Tag Archives: comment

business, ideas, Relationship

Setting Boundries and Scoring Points

 

There is always a list of things one should do online if you are using web 2.0, but none our more important than developing your own site. It is easy to caught up with all the tools/options and forgot why it is that you are doing it. Set clear boundaries and stick to it, only now and than going over it, if it is something off particular interest.

I found this fascinating quote today give an insight in social networking:

  1. Social Messaging – Twitter, Plurk, Friendfeed, Pownce…. (add your favorite micro blogging/social messaging service here). Each can suck up your time if you don’t get focused and put some boundaries around them.
  2. Social Bookmarking – many bloggers become somewhat obsessed with writing posts for and then gathering votes on social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz, Reddit etc
  3. Social Networking – building profiles and interacting upon Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace etc – all useful in building a brand and profile as a blogger, but potentially a distraction.
  4. Blog Design – blog design is important at creating a first impression but when you find yourself tweaking it, reworking it, planning your next one more than actually writing content for your blog you might be in trouble.
  5. SEO – like blog design there always seems to be something you could do a little better when it comes to optimizing a blog for search engines. It can be worth your time to do some of this, but one of the most effective ways of doing SEO is to write content that hits the spot with readers.
  6. Reading other Blogs in Your Niche – yet another great use of time, but many bloggers spend so much time on other people’s blogs connecting, leaving comments and even writing about them that they fail to write anything unique on their own.
  7. Reading about How to Blog – this might seem strange coming from a blogger who writes about blogging, but from time to time a blogger comes to me for advice on how to improve their blog who has done so much learning about blogging that my encouragement to them is simply to stop reading about it and start doing it.
  8. Guest Posting – I am a big fan about using guest posting on other peoples blogs to expand your profile and grow your readership – however the best way to utilize guest posting is to have great content on your own blog for the new readers you engage with to see when they come visit.
  9. Interacting with Readers – this is one that I hesitate to write about because I’m a firm believer in allocating time to spend one on one with readers – however as a blog grows it gets more and more difficult to do. There comes a time where most bloggers need to decide how to strike a balance on this front – boundaries and processes can really help.
  10. Networking with other bloggers – another great way to build brand and traffic to your own blog is to connect with other bloggers in your niche – however there are millions of blogs ‘out there’ and it can be an endless task.
  11. Monetization – finding and testing ad networks and affiliate programs can take a lot of time. Then optimizing them for your blog and tracking the results and extending your earning potential by finding private sponsorships and ad sales can really eat up even more of your time.
  12. Starting New Blogs – diversification is an important and worthwhile part of the journey of many bloggers development, however I come across some bloggers who start too many blogs too quickly and don’t give their early ones time to get going and develop before they branch out.
  13. Analyzing Stats – one of the biggest potential time suckers, that many bloggers become distracted with at different times, is analyzing your stats. Sure, you can learn a great deal from looking at who is coming to your blog, from where they come and what they do when they arrive – but at times, when you do it all day everyday, it can be a habit that takes you away from your blogging.
  14. Projects/Competitions/Memes – many bloggers wanting to run a competition or project on their blog don’t realize just how much work it can be to manage (or how hard it can be to get them working). They can bring a lot of life to a blog, but they can also be suck you (and your readers) attention away from your core blogging.
  15. Dealing with Trolls and Trouble makers – it is SO easy to get drawn into passionate (yet pointless) arguments with other bloggers and readers that can leave you emotionally drained and having wasted hours upon hours of your time. While at the time it seems to important to respond – many times it’s best just learn to hold it in.
  16. Tracking down copyright violations – unfortunately in the medium we operate there are people who scrape the content of others, whack ads on it and call it their own. While it can be important to track down these copyright violations down – the statement ‘how long is a piece of string’ comes to mind and some bloggers spend so much time tracking splogs down, issuing DMCA legal notices and attempting to get the content removed that they have little time for much else.

    17. Darren Rowse, 16 Important but Potentially Distracting Blogging Tasks, Sep 2008

You should read the whole article.

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ideas, Quality

Comments an links

My mate Owen, over at the only network, Has a post about Analyze Backlinks

There is website that will tell you all the sites that are linking to you. It is well worth a visit as it will allow you to understand how effective your commenting is on other users blog. Key to gaining a good page rank is insuring that authority bloggers link back to. So commenting really is important for your blog. The rule of thumb here is the more links the higher the page rank. So get reading and positively participating.

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Modern Politics from a Male Perspective

Balancing the many pressures that are involved with running a business is never going to be a simple task. On one side you want to be liberal and understanding to all those around you. On the other side the job needs to get done. Creating the right environment where all can flourish can be compared to modern politics. Whether expected or not the change has been significant, in the last month not least just in the UK, where the change of Prime Minister has raised more questions than one might expect. Surely the role of a leader is not to make personally differentiating polices from other leaders. Maybe when one looks closely it is the male testosterone of beating the chest that rules the tribe.
An example of this is with the rise of China as a economic power. China has grown significantly in the last 10 years. As it prepares to take its place on the centre stage, it would seem that when such an event occurs it is also necessary to have sufficient power to wipe out any one that disagrees with your ideas. China has embarked on a Military program second only to America. Powerful as these countries may be, they still appear as a social mess. China with no recognisable form of democracy and America with not even the basic social system to ensure justice. Unfortunately neither of them seem preoccupied with these problems, much more concerned about who has the biggest tank, army, ship etc.