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SOB Business Cafe 03-10-2006

March 10, 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 on the screenshot to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Improbulus tackles the problems at Technorati by breaking down a sizeable post and testing each part of it to see which parts get indexed and which don’t–finding out exactly which bits of formatting seem to trip up the Technorati spiders. Looks like I’m going to have to write another poem to this fine researcher soon.

Brian at copyblogger shows the the ugly, the bad, and the good of getting attention for your business through marketing strategies. This one piece explores way more than just two.

Mark Wade discusses the launch of BlogEverywhere, the new blogging interface from the maker of hotmail, that works from a toolbar. As they say, “This is not your father’s blog platform.”

Marianne takes on a conversation with Jack Trout’s article at Forbes about Word of Mouth Marketing. Score one more for bloggers.

The ala carte dessert selections is

Scot Herrick’s blog is actually two blogs in one–a writing blog and a business blog. Visit it to see how beautiful design and and great content can be friends in seamless companionship as fraternal twins.

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 03-03-2006

SOB Business Cafe 03-03-2006

March 3, 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 on the screenshot to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

BloggersBlog explains that photos can still be found long after they have been deleted. This article offers ways to search images using Google image search.

Chartreuse points out the elephant in the room–why folks miss the most important feature of blogging.

Chartreuse Beta The Tyler Curden and Jesus Christ Guide

Dig Tank offers a fabulous suggestion for replacing those ubiquitous powerpoint presentations.

New SOB Mike add feeds to the menu with a hack to fix the problem that most Feedburner Feeds are not being automatically detected.

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 02-24-06

A Content Editor’s Quality Checklist

February 26, 2006 by Liz

Editing for Quality

It’s true that every writer needs an editor. We all know that I sure do. In textbook publishing, we say that every writer really needs two–a content editor and a copyeditor. The first makes sure that the logic and ideas make sense. The second makes sure that the work is readable. Readable doesn’t mean much, if the ideas are all over the place.

Content editing doesn’t need to take bundles of time. You’ve gotten the ideas onto the paper. Print the post out and read it. A pause for a content edit makes sure that your information is accurate, relevant, and accessible. Why not make sure your ideas move in a way that readers can follow them? It can only make you look smarter.

For that purpose, I offer you this basic content editor’s quality checklist.

Content Editor’s Quality Checklist

Does the work have a clear focus on one topic?
Does the introduction grab interest and offer a clear purpose for reading?
Are the facts accurate?
Does the work follow a logical plan from beginning to end?
Does the body of the work present well-ordered paragraphs of main ideas with relevant, supporting details?
Does the conclusion leave readers feeling satisfied, feeling a sense of conclusion now that they have reached the end and know what to do with the information?

Use this checklist for the content edit first. Then move on to copyediting — making sure that the spelling, grammar, and punctuation are correct. Do the two tasks separately. Trying to do both at once is like trying to have dinner with two dates at two different restaurants — not a good idea.

Use the content editor’s quality checklist and you’ll be that much more confident that your reader won’t get lost looking for the forest among the trees. Now whether they’ll agree with you . . .

Be irresistible.
–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

SOB Business Cafe 02-17-2006

February 17, 2006 by Liz

Welcome to the SOB Business 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 logo to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

This week Darren Rowse featured this guest post by blog designer, Peter Flaschner, in his series Blogging for Beginners. Don’t let the title fool you. It’s a classic post on blog design that everyone should read.

Blog Design for Beginners from Problogger

In this post from Freshblog, Greg explains how to check your blog against your user stats to make sure you’re meeting your baseline user’s needs and not losing readers by overstressing their systems or their patience.

Hock offers some straight advice on using Google to target a market.

Related ala carte selections include

SOB Business Cafe 02-10-2006
SOB Business Cafe 02-02-2006
SOB Business Cafe 01-27-2006

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

Why Pete Townshend Doesnât Need to Do Promotion

February 16, 2006 by Liz

Pete Townshend started a blog last September. He is writing a novella. As far as I know, his only promotion was to mention it on his website. Granted his website is more promotion than most of us could wish for, but the entire content of the blog–even more–is at at the website.

Go ahead. Check them out. I’ll wait here.

Pete Never Was One for Convention

From his days with The Who, it was clear Pete marched to a different drummer. When it comes to blog marketing and promotion, it seems the same way. As far as I can tell, Pete didn’t follow any of the recommended wisdom.

He didn’t get his own domain name.
He’s using an unadorned blogspot template.
He didn’t list his blog in Robin GoodÃ¢â¬â¢s RSS Top55 – Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites.
He doesn’t post consistently or often.
He doesn’t read his comments.
He rarely comments back.
It’s probably safe to assume that he doesn’t comment on other blogs.
Community doesn’t seem to be important on Pete’s blog.
He doesn’t have an RSS feed or subscription button anywhere in sight.
I suspect he doesn’t spend time thinking about keywords.

Well, he does have a picture, under the picture it says

What is well known is that I’m a rock star. You are not worthy etc. In fact you are worthy. And so am I. We deserve each other.

That’s how Pete writes.

I read four of his comments. One is a request to offer up prayers. One is a statement that visitors are reading the chapter wrong. One was a joke, I think. It was hard to understand. The last is an apology that the next chapter isn’t there.

Where Does that Get Him?

Pete Townshend’s first post–Sept. 24,2005–has 347 comments. Pete’s current post has 1,107 comments. His commenters are the same 30 or so people who talk to each other about all kinds of things. His site meter is locked, so I can’t tell you how many visitors he has had.

Technorati says he has 1,995 links from 529 sites.

His Wholinkstome profile looks like this:

Pete Townshend doesn’t need to do promotion for his blog.

Why Doesn’t Pete Townshend Need to Do Promotion?

Pete Townshend is a rock star. He doesn’t need promotion. He is a brand. He’s a big idea of his own. He can start something new, and his customers find him. He can ignore all of the rules and ride the interest on the quality music and the top-notch promotion that’s already been done. It’s been compounding year after year in his “virtual marketing account.”

But he’s Pete Townshend–definitely an exception to how things work.

Me? I have to do all of kinds of promotion like everyone else does. I figure I always will. So I do some every day. My virtual marketing account is barely open. Still I’m counting on the lasting value of every little investment I make.

What have you done lately to add to your virtual marketing account?

Sorry, Pete. I wasn’t talking to you.

–ME “Liz” Strauss