Think Globally

This was originally posted on Not For Slaves in the post Why Professionals Need to Compete Globally. The slideshow offers up some statistics that really make you think.

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Be sure to visit the original post on NotForslaves because the rest of the post is equally thought provoking.

What do you think?

Written by Pixelhead on April 29th, 2008 with 17 comments.
Read more articles on Networking.

Problogger on Twitter

Problogger.com Darren Rowse’s latest Twitter posts I received in my email this morning 35 Twitter Tips from 35 Twitter Users, 9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers, and How to Use Twitter – Tips for Bloggers(yesterday). Well seeing all these great Twitter posts from Darren, made me realize, I had yet to add him to my Twitter. So I clicked on Darrens link, logged on and added him.

Skimming through all three of Darren’s posts, I realize there are a ton of mistakes that I have made while using Twitter. Probably my biggest mistake is not doing it enough. I had been on a regular daily Twitter schedule, but within the last several months, I have found myself tweeting less and less. Darren suggests scheduling several minutes in the morning and at night to tweet.

A few Problogger Suggestions:

• Use multiple Twitter profiles for different purposes such as one for different blogs you may have. I actually had been thinking about setting up one for family and friends in addition to my blogging profile.
• Use goals for your Twittering to get organized and more focused.
• Use Twitter for Research
• Promote Content- use TwitterFeed to publish your blog feed headlines. Did it,thanks for the reminder Darren.
• Use it for Speedlinking- find a cool blog post, tweet it.

Well any way, if you are looking for information about using Twitter to Network, be sure to check out all three of the Problogger posts mentioned above which are sure to be great Twitter resources for both new and experienced Twitter users.

Here are other Twitter Posts on Pixelheadonline and my Twitter profile if you’d care to add me is EmperorAnton.
Tags: Networking, Twitter, Micro-Blogging

Written by Pixelhead on January 25th, 2008 with 8 comments.
Read more articles on Blogging and Marketing and Networking and Twitter and Uncategorized.

Building Blog Traffic with Blogcatalog

This is the second in a series of Building Traffic with Social Media blog posts. The first post focused on Using Mybloglog to build traffic, and ths one will focus on Blogcatalog , which is another great site for using to promote your blog and for developing networks of blogging friends.

What is Blogcatalog?

Blogcatalog is essentially a blog directory, however, it is without a doubt, one of the largest and best blog directories that is being actively developed.

What features does Blogcatalog Have?

• a blog directory
• a blog group directory
• ability to create groups
• ability to find and join other groups
• ability to find and add contacts
• ability to message other contacts
• creates a log of blog posts for each listed blog
• can leave comments about others blogs

How do You Join Blogcatalog?

Blogcatalog, is free to join, after which you may add your blogs provided they have a minimum number of posts and I believe must also be at least 6 months old. I might be wrong on this, but I have had at least one blog not accepted, but then when I resubmitted it several months later, the blog was then accepted.

After joining and before having your blog accepted you will need to place some sort of Blogcatalog Badge or widget on your blog. The widgets are very similar to the Mybloglog widget, so you may opt for just putting on a Blogcatalog Badge on your site.

Blog Catalog Premium services

BlogCatalog has some premium services available which include a nice little logo next to your profile saying you are a Blogcatalog supporter. There is also a premium listing method for the Blogcatalog directory, which will enable your blog to be listed ahead of other blogs in a particular category. There are a limited number of premium listings per category, so you may have to purchase a premium listing in an alternate category. The premium listings are also on a month to month basis, however the prices are pretty inexpensive, and many of the categories in addition to being cached in Google, also have some pretty good page rank.

How do I build traffic?

1. Blogcatalog has a lot of communities available which can allow bloggers to network with similar types of blogs. After logging on, do a group search using your particular keywords. For instance, for my pet blog, I did a search for pets, dogs, and cats; and then I joined several pet related groups.
2. Don’t see a group to your liking, Start your own, and then go invite others to join it.
3. Visit other bloggers profiles that you might be able to network with and invite them to join your group.
4. Leave blog review comments on the blog pages. This will involve actually going to other blogs and checking them out. You may also want to leave a comment on their blog. (Please don’t leave a “nice blog, check mine out comment)
5. Another way you can get traffic is by participating in the discussions in the particular groups in a meaningful manner. This could be asking relevant comments, or even asking advice of other bloggers. Bloggers love to be asked for advice.
6. Start new meaningful threads on groups. Don’t be afraid to start some controversial threads either. But please be nice.

How Else Can You Build Traffic With Blogcatalog?

I am not an authority on Blogcatalog, but this post covers the basics on using it for networking. If any other readers have any other methods for networking with Blogcatalog that I have not covered, please feel free to either leave a comment with your advice or leave a url to any Blogcatalog resource posts that may be helpful.

I am EmperorAnton on Blogcatalog if you’s like to add me.

Tags: Blogcatalog, Networking, Social Media, Blog Development

Written by Pixelhead on January 23rd, 2008 with 29 comments.
Read more articles on Blogcatalog and Marketing and Networking and Uncategorized and Web 2.0.

Using Mybloglog – Building Traffic Post 1

A new SEO client asked me for some suggestions for building traffic using the Social Media. So I have decided rather than giving the client a huge report, I would write a series of posts here that give some suggestions. I will also be linking out to other sites that can act as resources as well.

To begin with, I am going to suggest joining four of my favorite social marketing sites to start and focus on building networks on these four sites. The four sites I am going to suggest starting with are Digg, Stumbleupon, Blogcatalog and the subject of this post, Mybloglog. See my Networks page for more of the sites I use.
Joining Mybloglog.com

Mybloglog, which is now part of Yahoo is a great site for developing a network of bloggers.

Join by visiting the the Mybloglog homepage, and clicking the “sign up” link. This will require you to create a Yahoo ID, for which you can use on all the Yahoo Internet properties if you so choose.

After creating your Yahoo Id or using an old Yahoo Id, you will then need to add information to your profile such as personal data if you so choose. I would also add a picture for your avatar, which does not need to be a picture of you, but can be if you so desire. Unique eye catching avatars are always a good thing, but stay away from the sexy lady type avatar.

Next after updating your profile information, it is time to add the sites/ blogs that you author. Feel free to add a non-blog site as well, but I would suggest adding a blog as your first site. To add your blog, when you are on your profile home page, click the green box under “account tools” that says “Add site/blog that I author”.

In the Blog/site Name, type in the name of your site, this can be a keyword title or the actual title.

Next put in the url of the mybloglog page, which should be a keyword title. Use dashes between multiple words of th url, don’t jumble all the words together.

Fill in the other items and click the “Add Blog/Site” button.

Adding A Mybloglog Widget

Next, I recommend adding a Mybloglog widget to your sidebar, which can be obtained by clicking the “widgets link”. I like using the Recent Readers widget, but you can use a different one. Using the Recent Readers widget, and probably the others, will enable you to receive some traffic stats that are pretty handy. Not nearly as good as Google analytics, but they provide some nice traffic stats such as page views, where visitors came from etc.

Additionally, you can also sign up for a premium Mybloglog account which will enable you to receive stats over a longer period of time as well as up to the minute stats. For the free account you will only be able to see the previous days results and the past 10 days I believe.

If you use a Wordpress platform, depending upon the template and Wordpress version, their is a widget that you can add that allows easy installation of the Mybloglog widget.

If you have a free Wordpress.com here is a post that could help you with adding the Mybloglog widget to your blog. Its a bit tricky with the free ones, but it can be done.

Additionally, if neither of these can help you, after you have the widget made to fit your site(adjust colors, size, text) you can get the code and copy it into your sidebar template manually via your blogs dashboard.

Getting Traffic Using Mybloglog

First, in the search bar at the top of the Mybloglog page, type in your keywords or related keywords. Sites that are competing or closely related to yours should show up for these phrases, then:

• Click on the profile avatars of members that show up and add them as contacts after you visit their sites and determine they are a good match to network.
• Click on the communities that show up for the search term, and join the communities. Visit the sites and join in the conversation on these blogs by making meaningful comments. This will result in visits to your blog from both the site owner and visitors to the site that may like your comments.

When someone visits your blog, what do you do?

If the person leaves a comment, return the favor and visit their site if they leave a site url in the comments field.(most do).

If the person does not leave a comment, but shows up on your widget, click on their avatar and either: leave them a message on Mybloglog or visit their site and leave a comment. Mybloglog requires you to add them as a contact before you can leave them a message on their profile page. In the message thank them for visiting your site and I would suggest making a comment about their site after you have visited it of course.

Other Mybloglog Resources:

• The Mybloglog Blog
• Got any Mybloglog resources or tips to add?

Tags: Mybloglog, Social Media, Blogging, Networking

Written by Pixelhead on January 7th, 2008 with 27 comments.
Read more articles on Blogging and Marketing and Mybloglog and Networking and Uncategorized and Web 2.0.

Social Media SEO for Hire

Yesterday, I received news that my last day working for the local search marketing company I had been working for was yesterday. Benefits(health insurance) would end at the end of the month which happens to be Friday. This does not come as a shock, since Lizzie and I both had worked for the same company for several years, and downsizing has been occurring over the past year.

So if you need any SEO/Social media work to include consulting, link building, or general site evaluations, please keep me in mind.
My Plan of Action

1. Get the word out to various contacts which could offer assistance.
2. Update resume and post on various sites.
3. Visit various job sites to include careerbuilder.com, montster.com, and Oaseo.com an SEO job community.
4. Visit various job boards such as the Problogger job board.
5. Keep working on existing freelance clients.
6. Contact previous clients.
7. Back-sell other services to current clients.
8. Keep on networking.
9. Cut back extraneous expenses.
10. Prioritize my efforts.

What would you do in my situation? How would you generate leads? Any advice would be appreciated.

Update: A project that was in the pipeline came through today. We are actually ahead of the game.

Factoring  in lost income, tax advantages of paying our own health insurance, income from the new contract, expenses of the new contract, increase availability of time due to having less clients; we are way ahead of where we were yesterday.

Written by Pixelhead on November 28th, 2007 with 16 comments.
Read more articles on Blogging and Marketing and Networking and Pixelhead Updates and SEM and SEO and Uncategorized and Web 2.0.

Social Media Article

Another top commentator, Steven Snell of Vandelay Website Design, in the post Building Consistent Traffic With Social Media, gives some good advice about building consistent traffic using a variety of social media sites.

Steven has shown that he is a master of using the Social media to build traffic with many of his posts becoming very popular on sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon, and Del.icio.us.

A couple of key tips that I would like to highlight from the post include:

• Get to know the differences between the various social media sites.
• Focus on StumbleUpon.
• Build Power profiles.
• Write about the Social Media.
• Use buttons on your posts.

Whether you are a seasoned social media user or new to using social media sites, I suggest checking out the articles in the Social Media category on his site, where you can find such articles as the one listed above and others such as 233 Social Networking Sites for Marketing Your Blog.

Written by Pixelhead on November 24th, 2007 with 15 comments.
Read more articles on Marketing and Networking and Site Reviews and Top Commentors and Uncategorized and Web 2.0.

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