Frank Warren from PostSecret Shares His Blog’s Tipping Point
In this post Frank Warren from PostSecret answers my question - ‘when was the Tipping Point of your blog?' My story might be a little different because my blog is dependant upon anonymous users mailing me silly, sexual or shocking secrets on postcards. The tipping point for my project/blog came when I stopped passing out the postcards I had used to seed the project - and secrets continued to arrive in my mailbox. Somehow the idea of PostSecret spread virally in the real world and strangers began to buy ..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (3 hours ago)
How To: Avoid Duplicate Posts
A reader writes in: I'm developing a new theme and I'm having trouble getting duplicate posts from showing when running two loops (one standard loop and one from a specific category). Even when I copied the specific code from directly from the codex, it was not working. The Codex article the reader mentioned was regarding the Loop . Although the example shows how to avoid a single duplicate post, it doesn't show how to avoid duplicating multiple posts. Here's how to show two individual loops without duplicati..
Weblog Tools Collection (7 hours ago)
Making Money from 2nd and 3rd clicks with the Amazon Affiliate Progam
Yesterday Jeremy Shoemoney Twittered to tell me that the review that he wrote of the ProBlogger book generated 38 sales of the book through his Amazon affiliate link. He went on to say that he made money money from the other things that people then went on to buy after clicking through on the link. The great thing about the Amazon affiliate program is that you not only make commissions on the item that you link to from your blog but any item that your referred reader might buy after clicking your link. I wrot..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (12 hours ago)
Design Grid
Grid based design has become an emerging trend for web design in the last year, and it's continuing to gain momentum. While it's still somewhat of a mystery to a good portion of the community, it's something that has been around since before the printed word. Geometry and symmetry are an important aspect through many design related disciplines, and is the most evident in classical greco roman architecture, and the foundation of print design to name a few. Porting this mindset over to webdesign has taken a bit..
Blogging Tips (13 hours ago)
How to Use Twitter for Marketing
There are now various tips on how you can utilize Twitter for marketing your business but basically, it all comes down to monitoring and getting the attention of influencers online. You will not only be able to find out what the needs and opinions of your target market, you can also grab their attention through networking as well. Twitter will enable you to enter the consciousness of interested users which will build up your brand and customer loyalty over the long run. Obviously, Twitter is popular because i..
Net Business Blog (14 hours ago)
How To Get Your Lost Subscribers
Image Source: Joe Shlabotnik Almost every bloggers come across this day when he/she has stopped blogging for a few days and back after some long time. In this situation, you have to work really hard to get back your subscribers. Your old subscribers are the most valuable people. You cannot afford to miss them. But due to some unavoidable reason you lose them, you have to work hard to get them back. Here are three things you can do to get your lost subscribers back: 1. Social Media Normally, every blogger uses..
Blogging Tips (17 hours ago)
Thanks to Week 134 SOBs
Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Let me introduce the bloggers who have earned this official badge of achievement, and the right to call themselves Successful Blog SOBs . I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs. They take the conversation to their readers, contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger. I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on. Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community. Should an..
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog (18 hours ago)
Finding Profitability - The Tipping Point for Expansion
In response to my question - “tell us about your blog's ‘tipping point'” Collis Ta'eed from PSDTUTS and ( Freelance Switch ) responded with the following comprehensive guest post. Years ago when I had more time to spare, one of my favourite pastimes was to play computer games. In particular, I rather liked those real-time strategy games like Warcraft and Starcraft, which brought hours of enjoyment, to the decline of my studies and chagrin of my girlfriend of the time. I've not had the time t..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (18 hours ago)
It Only Took Me 1 Year To Discover the HTML Version of Gmail
I am a Gmail fan, as many of you I would guess. I have 5 different accounts forwarded to my Gmail account, so that I can control all my business emails from a single hub. I love the functionalities and the user interface, but there is one thing that always annoyed me: the slow AJAX platform. Even if you have a broadband connection you will need to wait a couple of seconds for Gmail to load. If you have conversations with dozens of replies back and forth, they might also take a while to load completely. I just..
Daily Blog Tips (20 hours ago)
Which Social Bookmarking Site Would You Prefer to Hit the Front Page Of?
Here's a question that might provoke some interesting discussion over the weekend: Which Social Bookmarking Site Would You Prefer to Hit the Front Page Of? Would you prefer to hit the popular page on Digg, hit StumbleUpon's buzz page, make it big on Delicious, Mixx or Reddit or is there some other social bookmarking page that you'd rather do well on? Also - WHY did you choose the one you've chosen? Is it just about the raw numbers of readers, that it leads to secondary links, that it's more focused and brings..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (1 day ago)
WordPress Theme Releases for 5/16
2 Column Themes Wallpaper Wallpaper is a simple fixed-width, 2 column widget-ready theme with a right sidebar. The theme has a blue header and the rest of the body has a white background. In the Rough In The Rough is a two column widget-ready theme with a simple and grungy look. It's comes with color options of Pink, Red, Green, Orange and Blue. There is also a print.css for better printing. Unstandard Remix Unstandard Remix is a two column widget-ready theme. The theme makes heavier use of transparencies and..
Weblog Tools Collection (1 day ago)
Publishing for Profit and Influence: It’s All About the Passion
After maintaining several blogs for a couple of years, learning about web publishing and observing different niches, I have come to the conclusion that success for web publishers mainly relies on how much passion you have for the topic you cover . Not exactly a ground-breaking insight, you might say. But let me explain how I personally came to realize this. I've built quite a few sites throughout my life online and the only ones that remain or thrive are the ones covering topics, for which I have a very deep ..
Dosh Dosh - Making Money Online (1 day ago)
When a Comment Requires the Honest Truth
Maybe it was one of those days. Maybe it was something in the air. Today, I had six comments that required the honest truth as a response. Not the tempered, kinder and gentler response but the hard cold truth. The kind of truth you have to give knowing that some can't take it. Not all types of bloggers can handle delivering the raw truth. And not all have to hand out the truth. However, technical, tip, and educational blogs often confront questions and pleas for help that require a level of honesty that can b..
Lorelle on WordPress (1 day ago)
Friday Focus: 05/16/08
I don't know if I am a fan of minimalism because I picked out these websites. But I like to appreciate designs that stand out not because they're loud and proud, but because they're calm and clear. Silent waters run deep, they say. I like to think restraint is more powerful than the lack of it, especially in design. Designs of the Week The contrast used on the unlinked text may be less than ideal for the accessibility conscious, but ample emphasis is given to the keywords for visitors who are just skimming th..
Devlounge - Homepage Feed (1 day ago)
Performancing Stream of Consciousness - Banishing Your Introverted Self
If you're not going out this weekend to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, maybe you'll want some reading material. (Or you could go see a recent release like Iron Man - but skip Speed Racer, in case you're expecting it to be as good as the Wachowski Brothers' earlier effort, The Matrix.) It's still arguable whether or not bloggers are generally opinionated, but some are definitely introverts . Chris Garrett gives some advice on breaking out of your solitude - something that's necessary for online ..
Performancing.com - Helping Bloggers Succeed (1 day ago)
Amazon Associates Introduce MP3 Clips Widget
If you have a blog with a music focus the Amazon Associates program have today announced a widget that you'll want to check out - it's an MP3 Clips Widget that lets your readers listen to clips of music live on your site. You can hand select songs to be included on the widget or pick categories of songs. Any sales generated by the widget earn you 10% of the sale as an associate. Just be aware that only those in the US can buy music from Amazon (or at least they seem to need a US credit card). All of your read..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (2 days ago)
Friday Recap
It's Friday and almost a gazillion degrees in Southern California! Yey? This week Search Engine Strategies unveiled the first annual SES Awards show which will take place during SES San Jose. It's exciting for SES and equally exciting for me because as I'll be one of the judges (what crazy...
Bruce Clay, Inc. Blog (2 days ago)
Explosive Tips For Great Web Content Writing
Writing on the web requires a different "language" than say writing for a magazine or newspaper. Great web content doesn't just appear from nowhere. It is often the result of intricate studies of reader behavior, long hours slaved over writing the right copy and a thought process that follows the need of the reader. It all starts with the title. If the title isn't attractive enough, nobody will likely take the time and read what we have got to say . A title has to tempt us with a short and sweet overview of w..
Blogging Tips (2 days ago)
SOB Business Cafe 05-16-08
Welcome to the SOB Cafe We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection. The Special Edition this Week are: Creative Think had been shaking up our heads again. The more often you do something in the same way, the more difficult it is to think about doing it in any other way. Give Yourself a Whack on the Side of the Head Essential Keystrokes was showing what to do when we ..
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog (2 days ago)
Bloggers Digest - 5/16/08
Before we get going with the link list, I want to announce the replay of our paid search webinar with Ryan Gibson of the Rimm-Kaufman Group is now available. You can also catch up with all of our webinars (we've got a full year's worth!) in our ecommerce webinar archive . I also want to remind you of a few upcoming webinars so pull out your calendars: Tuesday, May 20 : How to Use Blogging and Email to Create Leads and Delight Customers with Compendium Blogware, the Email Experience Council and Habeas. Thursda..
Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog (2 days ago)
Should I Stop Blogging? 20 Questions to Ask Yourself
“When Should You Give Up On a Blog?” - question received from the Q&A sidebar widget. What goals do I have for this blog? Are they being met? Am I getting closer to meeting them? Am I Interested in the Topic? Am I getting personal satisfaction from posting? How Many Posts Did I write in the Last Month? Do I have time to keep the blog running? Is anyone reading my blog? Have I given it enough time? Do I still see myself writing on this blog in 18 months time? Is the niche growing or dying? Is ..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (2 days ago)
Website Traffic Series Part 5: Pulling an April Fools Prank
On the last part of this series we talked about a shady technique to increase your traffic: faking a blog sale . Overall I don't think it is an effective one, and even if it was, I would still encourage people to stay way from those shady tactics. Your credibility is worth more than the visitors you might end up receiving. That being said, there is one day of the year where you could actually pull a fake blog sale. In fact you could pull out pretty much anything you wish, and the wilder the better. You guesse..
Daily Blog Tips (2 days ago)
How to Achieve Freedom from Freelance
When you're a freelance creative, adding value depends on your knowledge, skills, and talent alone. It's easy to think that creative professionals should brand themselves. Before you choose that route, ask yourself these questions: Do you want to be the only resource for customers? Do you want to one day retire and earn passive income? Do you want your small business to grow? In short, do you really want to create a personal branding prison for yourself? Some people enjoy being The Man or The Woman. They love..
Copyblogger (2 days ago)
Brian Clark Shares His Blog’s Tipping Point
Today Brian Clark from CopyBlogger shares his Blog's Tipping Point I think the tipping point for Copyblogger was the beginning of 2007. I had a good first year, attracting 10,000 subscribers, and as the new year began I decided I wanted Copyblogger to be one of the top blogs. That hadn't been my initial goal; I had just wanted to join in and let people know what I could do for other projects. But then I thought, “If you want to be viewed as an expert at social media and content marketing, what better pr..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (2 days ago)
Google's Laser Logo
This is one of the weirder and more interesting logos to show on the Google homepage : in disco neon colors, Google today celebrates the anniversary of the first laser. Wikipedia explains (footnotes removes, my emphasis): Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation . (...) The first working laser was demonstrated on May 16, 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories. Recently, lasers have become a multi-billion dollar industry. The most widespread use of lasers is in optical storage d..
Google Blogoscoped (2 days ago)
Join the Blogging Pack
Michael had the idea and I ran with it, now we have at last count 11 pages of bloggers who have joined in. What am I talking about? The Authority Blogger Blog Pack The idea is simple, a group of bloggers who want to help you get noticed and help each other out. Add your feed and Twitter details to the thread Download the OPML file and import it into your feed reader (preferably to a folder, the file is already organized this way but relies on your software to notice). This will add all the participants feeds ..
Chris Garrett on New Media (2 days ago)
Powerful Writing In 30 Words Or Less: E-book of One Liners
What does powerful writing mean to you? That was the question I asked at the start of this conversation around powerful writing. At the end of it we have 60 definitions, explorations or illustrations of what it means to write with power - all expressed in a power-packed 30 words or less. I've compiled the results into this 24 page e-book (click for pdf download) divided up into the 7 sections that emerged (to me) as I read through your entries. Powerful writing: hits the mark moves us comes from t..
Confident Writing (2 days ago)
The Greatest Interviewing Tip You’ll Never Want to Use
As bloggers, every day we face challenge of coming up with unique and compelling content. Because the Internet is so massive, this is a task roughly similar to the one assigned to Hercules, of cleaning out the Aegean stables, which were crusted over with tons of mythological Greek horse poop. This was a tremendous task for Hercules, since the horses were of divine origin, the stable hadn't been cleaned in years, and he had to keep resisting the urge to just spend a couple of minutes messing around on Facebook..
PureBlogging (2 days ago)
Top 10 Uses of Twitter and Tools
The results of our poll on how Online Marketing Blog readers use Twitter are in. We had over 220 responses, which isn't a bad sample considering this blog is fairly niche with a modest sized (and very smart) audience. Below I've listed the poll results and a few comments on each. (39%, 87 Votes) Sharing links to items of interest to your network - Not surprising since the speed of reach on Twitter is so fast. As soon as you find something interesting that's linkable, you can drop it on Twitter and your networ..
Online Marketing Blog (2 days ago)
YouTube Add ‘Insight’ Video Metrics
Google today announced that it has launched YouTube Insight - a tool for giving insight into who is watching your videos. So today I logged into YouTube to see what information I could glean about the viewers of my videos. from the new stats. Here's what I learned about who is watching my videos: Across my Channel they are predominately male (64%) and in the 45-55 year old bracket (36%): Of Male viewers - the biggest group is actually aged 35-45. Of the Female audience the largest group is 45-55. Viewers are ..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (2 days ago)
Free Story Theme For WordPress
Most of the time (when I'm not busy becoming a father, like in April) Performancing is committed to bringing you a free new WordPress theme each month. This month's theme is called The Story Theme . It's a 3 column design where the content is situated to the far left, followed by two contrasting sidebars. I'm especially fond of the look of the left-margin on this theme. It's a nice touch that I've not seen in a theme before, but which adds a lot of class. Check it out and let us know what you think! You can p..
Performancing.com - Helping Bloggers Succeed (2 days ago)
My College President Kills Kittens!
I don't care if you plan to launch a social media campaign or not, stop what you're doing and head over to the top social sites and claim your company name and the names of your high level folks. No, do it now. Otherwise, prepare to be sorry when someone...
Bruce Clay, Inc. Blog (2 days ago)
SitePoint release Photoshop Anthology E-Book for free
Stuff By Sarah yesterday posted about SitePoint releasing their photoshop E-Book for free for a full month (28 days left). This is fantastic offer and one which I encourage you all to take up. About the Book ‘ The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques ‘ was written by experienced web designer Corrie Haffly and has 278 full color pages which is split into 9 chapters. The book shows you how to : Design attractive web graphics Touch up photographs for web use Create web s..
Blogging Tips (2 days ago)
GaMerZ WordPress Plugins Update
Lester Chan's GaMerZ has announced that he has unleashed the first wave of updates for 11 of his WordPress plugins. These include: WP-EMail 2.30 WP-PageNavi 2.30 WP-PluginsUsed 1.30 WP-Polls 2.30 WP-PostRatings 1.30 WP-Print 2.30 WP-RelativeDate 1.30 WP-ServerInfo 1.30 WP-Sticky 1.30 WP-Stats 2.30 WP-Useronline 2.30 The remaining four plugins, WP-Ban, WP-DBManager, WP-DownloadManager, and WP-PostViews will be updated in wave two. Lester has stated that all of these plugins should work in WordPress 2.5 only an..
Weblog Tools Collection (2 days ago)
Billboard Liberation Front at Google (Video)
The Boing Boing blog joined the Billboard Liberation Front and the Monochrom group to erect a "great firewall of China" near the Google headquarters company sign in Mountan View, California. Their work starts at minute 5: One commenter at Boing Boing nicknamed Netsharc argues that he agrees with the protest idea but found the video too "self-congratulatory," asking why China "is China represented with those farmers' hats anyway". Another commenter argued, "It's campy, sure, but it's a parody after all." [By P..
Google Blogoscoped (2 days ago)
Whiteboard Friday - Blogging for Higher Rankings
Posted by great scott! This week, Rand discusses a few essential strategies to consider when adding a blog to your site. If you want your blog to be readable, enjoyable, and able to generate links and traffic, give this installment of Whiteboard Friday a look. SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday-Blogging for Higher Rankings from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo . Do you like this post? Yes No
SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog (2 days ago)
Why Performers and Entertainers Should Twitter
Peter D. Marshall, a veteran filmmaker, asked on Twitter whether anyone had links for social media tips for a talk he's preparing. The talk is aimed at theater people and how to promote themselves using social media. Now, I see a lot of musicians on MySpace, but I've so far only come across one on Twitter: Henry Rollins . (Not that I've actively searched, mind you.) He's not very active, and only follows 21 other Twitter accounts. Still, he establishes a presence and indicates when he'll be play somewhere nex..
Performancing.com - Helping Bloggers Succeed (2 days ago)
Searching Google and Others for Suicide
“Suicide” is a potentially important search query because it may be entered by people contemplating committing suicide. Both Google and Yahoo in 2008 give relevant results of sites trying to help people or educate them on the subject; at both search engines, the number one result is a Wikipedia entry, and the second result is a page titled “Suicide: Read This First”. Back in 2003 , some of the top Google results for this and related queries included music bands. Of the three major sear..
Google Blogoscoped (2 days ago)
5 Emerging Trends in Blogging
Over in the question widget on my sidebar I was asked to comment on the future of blogging and where I see it heading. In this video post I explore 5 trends that have been emerging (and that I think we'll see continue to grow) including: Multiple Author Blogs Multi-Topic Blogs Blogs Converging with Other Types of Sites Portal-Like Design Indirect Monetization I should say though that I'm NOT saying that a blog can't work when a blog doesn't have these things. Blogs of all shapes and sizes will continue to hav..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (3 days ago)
Use Newsletters to Make Money from Affiliate Marketing
Newsletters are a great tool that will enable you to build an opt-in list for marketing affiliate products and services. Many affiliates usually decide to build a web page and then insert the subscription box in order to attract their web visitors. While newsletters are an effective in promotion, the sad truth is, only a minimal number of web owners actually make a reasonable amount of money from this endeavor. So how can you increase your conversion rate? Here are some tips: 1. Build content tha..
Net Business Blog (3 days ago)
Webinar Recap: The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
Thanks again to Ryan Gibson from the Rimm-Kaufman Group for sharing some top-notch tips on paid search. If you missed the call, we will be posting the full length replay on the Elastic Path website . Until then, here's a recap of the main points: Keyword Development is 50% of Your Success Keyword research is essential because it ultimately determines which searches your ads will appear for. Keywords must be appropriate, specific and capture the variations of how people search for the products you sell. “..
Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog (3 days ago)
A Few Bad Votes Too Many?
Posted by Nick Gerner I've been reading some of the papers from AIRWeb '08 , the recent web spam conference, and I came across one called, " A Few Bad Votes Too Many? Towards Robust Ranking in Social Media ." What was really interesting to me is that the authors quantify the effects of vote spam in "thumbing" systems (like the one we have here at SEOmoz), and that they rank the usefulness of different features in ranking questions and answers. The results suggest that an average of just six spam c..
SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog (3 days ago)
Don’t get stressed about blog scrapers stealing your content
David Peralty emailed me the other day to inform me that this website is scraping my content. The website is scraping content from BloggingTips and a few others (including Daily Blog Tips ). Blog scraping is a topic I have touched upon before at BloggingTips however it's something which still plagues bloggers today and unfortunately, the more successful your blog becomes, the more likely it is going to be scraped. Before I talk about why you shouldn't get too stressed about blog scrapers stealing your content..
Blogging Tips (3 days ago)
Three Vital Tag Related Blog SEO Tips
If you're constantly surfing the web looking for solid blog SEO content like me, you'll notice a plethora of information and “top lists” on virtually every related source. Most of these lists are highly recommended, but in my opinion there are a few vital changes you can make that are not usually not listed. 1. H1 Tags for Titles I cannot express enough how well this has worked on several of the projects I am intimately involved in. One of the major projects I work on is a wiki site with just unde..
Blogging Tips (3 days ago)
Google Developer News Roundup: Maps Flash API, HTML Reference and More
Google released a Flash/ ActionScript API for Google Maps . Google says this allows current Flash developers to easily integrate Google Maps into existing Flash apps, but that it also provides new possibilities for displaying map content for developers currently not using Flash. Flash has just been released in a version 10 preview , by the way, bringing a couple of changes . Google announced the winners for the first round of the Android mobile apps challenge with prize money of $25,000 each. Ten $275,000 pri..
Google Blogoscoped (3 days ago)
BusinessWeek Says: Why Twitter Matters
At BusinessWeek, Stephen Baker has written his look at why Twitter matters - and he used to Twitter to do it. He asked several questions and got back over 250 replies. I suppose it helps that he has over 700 followers. So far, none of the questions I've asked on Twitter have received a direct response. But I'm thinking there's probably a "critical mass" point in the number of people following you, after which you can ask pretty much anything and get a response. Which just reinforces why Twitter is a great res..
Performancing.com - Helping Bloggers Succeed (3 days ago)
Is Content Really that Important?
Recently I met Julie Roads and enjoyed an email exchange with her. She's generous, thoughtful and does her homework. Her words ring with her voice. So I'm happy to present this article she wrote. I predict she's going to be everywhere in no time at all. Is Content Really that Important? by Julie Roads When I tell people that I'm a copywriter, this response smacks me in the face quite often: “Oh! I need a copyright for a blahblahblah that I created.” Yeah, I'm actually not that kind of copywriter. ..
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog (3 days ago)
How to Split Test (A/B Test) Your AdSense Ads
A couple of days ago I talked readers through some different approaches to AdSense Ad Design and how it can make a significant impact upon the earnings of your AdSense ads. At the end of the post I mentioned that one great way to work out which ad design is best for your blog is to run a split testing campaign. Today I want to talk readers through how to do this - it's not as complicated as you might think! What is Split Testing? Also sometimes called A/B testing, split testing means that you run two differen..
Blog Tips at ProBlogger (3 days ago)
Thursday Roundup for the Week of 5/11/08
Posted by rebecca Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week: Two star links: The Industry Standard provides us with the 25 top B to Z-list blogs . Why am I giving the link 2-star status? Because the stupid site spaces the list out over multiple pages. ARGHHHHH. Take your page views and ad impressions and shove 'em up your arse. Three star links: Andrew Girdwood shares an amusing Gmail ad that may have been a little lost in translation. This clever photoset depicts Storm Troopers living their l..
SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog (3 days ago)
Are You Familiar with HTML and CSS? Six Reasons Why You Should Invest the Time to Learn
I had been involved with web design for a few years before I ever started blogging. In my opinion, being able to work with the code of a blog is a huge advantage that many bloggers choose not to pursue. Aside form the design aspect of creating an attractive blog, being able to work with the coding will allow you to make changes and adjustments to your blog any time you want, rather than relying on a professional to do it for you, or rather than just limiting yourself to what's available with the theme you hav..
Daily Blog Tips (3 days ago)
