The principles of life

The principles of life

Ok so I lied. This isn’t really going to be an article about THE principles of life, but instead it is about A principle of life. This principle often accounts for 95% of everything we do excluding those things we have to do (like breathe, eat, etc). Even those things we do naturally, if this element of our beings wasn’t there, could very easily be left to the wayside. And this principle?

MOTIVATION

Simply put motivation is defined as the act or process of motivating which itself is defined as to provide with a motive and finally motive is defined as something that causes a person to act. It is by far the number on principle in our lives that causes us to do things. Good things, bad things, little things, and big things. Without motivation we do nothing.

The questions is, what motivates you to blog? Seems like a fairly simple question to answer, but sit down and give it some thought. If you can’t answer it you need to spend some time working that out for yourself. Not because anyone will quiz you, but if you’re motivation is so poor that even you don’t know what it is you can bet it will disappear altogether before all is said and done.

There is no right answer or wrong answer to the question. This isn’t a post meant to tell you how to be more motivated. It’s not meant to cheer you onward and upward. It’s simply meant to get you to think about it, and if need be define it for yourself. That’s really the key. This is about you, not me, not your readers, not your friends, not your family. This is about taking an introspective look and deciding two things.

1. What exactly is it that motivates you?
2. How motivated are you really?

I lied again. I said this was for yourself, and that’s true, but it’s also for the readers. What motivates you?

Posted in Potpourri | 3 Comments »

“Keep yer eyes peeled!”

“Keep yer eyes peeled!”

My father used to have a saying when we were out hunting. Well he had a lot of sayings, but for the most part they wouldn’t pass as family friendly. One thing he always said as we drove around the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest at daybreak opening day (and every day thereafter) was, Keep yer eyes peeled!. Which of course was always followed by a reason. Usually they would be something like the following.

• Because those bucks will move so fast they’ll be gone before you can even blink
• If they duck behind that manzanita you’ll never see them again
• You have to see them before all the other sonsabi…

Of course to a boy of 8 riding in the back of a pickup, holding a compound bow he could never hope to pull while his father drove the truck it never made much sense. Until now, and in ways my father never intended.

This is really a post about spotting an opportunity. It’s about keeping yer eyes peeled and jumping on chances before anyone and everyone else does. Face it, opportunities are a lot like deer. They are fast, they are fleeting. When they duck behind the brush (e.g. disappear) you can never be certain of them reappearing. If you haven’t readied your bow before you see them you’ll never get the chance. More than that if you haven’t practiced your shots you’ll never hit the opportunity.

In my short tenure as a blogger I’ve seen many opportunities that I have passed by. I won’t lie and say I didn’t know they were opportunities, but in my own defense I will say I wasn’t aware of the importance of them. Poor excuse I know, but it’s all I have. I wanted to share a few of the opportunities that I’ve seen with you.

Guest blogging

I’ve passed by at least 3 guest blogging opportunites because I didn’t believe my writing skills were good enough. I rectified that to some extent by writing this post about Paint.Net for Topsecretblogger.com, but I can’t calculate how much further along I would be if I had taken on a few other guest posting opportunities before.

The other way I’ve let the guest blogging opportunity pass me by has been by not allowing it on this blog. In fact I’ve just agreed to let someone post a guest article on here. Hopefully that will be up sometime tomorrow. The reason I say it was a missed opportunity in not allowing others to guest post has everything to do with exposure. They would have linked from their blogs to this blog, and their readers would have potentially become my readers.

Community sites

I don’t generally jump into things with both feet. I stick my toe in, stir the waters a bit. Too hot, I’m out. Too cold, I’m out. But I’ll sit on the riverbank until eventually I’m compelled to jump in. That’s kind of what happened with things like www.mybloglog.com and Blogcatalog.com. I joined them but rather than diving headlong into the opportunity I did nothing. I didn’t make contacts, I didn’t talk to people. In short I didn’t participate at all. I’ve set out to correct that, but once again I can’t help but wonder where I’d be had I done it right from the beginning.

Other online communities

I’m a member of several online forums and never dropped my link to any of them. I didn’t want to upset the moderators, didn’t want to be a spammer, blah, blah, blah. I’ll just say this, since I’ve begun to link to my site and my full RSS feed things have started picking up pace.

The point of all this being that if you don’t have yer eyes peeled no matter how great the opportunity is you’ll never take it, because you won’t ever see it.

Posted in Blogging | 6 Comments »

If you won’t promote yourself who will?

If you won’t promote yourself who will?

Several days ago I received an email from someone requesting I goto a particular website and do a short interview about this blog. After putting it off for a few days I took the plunge and filled out the interview form spilling my guts for all to see.

That was a few days ago and just this morning I received another email telling me that the interview was now live on their site. If you’d like to read the interview click on the graphic below and you’ll be taken to it where you will also have an option of voting for this blog. I haven’t bothered to find out what happens if I were to win the vote.

All that to say that you reading my interview and voting (or not) for this blog isn’t actually the purpose of this article though it serves as a good jump-off point. Mind you, I’m not an expert on the subject of promotion by any means and even less so when it comes to internet promotions. I do however have real world experience and observation which, at least for me, translate quite readily over to the digital medium. In this section we’ll take a quick look at the value and importance of self promotion as your project launches.

Have a gameplan in place

Even before it is time to begin promoting you should be ready with a plan. And in case that plan fails you should be ready with a backup plan or three. Once it is time to implement the plan do so and stick to it, but don’t be afraid to pull out if it isn’t working. You can always go to plan B, C, D, E…

There are no maps to your site

At least not until you make them and hand them out. Submit your site to search engines, use your link in your signature on emails, forums, and anywhere else that you can think of. Any chance you get drop your homepage link. In a recent article John Chow advises his readers that simply building a site isn’t enough to make money online. He is speaking specifically to the effects of traffic on monetization, but clearly what he says translates across all online endeavors. Without traffic your site is dead in the water.

Leverage your friends

If you’re like most people you’ve probably built up a decent amount of online contacts that have nothing to do with your blog. Most of them will be more than happy to help you out with promoting your site, but you have to ask for them to help. The danger I’ve found in this is that some of them can become a little over zealous. Be certain they understand the difference between promotion and spam.

Leverage you enemies

No doubt you have these as well if you’ve spent any amount of time online. While you won’t be able to specifically request them to promote you there’s nothing stopping you from baiting them into saying something about you or your blog. From my experience enemies will link to your site not for the purpose of promotion, but so everyone else can see for themselves how bad it really is.

No one gets a huge site by sheer dumb luck. If you aren’t willing to spend some time promoting your brand no one else will either. Take pride in what you have created and let the world know. Eventually they will come, but how many and how fast all depend on how much effort you put into promotion.

Posted in Blogging | 7 Comments »

Is the monster loose? User data compromised.

Is the monster loose? User data compromised.

It seems that the monster has fallen prey to hackers and the data of millions of users has been compromised.

Posted in News and Politics | 2 Comments »

The importance of feedback

The importance of feedback

An essential element of a successful business, be it online or brick and mortar is the desire to receive feedback. Nearly as important as the desire to receive is the willingness to make changes that your feedback addresses.

Who to get feedback from

We should get feedback about our efforts from several different sources. Each source can provide a unique perspective that should be taken under consideration.

Your Readers

Sometimes we get so busy writing articles that we want to share, and giving our opinions about this, that, and the other things that we seemingly forget about the people we actually write our blogs for, the readers. Without someone reading your work, what would be the point? To gather effective reader feedback try some of the following methods.

• An onsite poll. Try using a poll on your wordpress blog
• Ask specific questions in your article. A fair number of people will respond via comment with answers.
• Read conversations on other blogs to see what is being said there. It will help give you some insight to your own community.
• Send an email directly to the person with 3-5 questions on it. This can upset some people so use it sparingly

By no means is this an exhaustive list of ways to get feedback from your readers.

Advertisers

Advertisers have a vested interest in your blog doing well. They no doubt also have an opinion about what is good and what is bad about your blog. Ask them to spend 10 or 15 minutes on your blog and then have them give you some feedback about what they observed, and their impressions about it overall.

Friends and Family

Sit them down in front of a computer and observe what they do. You almost don’t even need to ask questions with this type of a feedback. Watch what they click on, how often they click, is there anything they go back to on a regular basis. Get 3 or 4 friends/family to do this for you and you’ll start to see some patterns emerging.

Why, when, and how often?

Nearly as important as getting feedback is knowning why you need it, when you need it, and how often you need it. In this section I will take a quick look at each of those questions individually.

Why do I need feedback?

Feedback is necessary for the continued growth and well-being of your blog or website because it is the simplest and most effective way to put your finger on the pulse of your readers. It will allow you to make adjustments as needed in order that you will continue to improve and draw in more of an audience.

When do I need feedback?

Obviously you should be observing what goes on at all times, but I say wait at least 2 months before you start eliciting feedback from your readers. Reason being is that by the two month mark you should have a fairly established reader base. I believe that an established base is necessary for accurate and honest feedback. People who are just passing through don’t tend to care one way or another.

How often should I get feedback

I say once a month collect feedback, but try to always switch up the method you use and definitely change the people you ask.

I hope this gives you some ideas about working with your readers, friends, and family to get some feedback about your blog or website. Do you ever ask your readers for their thoughts on any aspect of your blog?

Posted in Blogging | 4 Comments »