You may have run across the scheme circulating now that allows you to quickly move up in the Technorati Favorites ranking if everyone plays along. Darren weighed in on that yesterday, and now he's clarifying his position after receiving quite a bit of negative backlash. Keep reading »
Time for another collection of links for those of you who have subscribed to the feed and don't get to the site often. Keep reading »
Several weeks ago, I read Matt's "How I Got 283k Feed Subscribers in 1 Day." The way he did it was to take TechCrunch's FeedBurner FeedCount chicklet and put it on his own site. By changing the link on the image to point to his own RSS feed, though, few would realize that he didn't actually have that many subscribers. I found it very interesting, but that was about it since I knew I'd never have any reason to fake my feed count. Over the next few weeks, though, I found myself repeatedly coming back to this statement: I can see the logic behind someone wanting to use a more popular feed image. Showing a larger subscriber count than what your blog has naturally makes your site seem more popular which unfortunately makes new visitors more likely to stick. Keep reading »
If you're serious about your blogging, you should consider attending the upcoming Elite Retreat in Orlando. I went to the first one back in December, and it led directly to me getting to the point just three months later where I was working 100% for myself. If that's at all on your radar, I would highly recommend this conference over any other. Here's why. Keep reading »
Back in February, John Chow wrote about 10 Blogging Mistakes To Avoid. He's dead right on 9 of them (not sure about #10 ;) ), and it's definitely worth both a read now and a bookmark for reading at least once a week from now on. I know I will.
If you're active on the web for very long, you will screw up. It's inevitable. How you handle it can make you or break you, though. To show you what I mean, let's look at three different examples: one from last year in which a company dealt swiftly and expertly with a problem of their own making and two from this year where just the opposite was the case. I think the end results will be more than enough to convince you to be very proactive the next time you screw up. Keep reading »
I'm a genius. Literally. Intelligence-wise, I'm in the top 1% of people worldwide. And along with that superior intellect comes the uncanny ability to tell when someone is faking it, when they're not being genuine. It doesn't even have to be in person. I can read your blog post and tell whether or not you know what you're talking about. Sometimes it's obvious, but other times I just know, despite the fact that I can't put my finger on exactly why. That's pretty arrogant isn't it? But that's apparently the way I think, judging by some of the things I've tried to pass off in my life. Whether it's tests, essays, term papers, research projects -- you name it, I've tried to fake my way through it. In more recent history, it's been blog posts. I can go back over the past year and find several posts where I wrote hundreds of words on the very shakiest foundations of knowledge, or where I tried to hide my true intentions for writing. Did I really believe that I was one of the elite few who could tell when people were faking it? It seems so ludicrous now that I'm aware of it. Keep reading »
Christine Kane has written a great piece about "18 Stupid Mistakes Bloggers Make in their First Year." It's an outstanding read and definitely worth a trip over there. I love it because she nails so many things. You can tell she's only been blogging a year because all those beginner mistakes are still so fresh in her mind. She's also got a great-looking blog to boot. It's worth a trip just to see that.
For those of you who are new to the site this week, I keep a list in my sidebar of the great things I've read through Google Reader. They have a Share function that makes it easy to -- well -- share particularly interesting posts. I try to always put them in a post when I've built up 10 or so so that you RSS subscribers see them as well, but regular readers will tell you that ... Keep reading »
If your blog is good and you're blogging consistently, you'll be successful. That's it. Two conditions. If it sounds simplistic, it's because we don't think enough about that second part: blogging consistently. Most bloggers start off with a passion and excitement, only to have it wane within a few weeks or a few months. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm a firm believer that you have to get out there and do something to find out if it's really something you like to do or something you're good at. You can't just read a book about it and know. So flaming out after trying something for just a little bit isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. I've started and abandoned too many projects to count, and I'm glad I did. It's only by trial and error that I've narrowed in on what I really want to do. So this guarantee isn't for those of you who have found out that you don't really enjoy blogging. It's for those of you you who do enjoy it and are looking to take your blog to the next level. Keep reading »
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