Happy New Year Dead Blog!
3 Jan 2010
This blog just about died, but now I have the excuse to say “Happy New Year” and update my blog. For businesses or individuals looking for new blog ideas – there you go! Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Happy January… whatever you want to use. Just blog about it, make it interesting and add some keywords. You owe me $10,000.00.
So Happy New Year and welcome to 2010 (however you want to pronounce it) and a possible new decade (however you want to do the math.) What else can I blog about? Let’s give you some off the top of my head personal predictions for the next year(s)…
- Personalized search results are going to mess up SEO guys.
- Social Media ninjas are going to keep designing more websites to afford their throwing star habit.
- More businesses will realize they need an eCommerce site to sell to the masses, or make it easier for their existing customers (or themselves.)
- People are hopefully going to start creating multiple Twitter accounts for their different businesses, ideas, hobbies, etc . . . so they don’t dilute their brands / main identity.
- I think 2010 may be the year for WordPress MU with normal WP install, but this seems kind of like the Mac Tablet rumors.
- Consumers will finally get sick of AT&T service and iPhone battery life and slowly migrate to new and better phones.
- Due to all the fake money we have printed, there will be major inflation and President Obama will be known as the next Jimmy Carter.
- Mister Rogers Neighborhood will no longer be on the air after 2010, and our children will not be able to watch real television – and I’m not talking about Reality TV.
- The Indiana Pacers will let many contracts expire and start all over with the young guys.
- Andy Kaufman will finally announce that he is alive, tour the country and wrestle women. It will be phenomenal.
Here’s to 2010!
- (1) Comment
- Tags: Blog, Blogging, Indiana Pacers, SEO, Social Media
Advertise Yourself on the Internet Like This?
17 Oct 2009
I randomly found this on Craigslist and it is just too funny not to share. This is a good example of how you shouldn’t market on the Internet, or Indiana social media sites, but at the same time it’s avoiding a lot of potential messy clients. His customers know what they’re going to get and probably leave happy with the low expectations. Just a friendly reminder to not sell yourself TOO much.
One seriously no-talent photographer, mediocre gear, no corporate website, no references. Available for small events that you really don’t care to remember.
Are your expectations low enough?
Allow me to lower the bar a bit farther…Never been to photography school.
Available whenever my real job doesn’t interfere…which is almost never.
Photoshop??!! You’ve obviously mistaken me for someone who…..
Never published. Never won an award. Never tried.
Not terribly fond of cats, kids or spiders.
Get Crazy With Social Media
In: Social Media
6 Oct 2009
I’ve decided to say the heck with it. I’m going to go out on a limb, roll the dice and skate on thin ice . . . you should just get crazy with social media. Drink a couple of beers, follow a bunch of people even though you haven’t tweeted yet . . . and get crazy.
Just go for it. Trust me, this whole social media strategy stuff is just a big ole’ waste of time. All you need to do is sign up for Twitter, post only one Tweet proclaiming your presence (something like “Welcome world to my Twitter page!) . . . and you’re off to the social media races. Those people that you follow on Twitter check their emails, find out you have only one tweet and immediately follow you back for no reason. Social media is awesome!
Listen folks, I’m a social media ninja. Drink beer, tweet and repeat. Then bug your friends on Facebook about your business. It’s that easy!
(Note to sensitive social media types: </sarcasm>)
- No Comments
- Tags: Social Media
Businesses Designing Their Own Wordpress Websites
In: Business Blogs
28 Sep 2009
Wordpress is all the rage these days. People have finally figured out that Wordpress is not just for blogs, you can actually make a great website with it. Wordpress is a CMS, and a good one at that.
Doug Karr recently added a few posts to his blog about website design, Wordpress and money. He claims you can easily make a Wordpress website yourself that looks good and works great. Don’t spend a bunch of money with a website design firm, just buy or download a free Wordpress theme and away you go! You get your web$ite for nothing and the clicks for free . . .
I agree with Doug. Well, I’m biased because I’ve been using Wordpress for five years, and I have made nice websites for businesses using Wordpress. They look good, do great in search engines and clients can upgrade their website whenever they want (without being charged each time for a simple update.)
But, what is missing from this discussion? The knowledge and effort required to properly set up a web host, domain name, email accounts, Wordpress site, training the client how to use it, and continual updates of the Wordpress software and plugins. Let’s not forget having to possibly edit the Wordpress theme code to make it compatible with the latest Wordpress upgrades and internet browser software.
Granted, Wordpress makes upgrades a lot easier now with one click updates. But do you feel comfortable backing up your database before the upgrade? If not, you could possibly lose everything. I’ve seen dumb Wordpress mistakes from “professional new media agencies” with permalink structure, SEO, category names, URL choices, and bad Wordpress themes . . . so even a lot of the “good guys” can’t do it right. And they charge a lot of mullah.
Do you want to do it right? Well, consider saving the hours of time it would take to learn the ins and outs of Wordpress and hire someone with Wordpress experience. Ask to see their portfolio and find out how many of their sites use Wordpress. The more experience they have with Wordpress, the more comfortable you will feel with the process and result. Then you can take over your website, have total control and hopefully rule the search engines . . . and get some clicks for free.
- (2) Comments
- Tags: Business Blogs, Wordpress
If you’re one of the fortunate few following me on Twitter, you might have guessed I am up to something. I actually started this new “social media” website probably over two years ago on Ning, but wasn’t ready to promote it, and of course it died like a slug bug in some beer.
To give you a little history, four years ago I purchased a website called Indiana Barrister, but couldn’t stand the domain name. I spoke with my partner in crime Abdul, who is the sole contributor, but he had already been blogging for a while and liked the name. Honestly, I had to Google the word “barrister” to find out what it really meant. It turns out it’s another word for the wonderful term lawyer, which angry people also call Abdul. However, the website didn’t really focus on law, it covered politics and news from Indiana. I bought the domain names IndianaDiscussion.com and IndianaConversation.com, but Abdul wanted to keep the name.
He was up for a second site, so I planned to start up IndianaDiscussion.com on the brand new Ning.com platform. And I eventually did … I even have the header for the original site, but it’s not really worth looking at. So in less than 300 more words, why the heck am I re-starting another website and what challenges will I face?
Indiana Barrister is pretty popular. Based on Abdul’s blog posts, we get a lot of traffic and a ton of comments. In almost five years, we have nearly 24,000 comments and currently receive around 20,000 visitors a month. In 2009, Indiana Barrister was named one the of top political blogs in the country by The Washington Post. It’s a good site to launch off and start something bigger.
The visitors are engaged. Any blog post can get from 10, to 30, to 75 comments … the news Abdul provides definitely gets the community talking. However, their comments are kind of lost in a sea of a lot of comments. I wanted a way for them to feature their great comments; or better yet, be able to add their own blog posts, start discussions, etc.
What Challenges will I Face?
The NBA Needs to Feature Tweets to Keep Them Clean
In: Social Media
23 Aug 2009
TJ Ford tweet from July 14th 8:08 AM
I am a huge Indiana Pacers fan, so I’m going to focus on the NBA, but this applies to the NFL, NBL, ABL, NHL and any other three letter combination you can think of. Or for that matter, any famous person or business.
Twitter has changed the way we communicate.
Maybe it started before that with anonymous bulletin boards, MySpace, Facebook and the like. People were talking to their “friends” and no one ever thought any of their comments could become public to strangers. Hello Twitter…
I guess some people feel like their Twitter followers are their friends, so once they become comfortable with Twitter, they pretty much say whatever they want. That’s what you will see from some guys in the NBA and other professional sports leagues.
As a fan of the Indiana Pacers, my favorite example is probably Marquis Daniels, and he won’t be back next year so it doesn’t really tarnish my team’s reputation. He started using Twitter heavily this summer, and not for the good. Bad words, weird comments, no mention of basketball, and grammar that needs a built in “Marquis Daniels translator” plug-in to figure out what he is trying to say. It’s that bad, and makes him look even worse.
Dahntay Jones Tweet
Another Pacers example is one of our newest players Dahntay Jones. Dahntay came from the Denver Nuggets to the Indiana Pacers this summer. The same week, he or supposedly his cousin, posted a long string of rap lyrics including the “n” word. At the end of the racially slurred lyric by Rick Ross, the message said: “the nuggets did me dirty.” When looking for his Twitter link, I noticed his most recent update says, “There’s nothing like 2johnny and cokes some smoke and my wife.” The reference to “smoke” is a little questionable.
Speaking of smoke, who could forget the biggest Twitter idiot of the month, or possibly year? Read the rest of this entry »
- (7) Comments
- Tags: Indiana Pacers, NBA, Sports, Twitter
Many businesses don’t feel a blog is worthwhile. Maybe because they hear about blogs on Oprah, or their significant other is always wasting time on the ESPN blog, mom blogs or Perez Hilton’s blog. Blogs could seem synonymous with The National Enquirer to some people, others just have no idea what a blog is, or how it could be used for business.
How about we not even call it a blog? Let’s call it a news page, or a news website about your product, services, and people behind the company. It can be much more than just a press release once a month. You can give your potential and current customers a better understanding of your company and why they should do business with you. A blog news page also offers the flexibility to add content to the website that doesn’t easily fit in the site map or main navigation.
Most importantly, you can improve search engine ranking for specific keyword phrases (products or services.) The more news posts or pages you add to your site, the better ranked your website will be in the search engines. Improved search engine ranking is connected to the increased-traffic-bone, which is connected to the higher-conversion-bone, which is connected to the get-more-leads bone, and then it is your job to connect that to the close-more-business-bone. And that’s how we play the blog game with businesses.
- (5) Comments
- Tags: Business Blogs, SEO
Sexiest Social Bookmarking Plugin for Wordpress
In: Blogging
6 Aug 2009It’s called Sexy Bookmarks, or SexyBookmarks, and it is pretty fancy looking. Or sexy, but I didn’t want to go there. It has cool little tabs for each bookmarking or social media site you want to include, and they pop up and down in a slick-like manner to make your website look hot. There’s like, oh my gosh, like 30 different websites to choose from.
Do you want a hot, sexy Wordpress blog or website? If you’re reading the homepage, click the “Read the rest of this entry” link to see what the Wordpress plugin looks like in action. (Now your blog will look like mine, great.)
- (4) Comments
- Tags: Wordpress
Show Me How You Can Get Business With Social Media!
In: Social Media
25 Jul 2009My friends and I used to get the same question about once a week, “Show me one way that social media has got us business?!?” We would respond with some pretty good examples, and a few large sales we got directly from using social media sites. The next week we would get the same question. And the next week, and the week after that.
Here is a recent example from my Facebook friends on how to get business using social media. Maybe screenshots will make it easy to understand and remember.
How easy was that? A friend remembered that another friend did fence work, they used social media to make the connection, and then you have a lead and potential business.
So how did Chrissy remember that Rachel’s family builds fences? Maybe some of Rachel’s messages on Facebook used a creative way to remind her friends in need of a fence . . . here’s one:
- (4) Comments
- Tags: Facebook, Social Media
Free Images for Blogs and Websites from Google
In: Blogging
18 Jul 2009
Many bloggers and website designers go to Google.com, click on the Images link, find a good picture, save it and upload it to their website. Unfortunately, I’ve done the same thing. Google Images makes it too easy.
Images are like text, do you want someone to copy your latest blog post and paste it on their website? Of course not, but the same rules apply to images. The images belong to the photographers, just like your blog posts should belong to you. If someone wants to share your blog post, you can give them permission . . . just like photographers do with the Creative Commons License.
Google has introduced a new Creative Commons Image Search feature that will help keep you moral and legal with your blog or website. You can search for images that are allowed to be used on your website without permission, and upload them without worry.
(BTW, Creative Commons Images = FREE images and pictures for your website that mostly look good.)
- (2) Comments
- Tags: Blogging, Free Images, Google
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- Happy New Year Dead Blog!
- Advertise Yourself on the Internet Like This?
- Get Crazy With Social Media
- Businesses Designing Their Own Wordpress Websites
- Reasons and Challenges: Starting a Local Political Website
- The NBA Needs to Feature Tweets to Keep Them Clean
- Don’t Want a Business Blog? Let’s Call It a News Page for SEO
- Sexiest Social Bookmarking Plugin for Wordpress
- Show Me How You Can Get Business With Social Media!
- Free Images for Blogs and Websites from Google
- daltonsbriefs: All very funny! I would add that 2010 will be the year that every unemployed person with a computer [...]
- Ian Rhodes: Absolutely right Kevin - I've had the same conversations - the term 'blogging' is syn [...]
- Kevin Hood : Kevin, I am the horse guy Kevin Hood wasn't aware of any competition between the two of us. [...]
- Kati Davis: I've been suggesting to University's for a while that they use a blog format for their new [...]
- Justin Harter: I best be getting myself busy with this new fangled-technique! [...]
Twitter: KevinHood
- Just married & already gave up -> RT @jim_brown: If you had a Butterfinger and a Milky Way... which would you eat first?
- @CBlogware How about changing "0 comments" to "Leave a Comment" ...until there are comments.
- This tweet got to my emotions. RT @oreillysbar: Drink your beer outside!! 36 S. Pennsylvania
- Wow IndyCars.com opening bid $2500 - $5000
- Trying to set up blogs w/ a certain company has been a nightmare this week!!!
- @jim_brown Can't wait for Brose McVey to hire my 15 y/o niece to manage social media!
- @JustinBryant ha, I tried to give you a @JustinBryant type of response. Tks by the way, head still small.
- I'm complimenting myself? RT @JustinBryant: @KevinHood you paid a big compliment today about your mad skillz... don't let it go to ur head
- @jerees Yes, since u have to squint 2day, it's car wash time! @minxsie I'd think 3 would be good time.
- Was trapped in Mike's Express Car Wash for 10 minutes today while a car was stuck... not exactly express.