St. Patrick’s day is closing in on us quick. To any Irish, Catholic, or anyone who just likes pinching this day is one of our most fun days of the year.
So to get the most out of the green beer day, here’s 8 wallpapers to help brighten up our desktop.
Photo by cobalt123
Photo by Uwe Hermann
Photo by Brittany G
Photo by [cipher]
Photo by cytoon
Photo by Orin Optiglot
Photo by Hyougushi
Photo by PPDIGITAL
Here’s a few pages I found quite interesting when passing by the webosphere.
How to Write a Killer “How To” Article That Gets Attention
Picture your blog post sitting on the del.icio.us popular page, or the front page of Digg, for a day or so. By the time you finish reading this article, you’ll be in a better position to make that scenario a reality.
How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips)
The HowTo team at Mahalo has been an amazing surprise effort. We didn’t plan on making howto articles, but when we built various how to search pages we realized that many howto articles were, well, lacking. So, we started building select ones where we thought we could help. This one on how to save money is very good.
SlideShare is the best way to share your presentations with the world. Let your ideas reach a broad audience. Share publicly or privately. Add audio to create a webinar.
Enter a title and the tool will breakdown the words and display the effect they had on the link accumulation of popular Digg stories. Or you can check a specific keyword’s effect with the keyword tool.
Does your code pass the Turkey test?
1 CommentOver the past 6 years or so, I’ve failed each item on “The Turkey Test.” It’s very simple: will your code work properly on a person’s machine in or around the country of Turkey? Take this simple test.
Using deception as a way to gain popularity is something that goes back to the beginning of man. Even today, school children lie about their pet turtle being able to fly, fisherman lie about the biggest fish they caught, presidents lie to go to war, and representatives lie to raise taxes.
Deception is seen as a way to gain visits and respect throughout the respective community. Many make money online bloggers lie about the latest, greatest product to have their visitors buy through their affiliate program so they, themselves, will earn money.
They tell about the fabulous new advertising program, only to have you to sign up through them to receive the $20 referral bonus, even if you never earn a penny. Others will lie about how much money they made during the past month, just to get praise throughout the community. They will edit their checks, just to make it look as if they somehow have more authority than someone who flips pancakes for a living.
Every so often a new blog pops us stating they know the latest, greatest technique, but will only share it if you pay $19.99 for their eBook. My first thought is always, “If you are making so much money, why do you want someone else to pay you, since you obviously don’t need the money and why aren’t you using your own methods to make money instead?”
Photo by circo de invierno ~
Ah the power of deception. The fact is, most of the time it works. How many of you visit sites like JohnChow.com and sign up to every new advertising company he mentions? Just visit his latest monthly income report and view the part about affiliate commissions. Every dollar made through affiliate commissions is because you bought into what he said, and signed up or bought the latest item mentioned.
John Chow doesn’t make money because he uses these programs. He makes money because he sells the program to you. He is a master salesman. Each post he makes, over one-hundred people comment. No matter how many ads he sticks on his site, or how much bad press he gets, people come back and buy into what he says. That is power of deception and the power John Chow has as a blogger.
I do not condone these activities. However, I also do not fault those who use them. People fall for half-truths and lies everyday. It works. If it didn’t we as humans wouldn’t lie. It is our nature, and because others fall for it humans will continue to do so in the future.
Faking checks. There have been many who faked checks during their early years, only to later gain the same amount put on the check. Do it well enough and act like you make that amount and others will believe you and do everything you say.
Faking experiences. If you read about something so much, you can just as easily fake experiences with it. Never sold a product in your life but read twenty books on doing so? Someone who never sold a product will listen and gladly follow every word.
Faking news. No, not The Onion type stories, but stories that could be true but aren’t. For example, Prison Planet. Sure, some of the stories may be true, but it is almost impossible for every single one to be. Prison Planet is constantly on the front page of social news sites across the web due to their conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’.
Faking RSS subscribers. Honestly, no one cares and it can do more harm than good. If someone views your website and you have supposedly 10,000 RSS subscribers but no comments, chances are the visitor will not care or give it a second thought to sign up.
Faking page hits. There is a reason why the 1998 page counter isn’t used any longer, and it isn’t just because it is ugly. If your site has horrible content, the visitor will leave even if your site ‘received 1,000,000 visitors’ yesterday. Visitors couldn’t care less about your stats, unless you are an internet marketer then your readers will even find it hard to believe if you fake it too much.
The fact is, if you aren’t listed in Google or have initial readers, no one will see your deception. Just because your feed counter states 1,000 no more people will see your site. Your site will not automatically receive #1 for your keywords.
14 CommentsSome bloggers believe the best way to create a post is by quickly spurting out content generated on other sites and republishing it. The amount of websites doing so is astounding and disgusting.
Original, never-to-be-found-elsewhere posts is the best way and only way to have your readers coming back for more. By creating constant thorough posts audiences come back for more; while expecting only the best. This will result in not only returning visitors, but also RSS subscribers and trustworthiness that can result in more sales and click-throughs. If you saw the same post on ten other blogs, would you come back?
Photo by jurek_d
The downside of creating great content is how much work is involved. Fifteen-minute posts are just not the answer to creating great content and expanding your blog. Blog posts can take several hours to prepare before any initial marketing, especially if knowledge of the subject isn’t present or in-depth research is needed.
As a result, bloggers go through several steps to prepare a post:
When brain storming go to your thinking area and spend some down-time. I work best in the bathroom or in unrelated activities. I also carry a voice recorder with me at all times in case an idea happens to pop up while I’m in the middle of something. A notepad or the ever popular desktop publisher (if you can find one) works just as well.
Initial research is gathered by using Google and followed up by visits to related articles. If the post is about a new product or service I sign up and look around, taking screenshots of anything remotely important. Depending on the post, research can last as little as an hour to a week or more. In articles on my expertise, you can say the research was over a course of several years.
Although this is usually part of #2, it isn’t always. When writing a post it is important to find related articles for more information and as a place to link. Pingbacks are an important part of blogging and is a great way to market posts and gain readership.
This is the hard part, at least for me. You could say writing doesn’t come natural for me, even though I have read many resources and have written many papers throughout my lifetime. The great part about writing on the web is the ability to substitute essays with lists and short paragraphs. Not only does it make us look better, it helps our readers too.
Generally speaking blogs do better with visualization. This doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the article at hand, although it helps. Images are quite popular on social media sites, especially StumbleUpon. A nice image can lead to tens-of-thousands of visitors alone. Add great content and bam! Digg front-page.
A great place to look for images is Flickr–just be sure to use the creative commons, commercial and editable versions, and link back. If you are using WordPress a plugin called PhotoDropper work wonders and cut down time dramatically.
Editing is perhaps the most important step of an article. You can write the perfect post, but if it has too many grammar mistakes or spelling mishaps it will turn a would-be linkbait into another cellar-dweller. Edit the post, read it out loud, and edit it again.
This seems easy right? It isn’t always. Finding the perfect time to publish an article can be crucial. Post a great post on a day with few visitors and it will be forgotten and lost into the tunnel of never-reads. Publish the same post on an active day and watch the comments roll-in.
Each step plays an important role in writing. If done correctly and enough time is spent on preparing, you will no longer ask ‘How to write great content’, but instead ‘What do I do with all the visitors?’
11 CommentsOver the last few months I have published articles 5-6 times weekly. I normally write three of the articles during the weekend and two more early the following week allowing the other days to be free so I can work on my other sites. This is all about to change.
An important part of any blog is comments. Comments allow for an exchange of ideas and discussions far and beyond what any blogger can achieve alone. Because of this, I must sacrafice a small part of my writing to allow discussions to continue and expand further. I feel that by posting a new article, it pushes the other articles down disallowing new members eyes to view. Henceforth, I will no longer post 5-6 times weekly, but 2-3 (within the web-development category), depending on the levels of activity.
This change is only temporary and link love Thursday will continue, but will instead be published on the weekend.
Hopefully this change will benifit all readers, and myself. Although it saddens me that I will not be able to express all my ideas, I will be more able to market this site and work harder to write the articles I do publish.
These changes will go into effect the next week.
To hold you over until then, here are four amazing blogs:
TheMadHat
Performancing
DoshDosh
Problogger
