Make a system In order to prevent needing to put out random forest fires, forest agencies engage in controlled burning. Reacting to sudden events can make you feel overwhelmed. Instead of putting out random fires as they pop up, you can engage in controlled burning. So you’re not doing things reactively and scrambling. Even if… Continue Reading
Should You Engage in Affiliate Marketing on a Business Blog?
I believe online businesses often benefit from diversifying their revenue streams. In plain English, that means you have more than just one way to make money. Just like an investor will advise you to diversify your investment portfolio in order to reduce risk, I’m suggesting you can do the same thing with an online business.… Continue Reading
The 5 Best Books for Business Bloggers
I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly reading. My bookshelf has two kinds of books on it: fantasy and business. In the fantasy department, right now I’m rereading R. Scott Bakker’s Prince of Nothing series (P.S. – all the links here are affiliate links). On the business side, I’m really digging Srinivas Rao’s new… Continue Reading
The Most Important Question to Ask Yourself about Every Blog Post You Write
Let’s not mess around, here. I’ll tell you what the question is, straight away. Why would anyone ever want to read this? That is the most important question you could ask yourself about what you’re writing on your blog. Sometimes, you just have something to say and that’s good enough. But sometimes it’s not. Why… Continue Reading
Should You Use Emoticons on Your Blog?
There’s no single right answer to this, by the way. Let’s just get that out of the way immediately. You must decide for yourself if you want to pepper your posts with smiley faces, which are known as “emoticons” (a shortened version of “emotional icon”) or sometimes “emoji.” WordPress is happy to help you out… Continue Reading
WordPress Weekend: Tips for Using Categories in WordPress
In this edition of WordPress Weekend we’ll explore managing and using categories in your WordPress blog. If you’re like most people, you probably didn’t think out your categories too well at first. You also may have ended up creating far too many categories. If you’ve ever wanted to change the focus of your blog, dealing… Continue Reading
Get More Time for Blogging and Social Media by Improving Your Workflow
It’s not a matter of how much time you have, because we all have exactly the same amount. No, it’s a matter of how you choose to use your time. Let me share several “out-of-the-box” ways you can use your time. Before you know it, you’ll crankin’ out more blog posts (and good ones, at… Continue Reading
4 Blogging Myths that Need to Just Die Already
If you’re brand new to something, you feel unsure of yourself. You look to the example of others for what to do. That’s natural. The problem is that you can’t keep doing that if you really want to succeed. Doing what everyone else does has never been a formula for success. Also, a sort of… Continue Reading
WordPress Weekend: 3 Resources to Improve your Admin Experience
You spend a lot of time in the WordPress dashboard, managing your online business. Shouldn’t it be a better experience for you? That’s the focus of this WordPress Weekend: resources to improve your administration experience. Three doesn’t seem like a lot, but I guarantee you can spend quite a bit of time making good use out… Continue Reading
Bloggers, You Have Permission… Be Ye Not Afraid
I was speaking with one of my Blog Reboot clients earlier today on Skype and when I suggested the changes to be made about his online business, and why, I heard a huge sigh of relief on the other end. “You have no idea how much I’ve been wanting to do that,” he said. The… Continue Reading
The Absolutely Foolproof Blog Post Checklist
Ever publish a blog post only to discover some glaring mistake you made, some thing you completely missed? Me neither! Ahem… But for everyone else, I’ve put together this absolutely foolproof blog post checklist. This post might be worth bookmarking or printing out to keep nearby. Grammar & spelling No shit, right? And yet so many… Continue Reading
5 Strategies for Retail Blogging
Do you sell physical products in a store and/or online? If so, there are specific blogging strategies that create desirable, relevant content to keep you at the top of your customers’ minds and encourage purchases. These strategies are based on what’s always worked in retail: People love a good deal People love exclusive “VIP” treatment… Continue Reading
WordPress Weekend: 5 New Plugins
Hope your weekend is going well. I’ve relocated to North Carolina where the weather is much nicer at the moment than Vermont, so I’m enjoying that. I’ve got a few new(ish) WordPress plugins for ya for this week’s WordPress Weekend post. I haven’t tested any of these. You can try them out on a test blog… Continue Reading
What Writing for the Web Really Means
Just a quick note before I get to the post: I had planned on publishing a podcast today, but no matter what I did it just kept sounding terrible. Between this dreadful cold I have and my ambient environment being extremely noisy (and having no control over it), I decided to scrap it. However, after… Continue Reading
5 Ways to Create a Memorable Personality for Your Blog
How should you sound in your blog posts? What kind of personality do you want to present? You may first have to discover yourself before you can be yourself. Most people’s “selves” need a bit of sprucing up. And you may think that “being yourself” is akin to being uninhibited or informal. That could lead… Continue Reading
The 3 Different Types of Readers on Your Business Blog
If you don’t know who you’re talking to, then how do you know what to say? Even though you already know who your target market is (oh, God, I certainly hope you do), did you know you are still writing for three distinct audiences? What I’d like to do today is explain these three audiences… Continue Reading
What to Put on the Home Page of Your Business Blog
One critical mistake I see constantly in business websites is a default WordPress blog setup where the blog is the home page. After you read this article, not only will you not be making that same mistake, you will know what you should put on the home page instead. Why? Because there’s no obvious product or… Continue Reading
15 Social Media Marketing Terms Defined so You Don’t Sound Like a Dumbass
My 20 not-so-obvious blogging terms post was a popular one, and it got me thinking of something along similar lines for social media. Social media is even more of a mystery to people than blogging is, so instead of going for the “not-so-obvious” here, I’m going for “dumbass prevention.” Enjoy, and if there’s anything else… Continue Reading
WordPress Weekend: The Power of WordPress Shortcodes
Shortcodes are one of the best developments in recent WordPress history. When I started blogging back in the late 90s, they didn’t exist. If you wanted code, you wrote the HTML yourself (uphill, in the snow, both ways… heh). Shortcodes are little bits of code within square brackets you can pop right into the content… Continue Reading
Remarkablogger Podcast ep. 5: What Bloggers and Journalists can Learn from Each Other
Show Notes Sometimes bloggers and journalists seem very similar to each other. Other times, it seems they couldn’t be more different. They have much to learn from each other. Let’s explore some of the ways in which you can be a better blogger by applying some of the tips and techniques journalists use in their… Continue Reading
The 7 Steps to Writing Any Blog Post
There are steps to any process, and you’re going to go through them to some degree or other, whether you’re aware of them or not. Knowing the steps makes it easier so you don’t spin your wheels or try to do something at the wrong time. You already are busy enough and have little time… Continue Reading
The Secret to Blogging Inspiration? That’s Easy: Become a Slave
One way I’ve learned to recognize truth in this life is to look for paradox. If there’s a paradox, it’s likely there is also truth to be found. One paradox many of us are familiar with is that of the slave who becomes a ruler because he is indispensable. In your quest to write blog posts… Continue Reading
WordPress Weekend: How to Set Up a Test Blog
I believe experimenting with your blog is crucial to success, but you don’t want to experiment publicly on your live site and risk messing it all up (with the possibility of getting in over your head). So I made you this video to show you how you can set up a test blog on your… Continue Reading
Remarkablogger Podcast ep. 4 – Blog Post Headlines and my Forthcoming Book
Play or Download the Podcast Show Notes In this week’s episode I’ll share with you 3 important things you need to know about blog post headlines and I’ll tell you a little bit about the book I’m working on (this is gonna be my big “how to blog” type book). I reference an older post… Continue Reading
What to do with your blog when you travel or get sick
Most blogs only have one person working on them. If that’s you, you may have wondered what to do if you get sick or travel for a period of time. How will you write blog posts or respond to comments or social media? What happens if something goes wrong with your blog while you’re busy?… Continue Reading
Should You Use Twitter Hashtags?
Twitter hashtags are bedeviling little creatures. They never seem to work the way you want them to. Especially if you’re McDonalds. You may have tried to use them, yourself, with the only real result being that you have fewer characters in your tweet to say anything useful. And yet you see them sprinkled over everything… Continue Reading
WordPress Weekend: 5 New Plugins to Improve Your Blog
I’m beginning a weekly feature here on Remarkablogger, and I’m calling it “WordPress Weekend.” Each Saturday, I’ll feature tools and tutorials for the WordPress blogging platform. I love the higher-level discussions we have here about things like experimenting on your blog or speaking your mind on your blog. But I have so much practical stuff… Continue Reading
Remarkablogger Podcast ep. 3 – How Blogging Can Hurt Your Business
Show Notes Did I just say blogging could… hurt your business? Yep. It definitely can. You’ll want to listen in to find out how. I’ll also be talking about the dark side of Facebook Graph Search (which, it turns out, was a hoax) and why nobody cares that Quora launched a new feature that lets you… Continue Reading
Writing Blog Posts – Are You a Planner or a Pantser?
There are two kind of writers: planners and pantsers. Planners (or, sometimes, plotters, if you’re talking about fiction) already know everything they’re going to say, at least to some extent. They know in advance what their topics are going to be. They’ve already written at least a few test headlines. They may have even jotted… Continue Reading
How to Understand and Manage Blog Comments
Blog comments can be very gratifying but also stressful. You want comments that are thoughtful and (let’s be honest) that make your business look good. Not in a shallow, flattering manner, but because a great discussion makes people feel positive about your brand. Conversely, a negative discussion makes people feel negatively towards your brand and… Continue Reading