Should I set my inner child free?

Quite Out of Character For Me…

After twenty years of freelance consulting I arbitrarily, and quite uncharacteristically decided to accept an offer from a major publisher–a very flattering offer I might add–to go and manage their local publishing operation in the Middle East, which is, as I’m quite sure you know, a major emerging market for many fields these days.

Talk About Diving In Head First!

Although it wasn’t exactly far for me to go–no relocation was necessary–it was a drastic change from my usual pace: not quite working in my pajamas every day, but certainly enjoying the extreme latitude that working from my cozy leather recliner afforded me. Now I must snap out of bed at a respectable hour every morning, slug down a cup of something hot and get myself showered, dressed to face the world, and out of the door in time to negotiate the short drive to the office. I’d almost forgotten what rush-hour traffic was all about, since consultants rarely venture out at those certain hours of the day. They’re at perfect liberty not to!

The Good–And the Not-So-Good!

In some ways working in a brand-new, high-tech, corporate office has been a ball. I often wondered, as an SEO consultant working from home, how I’d get on in a real-live-office after all these years. And no, I’m not going to tell you how long it’s been since my last full-time job. There are some things one should simply to keep to oneself.

Anyway, I found out that I’d do just fine. I admit that I have a huge advantage over many who must battle it out in the corporate jungle every day: my surroundings are pleasant and my co-workers are, for the most part, a delightful bunch.

But I miss my SEO work. I sorely miss writing every day. Writing is an art that, if you have it in you, you just gotta do it. It’s as simple as that. Believe me, non-fiction writing is no less creative than great works of fiction. It takes all the creativity a writer’s got to write well and to entertain an audience.

My marriage is suffering since now our respective schedules keep us totally apart for much of the week. I am no longer at liberty to rush to the aid of any of my adult children should they run into difficulty; something that truly saddens me. Let’s not even begin to mention my dearest friends, who have been so patient while I’m away exploring a world I’d thought I was done with forever.

The real trouble though, is that I miss the unfettered creativity of working as a consultant. Not just that. My inner child is pining. In fact she’s fairly wasting away. I can no longer switch as the mood takes me from serious and focused, to silly and game-for-a-laugh. Some days it’s as much as I can do to prevent Miss Inner Child from romping forth in the corporate setting, linking the laser printer up to the coffee machine, and parachuting gleefully to a damp landing in the fountain on the ground floor…all the while screaming ‘free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.

So this is what I want to know. What do you think I should do? Do you think I should keep going and anticipate the promotion that’s almost certain after I pull off the next few successful projects? Or should I do what I dream about most nights, and let my inner child escape the bonds of the corporate world? Should I return to my old self-employed stomping ground, despite the fact that it might be difficult to get the SEO gigs coming in at the required pace again? If you leave a comment it’d be great to discuss this wouldn’t it?

Seven great strategies for blogging success!

Bloggers-Make Every Post Count

If you blog, it’s important to write firstly because you just want to. You have something inside you that needs to be said. But in order to have a successful blog there are some parameters that need to be met.

1. Only blog when you ‘ve got something to say (that means no waffle posts–it’ll drag your blog down and detract from your true writing potential)
2. Try and have something to say on a regular basis because it does count. We all fall off the wagon in that department from time to time, but please schedule yourself to write often.
3. To help you have good things to write about, keep a little notebook where you can jot down ideas for blogposts even if you’re shopping, or in the shower, or even (OK don’t try this) climbing a mountain. Catch those ideas–they’re priceless.
4. Determine whether your blog post actually serves a purpose in the scheme of things–does it? Really? If your blog is about software, very few people will be interested in the antics of your cat (unless its a very special cat), so bear that in mind.
5. Read through your blog post to make sure your sentences flow, you’ve said what you meant to say, and there are no typos.
6. If you can’t think of a word to write, look around at some of the great blogs in your niche and become inspired. Looking at hot topics (trending on Twitter, Google, Yahoo and more) is a great way to get an idea.
7. Remember to give your readers added value by linking out thoroughly to other posts on your blog (where relevant of course) and to other good blogs that are also relevant to your subject. This practice is excellent for your readers and also excellent for the crawl-worthiness of your site. Remember this is strategy number seven–and that’s my lucky number (hint, hint).

Edelman survey: Trust in all media plunges!

You can read more here.

Quite simply it makes me so sad: sick to my stomach in fact.The results of this survey indicate that the vast majority of people operating online have encountered liars. Damned liars in fact.

Why can’t more of us be truthful? Why don’t we care about our own personal reputation and that of our clients? When working online (or anywhere else for that matter) the most important thing to me is that I am dealing with others honestly, and that they do the same in return.

Is this what it’s come down to?

The following findings (along with a lot more) are sad testimonials to the number of people who look upon their friends and associates as just someone else to make a quick buck off.

- Trust in information from friends and peers, “people like me,” dropped by 20 points, from 47 to 27 percent.

- Trust in information from digital media–blogs, social networks, and free content sources like Wikipedia or Google news, remains low: only between 11 percent and 22 percent of respondents express trust in information about companies from these sources.

Are you just another person who’s building a brand on a lie? It can’t last and it won’t. We should all do our bit right now to stop the lies. Stop misleading people and learn to think long and hard before we print anything online. Our livelihoods may depend on it.

You can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time. My apologies to Abraham Lincoln but that’s almost a universal formula.

Building Your Brand in an Environment of Trust

Building trust is (or should be) a very serious business. Here are a few rules to make sure your trust-meter remains intact:

• Never lie or misrepresent yourself or a product or service.
• Never back up someone you know is lying, either in words or by endorsing them via social media.
• Don’t be afraid to call someone out if you know for sure they’re lying.

If you don’t do it, perhaps no one will. And it’s an interesting thing that if you show some courage and stand up to someone who’s doing something you disagree with, very often others will support you: they agree with you but they don’t have the personal courage to do what you’ve just done! You don’t need to do it publicly either. You’ve still done the job if you contact someone privately if you know that they’re contributing to the growing environment of mutual mistrust because they’re not operating ethically in whatever way.

Consider also that creating a fake Twitter account to air your views might just be another part of our problem. Too many people are hiding behind fake social media personas where they feel it’s OK to do and say things that they’d probably never consider doing in real life. But then again, maybe they would if they knew no one would find them out and that’s the root of the problem we have here.

It’s a well known cliche that in war truth is always the first casualty. Let’s work to make sure that in years to come our grandchildren don’t say ‘when the Internet was born truth laid down and died.’

That was my periodic Rant. Consider it over.

Choosing the Right WordPress Plugins

It can be difficult to decide just which WordPress plugins you should install. We’re spoiled for choice and that’s for sure. If you’re just starting up with your WordPress blog I suggest you don’t go installing plugins right and left, since you can slow your site and there’s no sense installing plugins you really don’t need.

However, there are five that I would recommend for everyone:

1. WP Super-Cache
2. Feedburner FeedSmith Plugin for WordPress
3. G-Lock Double Opt-in Widget
4. WP Cumulus Flash Tag Cloud
5. Enhanced WordPress Contact Form

WP Super-cache for Speed

WP Super-cache plugin is essential because it speeds the load time of your site. It actually lightens the load on your server. If your site gets heavy traffic, and if you’re hoping for an appearance on Digg’s front page, or to go viral on Twitter, then you need this if you want to try and avert a server crash from the traffic spike.

Feedburner FeedSmith Plugin for WordPress

Failing to provide a convenient way for visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed is a serious mistake. Feedburner has its advantages and disadvantages but it does allow subscribers to choose how they will receive your feed. You will obviously need to create an account with FeedBurner for this too.

G-Lock Double-Optin Widget

The G-Lock signup form allows you to collect your readers’ emails so that you can use them in the future: the first rule of internet marketing is get connected with your visitors so you can forge a relationship.

WP Cumulus Flash Tag Cloud

You might wonder, when i’ve just finished telling you how you shouldn’t be gung-ho with the plugins, why I’m telling you to install a flash tag cloud. But WP Cumulus isn’t just any old flash tag cloud. I find it one of the most useful widgets of all for the sidebar. First, it reassures visitors that they are in the right place by displaying all your keywords–both the main ones and the long-tail, and it makes it easy for them to find what they’re looking for with a click.

But I have found another use for it. You know how when you’re writing a post it’s difficult to make sure you’re including links to all your relevant past blog posts? Well this tag cloud makes that so easy. You simply click on related keywords and you get a list of all the blog posts that use the keyword. Now tell me that’s not useful to you!

Enhanced WordPress Contact Form

It is vital that visitors to your site have a safe, reliable way to contact you. Nothing drives away business more effectively than failing to give your readers a way to connect. Joost de Valk’s contact form allows you to control its appearance through CSS (don’t worry he shows you how). You can also alter/add fields, and it even allows you track where the visitors are coming from and if from a search engine, what keywords they used. This neat little form also prevents spam, which I’m sure you’ll be relived to hear.

I got tagged for this back on January 25th by Neal Jansen over at The Puck Writes but I only just saw it: Sorry Neal!

The Rules for This Particular Meme

* Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post. (see above)
* Share seven facts about yourself in the post. (see below)
* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs. (see below)
* Let them know they’ve been tagged. (you’ll just have to trust trackbacks and such)

Without further ado here are 7 things you probably didn’t know about me:

1. I have been married for 33 years.
2. I have been working online since 1996
3. SEO has been a passion of mine since 2003
4. I’ve been writing for 21 years
5. I’m a Brit, but I live in Jordan and do SEO and copywriting mainly for companies within the US (you’re right: that’s three facts–you’re getting a few more than you bargained for)
6. I tend to be very direct and say exactly what I mean (Oh, OK, you already knew that–I’m sorry)
7. I’m an intuitive empath which means I can feel whatever other people feel and it’s also why I no longer enjoy huge gatherings. Now if there were only six things you still wouldn’t know that would you.

I tag:

1. Richard Dewick of Makakmedia Blog
2. Donna Fontenot at Dazzlin Donna’s Blog
3. Bridget Ayers over at the Get Smart Blog
4. Barry Welford of The Other Bloke’s Blog
5. Andy Beal, better known for his Marketing Pilgrim site
6. Jill Whalen of High Rankings
7. Bill Slawski of SEO by the Sea

Is a spammer stealing your traffic?

For those of you who hate it when I’m in a bad mood, RANT ALERT!

I woke up this morning to find this on my blog:

Hi,
let me first tell you this not spam.i am a real person sitting at a real desk.I am Rajeev Mahadevan from India.I just wanted to tell you that i have found a really easy way to make money online.its free,and easy.i made $142/- in my first week.below’s the link.if you want to make effortless money.
A.W.SURVEYS

First, Rajeev, let me tell you that if you had read any of my blog at all it would have been plain to you that if there’s anything I hate, it is spam.

You seek to justify yourself by telling me that your comment is not spam, so it seems I am going to have to enlighten you about the definition of spam.

How do you think spam gets written other than by real people at real desks? True we might think of them in our mind’s eye shuffling up to a trough in a barn, but the truth is most of them look just like you or I and they do, wait for it, sit at a desk somewhere.

Whether or not you sit at a desk is not a measure of how spammy your comments are. The measure is this:

If your comment contains a self-serving link leading to a site that has NOTHING to do with the contents of the blog post then, yes, you are a spammer, whether you choose to call yourself that or not. You are attempting to steal my traffic. And while you say you are inviting people to ‘make effortless money,’ let me tell you there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch.’ You may not be working for the traffic, but the people who own the blogs you are spamming most certainly did work hard for that traffic. They spent endless hours educating themselves about their subject, they have built up a network of people they know, like and, dare I say it? TRUST online (and yes, who also recognize them by name). Additionally, legitimate bloggers spend hours researching and writing blog posts so that others will want to visit and read.

Which brings me to yet another point: while you’re posting spammy comments on other people’s blogs, you are not finding targeted traffic. Targeted traffic is when you aim for people who are looking for what you have to offer (just so you know).

So someone, somewhere is paying for your traffic (assuming anyone in their right mind would want to click on your link).

Sorry Ranjeev, your spammy comment is in the spam bin where it belongs.

Legitimate Promotion Strategies

But in the spirit of online camaraderie, let me just give you some advice.

Unless you’re planning to give something back, such as a valuable link from your website, a talkup on your blog, or the like, never try to benefit from someone else’s hard work. They’ll resent it.

There are plenty of legitimate ways you can promote your product. I suggest you try one of the many great forums on affiliate marketing for this.

Create a web page to promote your product and drive traffic to that with legitimate comments on other people’s blogs (no need to spam, you still get the link if you take part in their conversation). Create meaningful, mutually beneficial online relationships that will fuel your progress. Heck, shell out and buy some PPC. That’s always a great choice for anyone who doesn’t know what else to do and it needn’t be very expensive.

My Big Announcement

It won’t be news to you that one of the best way to get quality backlinks is guest posting for a website with complimentary content to what’s on your website. In reality of course, if you pick your guest posting venues carefully you get a whole lot more out of the deal than just hot backlinks.

If you’re writing for a blog that gets a lot of traffic then some of that traffic will definitely spill over onto your own. You will also gain exposure in your chosen field. If your writing is good you will even be establishing yourself as an expert, and that’s a truly priceless prize.

See Me on Marketing Pilgrim

I’m lucky enough to have just had my first guest post, Getting the Hang of the Twitter Culture accepted over at Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim. This is an important step for a successful blogger, and so exciting for me. Just look at that traffic (oh sorry, if you don’t have the Compete extension for FireFox you won’t be able to see that!). Not to even mention the Google PR of 7. This will make for some highly valuable backlinks. You can be sure that I will put aside time from my frantically busy schedule to write more posts for Andy because it benefits me almost more than it does him.

By the way, if you go over to read my post, please be sure to give us a Stumble or add us to your other favorite bookmarking venue if you like it. You could even Tweet about it on Twitter.