Follow Friday: 16 Chances to Get Around
Weekly list of posts from bloggers I interact with here on the blog, on Twitter (@bizchickblogs), or at WeBlogBetter or TechnShare.
This week there were a ton of comments left on this blog. If your post is not listed, please know that I did my best to get around to everyone but I’ve been sick most of the week and didn’t have as much time as I needed. Still, there are 16 posts here worth checking out.
How to Get the Most from This Series
If you’re busy, like me, you don’t have much time to run around and network and comment every day. There are several of us who do weekly series’ like this. My advice would be to take an hour or so, once a week, to visit just one of the weeklies, visit each post on it, and do your thing -
- Comment
- Follow the blogger on Twitter
- Subscribe to their RSS feed
- Share the ones you like on Facebook
- Link to one of the posts on your blog
This is part of what Wayne Howard was talking about when he listed getting around as one of the blog success in 30 days methods. Try it.
Life/Business Skills
- 21 Essential Life Lessons: One of the many posts entered in the Life Lessons Series, Jean listed 21 lessons she’s learned throughout life. My favorites are “don’t be possessed by your possessions” (if you could only see how Spartan my home is!) and “If you want a better life, think better thoughts.” Truer words have never been spoken!
- 10 Reasons Your Local Business Needs a Website: If you’re reading this, chances are 99 to 1 that you already have a website. Still, so many local businesses don’t, or are trying to get by with just a Facebook page and a Twitter account, or something like that. And, I’m listing it for the simple fact that his first point, “This is the 21st Century,” is exactly what I would say to someone.
Blogging – General Tips
- The Blogging Language as I See It: This was actually posted last Friday, after this weekly was published. It’s by Hesham, creator of FamousBloggers.net and everyone needs to read it. I’ve been fortunate on BizChickBlogs to not run into too many critics but I take the same stance as Hesham – elevate your level of understanding and open your eyes to the people around you. Realize that not everyone is a native English speaker and curb your desire to lash out at stupid grammar or spelling mistakes. My mantra on this is: Don’t be a Blogworld Sheriff. It doesn’t pay well, any way.
- 4 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Blog’s Bounce Rate: Very thorough and useful post by one of my new, young Twitter friends, @thelibzter. Good job, Libby!
- Does Your Blog Have an Individual Voice? Read this if you don’t want to sound like a copycat. It’s one of the things that personally drives me a little bonkers in the blogosphere.
Blog Design/Layout
- When Should You Change Your Blog’s Template? Given that I change my blog’s design more often than Sarah Jessica Parker changes her hair color, this post caught my attention. Lots of people like to add their opinions about this. While the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… Tia’s saying goes… dude, if it IS jacked up, fix it.
- Design Tutorials that will Kick Start Your WordPress Site: I love, love, love this post. There is something in there we could probably all use; just have a look. I personally like the floating social bookmark icons tutorial. The fewer plugins you have on your blog, the better it will perform (generally speaking).
- How to Use Headers on Your Blog: I know that some of you have seen this one, but many of you haven’t. This is something I wrote about using headers throughout your posts that you should read. It’s practical and will help you out.
Engaging Other Bloggers/Readers
- How to Get 30 Comments on a New Blog: The number 30 isn’t really the important thing here. The three practical tips here that Sourav gives are totally on-point.
- Does that Blogger Know that You Like Them? Kathy Blogger discusses in particular the simple act of letting someone know when you’ve linked to them, and in general, the relationship between bloggers who link out and who are linked to. It’s a good read.
- BloggerLuv – A Great Community of Bloggers: I just recently tapped into BloggerLuv so I’m not qualified to talk it up just yet, but so far, so good. This is a post by Jakes who explains a bit about the BloggerLuv community, but then lists several articles you can read to get other people’s opinions of it. From what I can tell, many BloggerLuvers are die-hard fans.
Guest Blogging
- Articles Gallery: How to Effectively Build Contacts through Great Content: If you are the kind of person who, like Kathy Blogger, writes 50 posts ahead of time and keeps them in a repository just waiting to be used, you need to check out the Articles Gallery at My Blog Guest. This is a place where you can show off your articles and have people offer to publish them on their blogs! (P.S. if you have that many posts, you should submit one here. Look at the success Wayne had yesterday!)
SEO
- How to Get 10 High-Quality Links In 30 Minutes Or Less: Ana Hoffman from Traffic Generation Cafe talks about a technique using Firefox and SEO Quake to find high-quality, linkable sites.
- How to Use Paper.li Twitter Newspaper: This post by Kristi Hines on Stay on Search, talks about paper.li, the tweet-driven online newspaper utility. See an example here. How I use it: Every day when it is published, I read it and make sure to read and retweet anything good I missed during the day. I filter it so it only shows posts from people I put on the “bloggers” list.
Making Money
- Make Money Online and Don’t Pay a Dime – Newbie Orientation: Hands-down this is one of the best posts on making money online that I’ve ever read. James (@TheAvgGenius) is hilarious, probably my favorite blogger/writer, and he offers some great advice along with actual links to real stuff that helps – and it’s all free.
- How Much to Charge for a Text Link? This is actually a post from v7n. I’m going to start including some of them in this list because I think they are very helpful. And maybe it will encourage you to join the forum, grab some high-quality (and lightning-fast indexing) back links, and learn something new.
My Dad’s On Facebook
So, my rockstar dad is on Facebook (and grampa and everyone else). I didn’t grow up with my dad, really, past the age of 5. Lately it’s been really interesting to see my sister and I interact with him more now – on Facebook – than we ever did growing up. Color it however you want to, but the fact is that Facebook has transformed the way people communicate, and has effectively brought people together who otherwise would not be connected. At this point I think I would pay for Facebook, because without it, I’d hardly connect with any of my family or friends! Rather than resisting the technology, I’d rather roll with it. It gets the job done.
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Next Week’s List
Want to be part of next week’s list? It’s easy! Just start commenting here on the blog, or sharing things with me on Twitter (@bizchickblogs), or (new) share a link to your post on the wall at Facebook.com/BizChickBlogs. Everyone is welcome, no matter the niche.
About Tia Peterson
