Archive for April, 2008
Have you ever started writing a post and then left it to finish at a later date? Maybe you had to do some more research, maybe you were waiting on some information from someone, maybe you were feeling uninspired and needed to wait until you could finish the post with a proper bang.
I always write my posts in Notepad, then copy and paste them into my Wordpress editor once they’re finished. When I don’t finish the post I’m working on because of any of the above reasons, I save it and store it in my “to do” folder on my desktop.
Over the years, I’ve accumulated a lot of random bits of posts all over my hard drive and I just realized today how extremely stupid that is.
Why haven’t I been saving them as DRAFTS in my Wordpress editor?? That way, I would have seen them every time I logged in to write a new post instead of forgetting about them while they were floating around on my computer.
If you’ve been doing this as well, it’s time to stop. I wouldn’t doubt if I was the only one who’s been silly enough to do this, but if I’m not then this post might help you.
April 29th, 2008
I subscribe to a few different magazines and there’s one thing that they do to their subscribers that pisses me off so I’m going to have another little rant if you don’t mind.
Once your subscription is about to expire, these magazines will mail you the standard renewal notice. In the letter they send, they always say the same thing in big red letters.
“RENEW NOW OR PAY MORE LATER”
Well guess what?!
The last time I received that letter, I didn’t renew now! Oh my goodness, I didn’t renew. What to do, what to do? I was going to burn in hell because I didn’t lock in at that special subscription price. Life as I knew it should have been over right?
Luckily for me, my life was spared when I received another letter a few weeks later. This one was especially interesting because it was essentially the same as the previous one, but with a lower price.
A Lower Price!
Those bastards lied to me. I’m not happy now.
I could have believed them with that initial letter and renewed my subscription and fork over 20 big ones. Instead, I called their bluff (cause I’m smart like that) and ended up paying only 12 bucks.
Now, while this was beneficial to me, I can say that I’m not too thrilled with this magazine’s ability to blatantly lie to their loyal customers.
I know this is a marketing tactic from the days of old but is it really ethical?
Whatever that answer is, it doesn’t really matter. The whole point here is that I may not be a loyal customer for long. I would bet there are others who feel the same way. (I hope anyway, or else I’ll feel like giant tool.)
I’m sure you can apply this type of tactic to many online endeavors as well. I’ve seen a lot of things similar to this in email marketing where people offer a program or product for a certain price, then lower it for future customers. (In some cases they’ll even give it away for free.)
What a great way to lose credibility and trust.
To make a long story short, just don’t do this. Be honest. Stick to your word. It’s worth it.
April 29th, 2008
I was reading Shoemoney’s Q & A post over at http://www.shoemoney.com and one of the answers really stood out for me.
The question was “How many times should a blogger update his blog with new blog posts in a week?”
Shoemoney’s brilliant answer: “as many as they feel like writing“.
At first this might seem like a lazy answer, but let’s think about it for a minute.
In forums like Digital Point, people are always asking how many times a day/week they should be posting. There are countless blog posts themselves about how many times a blogger should be updating their blog.
The thing is, there is no right or wrong answer. It’s different for everyone and every blog. It depends on the topic of the blog, the writing ability of the blogger, and the demand from the readers (among other various factors as well).
Therefor, I believe that Shoemoney’s answer is the best because it really should be “as much as you want”!
If I feel like writing ten posts this week, I’m gonna do it. If I feel like writing only one, I’ll do that too. I’m not going to burn myself out trying to write 5 posts a day. The only thing that will accomplish is crappy writing.
I’m the type of person who just can’t (or don’t want to) post that frequently. Other people might have the ability to write more. If you’re that type of person, then go for it!
You don’t need someone else’s “permission” to write as much as you want. There is no secret formula. In the end, you want to write quality posts. Emphasis on “quality”, not “quantity”.
If you can write 5 quality posts a week, you can make that your goal. If you can write 20 quality posts a week, make that your goal instead. Don’t write 5 quality posts and then 15 crappy posts just for the sake of posting.
What will posting crappy posts for the sake of posting get you? Hmm, let’s see:
-
Crappy posts!
-
Your readers will lose their trust or respect for you over time
-
You won’t have people linking to you because they don’t want to link to a crappy blog
-
Quality targeted traffic will dwindle
-
You’ll lose your credibility as an expert in your field within the blogosphere (assuming you had cred in the first place)
If you post according to what someone else says is the magic number of posting, you’ll end up with those nasty side-effects (assuming that magic number is not your own personal magic number).
You don’t need to ask someone else how many times you should be updating your own blog. It’s completely up to you.
April 28th, 2008
A few days ago I sat down and agreed with myself to do the meticulous task of creating my own customized Adsense reports.
Any Google Adsense publisher can download reports right from their Adsense account, but I’m ridiculously anal about my numbers so I had to create my own reports. After a couple hours I had what I wanted.
I made seperate sheets in OpenOffice’s Calc for each month of each year that I’ve been an Adsense publisher. I then created another sheet that pulled the totals from each month to create a monthly/yearly overview.
I printed off this overview and have it sitting right in front of my monitor. I’ll update it weekly so my numbers stay current but the main purpose of doing this is to use these numbers as motivation to continue to keep those numbers growing.
I can also see which months performed better and figure out why. This helps me get rid of the ads that are sucking and tweak other ad units to do even better.
My intial goal will be to increase my Adsense income every month by 50 percent. I hope that isn’t an unrealistic goal but I’ll do my best to make sure I don’t eat my words after the first month.
At first I was simply aiming to do better than the previous month, but I realized this wasn’t a specific enough goal. If this goal of increasing my Adsense income by 50 percent isn’t challenging enough, I’ll change it to double every month.
Wish me luck and pray that I don’t embarrass myself!
And if it helps, try creating something like this for yourself to keep motivated. Not only is it a great way to keep your momentum going, but it’s exciting to see that all that hard work is paying off.
April 26th, 2008
Something that manages to really irk me is when people use frames on their website but don’t allow their users to resize them. If it was sized properly in the first place, that’s fine. But when you have a huge block of text or especially when you have a form in the frame but it’s cut off and you can’t resize the window, it’s extremely irritating!
So please allow users to resize frames on your website.
April 25th, 2008
I’ve stressed quite a few times how “to-do lists” (not a very well written post but you’ll get the drift of it) are really helpful when you need some way of staying motivated and organized, but I’ve also discovered that having “Things I Got Done lists” are just as helpful.
Throughout the day, I keep a list of all the things I did that made a positive impact. I’ll jot down when I posted to my blogs, when I’ve written an article, what I’ve done to promote them, when I’ve made a new contact, etc. At the end of the day, I’ll go back through the list and give myself a mental pat on the back for everything I accomplished.
If my list looks pretty bare, I give myself a mental kick in the ass to do better the next day. I even keep these lists in a file so I can look back at them weeks or months later. It’s a great way to assess your work day and use that info to become even more efficient.
Our ultimate goal is to make more and work less right? If you’re a crazy list person like me, this may help you achieve that.
April 25th, 2008
I finally signed up for NicheBot yesterday (yes I know, I’m extremely behind the times) and WOW am I ever going to be a busy girl for the next few months.
After spending a few minutes with this program I’ve got a monster list of new keywords which will help me tweak existing pages to get better traffic and also a plethora of new ideas for more content.
If you haven’t already heard of it, NicheBot is a keyword research tool and so much more. Corny, but true 
Anyone with a website should know that keyword research is a huge factor in creating and maintaining a website or blog so you should also know that having a program like this is extremely valuable.
How much did I pay to use this program?
One buckaroo!
You can get a 14-day trial for only $1*. You have access to all the paid features and you can cancel at any time. I figured I would check it out, generate some keyword lists, then cancel if I didn’t think I would use it that much. After about five minutes I knew I would be renewing after the trial period.
I have to admit that when I first logged in I was confused as to what to do or where to look, but once I read a bit it was smooth sailing.
I really can’t believe how much I’ve been missing out by not using a program like this from the beginning. I don’t even want to think about how much money I haven’t made but could have. Quite depressing really…
Anyway, I’m off to find some new keywords. It’s so exciting. Feels like Christmas!
Here’s the link again. Check it out, even if you’re a cheapo like me!
http://mamasontheweb.com/nichebot.php
*UPDATE: Boo! NicheBot no longer has a 14-day $1 trial period. Instead, you can try it for just 46 cents a day. Go dig around in your couch and find a couple quarters and you can make keyword lists til you drop.
April 24th, 2008
Jimmy D. Brown, one of my favourite internet marketers, has compiled some great information for anyone wanting to write an ebook. This works for anyone who has written one before, or who has no idea where to even begin.
The main problem I have is finding new ideas, but he’s got lots of ways to get past that. He even has tips on getting over writer’s block which is also a problem of mine. It’s a quick read that is sure to inspire you. You can download your copy for free here.
April 14th, 2008
