OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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Wow… Another great piece of software from social marketing expert, Jack Humphrey. And it’s free!

Get it here: http://budurl.com/vxtu

It gives you all kinds of cool information. You can use it just to find out what others are doing in your niche, or what I want to use it for is creating content. I mean, writing in a blog every day really isn’t that hard when you check out what’s going on around you.

You don’t have to come up with stuff on your own every single day, you know. If you’re one of my loyal and totally cool readers, you’ll know that I often write about other people, things going on around the Web or like this post, some useful tool that I’ve found and want to share with you.

Blog Talk Monitor runs your searches as often as you want it to from every five minutes to every 24 hours. You select the topic, plug in some keywords and this little program does the rest. It’s sweet!

The only issue for me was that my Microsoft .NET framework wasn’t up to date, so I had to go and download .NET 3.5 and then the .NET 3.5 SP1. Gotta have those service packs. So, that took a bit of time, but not a big deal really.  You can go to: http://budurl.com/gb2p to download .NET 3.5 and if you scroll down the page, the service pack, too.

So, now I have my services up to date and Blog Talk Monitor!

Oh, and you can monitor the same terms in Google Blogs, Google News, Technorati or RSS. Sweet!

What can I say, but again, “Thanks, Jack!”  (Now you know why I promote his stuff. Always, always useful.)

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People always ask me… How can I install a blog if I don’t have cPanel or Fantastico?

Simple:

Click Here to Download the Checklist in the Video

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How do you like that title? Kicky. Weird.

Kind of me, right?

I mean, I put a lot of Pat Marcello into this blog. Sometimes, I’m serious, but even then, I put my own weird twist (hence the pretzel reference) on things. I make the pretzel (or in this case the post) mirror how I speak and act. I feel that writing in my blog is like talking to a friend.

Do you know how important that is?

Not everyone will like me or my style. That’s OK. Understood. No hard feelings. Go read a blog that you do enjoy, written by a person you like. THAT’S WHAT BLOGS ARE FOR.

Yes, blogs are great when they’re imparting information, no doubt about it. But if you don’t present it in a way that people enjoy and can clearly understand, you won’t have many readers.

Case in point:

There’s a guy who’s pretty smart when it comes to social marketing and he’s doing a lot of blogging and promoting of his stuff recently. He gives some very good information, and I totally appreciate it. But…

His writing style SUCKS! He’s not just stiff, he’s uninteresting, and totally unclear. I have to read his posts twice or more just to figure out what he’s really trying to say. And I’ll tell you what… No matter how much great information he gives, I’m about ready to leave his feed. I just want to shake him and say, “BE Yourself!”

But then, I don’t really know the guy. Maybe he is that way all the time, but I doubt it. I sense a fear of failure in his writing style. He definitely thinks he’s a bad writer with good information. And that attitude makes his assumption true.

Write the way you would speak. Use contractions. Use slang and depending on your target audience, use the jargon that we use when we’re talking to each other. Writing in your blog should be just like having a conversation with your audience.

And some people won’t like it.

People have told me to quit using slang because it would be easier for them to read. I’m guessing they are international readers, and I welcome them! But I’m sorry guys, I can’t change the way I think and speak which leads to the way I write.

When I was writing reference biographies for Greenwood Press, that was a lot different. I had to write at a college level with very specific language. I couldn’t use contractions. I had to “sound” literary and academic.

Bleh! I’d rather be Pat Marcello and write what comes out of my head.

If you like what I write… Stick around!  I’m just getting warmed up.

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So, if you go to the bottom of each of my posts, you’ll see a cool new device. It’s called the “Social Twist Tell-a-Friend” button.  If you like a post, you can email, blog, Twitter, or tell your friends about it on Facebook. Pretty Sweet. You can get one for your own blog at http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/

Cool thing is that it will also give you stats. If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you’ll know that I LOVE stats. So, this very easy to use plugin (all you have to do is upload it to your wp-content/plugins folder and activate it) serves two purposes for me.

The typical chicklets that you see on my blog and everyone else’s don’t allow people to email folks about your incredibly brilliant blog post, either.

Work a peek, even if you aren’t concerned with spreading the social word.

Wait! If you aren’t, you totally should be. Nothing is better than word-of-mouth recommendation.

Oh, and you can use this on websites, too.  It’s worth the time to just check it out. Did I mention that it’s a free app?   The only thing that could make it better is a diamond tiara.

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The WordPress folks are at it again. They’re coming up with a new interface that was supposed to be ready on November 10, but they say it will be another two weeks before they can take WP 2.7 out of beta.

Personally, I’m too timid to install the beta version. Bugs, trouble, and I’d be in the basket. I mean, I’m great with doing things once the blog is installed and all, a regular mechanic. But I freak out when things don’t work the way they should, so I’ll just wait.

But it looks like they have redesigned the dashboard again. Lord, how many videos will I have to make to show people the differences? At least 2 that I know of.

Oh well, I’m sure it will be better.

And it apparently has an automatic upgrade option. Well… I love the automatic plugin upgrade. I’m excited to learn of the automatic WordPress upgrade because every frickin’ time I turn around, my version is out of date. Grr. The list of features I read says that upgrades are performed over a secure connection, too. Great!

So, that’s cool.

There is also:

• Bulk editing for  posts
• Sticky posts
• Comment threading
• Comment reply from admin (Like that one, eh?)

And you can vote for your faves over at the WordPress Blog. The most votes so far have been for the new design/layout, so that must be pretty sweet. And next was my favorite, the automatic upgrade.

So, we’ll be waiting guys… 2 weeks is October 24. You rock!

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You know, I have always been a big Blog Rush promoter. I thought it might be a great way for people to get traffic to their websites, and I’ve gotten my share. I built up a good network there and had tons of points to keep my stuff moving across the widgets all the time.

But, with few exceptions, people just didn’t click on the links in the widget. You needed to have a pretty outrageous title for people to notice, but well… even that didn’t produce more than double-digit clicks. I have to admit that I never even noticed what was in there on my own blog. It’s kind of like “banner blindness” only its “widget blindness.”

So…

I’m thinking, Bummer. You can read the whole story at http://BlogRush.com . It’s over. You can’t get past that page to any stats or anything.

So, John Reese (@johnreese) Twittered that sad fact yesterday and sent us to his blog, which told people to remove their widgets and stuff. That’s why you’ll no longer see the blue widget in my sidebar.

Thanks for the memories, John.

Oh, wait…

I remember that he shut down another site like that. Opportunity.com, I believe. That was a few years back. I was a member there, too, in my very newbie days online. That was about 5 years ago this month.

And you know what? Good for John Reese! He doesn’t allow sites that just limp along and don’t work. He just shuts ‘em down. It’s a smart business move. Why keep paying people to maintain a site that’s just a money suck and isn’t benefiting anyone very much?

Business is business, and this really is no big deal.

Bye, Bye Blog Rush.

There will be something bigger and better coming along… I have no doubt.

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So, if you read my blog, you know that I’m loving everything Web 2.0, right? I mean, it’s fun, it’s fascinating… what’s not to like?

Last week, I downloaded the Bend the Web toolbar for Firefox, and whoa. Very, very cool. Howie Schwartz & Jack Humphrey teamed up on that one, and it rocks!  If you don’t use Firefox, I think there’s another version, but you should check it out.

What it does is list all the Web 2.0 stuff that’s out there. There are bookmarks for bookmarking, bookmarks for networking sites, Conent sites, and video. It also has an email alerter and a radio built right in and you can get to the programs you use a lot on it. You even get to pick them! Great toolbar, guys!

So, anyway, to Zimbio, right?

I’m checking out the content sites today and I wasn’t familiar with Zimbio at all. But wow! I can see where it can be uber powerful. Every time I make a blog post, Zimbio will pick it up and decide what Wiki it should go into. It’s immediately syndicated, providing of course, that it meets the criteria of one of their Wikis. Internet marketing? No problemo. The post I did yesterday went up in WordPress. Not too shabby. Check it out: http://www.zimbio.com/WordPress/articles/441/Blogging+Mother+Lode?add=True

And if you liked it, give it some Zimbio love in the form of the Kudo Surf! (It’s in the article’s right-hand sidebar under my picture.)

In fact, set up your own Zimbio account. It’s free, and I can see that it’s going to be lots of help. Sure, sure, it’s dupe content, but you have to consider that it’s exposure. I figure that the more exposure you get online, the better off you are.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to further my exploration.  There are three or four other content sites I never heard of in the toolbar, and well… Bob’s yer uncle.

Was my uncle until he died. Good old Uncle Bob. He was fun, too. Dang.

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So, I’m searching for stuff today and I come across “WORDPRESS GOD: 300+ Tools for Running Your WordPress Blog.” It’s from August 2007, so duh… why I never saw this, I’m not certain.

But… wow.

Another Mashable killer post!

You can find every useful plugin in their list from AjaxWP, which adds Ajax to your blog to make it faster to Zen a pretty cool theme. However, this was written before the WP 2.5 overhaul, so you’d have to make sure that some of these are still up to date. In fact, some of the links are broken now, but there’s still a TON of cool info.

Some of the plugins here,  I never knew existed! (If you want to see a video about installing plugins that I made, you can go to: http://easyseotricks.com)

Here are some other cool plugins and such from that same Mashable article:

WP Polls - Add a poll to your posts or your sidebar. I have to tell you, too, that there’s a site called Micropoll where you can add  as many polls as you want for free. This might be the alternative for the techno-phobic or for those of you using a hosted solution like WordPress.com or Blogger.

Google MapSearch Widget - Lets people search Google Maps right from your blog. Good for marketers in the travel niche or anything local.

WP Movie Ratings - Rate movies with a click.  This is pretty specific to people in the entertainment niche, but still cool. Did I hear Andy Duncan saying, “Cool,”?

WP No-Sh*t - Allows filtering of nasty words in comments.

Custom Smilies - For those of you that just love those little faces.

Gravatar - Lets users select an avatar to put next to their comments.

WP Plugins Tracker - Makes sure that all your plugins are up to date, but guess what? WordPress does this for you now. You don’t need it. See what I mean? Not all of the stuff is up to date. There’s a spell checker there, too, which WordPress now does, too. So, pfffttt…

One caveat: I have no idea how these plugins work, as I’ve not tried any of them myself, so use them at your own risk.

But go over to Mashable and check out that post, anyway. Many of the plugins have been updated for WordPress 2.5+ when you go to the sites, and then, some not. So be careful if you’re not super tech savvy.

But if you are… Have fun!

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Thanks to @evajmah (Eva J. Mah of Nexus Exchange) on Twitter, I found this awesome resource for blogging and copywriting and social marketing and more. It’s on CopyBlogger’s blog, which is a great one to subscribe to, by the way. Here’s the link: http://www.copyblogger.com/10-cool-links/ Very sweet.

It starts off with a link to John Carlton’s copywriting case studies, moves to ProBlogger’s social marketing outline, and then, there’s SEOmoz’s “The Internet Marketing Handbook.” Very cool. Why haven’t I seen this before? I need more surf time, really. Tons of incredibly cool tools on that page from keyword selection to social marketing resources. Wa-hoo! Really great page.

There’s also an awesome article about the power of color in marketing at the Direct Creative Blog: http://www.directcreative.com/blog/2008/08/26/the-power-of-color-in-direct-marketing/ You probably never thought about these things.

Anyway, just a heads up. You’re going to love it!

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Thanks to Jack Humphrey yet again. This time he’s given us a compendium of very valuable lists at Mashable.com. You check out these lists on Jack’s Friday Traffic Report blog at:

http://tinyurl.com/4avo5b

This is awesome!

There are lists for podcasters, lists for WordPress, lists of business tools and on and on. I mean, the resources in this list are great! If you don’t find a tool or two to use in that list, you must be a zombie.

Or something.

Really. I would advise you also to subscribe to Jack’s newsletter, The Friday Traffic Report, too, which you can do right at the top of the blog. He gives tons of interesting and very cool information every single week. Thanks for the compilation, Jack, and all the great content that you provide week, after week!

I put some newsletters aside, but FTR is one I read every time it hits my inbox.

But ultimately, the thanks goes to Mashable.com for providing the lists on the list, right? Sweet! You guys rock.

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