CT Biz Blogs

In my last post, I wrote about Darren Rowse’s group blog writing project on habits of effective bloggers. This has grown into quite a list of interesting articles.

One blogger, who goes by the nom de blog of “The Retrospector,” actually compiled a list of blogging habits according to how many bloggers in the group blog writing project mentioned them. Great idea! And that blog design theme looks oddly familiar.

Here are a few habits from the list:

#	Habit	# and % of Submissions (out of 80)
1	Post often/regular schedule	44	55%
2	Build a community/comment/respond/know readers	38	48%
3	Read other blogs/research/newspapers/etc.	32	40%
4	Be original/creative, add value	28	35%
6	Enjoy it/do what’s fun/passionate	23	29%
9	Persistence/longevity/patience	18	23%
10	Carry a Notebook/store ideas & drafts for later	16	20%
11	Learn new things/adapt/change	16	20%
12	Link to others/give credit/trackbacks	16	20%

How many of these do you think are important and how many do you do?

Darren Rowse, of Problogger, is a genius at coming up with fresh ideas that expand and explore the world of blogging. Whatever your blogging goals, you should all be reading his blog.

I’ve just now started looking at his latest series, which started with his idea for a blog post on good blogging habits, and wound up a habits of highly effective bloggers group writing project.

Take some time this weekend (in Connecticut, it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, anyway) and explore the posts Darren has listed.

I believe the best habit for beginners is to explore and read other blogs. Just as you can’t write good books unless you’ve read and analyzed other books, you also can’t be a good blogger unless you read and analyze other blogs.

You don’t need a spreadsheet or anything, you just need to read and think — what do you like, what don’t you like, what’s your first impression of the blog as a reader, how does the blogger handle comments, links, blogrolls, ads. It’s all grist for the mill, as they say.

And Darren’s group writing project is an excellent way to start learning.

I was checking out cartoonist Mark Anderson’s blog this morning (that’s his stuff on the left sidebar), and I loved his entry on the type of email he gets. One person’s email consisted entirely of:

Do you have an affiliate program? How many orders do you fill each month? What is the most popular subject area? What trends or cycles present themselves through the year? How large is your in-house staff?

That’s right, no greeting, no introduction, nothing. Check out his blog for his answer and more email humor.

This type of email is so typical and so pathetic.

I’ve been paying attention to networking lately, on-line and off. I went to a function where several people apparently thought networking meant pushing their business cards on as many people as possible, saying as little as possible, and “hitting” as many people as possible.

On the other hand, the Greater Meriden Chamber of Commerce and the Central CT Women’s Forum have great networking events. The people there tend to be interested in meeting people and actually talking with them. They have actual conversations that aren’t all “me, me, me.”

Blog comments are a good way to network, too. But they have to be used correctly, in much the same way as offline networking events.

What I mean is, you need to contribute to the conversation. If you don’t, you’re only one step above spam.

I get a lot of comments that aren’t technically spam, but instead are links — just bare links to a site, or with some text indicating what the links are. But no conversation.

That’s not a comment, that’s an ad. I don’t have ads on this site. Comments like that don’t last too long.

I don’t mind links in comments at all; what I don’t want is just a link. If you’ve got a blog that might be of interest to my readers, explain why. Say something about the post that prompted your comment, to indicate that you read more than the title, if nothing else.

There’s a lot of information on the Internet, and a lot of good information. But if you want people to pay attention to your link, you need to show them why it’s worth their time.

Notice I said show them, not tell them. Telling them would be just a longer ad. Showing them means demonstrating, through your comments on topics, that you’re someone who has something to say that’s worth their attention.

It doesn’t mean every comment needs to be a dazzlingly brilliant display of deep insight. Amusing chit-chat is fine, as is just a sentence or two about your feelings on the subject of the post.

That’s OK; that’s conversation. And that’s what I’m talking about.

One of the banks in my area is merging with another bank (what a surprise!). As I was reading the local paper this morning I saw a big ad announcing the merger and asking people to “Tell us how we can make banking better.” It gave a web address (URL), where people could go to submit their comments about how TD Banknorth could build a better bank.

This is a great idea, except for one itty-bitty detail: it’s not a blog. Instead, people are given an smallish text box and a submit button.

Good idea: asking people for their suggestions and opinions.
Bad idea: sending that suggestion or opinion into a black hole, never to be seen again.

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Darren Rowse, on ProBlogger Blog Tips, has started an excellent series of articles on Maintaining Momentum in Blogging.

One of the causes he mentions is busyness — when you start to have too much to do, it’s easy to let blogging drop to the bottom of the list.

That’s when having a plan comes in handy. A blog plan starts like any other plan, with your goals. It’s not good to say “blogging is popular today, so I need a blog.” You have to decide what you want from a blog, what a blog can do for you, and what you’re willing to do in order to achieve those goals.

If you want a blog, but you’re unable to work on it, then you’ll need to get someone to help you. If you get swamped with other tasks and you need to spend time away from your blog, you need to have a plan for that. If your plan is to not post, then you need to be OK with that.

And I actually think it is OK to not post — at least not post on a daily basis, if that fits your plan. However, if you don’t post for weeks at a time, that’s not good. Most people don’t use RSS and don’t subscribe to blogs via email. They just rely on their memory, links from other sites, or bookmarks, to visit a site. If nothing changes for weeks, chances are they won’t visit often, and will miss something when you do finally add a post.

Not all blogs are “pro” blogs, where the goal is to have an blog producing income from the ads. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those types of blogs — good pro bloggers know the way to success is to produce valuable content — Darren himself is an excellent example of that.) Some blogs are used more indirectly — to demonstrate expertise, to share knowledge, to connect with like-minded folks, to build relationships with clients or customers, or to make your business more “findable”. All those will help build business.

If you’re blogging to acquire readers who you hope will eventually convert to clients, or to people you wish to network with, then you need to keep up some momentum.

Check out Darren’s series for tips on that.

In my last post, I wrote about how to find the correct web address (URL) to use when you want to link to a post on another blog. I also wrote a bit about why linking out is important.

Jim Durbin, on the blog Recruiting.com, agrees with me and adds:

Linking is the bloggy equivalent of saying “Please” and “Thank You.” While there are no requirements to blog, learning to link properly is a good way to give, and get respect.

In this post I want touch upon how to link. I see many new bloggers who simply type in the URL of the blog. This does the job, it’s true, but there’s a much more elegant and helpful way to link. Instead of using just the web address, or worse, saying “click here,” it’s better to embed the link into the flow of the text, by making some of the words serve as the link. (For more on why using “click here” for a link is a bad idea, read my earlier post on building traffic by how you link.)

See, that last sentence was an example of using text to give your readers more context and information about a link. Not only does it help your readers, and cut down on useless words, it helps search engines also. Search engines assume that the words used in the link are what the linked to post is about. There’s only about 6 billion search results for “click here.” (Make that: six billion and one.) Much better for everyone if you add some meaning to the link.

But that’s only the first step. Besides adding context through the words you use to link (called the “anchor text”), you can also add even more information through the title tag. The text you see pop up when you hover your cursor over the link is what is called the “title” of the link.

On the blog Johntp.com, John has an excellent example in his article on common weblogging mistakes, in the section on not using link titles.

Once again, Successful Blog has details on how to code links and how to code accessible links, so I won’t repeat that info here, except to quote Cas:

An “accessible link” therefore, is simply a link that imparts as much information to as many users as possible. It enables the reader to preview the link, making an informed decision about whether to follow it or not, and helps to differentiate between links that may share link text but refer to different targets.

If you have Wordpress 2.0, links are a piece of cake. Here’s a short demo on how to create a link in Wordpress.

So don’t be afraid to spread the link love by creating useful, well-crafted links. It helps everyone and makes you look like a pro.

One of the things that differentiates a blog from a regular website is that blogs tend to have a lot of outbound links.

This is a good thing! Part of the whole purpose of blogs is to join in a “distributed” conversation; to share ideas and add thoughts to the ideas of others. The way that gets done is through linking.

Linking accomplishes two things. First, it points your reader to more information about your topic, or to the post that you’re writing about. Also, through pings and trackbacks it alerts linked-to bloggers to the fact that someone’s linking to them, so that they can check out what you’ve said.

Sometimes newer bloggers have trouble linking. This post is for them.

One thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes bloggers will talk about a blog post, but not link to the post specifically — instead they link to the blog address.

In order to link to a post, you have to find the address (URL) for that post. The web address in the address field of your web browser is usually for the blog — such as www.ctbizblogs.com. Because blogs change as new posts are added, linking to the blog’s main address won’t help readers in a few days — the post you want to point readers to will be pushed down the page. And most blogs are set to only display a certain number of the latest posts, so after a few days, the post will fall off the main page entirely.

To make sure that the post can be found by your readers, each post has a unique address of it’s own — a permanent address, called a permalink. The permalink address looks something like this: http://www.ctbizblogs.com/2006/05/09/local-events-for-may/. Or it might have an even more peculiar looking URL, ending with id=32 or something. It may look odd, but that’s the address you need.

One way to get the address of the post itself is to check the title. If you roll your cursor over the title and right click, you can usually copy that address.

Also, many blogs have the link at the top or bottom of the post, usually with the word “link” or “permalink.” The link called link isn’t to be clicked on, it’s there to show you the address of the post. I’ll admit this confused the heck out of me when I first started reading blogs. I’d see the link and click on it, only to go nowhere! Writing this post made me remember my initial confusion, and I’ve just altered my permalink link to say “link for this post,” instead of just “link.” I hope that’s clearer.

Getting the link address is only one part of smart linking, however. The other part is getting it into your post in a way that helps you and the linkee.

I’ll write about that on Tuesday.

In the meantime, read what Miz Liz has to say about why you should link.

Related posts on CT Biz Blogs: How does linking to other blogs help me Part 1 and Part 2

If you’re in the central Connecticut area, here are two upcoming events you might be interested in.

Public speaking is something that we all need to be able to do, especially if you’ve got your own business. Well, Monday, May 15th, Eagle Toastmasters of Wallingford is going to have an open house, from 7:15 - 8:45 PM, at the Park & Recreation building, 6 Fairfield Boulevard, Wallingford. If you’ve ever wondered what happens at a Toastmasters meeting, this is a good time to find out. I’ve been in this club for a few years and it has a great bunch of folks. Guests are welcome, the event is free, and there’ll be refreshments (ok, we don’t usually have food at a meeting, thank goodness). A few months ago, Jeff Katz, of the Meriden Record-Journal, came to a meeting. Here’s what he wrote about us.

For women, there’s the next meeting of the Central CT Women’s Forum, on the 16th. (Going to be a busy week for me next week — out two nights in a row!) That’ll be at Aqua Terra Restaurant, 253 East St., (Rt. 10), Plainville, CT. Networking begins at 5:30 p.m. followed by dinner and a program: Abby Marks Beale-Beyond Overload: 10 Secrets to Get Back Control. The price for guests is $25. If you’re interested, you’ll need to register by this Friday, May 12th.

As much as I love to spend my days and evenings hunched over a computer, there are times when I just have to go out and have fun. I always have a blast with these two groups.

B.L. Ochman, a marketing and blogging consultant, has come up with an ingenious way of promoting a business through a blog. For the translation company, SRF Global Translations, she’s set up a blog called Ethics Crisis.com.

On this blog, she’ll be posting about ethical issues and inviting others to anonymously confess their business ethics lapses, so that readers can vote and comment on how they rate the lapse on a scale of 1 to 5, from always acceptable to never acceptable.

In the header, she explains the connection between a translation company and business ethics – EthicsCrisis.com is: “A blog about global business ethics, from SRF Global Translations, specialists in nuanced, localized, multilanguage compliance materials for multinational companies.” Ok, maybe it’s a bit of a stretch, but this is too smart an idea to let that matter.

There’s more to the site than just confessions and judgement, too. Using a blogging application, the company now has a nice site which includes more conventional web pages such as: “about us,” “contact us,” “clients,” “translation services,” and “get an estimate.”

It appears that this is the company’s only website, so it’s a good example of how a blog can easily serve in place of a conventional website, and be even better! It looks great, includes all the information you need about a company, and draws you in with the ongoing conversations.

On this site, B.L. has cleverly found an aspect of the business that will engage and intrigue readers, and which encourages audience participation. As it says on the blog:

Ethics Crisis demonstrates that blogs have evolved way beyond pontificating. The next generation of blogs are perfect vehicles for the combination of marketing, industry news, customer-created content and e-commerce.

It’s well worth a look.

In my continuing search for a good interface for writing blog posts, I have been testing Zoundry’s Blog Writer. It’s for folks with computers running Windows XP or 2000. There are things I love about this application, but up until now, there was always one drawback for me: no spell checker. Well, the Zoundry folks have been busy, and the latest release now has a spell checker. My dreams have come true; I think I found a blog writing app I can use and that has the features that are important to me.

As much as I love WordPress, the writing interface is not great, unless you know HTML or have time to learn a few things. I do and have, so that’s OK for me, but not for newer bloggers. And my version (still 1.5) has no spell checker. That’s essential, especially for techy-types. I’ve observed that when I’m in full-blown programming or tech-mode, my spelling becomes worse than usual. (more…)