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What Makes a Great SOB?!

February 24, 2006 by Liz

Recently a new reader asked me about SOBs, what they stood for, and how the whole thing worked. So I’ve made a new page, much like this post, so that all new readers will know in the future. And so that you would know about SOBs where they came from and why people actually want to be one.

No, No, It’s not THAT!

When the SOB program started, I was looking for a way to encourage the sense of community that Successful-Blog stood for. The conversations were fun, fast, and sometimes irreverent. Discussions on the blog often brought up good ideas, and I wanted to make sure those ideas continued and become more out in the blogosphere–everyone making everyone a little bit better. It’s the only way that we can make ourselves strong here in what they call “The Magic Middle.” We talk to each other.

What the SOB Program Is and Is Not

The idea was that anyone who took the discussion back to their blog would let me know. Then I would give that blog recognition on Successful-Blog for extending the conversation into the blogosphere–making the community larger, the dialogue bigger, all of us smarter, better and our businesses stronger. Most folks forgot the part about letting me know. So I kept watch and found out on my own.

Every week I make copies of their logos and add them to the list of Successful and Outstanding bloggers who understand that the strength of the blogosphere comes from relationships, interconnectedness, and community. Not all of these folks have all of the links you might expect, but they will, because they show the key traits of a succesful blogger.

Soon enough it became apparent that having a blog didn’t need to be a criteria either. Some of the best ideas came from blog readers who added value to the dialogue, but had no blog to bring the conversation back to. I felt strongly they should be included as SOBs too. Which tells you what the progam is not, i.e. a link exchange. That’s also why, though they’re appreciated, blogrolls do not make SOBs.

The Badges

If you’ve been through a few pages on Successful-Blog you’ve seen these badges.

and wondered about them. Those are the official badges awarded each week to those who are named Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog.

It was Mike Sigers who thought of the blog badges, and Mike Rundle of 9rules who designed them. The SOB for Successful and Outstanding Blogger was my own– a bit of mischief to underscore our sense of irreverence and openness in discussions. It’s become quite a symbol of what the blog stands for. Every now and then a fun post goes up titled “Liz called me an SOB,” those are my favorite.

People don’t have to put the badges on their blogs. They don’t need to link back. Most of them do and I’m grateful for the sense of community that shows. More that than, I’m glad that they extend the community further out.

If You Want to Be an SOB

Find a way to start a dialogue about how blogging helps business, or carry the dialogue here back to your blog. Offer a great feature, post, idea, or an article that will shed new light for the blogosphere. Contribute something that demonstrates you think like a Successful and Outstanding Blogger. Then just tell me about it. I’m pretty easy to persuade, if you’re truly committed to being one.

Every SOB is automatically included in the SOB directory. Stop in there when you’re looking for a great read.

Can’t wait until I can call you an SOB too.

ME “Liz” Strauss

SOB Business Cafe 02-24-06

February 24, 2006 by Liz

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 the logos to enjoy this week’s selections.

The Specials this Week are

Duncan Riley of the Blog Herald provides a thorough, in-depth analysis of how the quality versus quantity of links affected the latest Google update on two blogs.

Dave at Wadblog brings new insight into pageviews versus unique visits and which to pay attention to when monetizing blogs in different niches.

For our tech afficionados, Yas and the team at NOONESLISTENING have something special going on. They’re beta testing a new AJAX/Java theme engine with the inspired name, Canvas.

Related ala carte selections include
SOB Business Cafe 02-17-2006
SOB Business Cafe 02-10-2006
SOB Business Cafe 02-02-2006

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

Related article:
SOB Business Cafe 02-17-2006

Great Photo Resources to Support Readers

February 23, 2006 by Liz

When it comes to dressing up a blog visually, great photos go a long toward class and style–if they are well-chosen and well placed to support your message. Photos can draw in an undecided reader and can communicate a message faster and more deeply than words. In that way they can be underscore what you are trying to say, making it more powerful and give it more emotion.

The advantages of using photos with readers have been researched by educators.

Photos involve the reader more interactively. Therefore your message gets “heard” more deeply.
Visual learners are drawn in by photos. They find the information in instructional photos more easily accessible. They pick up the information there first and process it, then the words on the page make more sense to them.
Decorative photos make an article more appealing and inviting. Blocks of text don’t seem intimidating to readers when illustrated by photos.

Well-placed photos also can take an unremarkable template and “kick it up a notch,” giving it the feel of a more sophisticated design. If you have no experience, do give it a try, but read up on design basics before you begin. Add photos slowly and be careful not to have them overwhelm the text in size. Then ask a customer-reader or designer friend to give you feedback on your choices until you feel confident.

Experienced or not, you’re going to need to get some photos–not everyone is a photographer with a great library to pull from. Here are some resources on basic design, places to find free and inexpensive stock photos, and photoshop tutorials.

The first is
Photoshop Tutorials Blog, and not just the blog, but the page with the listing that shows where you might find some smashing images to spice up your blog posts. To access the listing, click this logo

You’ll find a few more if you visit Presentation Zen and get Garr’s tips on using stock photos.

If you’re up for taking your own photos, you might check out this series from Kodak on The Top 10 Tips for Taking Pictures.

Photos are an integral part of any design and add to the “curb appeal” of a any blog or online business. How might you use photos to strengthen your brand, your blog, your business?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Turning Reluctant Readers into Loyal Fans
Blog Promotion: Checking Out Curb Appeal

Turning Reluctant Readers into Loyal Fans

February 23, 2006 by Liz

In just a brief one-twentieth of a second–less than half the time it takes to blink–people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an Internet site.

–Kamakshi Tandon
REUTERS, Internet users judge Web sites in less than a blink
Jan. 17, 2006

We’ve got less than a blink to grab a reader’s attention. The reader clicks in. Looks. Decides and then . . . and then what? . . . Do they stay or do they leave? If they stay, did what they see lend our words more credibility or did it take some away?

Design, curb appeal, packaging–whatever you call it–it’s what brings customer-readers further into our businesses and our blogs. They recognize what works for them and what doesn’t. If it doesn’t, they’re gone so quickly that even our stats programs don’t know. Try the Blink Test if you want a baseline idea of what your readers are seeing before they blink.

What about reluctant readers, undecideds who decide to stay a little longer? What can we do to convince them to stay? Better yet, how can we turn them into fans?

Capturing the Attention of Reluctant Readers

In educational publishing, we have a euphemism, “reluctant readers.” It’s used to describe kids who, when they see a textbook, they turn away to find their inline skates. When I write on literacy, they are my favorite customers to write for and about.

I don’t much like that euphemism applied only to those kids because I’m constantly having to remind other teachers that,

. . . we’re all reluctant readers and becoming more and more so. If you’re a skeptic on this point, try reading the tax code–or any “have-to” document on your least favorite subject. You’ll wish that there were something more to see than long columns of endless text, something to break up the boring words.

With more and more ways to spend our leisure time, even television shows are becoming bulleted lists.

Reader Support as Part of Your Brand

Those kids we call reluctant readers do leave their inline skates to read what they’re interested in–things like books on extreme sports and the latest gaming websites and blogs–if they’re made right. Here’s what you can take from educational research to catch the attention of normal, everday reluctant readers. You can use it to brand your blog as a worthwhile source of quality content. It’s one more way, that you can make customer-reader support a resounding part of your niche brand.

Use sub-heads liberally. Sub-heads break the text into shorter bits. Subconsciously that not only tells me what this bit is about. It also says I only have to read this far and then I get to breathe again. People not only like subheads, search engines like them too.
Use everyday words. A big vocabulary doesn’t bring us closer together, it sets you apart. The word use is a fine one, use it. Don’t set it aside for utilize. That makes me, as a reader, stop to wonder whether you mean something different from the what use would have said. Anything that stops a reader works against your message being heard.
Use pictures, images, art, and color to enhance your message. Do this with care. It’s easy to distract. Place only one or two images. Place them where they add value to the text. Try to put images where you’d expect to find them. If you’re not sure ask a customer-reader to give you feedback on how you’re doing. Remember that design seems easy, but it’s not.
Take the time to write something short. The point here is to make every word count. Read your post over to take out all of the words that you don’t need. Be lethal. It’s amazing how many extra words you can find when your quest is to go looking for them. A few sentences ago, I turned this into two posts instead of one.
Use typographic cues, such as bold and italic, to show what’s important. Be consistent and try not to make everything important. If you use underlined text to show what is a link, don’t use an underline for anything else. If you make everything important, then you’ve really said that nothing is.

Each of these points are about helping reluctant readers like me figure out quickly what’s important and what’s not, so that when I’m done reading what you wrote. I feel like we’re both smart.

Reluctant Readers to Loyal Fans

Ever read something that made you feel like the writer was saying something you always thought? . . . or something that just made you feel smart for reading it? Bet you went back to see what else that writer had to say . . . .

But then, you knew all this. You have a favorites list. You know what it takes to make a fan. I’m just offering some hints on how to get the undecideds to come in, so that you get a chance to do just that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Success in a Blink and a Blink Test
Business, Blogs, and Niche-Brand Marketing
How to Code Accessible Links–Part 1
What Is Content that Keeps Readers?
Audience is Your Destination

GAWKER Design: Curb Appeal as Customer-Centered Promotion

February 22, 2006 by Liz

The Qualities of Great Curb Appeal

Great design is branding that whispers. Like a house with fabulous curb appeal, a uniquely-inspired stained glass window, or the fine lines on a fabulous car, design is promotion that draws you nearer. It entices customers or readers to come closer–to see for themselves what’s being offered.

Don’t think for a minute that looks don’t count. First impressions tell customers that a business understands who their customers are and that the business knows what their customers are looking for. GAWKER understands curb appeal and uses it to deliver customers to their own front door.

Product is the what and the how. Product is the content and the quality that gets customers coming back. But whether it’s a blog, a bistro, or barometer, product is nothing if it never gets to a customer. If no one comes to read it, or dine there, or buy it. Then how can you say that the product is good?

That’s where design–curb appeal–comes in. Design is the why and the romance. Like quality product, good design starts with the customer. It tells the customer what this product is and who it’s for. Design done well makes the promise that the product keeps. It says, “Come here, and try this. You won’t be sorry.” If the product is quality, you’re not sorry. You’re delighted you tried it.

Gawker and the Curb Appeal Checklist

GAWKER passes a Curb Appeal checklist with flying colors.

The name of the product, GAWKER, is big, bold, and colorful. GAWKER speaks to the audience that the product is made for. Cover all but that word–GAWKER–and you still know this blog is not meant for your grandmother’s golf team or your little brother’s playschool. GAWKER looks and sounds slightly irreverent and obviously self-content.
All things on the page speak to 21-34 year old, mid-high to high income professionals. GAWKER shows their achieving, metro-readers an environment they’re comfortable with, one that says, “you belong here with us. We speak the same language. We do the same things.”
Even the ads make readers feel cool. As the New Yorker pointed out, you won’t see pharmacutical ads in GAWKER, because all GAWKER readers are “young and beautiful.” At least, that’s how they want to see themselves.
In other words, you can tell by looking, that GAWKER has one BIG IDEA–CELEBRITIES ONLY–Content and Customers. You’ll read about them and feel like one too. No confusion here. Customers know right away whether this is their gig or not. GAWKER doesn’t waste your time if you don’t want what GAWKWER”s got.

In terms of the curb appeal the closer a reader gets, the better GAWKER looks. GAWKER has mastered brand-niche marketing.

Promise and Product Perfectly Wed

As a reader, I find exactly what I expected–the jazzy, snarky, celebrity gossip that makes me feel like a slightly smarter, sharper celebrity than the folks being talked about. GAWKER passes the test because everything they do says they know who their customers are. That knowledge shows in every detail of their product. The promise and product are perfectly wed.

The key to GAWKER-level design is knowing your customers so well that your customers can see themselves in every detail of what you do. Top-notch design and product-driven packaging require complete attention and constant awareness of customervalues and customer needs.

When was the last time you checked in with your customers about the curb appeal of your blog or business? Are you sure your product and promise are perfectly wed?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Stand-Alone Trackback Tool from WhizbangTech

February 22, 2006 by Liz

Good news for bloggers who work on platforms that don’t perform trackbacks to other blogs. Rather than hacking your template to do things it wasn’t meant to do WhizbangTech has a stand-alone trackback tool.

Trackbacks are a great way of building visibility for yourself, your business, and your blog. When you read a post on another blog and realize you’ve posted on the same subject, a trackback offers a chance to say, “Hey, I’ve had a few insights into that topic myself.” Without trackbacks, you’re missing out on another way to promote your business and your blog.

If your platform doesn’t offer trackbacks, bookmark this site and pull it out whenever you need to let that expert you read daily know you’ve written something that ties into the current conversation. If you do it with thought and not too liberally, you’ll find some folks will follow your trackbacks home to see what else you have to say.

To get the WhizbangTech Stand-Alone Trackback Tool, click the logo below.

Now you can let people know you were paying attention to what they said and add to the conversation too.

–ME “Liz” Strauss