Successful Blog

12 Detailed Checklists to Spit Shine and Promote Your Blog

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In Case You Missed It

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Vovo over at Business Traffic Ideas threw this idea to me. He caught it from Patrick Schaber at The Lonely Marketer who spotted the idea originated by Matt McGee over at Small Business SEM.

The thought is that so new subscribers in recent months might like to know about posts from times gone by.

12 Detailed Checklists to Spit Shine and Promote Your Blog

Every human is drawn to what we like and away from what we don’t. The beauty of a well-written checklist is that it checks for what we might have forgetten. The best blog promotion is quality — content, design, and linking. Use this dozen checklists to give your blog a spit shine and show it off.

  1. Classic Revisited: The Blog Review Checklist

  2. Checklist for Linking to Quality Blogs

  3. Editing for Quality and a Content Editor’s Checklist

  4. Choosing for Our Readers: A 5-Point Pop Quiz

  5. Blogs Aren’t Books, But Revising Is Still Revising: 6 Gating Questions to Make Revising Easier

  6. 6+1: How-to Blogging — Stomp Out Swiss Cheese Knowledge

  7. Eye-Deas 3-Photo Content Checklist

  8. Editing for Quality and a Content Editor’s Checklist

  9. A Blogger’s Personal Narrative Checklist

  10. Checklist for Starting a Directory Listing

  11. Blog Design Checklist

Taking care of the details, any designer will tell you is the killer app in the most elegant and well-cared for presentations. Any great writer will agree with that opinion. Yes, one after number 7 is missiong. 🙂

Quality feels satisfying to generate and to use. Quality is a blog’s best promotion of all.

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

Related
Strategy: 40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!
20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy
Strategy: How to Get Maximum Benefit from Complex Link Lists

Bloggy Question 56: Get Your Own Network!

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Leave the Computer!

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .


A few months ago a blogger named, Evan, showed up on your radar. He’s a guy who went to your high school. You didn’t know him then. You figured that you know more about him — where he lives, what he looks like, who he used to hang out with — than you did when you met the blogger friends that you know now. So you befriended him.

You’ve been showing Evan around, helping him with his HTML, introducing him to people. When he’s asked for help, you’ve been there. That’s what bloggers do.

Lately, though, your friends have started complaining about him. They say Evan’s been trying to use them to milk their networks. He keeps asking Your friends to introduce him. Your friends hardly know Evan and don’t want to recommend someone they don’t know.

You heard yesterday that Evan lobbied to have you not invited to a party given by good friend of yours — one you introduced him to.

It’s a touchy situation. The friend throwing the party doesn’t know that you you’ve heard. His girlfriend told you about Evan’s duplicity. BUT the girlfriend is possessive, doesn’t like Evan, and has made up stories about you.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Bloggy Question 55: It’s My Vacation!
Bloggy Question 54: This Conversation Is NOT Bloggable
Bloggy Question 53: What Kind of Home Is One Blog You Read?
Bloggy Question 52: They Read My Diary!
Bloggy Question 51: I Gave Him that Idea

All of the Information Available

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Knowing What We Can Know

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Strategy is setting a vision, making a path, knowing what we can know, and planning for the variables. To know what we know . . . That means having command of the information available.

For a while now, new bloggers, mostly those who are younger, have emailed or IMed to ask me the most basic questions. It’s usually obvious from their message that they haven’t done the any research to answer the question on their own. I used to answer and send them on their way again. I don’t anymore. Now I point them in the direction where they might look.

Are they wrong to ask? No.

It’s always good to ask someone who’s been there. Though you might argue when to do that.

But they’re wrong if they rely on me to do their homework. It hurts them for several reasons.

  • I don’t have all of the answers.
  • My information could be dated.
  • I’m wrong as often as I’m right.
  • They’re not investing in themselves.

I’m only one source in a world of the Internet. We often stop at the first answer to our questions. The first answer isn’t necessarily the best. It’s a great strategy to seek out all of the information available.

  • Do a search.
  • Ask someone who usually agrees, someone who usually disagrees, and someone who usually doesn’t have an opinion.
  • Ask an expert.

Having a strategy to find all of the information available at the beginning sets the foundation to build upon. Curiosity is a great teacher.

end of story.

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

Related
Strategy: 40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!
20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy
Strategy: How to Get Maximum Benefit from Complex Link Lists

40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!

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Time Management and Research

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What is blog reading and commenting to you? Is it entertainment, interaction, or research for your work? How much time do you spend on the average day reading and commenting on blogs. Think about that before you read further.

I’ll do it too.

Ready? Whatever our answers, we have defined blog reading and commenting to us and quantified how much time we invest in them. Now consider the time we have available in a day. What percent of that time is blog reading and commenting?

Does that leave enough

  • time for our family and friends?
  • time for our work?
  • time for ourselves and for giving away?

If people read as many feeds as they say, I’m guessing it does not. Time is a resource we cannot replace.

Ten Blogs on Blogging

Everyone seems to know Darren’s ProBlogger, our friend from SOBCon Lorelle.Wordpress.com, the “evil” John Chow.com and Successful-Blog here. These are ten others in (no particular order) that offer consistent and quality information about blogging as well.

  1. Bloggingbasics101.com

  2. chrisg.com

  3. BloggingPro

  4. Vaspersthegrate.Blogspot.com

  5. A List Apart

  6. Smartwealthyrich.com

  7. eMomsatHome.com

  8. Alister Cameron, Blogologist

  9. Daily Blog Tips

  10. Buildabetterblog.com

Top Ten Blogs for Writers

For the Top 10 Blogs for Writers Mike Stelzner asked his 20,000 newsletter readers to participate in the nominations. I’ve shortened his definitions of the quality that each blog represents.

  1. Brian Clark’s CopyBlogger: does an amazing job of helping writers improve

  2. Deborah Ng’s Freelance Writing Jobs: for freelance writers seeking new work

  3. Tom Chandler’s Copywriter Underground: regular doses of inspiration and writing tips

  4. Liz Strauss’s Successful-Blog: amazing insights into the craft of writing

  5. Angela Booth’s Writing Blog: something useful for all writers

  6. Kristen King’s InkThinker: improving the written word

  7. Anne Wayman’s The Golden Pencil: gold nuggets of information to freelance writers

  8. Carson Brackney’s Content Done Better: write better copy and make a living (now by Michi Beck)

  9. Dianna Huff’s B2B Marcom Writer Blog: marketing communications copywriting

  10. Allison Winn Scotch’s Ask Allison: For writers looking to break into the publishing world, be sure to check this one out.

Top Ten Blogs on Making Money

The Top Ten Blogs About Making Money in which Shane spends an entire blog post explaining how he came to choose his top ten.

  1. ProBlogger

  2. Shoemoney

  3. Self Made Minds

  4. Entrepreneur’s Journey by Yaro Starak

  5. John Chow.com

  6. Net Business Blog

  7. Bootmoney

  8. Andy Beard

  9. Dosh Dosh

  10. Mike’s Money Making Mission

Top Ten Web Analytics Blogs

This is the April 2007 update ranking from Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik. Be sure to read the post that details how the ranking is done.

  1. Occam’s Razor

  2. Web Metrics Guru

  3. Google Analytics Blog

  4. Web Analytics World

  5. Web Analytics Demystified-Eric T. Peterson’s Analytics Weblog

  6. Increasing your website’s conversion rate

  7. Unofficial Google Analytics Blog

  8. Lies, Damned Lies…

  9. WebAnalytics.be Blog

  10. Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising

I gathered this set with the intention of an offering that would cross blogging cultures. In that way, I’m hoping we all might explore, expnd our tastes, but leave room to let some go early on.

We choose from thousands of books to read and movies to see. Let’s do the same with the blogs that we read. I offer this set of 4 lists of 10 blogs with the hope that we’ll keep the those give us the best return on our investment.

How do you choose the blogs that serve your purpose?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Is Your Business Stuck? I’ve Found a Way to Help

Related
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Bloggy Question 55: It's My Vacation!

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Leave the Computer!

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .


You’re about to go on a road trip with three non-blogging buddies. It’s a same sex group of friends that you’ve known since college. You’re headed up to a small hotel in wine country. The hotel has all of the amenenties — nice restaurant that seats about 20, television, wireless, gorgeous views, horseback riding, hiking, canoeing. At times you and your friends probably won’t leave the property for days.

Your friends are bringing the trappings of their hobbies. One is a musician and will be bringing a guitar and a harmonica. Another is a runner and is bringing all of that gear. You just watched your closest friend pack a sketchpad, charcoals, an easel, and a complete store of oils and canvas into the car. Just as you are about to put your laptop and accessories in next to the rest. Someone stops you.

You hear, “You can’t take that. We agreed no work on these trips.” You explain that blogging is your passion just as they have theirs. Neither your argument nor the idea seems to convince them.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Bloggy Question 54: This Conversation Is NOT Bloggable
Bloggy Question 53: What Kind of Home Is One Blog You Read?
Bloggy Question 52: They Read My Diary!
loggy Question 51: I Gave Him that Idea
Bloggy Question 50: The Safety of the Human Race Is Up to YOU!

Strategy: How to Get Maximum Benefit from Complex Link Lists

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More Than What One Link Shows

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Yesterday I offered a list of blog promotion guides that are current and relevant. One could get lost, overwhelmed, or just plain bored going through all of the links contained inside the 20 of them.

Yet, it’s good practice and a great exercise to know the territory . . . to have an overview of the range of techniques and tactics folks suggest, support, and champion. Having an efficient way to cull through such a list can save time and help us see more than just what each link has to offer on its own.

Here’s how I’d use that list and any complex link list to get maximum benefit.

  1. Look over the list, before you read. What do you notice about the titles? What do you notice when you quickly click each link without reading a word? What do you predict you will find when you look further?

  2. Read through the list with an eye to the playing field. How many bloggers say the same thing? What ideas are entirely new? Note ideas that interests you.

  3. When you finish, reflect on your predictions and note the unexpected things you found.

  4. Decide which strategies work well with your blog and your readers’ needs.

  5. Make a plan for how you’ll introduce new ideas in a way that won’t disrupt what you already do.

We often do what our friends do to solve our problems. Those answers can serve us well, be all right, or not work at all. It’s so much stronger to arrive at a plan with the longer view — knowing the playing field. Even when that view is not scientific, it’s still informative. What we learn gets stored.

Negotiating a long link list of information is like driving a complicated route to a never-visited meeting spot. When we plan our route we’re more likely to reach our desired destination without wearing ourselves out.

Hope this helps.

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

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