7 Tactics Sure to Help Build a Loyal Blog Following

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We all crave a loyal blog following. Preferably a big one.

A lack of blog traffic can be especially frustrating, especially when we are just getting started. Put a bunch of effort into writing a great post and then wonder if anyone is even reading it.

Building that loyal blog following is obviously something most serious bloggers aspire to achieve. But how do we make that happen?

Here are 7 tactics you can start implementing today that are sure to help you build a loyal following for your blog. Read more

Contest Highlights Business Bloggers

Joe Hauckes over at Working at Home on the Internet is running a little contest. And you can be a part of it.

Help Others and Win

All you have to do is to write a post and share some ideas about business blogging. By sharing a little about your experience with business blogging, good, bad, or ugly you will be helping others who can learn from what you already know.

Here is what Joe says about his idea in the contest instructions. (Be sure to read his whole post to find out how to be entered to win your prize.) Read more

Memorial Day – Remembering the Cost of Liberty

Today is Memorial Day here in the ole US of A. It’s the holiday that unofficially marks the beginning of summer, a day when folks crank up the barbecues or head to the beach.

It’s a big boating day.

More Than That

But the day means more than that. Read more

Technorati Has a New Look

You may have noticed that Technorati has been made over in the last week or so. Gotta say I like the new look.

Check out what they have to say about the refreshed www.technorati.com.

Here is a good take away from the announcement:

We’ve also worked really hard at making our user interface simpler, and more intuitive. We’ve been spending months doing user testing, and listening to you, our users, collecting and prioritizing what you wanted, what you liked, and what you hated about Technorati. We haven’t gotten it 100% right yet, and we’re going to keep working hard to improve, but I think we’ve made a big step forward with this launch.

Well said, David! Read more

Book Review: Blogging Tips – What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time getting to know Lorelle VanFossen a bit while we were both at SOBCon a few weeks ago in Chicago. She is one of those high energy folks that I imagine would be exhausting to try to keep up with long term.

She was incredibly helpful to us at SOBCon. If you were there you know how much she helped Gorgeous there at the front registration table, for example. The two of them were the dynamic duo out there.

Lorelle’s Credentials

Lorelle is one of those folks who has probably forgotten more about blogging than many others have learned yet. She’s been writing and running her own web sites for over 10 years, since long before there was such a thing as blogging software to make it easy for us.

Whenever I’ve needed some info about WordPress, Lorelle’s blog has long been one of my go-to sources for tips, pointers, and a heads up on what is coming down the pike in new WordPress updates. She is listed on the WordPress.org About Page as one of their documentation and support folks

I asked Lorelle why Lorelle on WordPress is on WordPress.com and not a self hosted site and how she got started working with them on their documentation. I wish I had written down exactly what she said, but here is the gist of her response as I remember it.

I’ve got a gift for breaking things. So over the years I’ve become one of the crash test dummies for WordPress. They let me play with it. I break it. Then Matt and the guys go and fix the bugs I find.

That’s a gift every software developer could use!

Suffice it to say Lorelle is an expert on blogging in general and WordPress in particular. Read more

U-Haul Renting Tips

We made it back to Savannah.

But along the way it was far from a sure thing.
We rented a little truck like the one here in the photo. Only ours wasn’t as nice.

To quote what the technician who checked us back in at the U-Haul store here in Savannah told his Assistant Manager,

That truck is a real clunker.

Yep. That’s me and Gorgeous. We live on the edge.

We’re just the type to rent a clunker to drive a bunch of prized possessions 1300 miles or so across country.

We specifically requested a newer vehicle when we reserved our truck weeks in advance because we were driving so far. Then we took the clunker they offered because I didn’t want to take the time to argue about it. We were working with a deadline to get back to Savannah.

Here is a partial list of what we discovered was wrong with the truck after we got it loaded and started heading South. Read more

Heading Back South

Well the U-Haul is all loaded up. Dad’s house is empty.

Gorgeous and I have one more night on the air mattress. When the sun rises tomorrow we will point the truck South and head for the coast.

We’ll be a bit out of touch the next couple days.

In the mean time there is a bit of a lively discussion on yesterday’s post about anonymous blogging. If you haven’t weighed in, head on over and join the discussion.

And don’t forget to cast your vote in the new poll over on the right side bar.

I’ll check in with y’all as I’m able.

Enjoy!

Anonymous or Pseudonym Blogs – Good For Business?

Here’s a question to get your synapses firing as you head into the weekend.

Should your business blog author be anonymous or use a pseudonym?

There are some good arguments for going either way. Some of them even make more sense than this Dilbert cartoon here.

From a business perspective, having an anonymous blog or writing it under a pseudonym allows an easier transition between authors. Changing blog authors is easier too.

You can also have several contributers all appearing like one busy blogger that way.

However, how might that be perceived by the readership?

Do people even care who the author of the blog is as long as the content is good?

What are the downsides?

Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Cast your vote in the new poll in the right side bar. Let us know your opinion.

A Glimmer of Hope in Microsoft’s Marketing?

I keep saying that business is about people and relationships with them. Build the relationships and the money will follow. And in greater quantities than if try to reduce people to numbers and statistics.

In his Breaking Up With Advertising post, David Armano points out this treasure of a video clip that seems to indicate Microsoft might be coming to understand that whole relationship thing.

Classic Quote:

It’s just I’ve changed. And you haven’t.

I’ll be interested to see what the Amanda Chapel crowd has to say about this whole thing since they tend to be so hostile to the idea of treating customers like people worth building relationships with rather than like cattle to be herded.

Sometimes Marketing Can Be Wasted Money

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not at all hostile to spending marketing dollars. In order to attract customers, they have to know you are there and what you have to offer.

However I just experienced an eye opening instance when money spent on marketing would have probably been a complete waste.

A Marketable Event

One of the primary reasons Gorgeous and I didn’t head right back to Savannah after SOBCon is that we had to come up to Wisconsin to finish cleaning out her father’s house. The plan was to have the mother of all rummage sales to get rid of it all.

As originally conceived the sale would run Thursday, Friday and Saturday and we expected it would take all three days to convince folks to pay us a token for the privilege of carting off Dad’s stuff. We’d have to either pay someone to remove whatever was left over, or add it to the U-Haul we’ll be driving back toward Savannah on Sunday.

Since we had three days to work with we made the strategic decision not to advertise the sale as is the custom in this part of Wisconsin. Factoring into that decision was the fact that Dad’s house is on the main drag in town. We figured there’d be enough traffic over 3 days that we could take the chance and forgo the mass marketing and just put one sign on the curb.

We miscalculated somewhat. Read more

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