Weekly Links – November 30th

Published November 30th, 2007 in Links - 9 Comments

24 Do-Follow Social Bookmarking Sites That Actually Work from Caroline Middlebrook.

WordPress Blogs: Changing Hosts the Easy Way from Devlounge.

12 Reasons to Join Mixx and Abandon Digg from SEO 2.0.

Push Marketing vs. Pull Marketing: Using Both Strategies to Promote Your Site from Dosh Dosh.

Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Media to Search Marketers from Social Media Explorer.

5 Steps to Becoming a Better Blogger

Published November 29th, 2007 in Blogging - 14 Comments

All bloggers have room for improvement. Obviously, those who are new to blogging will typically have more to learn than those who have several years of experience, but we can all benefit by improving in these 5 areas.

1. Know What Your Readers Really Want.

Successful blogs satisfy their readers. In order to do so, you’ll first need to know specifically what it is that your readers want from you. You should have a good idea of what subjects and topics they would like to see you cover, as well as how frequently they would like new content to be added. Each audience will also prefer certain writing styles or types of posts.

Do Blog Rankings Matter?

Published November 28th, 2007 in Blogging - 31 Comments

There are a lot of different ranking systems currently being used for blogs. Google’s PageRank has been the subject of more than its share of blog discussions recently. In addition to PageRank, there’s always Technorati and Alexa rankings, and recently IZEA (the parent company of PayPerPost) has decided to move away from PageRank and create its own RealRank. (For information on RealRank, see Courtney Tuttle’s Real Rank Doesn’t Solve Anything for Bloggers.

21 Factors that Influence the First Impression of Your Website’s Visitors

Published November 27th, 2007 in Design - 171 Comments

When a new visitor comes to your website for the first time an initial impression will be formed pretty quickly. A good first impression will drastically increase the chances of that visitor returning again, and a bad first impression will be difficult to overcome.

This list looks at 21 factors that will influence your visitor’s impression within moments of arriving at your site. These are just some of the factors, not a comprehensive list. Feel free to list some others in the comments that you think should be included. Here they are, in no particular order.

Writing for Multiple Blogs

Published November 26th, 2007 in Blogging - 20 Comments

Many bloggers either own multiple blogs or they write for others as well as their own. Those who aren’t writing for other blogs are missing out on a great opportunity to gain exposure and network with influential bloggers. For a few months I was posting 5-6 times per week here and writing 4 or 5 guest posts per week. Currently, I write fewer posts for other blogs, but I do still write at least one per week. Through this experience I’ve learned some things that I think can help others who are looking for other writing opportunities.

StumbleUpon vs. Digg

Published November 25th, 2007 in Social Media - 23 Comments

Since I started consistently posting on this blog in July the top two sources of traffic have been StumbleUpon and Digg. Much is written about each of these popular social media websites, so I thought it would be interesting to compare the traffic that each has sent.

From July 1st to November 24th, 2007:
- StumbleUpon sent a total of 90,485 visitors.
- Digg sent a total of 61,274 visitors.

The four posts that have made it to the front page of Digg have also been 4 of the top 6 posts in terms of StumbleUpon traffic. This isn’t very surprising to me, as large waves of traffic from one site will logically result in votes at the other site from a certain number of visitors.

Weekly Links – November 22nd

Published November 22nd, 2007 in Links - 11 Comments

Blogtrepreneur is for sale. Adnan has been building a very strong blog for almost two years and now he’s moving on to pursue other interests. If anyone is looking to buy a profitable blog, contact Adnan. The Art of Differentiation: Standing Out In a Sea of Mediocrity from Performancing. The #1 Reason Why You Will [...]

Redefining Your Purpose

Published November 21st, 2007 in Blogging - 16 Comments

I believe most of my readers who are bloggers or online marketers have been online for several months or longer. When you started your website/blog you obviously started it for a reason. Maybe you wanted to make money. Maybe you just wanted to share your thoughts and opinions with others. Have you stopped to think [...]

40 Resources for WordPress Theme Designers

Published November 20th, 2007 in WordPress - 50 Comments

If you’re looking to learn more about design websites, please see our post Learn Web Design for plenty of resources to help your educational pursuit. One of the reasons WordPress is the most popular blogging platform is its theme system. WordPress allows its users with almost unlimited design options when modifying or designing themes. This [...]

Del.icio.us: An Underrated Link Building Tool

Published November 19th, 2007 in Social Media - 34 Comments

On the subject of social media, Digg and StumbleUpon seem to get almost all of the attention right now. While the traffic potential for these two is considerably higher than other social media sites, Del.icio.us can be one of the most powerful resources for your link building efforts. Quick Overview of Del.icio.us Del.icio.us is a [...]