This guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned…
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Most Topular Stories
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How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
@ProBlogger8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 am -
Throw Away the Maps
chrisbrogan.com6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The… -
Can You Find Success Following a Firing?
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog8 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amOne of the most challenging situations a person can find themselves in is trying to secure a new job after they’ve been terminated from a previous position. While there is hope of locating employment following a termination, the odds are definitely lessened for such individuals, who must fight through the stigma of being removed from a company. The bottom line is resiliency and the ability to best explain away why you were let go. For those individuals who have to deal with such a situation, keep several things in mind: Deal with reality – It is never easy when the pink slip arrives and… -
The “New” SEO Secret Weapon
Copyblogger8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIf you have a web site, you may have noticed one of two things about the traffic you get from search engines. Your search traffic may have dried up overnight, with once-healthy streams turning into a sad little trickle. Or you may have noticed a nice, steady improvement as you’ve climbed higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages), while other sites that used to outrank you suddenly evaporated. There’s a super-secret new ingredient in SEO. It was always a factor, but it’s become even more important recently, as the Google team relentlessly declares war on what they see… -
How do they know you're not a flake?
Seth's Blog8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 amBefore your link gets clicked or your proposal gets read, a busy person is going to triage it to find out if it's even worth glancing at. Since everyone is now connected, the new permeability has created a deluge of noise, and just about everyone worth contacting is taking defensive measures. Do I know this person? Did someone I trust send them over? Where does she work? (Ideo? the FDA? The New York Times?) Has she won an award? Is she famous? Are there typos and is the design sloppy? Are they pestering me? Do I already follow this person online? Does music play when I visit the website? Will…
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@ProBlogger
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How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 amThis guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned… -
Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger: Part 2
7 Feb 2012 | 12:05 pmThis guest post is by Devesh of WP Kube. A few months ago, I wrote a guest post here called How to Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger. Today, I’ll go into some more detailed advice to help you speed up your site even more. If you’re a blogger, you already know about the importance of blog loading speed, and the role it plays in search engine rank and marketing your blog. But if this is new territory for you, here are three quick reasons why you need to speed up your blog: Google includes website loading speed as an important metric in their ranking algorithm. If you want… -
How I Beat my Best Month Ever by Doing Something Good, Better [Case Study]
7 Feb 2012 | 6:04 amMid-December 2010: on my photography site, we launched a new campaign—our first ever 12 Days of Christmas promotion. The result was my biggest month of earnings ever up to that point. The idea was simple: offer discounts on 12 products over the 12 days leading up to Christmas. I used a mix of my own ebooks and products from other photography sites with affiliate commissions. The result was massive. Not only did we see some great revenue generated, it created some lovely buzz on the site. Due to the success of the 2010 campaign, in mid-December 2011 we launched our second 12 Days of… -
Six Steps to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready to Go Viral
6 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amThis guest post is by Nancy Sathre-Vogel of Family on Bikes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Surely Google Analytics was confusing my site with another, way more popular site. There was no way my visitor numbers could be so high! And yet they were. One of my posts had taken off and was spreading like wildfire. Those viral post phenomena that happen to others were now happening to me. The first day, 17,000 visitors came to my website. The next day we topped out at 56,000. Readers were coming in droves. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. My site, viral! Wow! And then I took a… -
How to Handle Criticism: a Practical Guide
5 Feb 2012 | 12:03 pmImage by Stuart RichardsAs bloggers, each of us has to deal with criticism. Blogging is a very public activity—almost all of us has the goal of gaining readers to our blogs—and the more people you reach, the more likely it is that you’ll hear criticisms. “You’re wrong…” “How can you say that? You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “I couldn’t disagree more…” “This is the last time I read this blog!” These are just some of the criticisms bloggers regularly face—I’ve received versions of…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Throw Away the Maps
6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The… -
The Next Social Networks
5 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amThe rage in social networks right now is Pinterest, partly because it’s probably the first social network that has a much higher adoption rate by females than males, and partly because it’s an interesting concept: somewhere between visual social bookmarking and scrapbooking. What also might not be immediately obvious is that it’s just “easier” to interact there. In that way, Pinterest has something in common with Instagram, which is community around photos. What I’m interested in, though, is Gentlemint, which I keep calling “Pinterest for… -
Learn From Adele – Build Your Platform
3 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amJacq and I just watched Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (amazon affiliate link), and though every song was just wonderfully done, I found myself fascinated by what Adele was doing in between each song. Because even though most people would be interested in hearing her belt out her amazing repertoire of hits, what I took away from the performance was Adele’s real magical ability: the ability to resonate with her audience. What Adele Could Teach You About Impact I’m writing something about this right now for my upcoming book with Julien Smith, but I had to share some of the… -
Rob Gokee is a Musical Wizard
2 Feb 2012 | 8:05 amI had such a great experience working with award winning musical composer Rob Gokee. We did some musical work together, and the process was so amazing. Rob helped me create my theme song for Shhh! The Secret Show. So anyhow, he and I sat down to do an interview, and it’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it. We talk about what collaboration feels like at a distance, what it takes to get music like this made for your own show, and a lot more. Rob’s a hero to me, and has been part of the community for a while. I was so fortunate to have worked with him. Can’t see the… -
Build Your Platform – Start
30 Jan 2012 | 1:30 amThe following is part ONE of a series called Build Your Platform. If you find it interesting, please consider subscribing for free to get the rest of the series. This post is long. You might want to bookmark it for later. The age of social media oversaturation is upon us. People are declaring Twitter bankruptcy to go along with their email bankruptcy. They cite not wanting to start on yet another social network as their reason for not getting more involved with Google+. And just as soon as you start getting into Pinterest, you hear about Path, but wait: there’s Gentlemint, which is…
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Liz Strauss at Successful Blog
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Can You Find Success Following a Firing?
8 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amOne of the most challenging situations a person can find themselves in is trying to secure a new job after they’ve been terminated from a previous position. While there is hope of locating employment following a termination, the odds are definitely lessened for such individuals, who must fight through the stigma of being removed from a company. The bottom line is resiliency and the ability to best explain away why you were let go. For those individuals who have to deal with such a situation, keep several things in mind: Deal with reality – It is never easy when the pink slip arrives and… -
Five Delegation Thinking Traps that Trip Almost Everyone Who Wants to Scale Up
7 Feb 2012 | 5:39 amScaling Up Requires Pushing Down Lower-Level Tasks In the companies I worked with and for, product development schedules were cyclical, with seriously tight deadlines at certain times of the year and a more relaxing pace when those deadline had been achieved. To even out this ebb and flow of deliverables, we would hire freelancers, off-sire staff, and development groups. Even the most entry-level full-time people were managing and influencing the performance of someone else. The ability to influence another person’s performance in positive ways affected how quickly employees could grow… -
Does Your Business Style Connect or Make People Cringe?
6 Feb 2012 | 5:43 amGet Serious Attention In Amanda Valenti’s recent guest post here about Common Writing Mistakes, she made many important points that I encourage small businesses to take to heart. If spelling, grammar, and homophones are not your strong suites, find someone who can edit what you write. It IS worth it because Amanda is absolutely correct – these types of errors will cost you visitors and business. There is something more serious you must be aware of as well and that is what kind of image you are presenting to the world. Specifically, what you consider acceptable regarding profanity,… -
Beach Notes: After the Storm
5 Feb 2012 | 7:11 amby Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh After the storm, creative thinking … With all the driftwood on the beach after recent big storms, some people see debris spoiling the usually pristine sands. Others see a gift for creativity. What do you see when everything goes pear-shaped and plans fall apart? Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh -
What to do while you are waiting
5 Feb 2012 | 1:00 amMany people have to wait a long time for something to happen. Tom Petty was right: The waiting is the hardest part. It’s easy to become impatient, especially when we cannot see any signs that anything is happening. It’s like the seed germinating within the earth. Although there may be millions of chemical reactions going on beneath the surface, from topside, the soil resembles a mute brown plane, keeping its own counsel. Maddening. The urge to dig up the seed to check on its progress is almost overwhelming, and yet, in order for the seed to bear fruit, we must trust that the process is on…
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Copyblogger
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The “New” SEO Secret Weapon
8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIf you have a web site, you may have noticed one of two things about the traffic you get from search engines. Your search traffic may have dried up overnight, with once-healthy streams turning into a sad little trickle. Or you may have noticed a nice, steady improvement as you’ve climbed higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages), while other sites that used to outrank you suddenly evaporated. There’s a super-secret new ingredient in SEO. It was always a factor, but it’s become even more important recently, as the Google team relentlessly declares war on what they see… -
8 Quick Tips for Writing Bullet Points People Actually Want to Read
7 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIt’s a Twitterized world, we’re just living in it. Blog posts, Tweets, quick videos, Google+, the Facebook Timeline, and tens of thousands of images pinned to digital boards are flying past us faster than we can read them. Faster than we can even scan them, depending on the time of day. What does this mean for writers trying to cut through it all? At least two things that I can think of: You’d better know how to write a compelling headline You’d better know how to write bullet points that grab (and keep) your reader We’re not telling you to keep your copy short. -
7 Crucial Tactics for Writing a Wildly Successful Guest Post
6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amWe all know that guest posts grow blogs. But not many people realize that tactical guest posting grows careers. Most bloggers I see pump out these articles while reciting the mantra “quantity over quality”; there’s no real strategy and there are no real long-term benefits. In this post I am going to show you the seven crucial tactics for writing a radically successful guest post. Done right, these strategies will get you more email subscribers, coveted Google ranking positions, and a big head-start on your content marketing goals. Who am I to teach you about guest blogging? -
7 Smashing Social Media Marketing Links
4 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amThis week on The Lede … What really works on Twitter One thing social media copywriters should never do 9 productive social media hacks A reminder of the power of the original social media If you just can’t wait for The Lede every Saturday, and you want even more practical, useable links than the seven we highlight here every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter. It’s painless. Really. // 9 Social Media Hacks You Need to Embrace Now Mr. Baer makes a good case that though social media is inexpensive in monetary terms, it can get good and costly when it comes to spending your… -
Whether You Call it Blogging or Not, Online Content Still Rules
3 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amWhat if most of the business world stopped blogging tomorrow? Would you stop as well? No, if that happened, you’d find yourself sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. Social networking sites would explode with likes and retweets and pins and +1s of your original content all day long. This is why the annual “blogging is dead” claim is so dumb. Even if it were true, your continued content production would dominate the web in every way. So, instead of worrying about the latest claimed trend or alarming decline of the moment, stay the course. Original content creation is the…
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Seth's Blog
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How do they know you're not a flake?
8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 amBefore your link gets clicked or your proposal gets read, a busy person is going to triage it to find out if it's even worth glancing at. Since everyone is now connected, the new permeability has created a deluge of noise, and just about everyone worth contacting is taking defensive measures. Do I know this person? Did someone I trust send them over? Where does she work? (Ideo? the FDA? The New York Times?) Has she won an award? Is she famous? Are there typos and is the design sloppy? Are they pestering me? Do I already follow this person online? Does music play when I visit the website? Will… -
Horizontal marketing isn't a new idea
7 Feb 2012 | 2:09 amBut it is the new reality for just about every organization. Vertical marketing means the marketer (the one with money) is in charge. Vertical marketing starts at the top and involves running ads, sending out direct mail and pushing hype through the media. Your money, your plans, your control. It might not work, but generally the worst outcome is that you will be ignored and need to spend more money. Horizonal marketing, on the other hand, means creating a remarkable product and story and setting it up to spread from person to person. It's out of your control, because all the interactions are… -
Who is your customer?
6 Feb 2012 | 2:26 amRule one: You can build a business on the foundation of great customer service. Rule two: The only way to do great customer service is to treat different customers differently. The question: Who is your customer? It's not obvious. Zappos is a classic customer service company, and their customer is the person who buys the shoes. Nike, on the other hand, doesn't care very much at all about the people who buy the shoes, or even the retailers. They care about the athletes (often famous) that wear the shoes, sometimes for money. They name buildings after these athletes, court them, erect… -
In search of a timid trapeze artist
5 Feb 2012 | 2:01 amGood luck with that, there aren't any. If you hesitate when leaping from rope to another, you're not going to last very long. And this is at the heart of what makes innovation work in organizations, why industries die, and how painful it is to try to maintain the status quo while also participating in a revolution. Gather up as much speed as you can, find a path and let go. You can't get to the next rope if you're still holding on to this one. -
Will energy consumption stay private?
4 Feb 2012 | 11:45 amIt's clear that the consumption of energy has external effects that impact more than just the person who is paying for it. Geopolitical, health and economic issues come to the neighbors and nearby citizens of entities that are using a lot of power. It was always straightforward to see who was burning a lot of wood or drove a huge car. It's easy to see when a company has a huge smokestake belching carbon. What happens when sensors make it easy to see how efficient a machine is, how much of a resource is being consumed and how much exhaust is being spewed? What happens when Google maps shows…
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Men with Pens
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Why You Should Ditch Your Blogging Schedule
5 Feb 2012 | 10:00 pmFor several years now, you’ve been given advice from probloggers (and not-so-probloggers) that just wasn’t very good advice at all. The advice made sense. The analogies were understandable. But the theory was wrong. I know, because I dished out that advice and followed it strictly for years. I was convinced it was good advice and that if I didn’t follow it, all hell would break loose. Lightning would strike me dead. All my loyal readers would string me up, tar and feather me and throw rotten food as I pleaded for mercy. I was wrong too. After all, the advice made sense: Have a… -
What to Do When You Hate Your Blog
29 Jan 2012 | 10:00 pmYears ago, I started this blog with a pretty big mission in mind: to help you succeed. I wanted to tell you things you didn’t know. I wanted to point you in better directions. I wanted to share lessons I’d learned the hard way so that you didn’t make the same mistakes. I wanted to give you shortcuts that helped you succeed faster, easier and with a lot less stress than I had to go through to get where I am today. Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that goal. My business got big. My blog became popular. It was explosive growth. I got busy. I had clients and readers who wanted… -
Damn Fine Words Writing Contest: The Winners!
22 Jan 2012 | 8:53 amToday we’re announcing the winners of the Damn Fine Words writing contest… but boy, was it EVER tough to choose just two submissions. 25 people fought hard to win a chance to get into the Damn Fine Words writing course and learn effective techniques that would change their life. Some posts were straightforward. Some were thoughtful. Some touched our hearts. It wasn’t an easy choice. But after great deliberation and many discussions, the judges and I narrowed the many submissions down to two lucky winners. Lynn Hess and Rena Tucker, you’ve each won a free membership to… -
How Achieving Your Goals Kills Your Motivation
18 Jan 2012 | 10:00 pmHeard you need constant improvement to become a master? Heard you need those 10,000 hours of practice? It’s hogwash. A goal of ‘constant improvement’ won’t lead to success. I learned this when I signed up for Damn Fine Words, James Chartrand’s writing course. Signing up excited me. I was excited because I was taking action towards my goal of ‘constant skill improvement’ so I could further build my business. The first half of the course taught me a lot. This was the most valuable part – a complete writing system, an approach that could be used to take any… -
How to Find Time to Write: A Casual Conversation with Laura Vanderkam
16 Jan 2012 | 10:00 pmYou’re invited to a very exclusive event. How to find the time to write. That’s one of the biggest complaints I hear from busy businesspeople, freelancers and entrepreneurs. (Even writers complain they can’t find the time to write!) There aren’t enough hours in a day. There’s so much going on. You’re barely keeping up. You’re just trying to stay afloat and get through the day. It’s overwhelming. You have too much work. Too many obligations. Too much to do. Time to write? Forget it! But you need to find the time to write. Writing is integral to…
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Holy Kaw!
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Every nerd’s worst nightmare: World’s largest dodgeball game [video]
8 Feb 2012 | 6:57 pmIf dodgeball day in gym class left you nursing wounds both physical and psychological during the eternity that is a bad grade school experience, you might not appreciate the efforts of 4,979 people at the University of Alberta trying to set a new world record. On the other hand, if dodgeball marked the high point of your glory days, revel in the chaos… Full story at Vimeo via Official Hype. Games from the good old days. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Text while you walk (safely this time)
8 Feb 2012 | 6:18 pmIf you’re ever twisted your ankle off a curb, bumped a stranger, or walked into a street post while texting—you need this app. ‘Transparent Screen’ for Android allows you to look through your device so you can anticipate any dangerous obstacles in your way while you’re texting on-the-go by harnessing the power of your camera to create the illusion of transparency. Just watch out for your battery life while using the app, as it’ll drain quickly. Full story at GeekOSystem. All the top tech. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Nintendo and Converse collaborate on an amazing sneaker
8 Feb 2012 | 5:25 pmClear out room in your closets, gamers. Converse is releasing their ‘One Star Super Mario Bros.’ shoe this March! Via Like Cool. Get your Nintendo fix. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Why Congress is way richer than you [infographic]
8 Feb 2012 | 4:28 pmVia Online Schools. Depressing infographics. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
The bookcase that’s always ready for more
8 Feb 2012 | 4:19 pmThe thing about bibliophiles is that, before you know it, the bookcase is full and it’s time to drag in a few more boards and cinder blocks to accommodate the newcomers. With the REK, such worries are a thing of the past, as the system accordions out when more space is needed and collapses into a handy rectangle when it’s time to pack up shop and move on to greener pastures. Unfortunately, the price is listed as “on request” meaning the 99% is out of luck, but perhaps it’ll inspire you to hit the workshop for a little DIY action if you can drag your nose out of…
