Realespace

I have been writing down ways to get your blog more traffic for an upcoming blog posts. I was looking around for tools that allowed a blog author to add their most recent blog posts to the signature of their emails. I could not find any so I wrote up a little script that does it. It is a Thunderbird extension, so if you use outlook, you will have to keep searching.

Thunderbird is a free email client built by the guys that brought you Firefox, and like Firefox, you can build extensions for it easily.

Let’s get to it.

Download the extension here: blogpoststosig2@matt.dunlap.xpi

Then in Thunderbird, go to Tools > add-ons and click install. This will open a file browser…find my extension and install it. Thunderbird will restart automatically.

After Thunderbird restarts, go to tools > add-ons again and click on options for the extension. You need to specify your blog feed.

Your done. Next time you go to write an email, in Tools, you will see

Below is my email signature with my 5 most recent blog posts

Pretty simple with lots of room for improvement. Feel free to take the code and extend. I would like to extend it to automatically find the email signature and insert the recent blog posts automatically. Any other suggestions are welcome.

If it is taking you a couple hours to write blog posts, you are not doing it right. The most common reason why people give up blogging is that it takes too much time. Even the longest posts (600 words + ) should only take you 15 minutes from the time you start typing to the time you hit publish. Here are a few concepts that will speed up your posts.

The computer has a handy little button called the delete button, and sidekick backspace button. These little fellows makes your life much harder when it comes to blogging. I suggest writing as much as you can without these buttons.

Why?
Because, instead of just writing down what comes to mind then editing in large, you edit as you go and waste time. Next time you write, keep track of how many times you go hit each button. Writing down everything that comes to mind is very similar to brainstorming ideas and I’m pretty sure you were all taught this concept in elementary school. I actually write down my posts (ideas) on a piece of paper, not editing at all, just write. Set a timer for about 15 minutes and don’t stop until the timer alarms. If you get writer’s block, keep writing the same words over and over, just keep the pencil moving.

There have been cases where writer’s block has lasted for years or decades
Source: wiki - Writers block

If you have never done this writing exercise, you will be amazed how much you will have on paper in just 15 minutes. Now you have a really good place to start editing and making the post more readable. Just cross out, use arrows, circle paragraphs to edit the post while it’s on paper.

All that is left to do it type it into your blog, which is the easy part. When you are typing into your blog, don’t right click every time you see the  red squiggly underline on misspelled words… hit them all at the end, after you have finished the post.

when you write you are actually a multi-tasking mess. Writing, editing, correcting… try to do each one separately and your writing will speed up tremendously.

Try writing the post on paper in the evening and then blogging in the morning. Of course after your first cup of coffee, so your fingers are nice and loose and ready to get to work. Also, in the morning more people are reading the blog readers while they are suppose to be working so it’s good to publish while you have eyeballs on your content.

First of all I want to thanks all the guys that work on putting this conference together. IMO it was a huge success. We came away with some good relationships with vendor and I learned something from every panel. Good job!

REtechsouth website
The guys that put it all together
Brad Nix, Maxsell.net
Matt Fagioli, DiamondDwellings.com

There were actually a lot of people involved, but those two guys really did a great job and put most of the even together.

I was a speaker on “The Dreaded SEO” panel. There was some good information put out from that panel, although there were some differentiating ideas. When I was preparing for the panel, I focused on 3 concepts to achieve from the discussion. Those being, it’s all about relationships, SEO can be to much to handle, and keywords are the key.

It’s all about relationships
Every business is a lead business, whether you are a dentist, real estate agents, software developer, your business will not succeed with out leads. If you are focusing on getting all your leads from google search results you will not be in business for very long. Even on the internet you have to be pro-active and go get your business. The internet should not change your business plan, but rather enhance your lead generating plans. IMO you should focus on building relationships, just like you do in real life.

If you are just starting a blog, you should optimize it for search, but you really won’t see results for many months. In that same amount of time, if you make a friend a day on the internet from commenting on blog posts, citing other blogs, using Facebook and linkedin, etc… you will be much better off then if you spent that time focusing on SEO.

Do the math, 1 friend a day X 6 months = 180 friends, that you are interacting with, building trust and credibility. Remember your search results will improve with more and more traffic, so it will naturally improve your results.

SEO is too much to handle for most of us
The really cool thing about the internet is that information we put out there will stay for a long time, even if we (the authors) long forget about it. Again, this is for people just starting to blog, but imagine 5 years from now, how much information you will have out there. One thing to remember is that even though the information is out you should still make sure you have control of it. New standards of data portability and pushing that all sites lets you (the author) to take your work with you. So if you are blogging on a site that does not let you export and move your articles, get a new provider, FAST. I love Wordpress and I hope it will be around for a long time. I can take my posts to any other Wordpress site, or most other blogging packages, but we don’t know what will happen in the future…5 years from now who knows how we will be putting out information on the internet… you have to be ready for anything.

So, my point is, don’t fret about SEO, your website/blog will naturally get better and better search results it gets older, gets more traffic, and grows. Write interesting articles, with catchy titles, and engage the public’s interest. I know you are thinking, “But won’t SEO help it grow faster?” Yes, but in the time it is taking you to read this post, Google has probably changed their algorithms…they seem to do that a lot, and what worked yesterday is not working anymore, or worse yet will hinder your search engine status. Don’t let it stress you out, have fun blogging, it is a great outlet… Not your second job. Also, many SEO companies are expensive, and most will not guarantee results, so weigh your options for other marketing material that you can put that money towards.

Keywords are the Key
Sit down for an hour and define 20-30 keywords that you want to get search results for. Focus on your niche. Then take that list to Google Keywords Tool. this tool will show you how much those terms are searched for and how much competition there is. It will also show similar keyword phrases. Define your list even more with the Google tool, now each of yours posts should target your keywords. I’m now talking about keyword density. Pick a keyword and make sure that in your next post you use that keyword enough to dominate all other keywords in the post.

For example, if I have a 400 word post and my keywords are “San Francisco Real Estate”. I should include “San Francisco Real Estate” at least 5 times in that post. The more words, the more often to use it. There are many keyword density tools on the internet that will make it easy to count your keywords

Keyword density is important because search engines use this information to categorize a site’s theme, and to determine which terms the site is relevant to. The perfect keyword density will help achieve higher search engine positions. Keyword density needs to be balanced correctly (too low and you will not get the optimum benefit, too high and your page might get flagged for “keyword spamming”).
Source: SEOchat.com

A widget or plugin is nothing more then a client interface to your companies API. API stands for Application Programming Interface. The API is a set of functions that your company website offers to remote developers. As the saying goes, build it and they will come. If you provide a good set of programmign tools that allow developers from around the world to access you data, your widgets (or the widgets that developers make for you) will grow far beyond your expectations. If you are thinking about adding benefits and features with a widget,

• Brainstorm and decide if your data is beneficial to start. If it is, go ahead and move to the next step.
• Do you think your data can be used outside of your initial plans? if YES, then you definitely need an API, give the world access to your data. An API not only allows you distribute your data, but it also lets you maintain control. Your company builds the API so you control what data is released.
• Remember, even if nobody makes widgets from your API, you will still have a great framework to build widgets in house.

A good example is the Zillow API. Zillow has tons of data ranging from values of home prices to demographics. When Zillow released their API, they did not have any widgets. I think they still have not made a widget in house, but many developers (including myself) have made widgets based on the Zillow API.

Other API’s:

• Google Maps - Probably the most famous
• Yelp - great for consumer reviews
• De.licio.us - Good for bookmarking and very simple to use
• Yahoo Developer Network - I visit regularly
• Google Code - another fav

Recently, many companies that I talk to either have a widget concept in development or they are looking into creating a widget strategy. Unfortunately many of these companies are missing some main concepts about deploying a widget. Without the basics, your widget will not get the attention and user distribution that you are looking for.

1. Benefit all parties involved.
   If you are thinking about deploying widget, don’t just think about your company and how you want to get your information on as many websites as you possibly can. Widgets are all about adding additional features and benefits to the host site. A widget that only benefits the parent company is nothing more then a glorified banner ad. Good luck trying to get people to put a banner ad on their site to benefit your company.Your widget should add features and benefits to the host website. Provide benefits to the visitors of that host website, and in turn the widget owner will benefit from additional exposure. Put yourself third in the hierarchy of widget deployment.
2. Do not take visitors away from the host site.
   How simple can that be? Yet, the majority of all widgets do that. Web programming has come a long way. We can add full applications on host websites with only one line of code. The webmaster simply copies and pastes a line of code from the widget companies website and they have a feature rich web application on their site. If you are thinking about a widget, you really need to think about full applications running on the host site. Remember give that host site features and benefits and co-brand with the host site. The visitors will not leave the host site and all parties benefit!
3. Give the host site credit
   Everyone that puts your widget on their site should be given credit. Give them thanks by linking to them on your company website. Make a widget page that shows all stats for that widget. Another great way to give credit it to add a feature to the widget that shows random links to sites that have the widget. Be careful, of course, many people will not want to send people away, but I want to touch on a key aspect of widgets. That key concept is the viral aspect of widgets. Think of them as a snowball. Think of ways to give credit to all parties and that widget will grow and grow!

These concepts are just the tip of the iceberg, and give a very general overview. In upcoming posts, we will talk about better alternatives to widgets, how to deploy widgets, and all the components of widgets. So grab our feed if you want to stay up-to-date with widget strategies.

If you have never heard of the 80/20 rule, it’s simple. I have found a few different meaning of this rule from talking to coaches, instructors, mentors, etc…

1. Only 20% of your daily activities (work) will bring in 80% of your business. This means that out of the 100% of the work you do every day the majority (80%) is supplemental activities that help support the business, but does not bring in revenue, or more business. 20% of the work does bring in business. The problem is the 20% is hard. It is hitting the pavement, being face to face, it GETTING OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE!There is a major problem with computers. They make us want to do the supplemental activities because they are so easy. It’s comfortable and safe to be behind a computer.
2. I’ve also seen this rule displayed as 20% of any business sector controls 80% of that business sector. What do the top 20% do to make them so successful? They do all the hard stuff, they are out and about, out of the comfort zone, in your face, getting business.

This rule is used by life coaches all the time. When combined with accountability it can be very powerful for your business. Take the time to look at yourself and analyze your business practices. Are you doing the hard 20% or are you doing the easy 80%. Better yet, are you telling yourself you are doing the hard 20% but really not. Hold yourself accountable and get more business.

How can you be more productive online.

1. Automate your daily routine. I consider blogging in the 80% category. It’s easy to write a blog article, but hard to get people to notice. Make sure that you automate your syndication. Make sure your messages are getting sent to all the major blog readers automatically.
2. Don’t read email first thing in the morning. Get something done… This is actually a great time to blog. The night before, get some material ready to write and then in the morning blog it. Make sure you do not spend more then 20 minutes writing…get it done and get on with your day.
3. Get a lot of stuff to write about. Most offices have business meetings once a week. They usually have printouts of the weekly news events. Take those and write about them. Also set up your home pages to automatically grab news so you have it ready to write about.