she emailed me wondering why her brand new blog wasn’t appearing on the front page of Google for her desired keywords.

Since the keywords weren’t appearing in the domain name, the only other chance she had to score was via her content. I went to check on her blog – expecting to run a Wordle and show her how to focus her content around desirable keywords. However, when I went to the blog I found the “Hello World” post was the only content on her WordPress blog.

When she canceled her hosting for the blog, she said she was “much” too “busy” to create content for her blog.

I know that business success isn’t determined by your Alexa ranking… but having a website that can be found when people are looking for the solutions you offer is a bonus to any business no matter how you look at it!

WordPress doesn’t have to act like a blog! WordPress can act like a GREAT CMS (content management system). It provides a search engine friendly foundation for your website and you can create static pages just like a “static” website. When you use WordPress as your CMS it means you can use it to EASILY and QUICKLY publish articles to highlight product features and benefits on a regular basis.

“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

On the other hand, I have several clients who are fighting the good fight and doing everything they can in pursuit of success. I recently received an email from a client who is going to be featured on NPR in November. Another client’s story is going to appear on nationally televised show thanks to her blog. Yet another client is pursuing a $10,000 project lead thanks to her blog. These are people who have put forth the effort and as a result, they’re getting “lucky”. They have prepared for success and now that success is knocking, they’re ready to answer.

It’s not just my blogging clients who are reaping the rewards of blogging. Yvonne over at Lip-sticking gives her story of how she scored a coveted invitation to Ford’s 2009 Model Year Product Program. Seems Yvonne joined a new site called SavvyAuntie. Turns out that was a KEY factor in Yvonne getting “discovered”.

Ford went searching for women bloggers on the woman focused site and found Yvonne. Now Yvonne is getting VIP treatment by Ford.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Vyonne is another example of someone doing the leg work and then reaping the rewards. Is there an element of luck involved? Of course there is!

Web 2.0 is all about making connections and the more connections you make, the luckier you’ll get! What’s your tale of “getting lucky” thanks to hard work?

The Real Cost of Free and Low-Cost Services

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Surely Joe Hage had his tongue firmly in cheek when he wrote the title for his blog post of OMG! It was so easy to set up a blog site!

Joe starts with

I started this article as I was learning how to set up a blog, to share it with you here. It seemed like an intimidating effort but it was SO EASY BECAUSE a GoDaddy.com representative stayed on the phone with me for 63 minutes and took me step-by-step through it.

Joe spent over an HOUR on the PHONE to set up a Godaddy blog site for his kids. I’m stunned!!!

I’ve followed Joe on the social networking site Biznik and I’d have to put Joe’s hourly rate in the $225 an hour plus club.  He’s a Wharton MBA whose list of clients is impressive.  His skill at quickly seeing how to make a marketing positioning statement which is tightly targeted AND easily understood literally blows me away.  (A skill he demonstrates on Biznik with surprising regularity.  The man obviously never sleeps!)

I guess what I’m getting at is that Joe’s time is extremely valuable which means that was one very expensive  and extensive blog set up session.

I will confess here that I have absolutely NO experience with Godaddy blog hosting services. My experience with Godaddy HOSTING services on behalf of website clients has not made me willing to brace for the challenge of trying to tame their blog option. Joe’s post only clarified that for me.

In contrast, I set up a blog for my son last night. He’s wanting to earn some income and his passion is video games. So I picked up the domain name Best Video Game Cheats and in the course of an hour, I was able to

  • research effective keywords for a domain name with Wordze.
    (I hesitate to share this resource because it’s just so good and I’m afraid that if everyone starts using it that it won’t be as good. That’s what seemed to happen to WordTracker, a former favorite keyword research tool of mine.)
  • register a domain name (NOT with Godaddy… though I do have names hosted there that are awaiting development)
  • customize the Revolution Theme by Brian Gardner including choosing a cover image using Istockphoto
  • Add adsense code to the themes so my 18 year old high school senior can earn gas money while doing all it takes to be one of the 13  2009 POTENTIAL TOP TREASURE COAST RECRUITS.

Admittedly, I’ve got everything set up to plug and play when it comes to setting up WordPress blogs but it certainly wasn’t “easy” the first few times I did it.  (There’s more to a WordPress blog installation than simply clicking “install” in Fantastico.  Plug ins, which are what make WordPress ROCK, vary in their ease of use, effectiveness and compatibility with other plug-ins.)

Now, admittedly, you will have an outlay of cash to have me set up your WordPress self hosted blog.  In Joe’s case, this was a blog he was setting up for his children, so I can see not wanting to launch a super charged self hosted WordPress blog with all the bells and whistles which will make it a contender for top rankings in the search engines.

However, I learned a valuable lesson via a posting in a forum long ago (the source and link are long forgotten but the message remains) which stated,

“You can always earn more money- you can never earn more time.  Money is easily replaced.  Time isn’t.”

That has caused me to click the “buy” button more than once over the past few years.  Can it save me time?  Then it’s probably worth my money.

Lots of people waste valuable time and energy trying to figure out how to get something for nothing. There are tons of free and low cost website development tools  which feature complicated and non-intuitive navigation through a labyrinth like maze that consume hours if not days of valuable time.  That valuable time was invested on behalf of a less than stellar end product.  I’ve not only gone down that trail personally, I’ve also worked with more than a few clients who later said, “Wow!  I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time getting to you.”

I get the need to bootstrap.  I get the need to conserve cash.  But sometimes, you’ve got to spend money so you can make money.

I applaud Joe.  I never would have called and hung in for over an hour trying to set up a blog on Godaddy.  I’d have gone to WordPress.com and set one up in like 5 minutes and then used URL forwarding for the domain name.  Not the most SEO method, but then again… if that was my goal, I would NEVER use a Godaddy blog in the first place.

Am I missing something?  Are Godaddy blogs the next big thing is search engine friendliness and ease of use?  Or are they just cheap and readily available?

The Power of the Blog

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I love blogs… WordPress self hosted blogs in particular. Like any great love affair, there are ups and downs.

The down side…Wordpress has announced version 2.6 is released today. UGH! I’m currently installing 2.6 on my “test” blog EZ Marketing Tool. I’ll soon know what works and what doesn’t in WordPress 2.6. The frequent updates are a downer for me because I not only have to bring my blogs up to speed but also roughly 100 other blogs as well.

On the up side though, there are several blogging stories out there to make the minor inconvenience of frequent updates seem minor in comparison.

Isn’t that the way a great love affair works? Sure there’s a pinch of G&A (grief and aggravation), but that pinch of G&A just adds a level of texture and flavor to the 101 things that are great about the relationship. (I’ll have been been married for 24 years this December 1, so my G&A thresh hold is obviously very, very high!)

Micheal Martine begins the singing the praises of blogging hit parade with his post How I Brought My Business Back from the Dead with Blogging.

I’m quote Ben Yoskotiz so often, I don’t have to check on how to spell his name lately (grin). Yet, here he is again with his story of how he was Quoted in The New York Times – The Power of Blogging.

To that I’ll add the story of my own client.  Janet Simpson is an AMAZING woman who has truly “been there, done that.”   She’s a lifestyle coach who survived a car crash against the odds.  Her tale of survival is documented in Junkyard Janet.  About six months ago, Janet decided to convert her static website Nourish Your Life to a self hosted WordPress blog. This week, film crews are visiting Janet at her home to document her tale of survival against the odds.

One of the things that fuels my love affair with blogs is how search engine friendly they can be.  Ben found that an article he posted over a year ago was the source of his claim to fame in the NY Times article.  The title of the post probably matched the exact search terms the NY Times reporter was using to find information.

Janet’s blog includes this line on her about pager which probably included the keywords A&E researchers were using to find stories for their series:

Life took an unexpected turn when a car accident/miracle changed everything.

What story do you have to share?   Share your story here.

Do You Need a Blogging Absence Excuse Letter?

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It happens to everyone who maintains a blog… life happens and your blog goes on a temporary “hiatus.” Often, the blog owner will issue a “blogging absence excuse letter” which goes along the lines of:

  • “I’ve been really busy… too busy to post to my blog”
  • “I’ve been really sick… too sick to post to my blog”
  • “I’ve been traveling… so I couldn’t  post to my blog”
  • OR.. the absolute WORST Blogging Absence Excuse Letter I’ve seen:

Dearest Blog Readers:

Sorry there have been no posts lately. I have been out of town all week learning (oddly enough) to blog.  Look for new posts, material and blog responses soon!

I’ve change the content to protect the blogger’s identity, but this post is currently the last post to the blog and it is dated February 2008.  By the way, there were only a couple of posts to the blog before this one!

BORING!  BORING!  BORING!!!  These blogging absence excuse letters are boring and destructive!!!

According to Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.net, writes in his post Excuse Posts- How to Let Your Blog Go #6

The problem is that when you post a few posts like in a row it has an impact upon your readers and any sort of momentum that you might have created on your blog.

He also writes:

While I occasionally include a little personal information in my posts this information is generally shared in a ‘by the way’ type form or as an illustration to an ‘on topic’ post. As a result if something happens in my life that prevents me from blogging then I generally don’t post a post about it (unless it’s a very major thing – something that hasn’t happened yet thankfully).

Darren goes on to give you several tips for how to blog when you can’t blog.  It’s a great post, a must read for most bloggers!

Most of the time, if you aren’t able to blog you probably don’t need to offer a public apology.  The exception to this rule is if your readers begin to email you to see why you’re not blogging.

I have a client who lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa who hasn’t posted to her blog in a few weeks.  I know darned well why she isn’t posting… her entire town is under water!

When she gets dry and has power again, she’ll be able to regale her readers on her experience of surviving the great flood of 2008.  Meanwhile, her priorities are to get her life back to a semblance of what it was pre-flood.

However, maybe you don’t have a good reason for why you haven’t been posting to your blog.  You haven’t survived a flood, a hurricane, a tornado or any other natural disaster.  Then I encourage you to at least make up a good story before posting your blogging absence excuse letter.  Rather than offering the lame excuses offered above (including taking a class on blogging), try the following:

  • “Sorry I haven’t posted.  I’ll be posting ALL the gory details of my Alien Abduction (complete with pictures) after the nice gentlemen at Area 51 return my cell phone.”
  • “I forgot to bring in the Sunday paper last weekend. When I found it on Monday, I thought Monday was Sunday.  I’ve been running behind ever since!”
  • “My time machine is malfunctioning.  My trip to 2030 did not return me to my exact time of departure as I had planned.   By the way, sell all your stocks and buy jars of chunky peanut butter and brownie mix.  Turns out, the currency of the future is rare food.”

If you have a great blogging absence excuse post  that you’d like to share, PLEASE feel free to leave a comment with your best.  (I’m sure you can do better than I did above!)

Blogs are Blogs…and success doesn’t matter what platform you’re using…. right?

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Blogs are blogs… that’s what you’d think.  WordPress, Typepad, Blogger blogs or even the free WordPress.com blogs… they’re all the same… right? That’s exactly what I used to think but over the past two years, I’ve seen evidence to the contrary.

For example, I had one client who launched a blog on a VERY popular free blogging site on my recommendation.

The plan was to use the free blog as “bait” for her sales site.  The plan was to capture targeted reader’s attention and those readers who were interested would click through to the frequent references to her sales website.

She blogged faithfully five times a week for several months yet when I ran the log files on her sales site, we didn’t see a single visitor come from her free blog to the sales site. In other words, over a 6-9 month period not a single person who visited her blog and went on to visit her web site.

I probably need to add here that I wasn’t using a free “stats” counter to track this or even the free “stats” programs available for free.  I was using ClickTracks to analyze her log files.

Sure, my client didn’t have any $$$$ invested in development, but she was investing a significant amount of time and effort in her blogging efforts. (She’s a WONDERFUL writer, by the way!)

During this time, I launched quite a few wordpress self hosted blogs for other clients and the testimonials from those clients were outstanding.

It just didn’t make sense.

These people weren’t blogging as faithfully as the client with the free blog nor were they as well “branded” and tightly targeted as she had been with her free blog yet they were seeing growth in their blogs.  There was increased traffic with the self hosted blogs (something we couldn’t track with the free blog) but most measurably, when you typed the other blogs into Google, the blogs came up in the search. That was NOT the case when it came to the free blog.

Because of what I had seen, I advised my client to launch a self hosted WordPress blog. (I’m a boot strapping entrepreneur’s best friend and hate to recommend spending money they don’t have to spend.)

Her WordPress blog was hosted on it’s own hosting account with a unique domain name pointing to the WordPress software installation. Her new blog acts as a “free standing” web site.

I then installed the necessary plug ins to “pump up” performance and she went to work blogging on the new site with the same enthusiasm she was on the free blog.  She put a notice up on her free blog account that her blog was “moving” but we didn’t port the content over to the new blog.

Within 6 weeks of launching the self hosted WordPress blog, we began seeing traffic from her new blog coming to her HTML “storefront” web site.  That traffic started as a trickle and is now a reliable flow.

Thanks to this hard working client, and a few that aren’t quite so enthusiastic when it comes to their blogs…. I’ve developed a real confidence in recommending that small business owners make the investment to launch a self hosted WordPress blog.

So these days, when I get an email asking me how to create an “alive and vibrant” blog presence, the first step I suggest is to launch a self hosted WordPress blog. It’s been my experience that free blogs just don’t get the attention they deserve or the traction for long term growth.