5 Stupid Ways to Sink Your Blog!

1) Don't stay on topic!

Ahhh, you just had a baby -- please post a couple dozen pictures and blog on nipple soreness and whatever else for a few weeks. We won't mind, really.

And if your college curling team or favorite NFL team is in the finals or Super Bowl, please post about it for days on end. If you care then we must care. After all it's your blog, not ours. We are merely peasant readers.

What were you blogging on anyways?

2) Be insular.

Yeah, maybe they call it social media but you can be antisocial if you'd like. Don't link to others. Don't read, never mind comment, on other blogs.

Your never ending soliloquy is enough for us to flock to your blog  daily for the rest of our lives. If soliloquies are good enough for Hamlet, then they're good enough for us!

3) Write like traditional writing, not speaking.

Conversational, smonversational! We want perfect English, proofread multiple times and worthy of publishing in an encyclopedia (remember those?) or The New Yorker.

4) Don't let us know who you are!

No picture, no about us page, nothing personal. Your profound thoughts are enough for us! Your identity is your own business.

5) Lots of colors, dozens of fonts, flashing lights, autoplay audio.

Make it look like a casino. Or even MySpace  :)

Viva Las Vegas Jugheads!

SmartClips: Selling your knowledge from your blog

Test the waters cheaply and easily with SmartClips

Repackaging and reselling blog content is an excellent way for many bloggers to make a little extra income, and more importantly for many to position themselves as an expert.

An info product, whether an ebook, dead tree book, “special” report, mp3, CD, video, ecourse etc. can work wonders! “Stuff” you think is trivial and available for free anyways on your blog, can save others incredible amounts of time and money if available repackaged, organized, and updated in some fashion. Besides, the reverse chronological format of blogs is not a great way to absorb large amounts of data.

If you create a digital product, something people buy and then download, you have an incredible high profit margin and no hassles with shipping, customs for oversea stuff (and the blogosphere is international of course – I get overseas orders a lot).

But how to sell? You can get a shopping cart and merchant account, which costs money, and is recommended for many in the long run, but what if you want to dip your toes in inexpensively??

SmartClips is a great new service I’m recommending. Although it has little track record, I can vouch for their integrity and intelligence.

It’s 100% free – they take a cut of whatever you sell, and a great way to test the waters. It includes:

• Free customizable stores for publishers (add the store to your own site or use it as a standalone site)
• Flexible bundling, pricing and licensing
• No startup fees or product listing costs
• An easy way for non-technical folks to make a few bucks with their own digital content

Licensing is incredible flexible – for example you could sell an ebook or mp3 for $30 or sell access for 48 hours for $20.

If you give it a try let me know!

Small Business: Blog it and they may come

The Wall Street Journal online has a great article called Blog It And They May Come aimed at small businesses.

It's a very problog article which basically states that blogging works, it's not quick or fast, and it takes time.

• Now I had some very quick wins when I started blogging, but no one can count on that. Like with any other guerrilla marketing, it takes time -- give it at least 6 months to  year.
• Blogging does take time. Yes, for a professional much of the time spent would be spent anyways keeping up with their profession, but the writing does take time.

So, it works, although not overnight, and it takes time. If you enjoy blogging as a great many do, and you'll never know if you don't try, it can be a no-brainer.

The article mentions my SANS Institute colleague Jonathan Ham, who has just started blogging -- on his terms. He blogs when and if he wants, and has some great posts in his subject area, information security. Congrats Jonathan. Great example of a new small biz blog!

Personal Development List, Blogging and Personal Branding

Priscilla Palmer has created a list of favorite blogs/bloggers in personal development and I'm proud to be included! (and thanks to Reg for suggesting my inclusion!)

In her words:

Personal development is a large topic that includes but is not limited to (law of attraction, goals, time management, physical fitness, education, motivation, inspiration, and social skills). 

Why am I included? IFor starters, Blogging for Business is a great way to help develop one's personal brand, and that certainly is personal development!

Here is the list so far, and I may add to it later:

Blogging for Business now in 5th Printing - Yow!

Yow!
I've just learning that Blogging for Business is in its 5th printing!

I had no idea it was doing so well! It'll never pay the bills (almost no books make big money, maybe 0.1%), but I'm psyched it's doing so well and I keep getting GREAT feedback from people! Writing Blogging for Business was and continues to be a wonderful experience.

If you're one of the many people who've read it, please go write a review at Amazon.com and help keep the momentum going.

Soon to be a major motion picture (I'm lying) and translated into languages I don't understand too (yes, really).

Blog as if it matters – it does!

Blog as if it matters – it does! Although your audience may be small initially, each individual reader may be extremely important to your business.

When I first started blogging, one of my first (non friend/non family) readers hired me for a few thousand dollars to speak at their annual conference!

Lots of readers are great, but when you first start blogging you'll have a very small audience. Remember that each person matters. They may give you money, friendship, might even marry you :)

Hopefully you'll eventually build a large audience -- compromised of individuals each of whom is important! If your audience doesn't skyrocket, remember that there are plenty of great AND successful blogs that have 25 or less readers a day.

Business Value of Blog Tag?

Have you ever been tagged by a blogger?
For example I was just tagged by Daniel Sitter to list 8 random things about me.

The way it works is you post about what the tag requests, and then tag a few other bloggers, like a chain letter.

I get tagged a fair amount. If you follow all tag requests, you might go off topic too often, and that's bad.

But there are a few good aspects of blog tag however:

• Blog Tag is a good way to network, and find other interesting blogs and people. Daniel also tagged Patrick Schaber Ardath Albee Steve Poland  Chris Garrett  Katie Konrath  Pamela Slim Jim Kukral Donald Latumahina Scott Ginsberg -- bunch of good blogs and people there!
• Blog Tag does build links to your blog, and links are good: they help increase the number of visitors you get.
• Blogs are supposed to be personal. A biz blog shouldn't be "I had eggs and ham for breakfast and here's a picture of my cat and her hairball" type personal, but somewhat personal nonetheless. Blog Tag allows you to further expose some of that personality -- what makes you unique, and regular readers are interested as long as you don't overdo it.

Thanks the tag Daniel -- but I already played this game of blog tag and answered here. Toby Bloomberg tagged me previously, but I'll add another random thing about me.

I'm a fat and middle aged guy who rented a bike today while in San Diego on business and biked over 50 miles -- I ended up taking a loooong nap afterwards. In fact I just woke up -- and I feel GREAT!

No Niches Left for Blogging?

Every week I hear complaints that the "blogosphere is full" and similar -- there are no potentially successful niches left to focus on.

This is total nonsense! Although the ideal blog is focused on a particular niche (unless perhaps you're a famous celebrity and people will read any drivel you write -- even read your blog posts on toilet paper and your cat), plenty of niches exist.

Here are just two successful niches, previously totally unoccupied as far as I can tell, that bloggers have successfully filled:

The Plastics Industry
Sharks! (14 thousand visitors in the last 3 days)

Oh, but this doesn't apply to me. I'm in the XYZ industry and there and hundreds, no thousands, no, maybe even nearly infinite if you consider other galaxies, XYZ bloggers. I can't possible be unique nor gather a decent audience.

In fact you can CREATE your own niche.

Do yourself a favor -- disabuse yourself of these silly self defeating notions and read the "like totally classic text dude" (can you tell I'm in California now?) Positioning, by Ries and Trout.

You'll thank me. It's a great book, and I already known you can and do read! And much of the world's info currently exists in dead tree books, of which I'm rather fond, rather than exclusively online, so don't fight it.

All bloggers should read books!

Biz Blogs: Feed the hunger for the uncertain

Shawn Chambers is a passionate plastics blogger having great success, and fun, blogging. Here is his 7 week blogging report. This dude is inspiring!

I'm about to hit 3,000 visitors able to draw from a pool of over 100 blog articles - and all in only 7 weeks.

For a newbie at all this I'm pretty thrilled with the results, especially with such a narrow scope of content - plastic sheet, rod, & tube. There's no question that our website refers a handful of people to the blog and that there is a lot of random stumblings - but facts are facts, I've impressed our brand onto a reader 3,000 times. With enough content for even a seasoned industry veteran to keep busy with, I'm in a unique position to experiment with fishing lures I might not have otherwise tried out. 

Using the analytics which tell me where people are coming from and what keywords they're using to find me, I'm now broadening the scope of my content focusing on the popular words and phrases that may not have necessarily been my first choice -- sometimes it's just cool to see just how many fish you can land on your boat (kind of like a catch-and-release sport).

How to quickly get 100+ more readers to your blog

First the general technique, then specifics for August.

Join writing projects like ones Problogger and Ben Yoskovitz occasionally run. You write a post following the writing project guidelines and get a link back.

My last two have generated well over 100 additional visitors each.

For example right now, Darren Rowse at Problogger is running 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. You can participate (and get a link and traffic back) by posting a blogging tip and submitting via this form (read the rules first, OK?)

Tips do not need to be profound! What's obvious to you may not be to others. Something bizarre that works for you may also help others too. For example, do you find that posting first thing in the morning before even going to toilet results in your best writing? Well, blog about and then submit it.

While you're at it, why not submit your post to some blog carnivals and get additional links and traffic back (although probably less traffic than a link from Darren!)?