If you look at the footer of MyMarketer you will notice something you might not have seen before—three miniature articles. The articles you will find focus on three areas: blog content, general web marketing, and search marketing. The titles of the articles are: Tips on Creating Great Content, How To Do Web Marketing Better, and Top Search Marketing Mistakes.

These are not your typical blog articles, but rather seriously condensed posts that are roughly 130 to 150 words and use about 20 lines of space. I call these mini articles Footer Seeds, and as far as I am aware this technique isn’t really being used in the blogosphere.

The BUM Award Back in the day, companies would come up with awards and then give these awards to certain websites. The whole purpose of the award was to stroke the ego of the website and to build links to the company giving the award out. I have decided that if I were to create my own imaginary award I would call it: Blogger Unknown to Many or BUM.

Not just anyone would receive my BUM award—for there certainly are many unknown bloggers out there. No the BUM Award would have to go to the blogger who: 1) actually really was an expert in his/her field (not just a self-proclaimed guru) 2) provided stellar content, amazing value, and knew what he/she was talking about, and 3) no matter how good their blog was or how knowledgeable they really were—the vast majority would still have no idea who they were.

The blogger I would give the BUM Award to this year is Joost de Valk, who blogs over at yoast.com. If you are a die hard blogger (particularly on wordpress) than you probably think I am crazy to believe that Joost deserves the BUM Award. A lot of the well known wordpress plugins are either developed by Joost or maintained by him. He also is one of the most advanced Internet marketers out there. His combination of programming knowledge and SEO is far superior than most bloggers on the web.

blog-pitch It has been an interesting journey trying to find the purpose of MyMarketer.net. If you look at some of my earlier posts, you will see that I am all over the board. Mixing personal, with hobby, and professional. It actually took me a year to really find my voice with mymarketer—and then I sold it.

I thought it would be easy to pick up my voice with another domain, but I was wrong. First, it took me sometime, and several domains, before I could find a place to call home. However, it wasn’t mymarketer.net. I worked hard to find the unique voice for that domain.

Finally, when I found it, the company that had purchased MyMarketer decided to give it back to me—and I started the process all over again.

identy-theft I still have several blogs that are on WordPress 2.6.1. Recently, I received the following notification from my host:

“Please note that versions of WordPress older than 2.6.5 have known vulnerabilities and can be potentially exploited to deface your website (or any under the same user account), send spam, run phishing scams, or similarly detrimental (and possibly illegal) activity.”

“The current version of WordPress (available at wordpress.org or via DreamHost’s One-Click feature) is 2.7. It is important that you update WordPress as soon as possible to secure your sites. If these are old or unused copies of WordPress, please remove them from the server or move them out of the active domain directory.”

From one of my first posts on this blog I received the below comment:

“…Before I buy a choose domain name and host it, how do I determine a good name for the website? Does that play a big role in how much traffic I can bring my way? Is it beneficial to stick with the product name, or would it be better to have it similar to the keywords and content? Or does that not matter either?”

These are really good questions, particularly when getting started. Yet, each question needs to have a detailed answer in order to be any help to you. So, I have broken these questions into three post:
Question 1: How do I determine a good name for the website?
Question 2: Does my website name play a big role in how much traffic I can?
Question 3: Is it beneficial to stick with the product name, or would it be better to have it similar to the keywords and content? Or does that not matter either?

Last year I was I asked to speak on business blogging for a Northern Utah chamber of commerce. I was later interviewed by their local newspaper and they did an article on the presentation.

It is interesting reading the article a year later. My thoughts have not changed on how important blogging is to businesses. I feel like I am on a mission to change people’s perspectives of blogging. Most people believe that blogging is online journaling. Over the last several years I have seen how blogging (particularly WordPress) has transformed the internet.

Today on Twitter I came across my friend Ash Buckle’s new blog called: Reason To Blog. The purpose of his blog is to show how blogging can be used successfully to create, brand, and increase website traffic. I tip my hat to Ash for creating an insightful blog. I am always on the hunt for great examples to show people how blogging can be a powerful business tool.

In 2005 I heard Paul Allen (the lesser) state that he believed Benjamin Franklin would be a blogger if he lived in our time. Over the years as I have become more enchanted with the blogosphere I have come to believe this more and more.

At the age of 15 “Ben” wrote under the pen name of “Mrs. Silence Dogood,” who Ben painted, through his words, as an opinionated middle-aged widow. The letters were published in his brother’s newspaper, the New England Courant, and became a subject of conversation throughout the town.

wordpress_logo01.gif I admit I am an addict—I absolutely love wordpress plugins! I actually have one client who pays me to know everything there is to know about plugins. Though, I have to be careful, because once I start hunting for a plugin I generally lose an entire day just searching and playing with them.

Recently, my good friend Ryan from IOVentures Inc. asked if I had written a blog post on my favorite plugins. I have been avoiding this post because it seems that everyone has their top 10 favorite plugins. However, Ryan isn’t the first to ask me, so I guess I will follow the blogosphere crowd and give you my favorite plugins. Hope these help! ~Paul W.

My Top Favority Plugins

Having a license plate with BLOGGER on it I get stopped a lot and asked questions about blogging. The number one question I get is, “Can someone really make money off of blogging?” This question is always followed up with, “How can I make money off blogging?”

Often people do not like my response. Mainly because I dispel any belief of someone starting right away making thousands of dollars a month. The blogosphere is full of stories of well known bloggers who took years to make the money they are currently making. It is a rare, rare example of a blogger who in month one made several thousands of dollars (regardless of what some hyped-up ebooks may tell you).

If my tales of blogging hardship hasn’t discouraged my listener than I proceed to share what I have learned.

Advertising Works…Sometimes
First, advertising can make you money. Darren over at Problogger and Jeremy at Shoemoney are proof of this. However, the likelihood of becoming an A++ blogger is rather unlikely. I’ve experimented with advertising but haven’t really taken to it. Not to say one shouldn’t, and maybe someday I will go down that path. For now, though, I prefer the clean, concise look of a non-ad-littered website

The Community Is Key
The number one resource in bringing me consistent revenue has been the community around my blog. My readers have introduced me to more opportunities and consulting jobs than anything else. In fact, it was due to a reader that made it possible for me to leave my corporate job.

Community Building Is Not Easy
Which conveniently takes me to my next point–you don’t build a community overnight. When I first started blogging I had no readers what-so-ever. This being the case, I had to work at Oracle during the day and blogged at night for almost a year. A community is a fickle thing. If you don’t continually work it won’t grow, and if you stop building it will die. I am reminded of a millionaire I once spoke to. He told me, “If a business isn’t growing it’s dying.” Your blog is no different. Many web snakes will tell you that you can put a blog on automatic and you will make lots of money. I am here to tell you this is rarely true, particularly since I have tried to do just that with another blog. Both my business partner and I have learned the hard way that blogs take nurturing and time.

Guy Kawasaki.jpg Yesterday I went to hear Guy Kawasaki speak in Salt Lake City. It is the first time I’ve heard him speak, and I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation—even with all the microphone technical difficulties.

While we were waiting for the presentation to start two guys behind me were talking about an easy way to crack an iPhone. If you go to www.JailBreakMe.com on your iPhone the website will instantly hack the phone and open up the network. I have yet to be an adapter to the iPhone but that advice was well worth the $10 I payed for the conference (not to mention Guy’s fun presentation).

I was going to give you my notes on Guy’s power point but you can get the whole presentation by emailing mary-louise at garage.com. Plus, if you want to know about the books he recommended you can go to my business partner’s blog and see Guy’s suggestions.