Successful Blog

Speaker Highlight: Liz Strauss

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About Liz Strauss and Successful-Blog

Liz Strauss is known as a relationship blogger, a person who answers every comment, and someone who never sleeps. If you ask her about it, she’ll tell you she lives inside your computer. Some folks have started to believe that. She believes blogging is about the people and, as part of her B.A.D. Blogger program, Liz calls a blogger a day to find out more about the folks who blog.

ME “Liz” Strauss has worked in print, software, and online publishing with small companies and corporate giants such as Pearson, Reed Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer. She conceived and drove the reader-centered strategy that turned around a sharply declining company, taking it from $9M to sell for $35M in 3 years. Her presentations are known for being fun, insightful, and packed with quality content.

Successful-Blog Thinking, writing, business ideas. You’re only a stranger once.
[Read more…]

Great Find: A Smart Banner to Boost Traffic

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Topping a Blog List

Hans at Blogosquare has an idea for us.

Great Find: The sure way to get at the top of any blog toplist and boost your traffic

Permalink: http://blogosquare.com/2007/03/03/the-sure-way-to-get-at-the-top-of-any-blog-toplist-and-boost-your-traffic/

Target Audience: Anyone who wants or gets directory traffic
Content: Han’s technique is to show us how to create a smart banner that will promote our blogs more effectively.

The principle behind [it] is that good content acts as a traffic bait and showing it to those TopList visitors get them coming in, increasing your traffic and thus your rank position in the Toplist for more and more traffic. The trick resumes in the blog banner that the toplist allows you to display for your blog on the list. We’ll use it to display your best latest posts randomly and hence attract in visitors. After reading through, you’ll get a traffic bait like this in those lists and start collecting visitors.

To read about how to create your own “smart” banner. Click the screenshot below.

Blogosquare Smart Banner

Thanks Hans!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!!

Related
Promote Your Business at Working at Home on the Internet
Blog Promotion: How to Write for People and Search Engine Spiders
Directories and Click Exchanges as Promotion

Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: CoolText

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Create Logos and Buttons with CoolText Graphics Generator

Great Find: CoolText

Permalink: http://cooltext.com/

Target Audience: Computer users who want to create buttons

Content: Every now and then I need a button. Sure, I have all the programs to create my own, but why spend the time when there are tools out there that can finish the job quickly.

There are a lot of button generators, but this one caught my attention because it worked so well. Recently a few people told me the ‘hire me’ on my site doesn’t look like a link, so it seemed like a good time to try out CoolText. Here’s what I created.

Hire Purple Wren

Then check out the logo designs. I’m not crazy about the terminology and would prefer banner, or something more descriptive. But it doesn’t really matter what they call them, there’s a great selection. Remember to save the image files on your computer because they don’t store them.

It took longer to write this post than to create the buttons/banners.

Joy

Here are six things I like about CoolText:

  1. You can create an account to save your designs
  2. There’s more than 1200 fonts available
  3. It’s easy to use
  4. You can edit your button until it’s just right
  5. There are several file types to choose from
  6. It’s free!

Click the screenshot to go there.

Cool Text: Logo and Graphics Generator

Let me know how you use CoolText!

See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Related
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: block posters
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: Pixel Ruler
Great Find: PDF Online — Free

Thanks to Week 73 SOBs

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muddy teal strip A

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

muddy teal strip A
Neal Pollack's Alternadad

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank every one of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her directly to me. This award comes with a full “Liz said so” guarantee. It is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

deep purple strip

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame. Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: See the Innocence

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Looking and Seeing

Change the World!

When I get stressed or pulled like a wire, my expectations for others creep higher. I don’t see things the way they are, I sometimes get stuck in my head and lose track of the people around me. I sometimes forget that people don’t do things to make my life harder.

I’m learning to pay attention to when I get off like that. It usually starts with need to walk faster, faster, faster.

The minute I start to think I should run is the minute I need to walk slower. That’s the time to breathe and reconnect my heart to my head.

When I start to hide behind the work on my desk . . . when I start to climb too far into my head, I listen to music. I listen again when I start to think the world is on my shoulders. I use music to remind me that I’m not what the center. I’m not where everyone should be looking. I listen to music to remind me that sometimes I don’t see everything.

You must choose compassion over right
and the best place to start is with yourself tonight.
see the innocence in of a crying friend.
see the innocence to your guilty end
see the innocence now — the child in all of us. . . .

Understand the ones you help the most
What they don’t know now accept them for who they are.
see the innocence of someone else
see the innocence to improve yourself
see the innocence now it’s not that hard to see. . . .

If I had and you had one last call to make
Who would and what would you say . . .?
Why’d you take so long?
See the innocence. It’s not that hard to see. . . .

— Tommy Henriksen, See the Innocence.

Sometimes I don’t listen to the music, I just think about the words.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

SOB Business Cafe 03-16-07

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Life Beyond Code takes a logical approach to ROI on our tools.

Changemaker: Change Your Life has some relief.

Genuine Curiosity challenges us to look at leadership.

Fishcreek House has advice for the weekend. Is it literal or a metaphor? It works both ways.

The KISS Business too offers an analysis and would like our opinion.

Problogger has a star-studded line up of folks to help out while Darren is in the USA.

Related ala carte selections include

QAQNA has something to celebrate!

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Register for SOBCon now, the presentations are content-rich and interactive.