A Few Strong Words…

Just read Kathy Hendershot-Hurd’s “Fast Track to Blog Success” — and I’m impressed. This PDF guide shows you how to identify the keywords you should be using in your blog to increase your traffic. It mixes tips on a little bit of everything including SEO basics for bloggers and keyword research techniques.

I especially liked the way she uses Wordle to visually show what keywords are dominant on a web page (brilliant use of this “time-waster” btw…). As Kathy illustrates, it’s not always the keywords that will help you most that are dominant on your blog!

Kathy also inadvertently (or perhaps advertently — who knows?) shows us the power of a well-written (white) paper, and how it can draw more readers and/or customers. At the end, she offers a coupon-code for her 8-Week Power Blog Launch program — I can only presume that she will do well promoting the program this way.

I think this paper is destined to be one of those “touchstone” reports, so if you are at all interested in boosting your blog traffic for any reason, check it out. She has it on for free until tomorrow (Friday, October 9) if you enter the coupon code: CathRocks (alluding to Cath Lawson, of course.

~Graham

Disclosure: I have no financial interest in this report — in fact I’m hoping that neither Cath or Kathy minds I’m revealing the coupon code here (though it is easy enough to find through either one of their blogs). I came across report via Cath’s blog, read it this morning, and decided I’d get the word out before the free offer expires…! If you’re reading this after October 9, check it out anyway — it’s worth the investment.

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Although I already said thanks to James and Harry for their review of my blog, I’d like to formally thank them here for the drive-by. It may take a day (or week!) or two to implement James’s suggestions, but plans are already in the works.

Despite being a little nervous  about the process (does anyone really like being shot at?), it was a great experience. I’m not sure what their Drive-By Sundays are like right now, but they do offer a $25 drive-by done within five days.

If you have a blog (or any website for that matter), I highly recommend getting in contact with them. It always help to have a second set of eyes give you an objective viewpoint of your website (especially if it’s a professional set of eyes!) 

Thanks again guys!

~Graham

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I caught a couple of debates on the state of The Writer today. Doree Shafrir at the New York Observer makes the case that the old days of rising up through the magazine ranks are gone, due mostly to the fact that they can just blog. The article even suggests that recent graduate and “successful blogger” can make $50,000 per year. Hmm…

New York Magazine, on the other hand, suggests that bloggers are blogging in order to land those plum magazine jobs. It cites Doree Shafrir as the perfect example, moving to the Observer after a successful run at the media blog Gawker.

Both touch upon the fact that magazines themselves are changing (though they don’t delve into this nearly enough). Yet the writers of both articles also have that vaguely haughty attitude that magazine positions really are the be-all and end-all of writing, and every writer is after their job. New York Magazine seems to turn it into a debate about magazines as a medium rather than the death of the [magazine] writer.

Straight up — if someone offered me a position at a magazine, I’d certainly consider it. But I think there is more to being a writer than bylines and cover stories. My bottom line is that if I am making a living as a writer — no matter what I write — then I will likely be happy. And since this will be the case for many of us in the foreseeable future, there is no decline and fall of a writer, only a shift in what writers can and want to write.

~Graham

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