I have never claimed to want or need traffic to my blogs. In fact I often keep my entries so "under the radar" that many never ever get seen, let alone read. While this doesn't overly concern me, sometimes I do like to see that what I write at least gets scanned by some. I've just never needed the ego rubbing of having a popular and often read blog.
Here are a few easy things that I could do to change that.
I could write catchier headlines.
According to many, the number one reason why anyone would even check out a blog post is due to a great headline. Perhaps it is as much an SEO factor as anything else though. I have many posts that are #1 on search engines and find that those are read often while similar headlines that may be from #2 to #5 are read proportionately less often. Many other posts that have vague headlines get far fewer views let alone reads... based on screen time. 5 second views are obviously not read.
Follow up content needs to live up to the headline.
Of course the headline may be great but the follow up content needs to live up to the nicely managed expectation, and quickly, or readers will just pass and look for the next catchy headline on someone else's blog.
Stick to the topic and hit points quickly and succinctly .
I've been known to wander, not so much aimlessly, but there comes a point where the topic and the content are not really in sync and that point needs to be recognized and severe editing applied in order to remain readable. I read many blogs that do this very well and those are the ones that I frequent.
Punctuation, spelling and grammar.
This isn't something that I consider I need much improvement on but I thought it worth mentioning as this point should be assumed, but it certainly is not. With spell checking there should be next to no reason for spelling errors. Homonyms or similar correctly spelled words are still easy to miss so proof reading is necessary to catch these simple, yet annoying errors. Using some bastardized form of english that gets used in tweets and text messages just doesn't cut it... and I won't go on about that. Grammar and punctuation, well, there are some decent books or sites that cover the basics better than what we had to go through in school, if they even teach them in school any more.
Books and paper are not necessarily the choice of the majority of readers now as so much information is available online, from news and opinions to fiction and pointless drivel, that printing can be outdated before the paper is delivered to the reader and most of the online content is free... for now. Readers can afford to be finicky. As a result it is tough to get any portion of their screen time easily.
Blogging for traffic is more an art than a science as the idea that content is king leads to decent writing skills being necessary to be successful if you count success as a regular readership.
Jeff.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Office Tornado...
Some will say that I am not the most organized person on earth... while I agree I certainly am not the least organized. I think I've seen the worst and I don't come close.
Having said that, my desk does get overly littered with papers and hardware that need to be purged, fixed or filed. I expect that I should liberally apply those three actions in that order specifically as I think that the purging would be the most beneficial. If the paper is still where I placed it then I probably don't need it anymore anyway.
There are some avoidance habits that people have in order to not have to do tasks that they don't want to do, one of which is to organize their work space. It sounds like a productive venture until the real task needing attention is considered as it usually has a fairly high importance and may have a low urgency level. My problem is that I don't default to cleaning up and organizing as a procrastinative measure... I tend towards finding some other menial task that is low in importance and urgency and often creates yet more paperwork.
I put office cleanup on my schedule for today.
Oh, right, here I am writing a blog post... at least it doesn't create any paper.
Jeff.
Having said that, my desk does get overly littered with papers and hardware that need to be purged, fixed or filed. I expect that I should liberally apply those three actions in that order specifically as I think that the purging would be the most beneficial. If the paper is still where I placed it then I probably don't need it anymore anyway.
There are some avoidance habits that people have in order to not have to do tasks that they don't want to do, one of which is to organize their work space. It sounds like a productive venture until the real task needing attention is considered as it usually has a fairly high importance and may have a low urgency level. My problem is that I don't default to cleaning up and organizing as a procrastinative measure... I tend towards finding some other menial task that is low in importance and urgency and often creates yet more paperwork.
I put office cleanup on my schedule for today.
Oh, right, here I am writing a blog post... at least it doesn't create any paper.
Jeff.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Guru?... did someone say GURU?
I'm not certain which is worse right now. The gurus who claim to know everything about their particular soapbox or the people that claim that anyone with a soapbox is a guru?
Guru, myth, scam.... all these terms are quickly becoming synonymous. Look up any topic and you are likely to get more hits with these terms than any other on any given topic. Of course that is the nature of the internet.
Guru is the term used when describing a Buddhist or Hindu spiritual leader (at least that is where I first heard the word used many years ago). It was popularized later as a term used to describe anyone who is an expert in a field and can teach or lead others in the same field, a stretch but acceptable. Now it is often used as a derogatory title implying that a person claims to know all and be able to teach all when, in fact, they probably don't or can't.
As far as teaching, nobody is really in a position to teach something unless they know it cold and have or are using it themselves. You cannot know what you have not used, and successfully. How can anyone expect a student to learn and apply something that the teacher has not.
Try learning golf from the local hacker, chances are that you won't ever get much better than them. If your aspirations involve going pro, then you have no chance whatsoever. Now, if you followed a multiple PGA champion (Tiger Woods for example) and he showed you how to not only physically play the game but how to think the game, live the game and observe other's weaknesses and strengths, then you have a decent chance to get there. I don't know, but would be willing to guess that his game, or any other good pro's game, is better than 99% mental... how much time is actually spent hitting a ball compared to how much time they've spent considering any single stroke? But that is a whole other topic.
In his book "Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell describes the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to become highly proficient at anything. I haven't read the book in about two years but I believe that one of the factors that he misses is that having a mentor or capable teacher can improve the attainment of proficiency dramatically. While it may or may not change the observed 10,000 hour, it certainly increases the odds that a high level of proficiency will be attained at all.
It may sound like a tangent but having a mentor, or at least someone who you can observe or emulate in the picture can make a huge difference in addition to the actual teaching as they can easily provide opportunities and personal connections that you might otherwise not have.
This gets into a whole other topic of associations that successful people have had that work toward giving them the extra opportunistic edge that the vast majority of people never know about.
One short example is Bill Gates. Sure he put in the time playing with computers seriously through school but the opportunities that he took advantage of would never happen under "regular" life circumstances. It started with him being in a private school that had technological capabilities that were rare in any school. He would have contact with people that would notice his activities and give him opportunities that no other school situation would likely afford to him. His success was certainly not based on a garage computer shop.
Consider carefully what guru or gurus that you may choose to learn from. Are they in a position where their teachings have been used to provide proof of their theories, or are they just that, theories and stories that have no basis in real life?
Jeff.
Guru, myth, scam.... all these terms are quickly becoming synonymous. Look up any topic and you are likely to get more hits with these terms than any other on any given topic. Of course that is the nature of the internet.
Guru is the term used when describing a Buddhist or Hindu spiritual leader (at least that is where I first heard the word used many years ago). It was popularized later as a term used to describe anyone who is an expert in a field and can teach or lead others in the same field, a stretch but acceptable. Now it is often used as a derogatory title implying that a person claims to know all and be able to teach all when, in fact, they probably don't or can't.
As far as teaching, nobody is really in a position to teach something unless they know it cold and have or are using it themselves. You cannot know what you have not used, and successfully. How can anyone expect a student to learn and apply something that the teacher has not.
Try learning golf from the local hacker, chances are that you won't ever get much better than them. If your aspirations involve going pro, then you have no chance whatsoever. Now, if you followed a multiple PGA champion (Tiger Woods for example) and he showed you how to not only physically play the game but how to think the game, live the game and observe other's weaknesses and strengths, then you have a decent chance to get there. I don't know, but would be willing to guess that his game, or any other good pro's game, is better than 99% mental... how much time is actually spent hitting a ball compared to how much time they've spent considering any single stroke? But that is a whole other topic.
In his book "Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell describes the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to become highly proficient at anything. I haven't read the book in about two years but I believe that one of the factors that he misses is that having a mentor or capable teacher can improve the attainment of proficiency dramatically. While it may or may not change the observed 10,000 hour, it certainly increases the odds that a high level of proficiency will be attained at all.
It may sound like a tangent but having a mentor, or at least someone who you can observe or emulate in the picture can make a huge difference in addition to the actual teaching as they can easily provide opportunities and personal connections that you might otherwise not have.
This gets into a whole other topic of associations that successful people have had that work toward giving them the extra opportunistic edge that the vast majority of people never know about.
One short example is Bill Gates. Sure he put in the time playing with computers seriously through school but the opportunities that he took advantage of would never happen under "regular" life circumstances. It started with him being in a private school that had technological capabilities that were rare in any school. He would have contact with people that would notice his activities and give him opportunities that no other school situation would likely afford to him. His success was certainly not based on a garage computer shop.
Consider carefully what guru or gurus that you may choose to learn from. Are they in a position where their teachings have been used to provide proof of their theories, or are they just that, theories and stories that have no basis in real life?
Jeff.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Joe Vitale, John Assaraf, Pat O'Bryan et al.
A few years ago I watched the movie "The Secret" and I must admit that it has opened my eyes to far more than I thought possible, but it was only a taste. While I understand that it is a watered down reveal for the masses, the concepts that it contains are valid and work. I took up a search to find more similar and older information figuring that the key to finding the larger secret was to go digging, find I did.
Napoleon Hill was one of the finds as I was able to download and read "Think and Grow Rich". I haven't looked over my other finds lately so the names escape me, but his was one of the more pivotal writings even though it turns out that it was also watered down for the masses.
The names in the post title are names that I typed into my email search in order to purge my storage of all the mostly crap that has been sent to me in an attempt to peddle their various wares. I don't mind someone making an honest buck, there was nothing wrong with what they were doing, I was just getting plain tired of the daily emails stacking up while they were trying to sell me other people's stuff as well as their own. Even though I had deleted the majority as they came in, there were still hundreds in the recesses collecting virtual dust. Now they are all gone and I have removed myself from their mailing lists.
Boy, does that feel good too.
Jeff.
Napoleon Hill was one of the finds as I was able to download and read "Think and Grow Rich". I haven't looked over my other finds lately so the names escape me, but his was one of the more pivotal writings even though it turns out that it was also watered down for the masses.
The names in the post title are names that I typed into my email search in order to purge my storage of all the mostly crap that has been sent to me in an attempt to peddle their various wares. I don't mind someone making an honest buck, there was nothing wrong with what they were doing, I was just getting plain tired of the daily emails stacking up while they were trying to sell me other people's stuff as well as their own. Even though I had deleted the majority as they came in, there were still hundreds in the recesses collecting virtual dust. Now they are all gone and I have removed myself from their mailing lists.
Boy, does that feel good too.
Jeff.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Florida mini March break
I had a software training seminar that I ended up attending in Kissimmee Florida for three days. Of course I figured that I am not going to go all the way to Florida only to be stuck in central Florida and not even get to see the ocean except from the plane. so I added 6 days on the end of the trip.
I've been down a number of times, more recently on the Gulf side staying in the North Port area. This time the break part of the trip is just North of Fort Pierce. Today was my first morning and, as is my nature, I was up early. I was on the beach for the sunrise and, even though it was mostly overcast, I brought my camera along and took a few dozen shots. The fun of digital is that I can shoot and see right away so I got to see the results pretty quick, email some to family and later in the same day post some here. Times change.
It's worth noting that I am in the same community that my wife and I stayed at the very first time that we went to Florida over 20 years ago. Nothing looks the same, not even the beach.
Here are a few shots of the daybreak over the ocean:
Jeff.
I've been down a number of times, more recently on the Gulf side staying in the North Port area. This time the break part of the trip is just North of Fort Pierce. Today was my first morning and, as is my nature, I was up early. I was on the beach for the sunrise and, even though it was mostly overcast, I brought my camera along and took a few dozen shots. The fun of digital is that I can shoot and see right away so I got to see the results pretty quick, email some to family and later in the same day post some here. Times change.
It's worth noting that I am in the same community that my wife and I stayed at the very first time that we went to Florida over 20 years ago. Nothing looks the same, not even the beach.
Here are a few shots of the daybreak over the ocean:
Jeff.
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