by James Dunaway on September 22nd, 2011 
7 Comments
A website or blog needs to have a content strategy that would cover the bases and help it succeed. You have heard that content is king, but remember that throughout history, we all have seen bad kings alongside great ones.
What kind of content should you have on your site to make sure you succeed? Â Here are four: Read More
by Jonathan Bailey on September 21st, 2011 5 Comments
There’s no secret that times are tough right now. Money is tight, jobs are scarce and that’s true across all professions, including bloggers.
It doesn’t matter if you’re an amateur blogger doing it mostly for fun, a part time blogger doing the work as a secondary income or a professional blogger who does this to pay the rent/mortgage, the online economy, though it’s getting better, is still tough.
This can put even the best blogger under a lot of pressure, especially with bills coming due and obligations to meet. Sadly, a lot of people online have realized this and begun to take advantage of it, tempting bloggers with everything from ultra-low paying writing gigs to unscrupulous offers.
When faced with bills and an overwhelming feeling of failure, many bloggers are tempted by these tricks and find themselves pulled into a world that can be difficult to get out of, even when better offers are available.
If you’re faced with a blogging crisis, it’s important to stay strong and keep fighting, after all, your integrity as a blogger and a writer is the most valuable thing you have and, once you sell it, you can never get it back. Read More
by James Dunaway on August 5th, 2011 8 Comments
Allowing people to contribute to your blog is a great way for you to establish that you are serious about what they think. There are a lot of different ways that you can allow people to contribute to your blog, and one of the best ways would be by using opinion polls.
A lot of people would never even consider this option because they feel it has no value. I am going to prove that notion wrong in this article by talking about exactly how opinion polls can be used to help increase the readership of your blog, along with the quality of your content.
Many times when people create content they create it with the goal of teaching the reader something or to have their blog rank well. When you go to a website you are looking to be either educated or entertained by the content that is there. If the content does that then you like it and you are satisfied by it, but I am sure you have had times where you wished you could tell the website owner directly about some suggestions you might have.
Opinion polls on your blog allows for you to let readers tell YOU on how helpful your website really is along with your content. When you are able to study the information you collect from the polls you create inquiring about the helpfulness of your content you will be able to create content that is better and more enjoyable to read.
Opinion polls can also be used to find out what users are looking for when they visit your site. Even though it might seem evident to you at first, sometimes your readers leave your site earlier then you might like because you are not giving them what they want. If you provided them with more of what they want and less of what they don’t want then you will be able to hold them on your blog much longer.
You can setup opinion polls that will ask readers directly what they want from your blog and are they getting it. If you find they are not then you can make the necessary changes. Read More
by Jonathan Bailey on July 27th, 2011 2 Comments
If you build a blog with any reasonable size or status, you’re going to draw the attention of companies and their their public relations managers.
Blogging and social media, for the lack of a better word, has become the new wave in PR and are seen as an inexpensive and organic way to reach a very targeted audience very quickly.
However, as a blogger with readers who trust you and value your opinion, not to mention laws that put obligations on how you disclose relationships, you can’t afford to get too close to these agents. On the other hand, they can be very helpful and certainly aren’t people that you want to turn away or lash out at either.
Dealing with PR agents and other press contacts at companies is a tricky balancing act. One that requires you to extend one hand in friendship while using the other to keep them a safe distance away.
If you create a blog where you routinely review products, cover news stories or otherwise talk about companies, products and services other than yourself, you’re going to find that, once you gain some traction, press agents are going to be taking at least some interest in your writing (even if you don’t know it yet). Read More
by James Dunaway on July 15th, 2011 9 Comments
What’s the number 1 challenge facing bloggers? The answer: getting more traffic.
You hear a plethora of SEO’s and Internet Marketers claim that content is king. This is true to an extent, but the fact is a lot of people are more than capable of writing great content, but is great content alone enough?
Will people find your blog just because it’s well written? Some will undoubtedly, but great content alone won’t result in large numbers of traffic.
Here are the top tips on generating more traffic to your blog.
by Andrew G. Rosen on May 20th, 2011 0 Comments
BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2011 is finally coming to New York next week (May 24 – 26) and for the first time in many years, I’ve been able to clear my schedule to attend. There are many things I want to accomplish during the 3-day expo, but priority #1 is meeting YOU!
Just look for the guy with a QR code tattooed on his forehead.
If you are planning to attend BlogWorld NY and would like to meet face-to-face, I’d welcome the opportunity. Whether you want to learn about guest blogging for dozens of high-profile blogs or talk through ways we can support each other in this rapidly-shifting new media world, let’s chat!
There will be more than 100 speakers at the event. But the person I want to hear talk is YOU. Send me a message via Twitter @Jobacle
by Jonathan Bailey on May 18th, 2011 2 Comments
Imagine, for a moment, that you were invited over to a friends house to watch a movie or catch up on their news. However, instead of giving you what you went for, they bombarded you with advertisements you didn’t want, practically shoving them in your voice and begging you to read them.
Then, when you get past the ads, they start annoying you with irritating sounds and distracting movement, anything to get your attention away from whatever it is you visited for. Then, when you finally turn to leave, your friend does everything they can to prevent you from going. This includes locking doors, rearranging the furniture and everything short of handcuffing you to a wall.
This person, almost certainly, would not be your friend much longer and it is even more unlikely you’d ever go back to their house. At the very least you’d consider this a bad experience and, at worst, it would feel like a form of kidnapping.
However, as extreme as this example sounds, it’s exactly how many websites treat their visitors. Sadly, many webmasters don’t see their visitors as guests in their virtual home, but rather, like sheep meant to be shorn and exploited as much as possible.
But while we can all recount the terrible experiences that we’ve had with sites that have tried to trap and bombard us, there are other, more subtle ways a webmaster can impose on a visitor and they can be just as deadly to earning trust.
Unfortunately, many webmasters fail to realize that they are doing it and some are left wondering as to why so few of their visitors ever come back. Read More
by James Dunaway on May 13th, 2011 3 Comments
I’ve been a Squarespace fan since 2007. Â And before you jump on me and start singing the praises of that other Web-based blog platform, all I’m asking for is a chance. Â I want to show you how I built a successful blog with Squarespace, and that sometimes, paying a few dollars is worth the convenience.
What got me started was the no-risk trial that allowed me to set up a blog without shelling out a single penny – not even a credit card number. Â It’s a great business strategy, because after tweaking your blog to look the way you’d like, why bother going elsewhere? Well done, Squarespace! But all kidding aside, any company that allows you take a product for a full test drive without any commitment, clearly believes in its goods.
What sets Squarespace apart is that it’s so simple, that even your grandmother can start that crocheting website she’s always talking about! Â And if you feel so inclined, you can dive into the CSS and customize as many elements as you like. Â That’s the beauty of Squarespace, it’s the perfect solution for people at all tech levels. Read More
by Jonathan Bailey on April 20th, 2011 2 Comments
If you don’t run a sex blog, don’t feature nudity on your site or generally don’t have anything that might be seen as offensive or risque, you might think the issue of adult content or content blocking doesn’t apply to you. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Simply put, the Web is a big place and the content that’s on it doesn’t get passed through any centralized ratings board like the MPAA or the ESRB (both of which have problems of their own). However, countless companies, groups, countries and even individuals have made attempts at trying to make sure that content is appropriate for whoever is visiting it and, unfortunately, they often make mistakes or, in worst case scenarios, abuse the process to silence speech they don’t like.
The issues of adult content, content rating, site filtering and so forth are ones that every blogger needs to be aware of and at least mindful of simply because the rules are so subjective and it is far too easy for innocent sites to get caught in the crossfire of a war against certain types of content.
by Jonathan Bailey on March 30th, 2011 2 Comments
It can be easy to forget that the Web is a truly international phenomenon and that people visit and view our sites from every continent and from all over the world.
While this is a truly amazing thing as it means that our message and our information can, quite literally, spread all across the globe in the blink of an eye, not everyone comes to your site with the same mindset and background. In fact, every person who approaches your site brings with them their cultural, personal, political and even religious background.
This means that, even if we completely ignore or overcome the language barriers that exist on the Web, no two people read the same piece of content the same way. Everything we read is colored by our background and the same holds true for each of the other 6 billion people on the planet.
This can create a very serious problem. What might be simply hilarious to you and your friends could be brazingly offensive to someone in another country. While this might be fine if you’re trying to be somewhat offensive with your humor, it can be disastrous if you’re trying to get information across or win people over to your viewpoint.
This alone makes cultural differences and important problem to be aware of and a pitfall that is critical to avoid.
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