This is a follow-up to my previous post of Do Your Digg It?

A good scenario for any blogger is to have a lot of hits, a number of subscribers, and a huge amount of comments and feedback. To achieve the maximum success in terms of these measurable benefits, it’s worth harnessing the power of Digg to lend weight to your online marketing.

What exactly is Digg?

Digg describes itself as “a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users.” In essence, Digg is an online popularity contest for good web content. If someone likes a news item or article that has been published anywhere online, they can rate it on Digg and share it with other online readers.

The more people that ‘Digg’ an article (rate it positively), the more popular the article gets. This means that hitting the front page of the Digg popularity rankings could potentially bring you and your blog a phenomenal amount of exposure and traffic.

How to use Digg to your blog’s advantage

• Use Digg as an enhanced RSS feed, which keeps you updated every minute about what is going on, online. Find trends, and match them on your own site to increase traffic.
• Get ideas from articles on Digg when it comes to generating your blog articles. You can then share them on other platforms.
• Connect with people through Digg, by identifying networks which share the same interest as you. If people rate your article on Digg, take a moment to find out who they are, check out their site and see if there is anything you can do in return.
• Put some of your more important links on Digg, and add friends so they can make the most of the page as a hub for your business information.
• Advertise your articles, once in a while. If you do this too often, you risk being dismissed as a spammer on the site, but it doesn’t hurt now and then to Digg your own writing.

If used well, Digg can really help you as a blogger both through the site itself, and search engines that pull up highly-ranked Digg articles. By writing a snappy headline, producing high-quality articles and carefully selecting keywords, you can start to make Digg work for you. Ask friends and colleagues to Digg on your behalf, and also make the most of social sites such as Twitter and Plurk to promote your content. When used effectively, the site can bring you more readers, more connections, and higher online visibility.

Further reading: How To Get A Story To The Digg Front Page.

Read the full post: Using Digg To Enhance Your Online Success

Blog Stats
RSS Subscribers
Email Signups
Email Subscribers
# of Comments

Ranks
Google Page Rank
Alexa Rank
Compete Rank
Quantcast Rank

Search Engines
Google Indexed Pages
Yahoo Inlinks
Bing Results

Social Media
Twitter Followers
# of ReTweets
Delicious Bookmarks
StumbleUpon articles
# of posts Dugg (Digg)

Google Analytics
Pageviews
Unique visitors
Pages per visit
Bounce rate
Top content
Top referrers

Plus there are other analytic services out there, like Woopra, PostRank, Clicky and WordPress.com stats. Some services like Klout focus on specific services (in this case Twitter). The list goes on and on.

How often do you check these stats? Daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly? It’s not easy to know what to follow, what is important and what to measure and even remember to keep track of it all. So how do you do it? I don’t know is the answer! Some people do it manually by simply remembering, some use spreadsheets, some get reports emailed to them, some have their assistants compile info for them, some have complicated systems involving gathering pieces of information ad-hoc and automatically from various places.

Most of us I guess just check them when we remember and have the time. Do you? What else do you measure? Ad-clicks? New acquaintances? Backlinks?

Read the full post: How Do You Measure Success?

I was thinking today about saturation points. Is there such a thing as too much blogging? Is the rise of the blog making this vehicle a little jaded? People from all over the globe are logging in and letting us now the everyday detritus of their lives, from relationship problems to how to raise hamsters effectively. Is there a point when society will kick back and reject the blog as an overused format?

As of 2007, there were over 112,000,000 blogs in operation online. While many people launch a blog and then let it slide, realizing that it takes time and commitment to make it work, many more people have realized that blogging is one of the most effective ways of promoting both your company and your brand. Blogging is cheap, accessible, and simple to commence. It makes sense that more and more people are jumping on the blog bandwagon to promote their services with minimal outlay and maximum benefits.

How blogging has evolved…

The very first blog was launched in 1997, and the name ‘blog’ was coined by Jorn Barger at this point. The word ‘blog’ is both a noun and a verb, meaning we can use the term interchangeably to describe the platform, and the action. Before blogs, the only interactive vehicle we had was comment forums, where threads of posts led from one subject to another, or IRC. Before blogging went mainstream, people referred to their blogs as online magazines, ezines, or comment forums.

Nowadays, blogging is as common in social media as email. Open Diary, Live Journal, WordPress and Blogger have made online journaling accessible, easy and free.

Why does everyone have the urge to blog?

Even people who don’t have a product to promote or a service to sell still relish the prospect of blogging. Before the humble blog was born, the only way people had to express their opinions was through publishing. Vanity publishing has always been popular, as writers expressed their views within a text and paid for it to be distributed. As the publishing industry became more difficult to permeate, people were stuck without a platform to air their views. The launch of blogging provided a free, easy and ultimately satisfying service for people who needed a place to sound off and attempt notoriety.

Humans like to express opinions. We spend the majority of our time formulating views and then sharing them with people. The onset of blogging made people feel confident enough to express their views, with no risk of censorship. From political blogging in troubled countries right through to the bored househusband looking to liven up their day, the world has embraced the media of blogging.

Is there such a thing as too much?

As with any popular platform, there is always a risk that too many people will jump on the bandwagon and flood the media market. As an advocate of blogging, I am always in favor of people expressing themselves through blogs. I think the trick is, when navigating your way through the myriad blogs out there, is to search carefully for subjects which interest you, and find like-minded individuals to follow. With so much choice out there, we are able to cherry-pick the best writing out there, and be selective when it comes to spending our time reading other people’s blogs.

Read the full post: Are People Getting Sick Of Blogs?

Headway tries to take the programming and technical challenges out of customizing a theme and each version it gets better. The latest, 1.7 adds a number of features, a few of which I’ll take you through in my unpolished rambling video below (no hard sell from me!). For those who want to read the benefits, see below the video.

Quick Start Wizard
The wizard will guide you step-by-step through choosing your layout, uploading your header image, building your site’s color scheme (it will even detect colors from your header image – I can’t wait to give that a go!), and selecting fonts. At the end, you’ll click a button to build your site and it’ll all be done in a few seconds.
This is one of the best features I’ve seen in any premium WordPress theme, ever.

Automatic Upgrades
“No longer do you have to go to the Headway site, download the latest version, upload it, and activate it. Oh, and if you ever did any custom.css or used the custom folder in Headway, you won’t have to worry about transferring that to the new installation either. The automatic upgrader does it all with only a few clicks”
I’m honestly looking forward to testing this!

HUGE Speed Improvements and Optimizations
“We’ve made major improvements to the visual editor to drastically reduce the amount of conflicts from third-party plugins and also make loading the visual editor MUCH faster. Also, we completely rewrote the content leaf to be more efficient and more stable than before.”
It certain loads faster and is easier to navigate than before.

Column System For Leafs
“Those who have a more column-based layout will find the new columns system to be incredibly beneficial. Instead of jogging all of your leafs around, you can put them into columns and move and resize the entire columns with ease. Don’t fret, the previous layout system is still present. You can specify whether or not you want columns for the particular page in the visual editor.”
I’m sure this will become more useful as I develop more sites with Headway, columns were sometime problematic.

Styles Manager
Before Headway 1.7, Headway came with 1 layout and you had to work from there. Headway 1.7 comes with 4 pre-loaded styles in the new Styles Manager, which allows you to save and load styles. You can also import and export styles just like before, but in a much more organized way!
It’s quick and easy to use and makes default styling nice and easy.

Leaf Templates
Instead of linking pages and being locked into the layout of the page you are linking to, you can now save your leafs (and columns) into Leaf Templates. Leaf Templates can be loaded onto any page. Once a template is loaded, you can modify it just like any regular page.
Beautiful!

Looks great!

Read the full post: Headway 1.7 Theme Sneak Preview

Keeping your blog as a positive thing on your task list

Try associating writing your blog with a pleasurable part of your day, maybe you have a cup of your favorite coffee and a couple of biscuits while you write. By a pleasant association you are more likely to enjoy the experience every day. If sitting down and writing becomes connected with a negative experience or feeling you are less likely to want to form that habit. If writing it feels like a chore then you aren’t going to want to sit down and write it!

Build it into your routine. Choose a time of day to write your blog that best suits you and your finest creative brain. Some people work well early in the morning, some in the evening. They don’t take long to update, try allowing yourself some time in your life to write uninterrupted; by allowing yourself some time it does become an integral part of your day. I find the first light of day an inspiration and love listening to the silence of the day before the hustle and bustle starts properly.

Making your environment work for your blogging

It’s also a good idea to make sure working conditions are good for you. Let your friends and family know this is the time that you will be writing your posts and you’d appreciate it if they gave you some peace and quiet for a while. It’s impossible to think when the kids want you to sort out an argument, you’re wanted on the phone or one of the other many reasons our lives are never our own. Shut the door; give yourself some space to think.

Forming the habit of writing it is going to take time, it’s not going to happen overnight, just as a good following won’t. Psychologists recommend doing an activity everyday for 30 days for something to become a habit.

…And that is good advice for a blogger. In order for a blog to work it needs to be updated regularly, every day to start with. Your followers are looking for good and original posts from you regularly. Although you shouldn’t post things just for the sake of a post, that kind of content is less likely to wow than one you actually have something to say in.

Maybe you can’t get to your PC to write sometimes. We all end up with other overriding commitments sometimes. If this happens, try taking a notebook or a voice recorder with you so you can brainstorm at convenient times, when inspiration strikes. Lots of us have this facility on our phones these days – I find both methods useful when I’m out and about, to record ideas that pop into my head.

Keeping the blogging habit alive and well

When it comes to blogging commitments, focus on the positive, not the negative. Rather than dwelling on the posts you forgot to publish, concentrate on tomorrow’s post and make sure that gets done. In order for something to become a habit, you need to think of it in a positive light. If you start concentrating on the negative you will condition your brain to associate blogging with stress, performance anxiety and boredom. Remember we do this for the pleasure, not because it causes us pain!

All habits take a while to form, so give yourself time to get used to your new routine. Keep light-hearted about your blog, and use it as a platform to promote you and your business without feeling overwhelmed by the obligations which regular blogging brings.

Read the full post: Getting Yourself Into The Blogging Habit

Howard Harkness (owner of Celtic Fiddler) was the winner of our free Ipod contest and says, “The iPod arrived Wednesday. So now I can not only vouch for the ebook, but I can vouch for the fact that they really did give away a new 8Gb iPod Nano like they said they would. I see that they are indeed practicing exactly what they preach in their ebook (which I went back and read again, this time much more thoroughly, and came away even more impressed than before), and I think that they deserve success in their Internet marketing efforts.”
You can Howard’s full blog post about our free blogging guide (and his Ipod win) here: Freebie Blogging Information

Mike Verdicchio (owner of Confidence and Joy) said, “Particularly helpful is their step-by-step guide, with images, of  ‘must-have’ plugin that you need to install on your blog, plus the necessary tweaks for those plugins.”

You can Mike’s full blog post about our free blogging guide here: Are You Blogging?

Disclaimer: Mike is also a client of mine for my blog solutions.

The Professor (owner of scripts for your website) says, “I’ve seen lots of so-called “blogging guides” that tell you what you should do, but don’t give you any clue as to HOW to go about doing it. There’s a new one out, and I just got a copy for review the other day. So I took a look at it — it’s got all the details. If you’re a newbie, you’ll love this.”

You can read The Professor’s full blog post about our free guide here: Everything You Need To Know About Blogging

Martin Henking (owner of iminternetgeldverdienen) says, “If you are looking for an ebook that explains them in understandable terms , how to make money with a blog , then I can highly recommend blogging income.”
You can Martin’s full blog post about our free guide here: Income Blogging

Scott Moody (owner of Soccer Fit Academy) says, “Over this time our blog has grown from 2-3 readers per day to over 300 readers per day! One of the resources that helped us out during this transition to social media was Andrew and Joel’s Blog Blueprint to Blogging Guide.”

You can Scott’s full blog post about our free guide here: Thinking of Starting a Blog?

Jack Heape (owner of web marketing local) says, “This blogging guide is laid out in an extremely detailed step-by-step fashion. They make it very easy for a neophyte to find their way through the intricacies of setting up a WordPress blog.”
You can Jack’s full blog post about our free guide here: Income Blogging Guide Blueprint Review

Iroko Akinola (owner of 15klaptops) says, “For me, this is like the ultimate blogging blueprint, it takes blogging from the scratch to the height of it…”
You can Iroko’s full blog post about our free blogging guide here: Building A Successful Blog: The Income Blogging Guide Blueprint Approach

Bob McCluskey (owner of Going Strong Seniors) says, “If you don’t understand all of the jargon…don’t worry, they will be completely explained and you will learn some very interesting things about Internet marketing.”
You can Bob’s full blog post about our free blogging guide here: Product Review: How to Make Money from a “Granny Blog”

Read the full post: More Income Blogging Guide Feedback

With this in mind, here are some of my favorite stress-busting techniques, that can come in handy for us poor overworked bloggers…

Manage your time properly

When we run our own business, sometimes it can feel as if you have a never-ending list of things to do. No sooner do you get one job out of the way, than another three sneak on to the bottom of the list. If we’re not careful, we run the risk of becoming completely out of our depth and fire-fighting all hours of the day and evening just to keep our heads above water.

Managing your time is critical. Look at your things to do list and prioritize it well. Is it really so important that you comment on ten blogs this morning, or can you leave that until you’ve sorted out your affiliate program and answered all of your outstanding emails? By reassessing your list of tasks, the chances are you’ll be able to move things around and buy yourself some much-needed time.

Be kind to yourself

One of the main issues people who run their own business encounter is learning when to stop. In truth, there will never be an end to the things you can do to promote your business. Whether you are getting up early to network, optimizing your blog or polishing your products, you’ll know that there will never be enough hours in the day to do everything that is outstanding.

This is where being kind to yourself comes in. Have you noticed that most people go to work in the morning, do seven or eight hours, and then come home? They don’t lug their desk back home with them and carry on writing and working in to the small hours. Why should you? The whole point of being our own boss is surely to bring us some freedom. Don’t forget to enjoy yours! Whether you choose to have one afternoon off a week for doing nice stuff like walking, going out or simply snoozing, make sure you limit the time you spend working and remember to be a good parent, spouse or friend to the people around you!

Relax – It’s just a business!

Most of us forget to take things steady when we set up on our own. It’s really important to stand back sometimes and see just how much you’ve achieved. The chances are you have come a long, long way since you started out, and you need to take a moment to acknowledge that to yourself.
Remember that as long as you have enough cash to pay your bills, and enough time to spend with the people you care about, you’re doing well.

What is your experience of working for yourself – is it better or worse for you than the corporate world? What have you learned? Let me know your experiences!

Read the full post: The Wider Picture Of Blogging

We know that blogging can work, in terms of generating revenue and working hard to promote your business and services. We also know that blogging is not an overnight money-maker, and we’re probably not going to change the world with our blog, no matter how fantastic it is.

I’ve been thinking about blogging as a way to promote your business, and there are a number of advantages and disadvantages to it. It’s up to each one of us, personally, to decide whether it’s the right vehicle for us and our business. Here are my thoughts on the highs and lows of blogging…

The highs…

One of the main advantages of blogging, to my mind, is the fun factor. Setting up, choosing your theme and finding images and add-ons is a great experience. It’s good to know you are creating your own space online, and you have complete control of how it looks and all its functionality.

Blogs are one of the few front-line ways of communicating. They provide visible and tangible ways of monitoring your traffic, and technology today means we can update our blogs from just about anywhere. The fact that I can lie on the beach and upload a post from my sun lounger while sipping a margarita is marketing heaven. Not that I like margaritas, or for that matter, beaches…

Unlike other types of advertising and promotion, blogs are completely controllable. We decide what comments we want to publish, what subjects we choose to write about, when posts go live and when they don’t. We can make mistakes, knowing that with just a few clicks we can put them right again.
If we run a personal blog, it provides a great platform for venting emotion, journaling (if that’s a word) our lives and keeping in touch with people. Business blogs let us share what we learn, promote our expertize and maintain impetus by making regular updates.

Possibly the best advantage to blogging is the way that we get to ‘meet’ people online and build up a really great social network. I know for a fact that I would never have had the opportunity to meet some of the people I communicate with every day, had it not been for my blog. Blogs keep us in touch with people, and for those of us who work from home that interaction is really valuable.

And the lows…

OK. Here are some of the disadvantages.

• Blogging is not a quick fix, and it won’t make us overnight millionaires.
• Blogs are like children – they need ongoing nurturing to prevent neglect, and to help them grow in to decent and thriving ‘beings’.
• Blogging is frustrating. Wondering why some posts work and others don’t, or why you aren’t getting noticed for your writing can be incredibly annoying for the newbie blogger. Of all the jobs in the world, running a blog has to be one of the most emotional! If things go well, you’re elated. If they go badly, you’re despondent. You can’t rely on your blog to put you in a good mood!
• Writing your blog can be a total bind. If you’ve just come home after a long day of networking or meetings, and had a row with your other half, and there’s a great game on TV, the last thing you want to do is pick up your laptop and write a witty and interesting post. At times like this, you wonder why you bothered.

Having said all that, I know from personal experience that I will always be a big advocate of the blogging platform. Looking back at this post, I realize that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Take a look at the list and decide for yourself whether this is the right industry for you. It really isn’t for everyone, but can be wonderful if it is for you.

Read the full post: The Highs And Lows Of Blogging

What’s it all about?

Digg is a site that allows people to find and share content from anywhere on the web. It operates without editing, as a truly social site. All the content is placed on there by normal people who simply read something they like, and then ‘Digg’ it to let other people know about it.

Basically, it’s a big online popularity contest for good content. Material is ranked in order of popularity and value, and any site, however small or mighty, can be included in the lists. At a time when we are flooded with web pages from all over the world, it can be incredibly useful to have an index of content which is rated by normal readers with no ulterior motive than to share good stuff with other people.

The ‘America’s Got Talent’ of web content

Just like a reality TV show where people are voted on or off according to the entertainment value of what they do, so Digg allows pages to move up or down the scale depending on how good they are. ‘Good’ content could be funny, informative, useful or just plain silly, but it must have something catchy and relevant about it to hit the top spots.

Once a submission to Digg gets enough ratings from people, it hits the front page of the site where millions of visitors can see it. This is like winning America’s Got Talent and hitting the jackpot of popularity – a great goal for anyone who makes a living through online writing or video.

Digg includes images, music, news, video and articles, so it covers the whole spectrum of available web content in its rankings.

Supported by an online community

Digg also offers a community service, where people can discuss items and share them, passing on other pages of interest. Digg’s philosophy is to promote content in an unbiased way, which means that anyone can get on the front page if their material is interesting. It doesn’t make any difference how big or small your site is – it’s the content, and how people respond to it that counts.

In reality, these days it can be incredibly difficult to get onto the front page due to the power users who dominate the site. I’ve been on the front page twice (not with this site as I deliberately only have Twitter on here for reasons I can talk about another time) and can vouch for the massive increase in traffic, but just getting a small amount of traffic from many articles is often worthwhile.

Adding Digg to your blog

It’s pretty easy to use the Digg plug-in to get it on your Wordpress site, and start to benefit from sharing your content with other people. There is now an updated application that builds on the previous Digg buttons and widgets, making it straightforward for you to engage Digg on your blog. You can also use a plugin like Share This, Sociable or Sexy Bookmarks.

If you have visitors to your site who like what you do, they can ‘Digg’ your content and start you off on the great global popularity contest of social computing – it’s well worth getting this on to your blog, if only to encourage people to share what you do with the rest of the world!

Read the full post: Do you Digg it?

If you’re new to the world of blogging, let’s get the basics out of the way first. At first look, a blog is an online space where you can write about what interests you, in the hope of it also being interesting to other people. You probably already follow and admire some great blogs, so you understand just how powerful it can be to generate a following through your writing.

The problem is, when you first think about starting a new blog, it can be daunting. What the heck do you write about? What if no-one is interested? What if you can’t commit much time to updating your posts? Let’s answer some of these questions.

What should you write about?

There is no one answer to this. There’s no way I can find to determine what works and what doesn’t for a potential blog. While we understand that some of the top blogs out there deal with subjects such as celebrity gossip or technology, we also know that people who simply sit and journal their day-to-day lives are doing pretty well too.

In order to make a blog work well, you really have to think more about what you are interested in, than what other people may be interested in. This may sound strange, but think about it. If you identify a gap in the blogging market for financial service advice, but you hate figures, your blog is going to come across as flat, false and fake.

However, if you have a secret passion for keeping chickens, you can write with a huge amount of passion. Passion invites passion. The chances are, your chicken-keeping tips and funny stories will attract two sorts of visitor. The first is the ardent chicken-keeping enthusiast. The second is the visitor who comes along to you by mistake, and likes reading your posts because you are passionate.
So. The first rule? Write what you love. Don’t try and create a blog just because you think it will work, but also do some keyword (phrase) research!

What if I don’t have time to update my blog?

There’s a simple answer to this one. If you don’t have time to write your blog, don’t start a blog. Unless you have enough spare capital to pay someone else to do it for you. That was easy – on to the next question!

What if no-one reads my blog?

There are a few reasons why you may not attract traffic to your blog. It could be poorly written. It could be hidden away in a dark corner of the net, and need bringing out in to the light. It could be boring! Or you could be in a non-profitable niche.

If this happens, change the way you operate. Follow a great blogging guide that teaches you the right way to do things (you know where that link will take you!). Enhance your writing skills to make it more readable. Publicize your blog by being a busy guest blogger and commenter on other peoples’ sites. I’ve not met a dedicated blogger yet who can’t get their ‘baby’ noticed through hard work and effort.

Convinced yet? Get out there and get blogging! You’ll be glad you did.

Read the full post: Making The Jump To Writing Your First Blog