Knee Deep Blog

What's the secret to keep the blogging momentum?

Ted Demopoulous over at Blogging for Business just posted an update to his book "One Year Later - What nobody ever tells you about blogging and podcasting"

I had the fortune of connecting with Ted and being interviewed last June.   I also agree with his comment about motivation and ideas and believe there is a real need to understand your individual motivation to blog as well as to connect with others that have succeeded where you have not yet gone.

And if you haven't read it yet, the 101 stories from people who profit somehow from the blogosphere may just motivate you and give you some new ideas. It did with me.

Over the past few months I seem to keep finding more and more "abandoned blogs" after 6 months, a year or even less of starting it.  The unfortunate part is that people are keeping their link on their main web page to their blog, but when you get there you find yourself disappointed since they haven't kept the momentum and their last post was 6 months or longer ago.

For me that has me wonder....hmm, what's up...is the business still active or are they just too busy to write  IF they are THAT busy why haven't they hired a ghost writer to help?

So what's the secret to keeping the blogging momentum?
(here's a few ideas to get you going)

Mark Hendricks 12 Days of Christmas 2007 is Back

This is the 5th Anniversary of Mark Hendrick's 12 days of Christmas promotional free giveaway to build your online home internet business.  He's a smart man and enlists the help of peers to provide great Internet tools for free. 

It's really a win / win for all - the providers of Internet products such as ebook, business in a box, software, and scripts get connected to possible clients.  Internet marketers and hopeful internet newbies get to try some products that could help their business or simply inspire them to create some thing just like it.

It's definitely worth checking out...I know that last year I enjoyed a few of the gifts myself like a script for audio with a simple format that allows me to put audio directly onto web pages and blog pages, some blogging tools that were fun to check out such as one for how to better utilize wordpress, and some PLR (private label rights) products that I wouldn't have bought but were curious to see how they were laid out and what kind of content was included.

Other ways you can use the gifts:  

• Some of the better ideas come as the OTO (one time offers) when you get your free gift. 
• Sort through the gifts and look for products and ideas you can use with clients and offer as a bonus.

Here's my post from last years Mark Hendricks' 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway which has more potential product details.

I do warn you that with each gift you are joining the list of the product's providers - so pick wisely or be ready to quickly discern who provides value and which list you want to unsubscribe.

If you sign up and find some thing you think the rest of us do need to know about, please be sure to share your thoughts on the comments.

Michele Corey, writing for Knee Deep Blog A dose on insight and a little crap from your not always average home based business and Internet mom and Money Wise Women: A Blog for Women that are ready to get their financial house in order

And of course I can't leave out the business:  Advanced Approach

PS. Now you can find me simply by typing in http://www.kneedeepblog.com

Innovate or Die or the More Politically Correct Innovate and Grow

"Innovate or die" or do I be more politically correct and state, "innovate and grow"? At 5:04 am these were the deep thoughts that were meandering through my mind.  Eli had recently woken up yelling for mommy to come and after patiently waiting I knew he wasn't going back to sleep so I trudged upstairs and jumped into bed with him.  He fell back to sleep but I didn't as my mind began racing and settling in on "innovate or die" repeating again and again. OK, I'm not going back to sleep, got the message, and got out of bed.

I generally laugh at others when they say they wake up early and can't go back to sleep because 98% of the time I can, but not today. I know that the thoughts are stemming from my own coaching call yesterday which helped me pull together some of the research I've been doing to help me look at my own work and business from a different lens as well as asking me some big questions such as "What is the pay off for being great, but pretending not to see my own greatness?" that both felt uncomfortable as well as right on mark. 

I realized it's hard to shift to a new lens because I'm looking at it from an familiar and comfortable paradigm (lens, view what ever word works for you) on how I do my work, who I work with and what the processes are with clients as well as the bigger, this is how I think I should do it....oh shit, it hit me that I am "shoulding" on my self big time. A paradigm shift is lurking.

I realized that my comfort with what I do in my work has actually become a huge weight dragging me and holding me down.  More importantly I realized that I've gotten lost in the work and details forgetting what my real purpose is in my work. And that is what my coaching has been about.

Keywords Analyzer a Must Have Online Marketing Tool

This Is One Of My Favorite Online Marketing Tools - It now has a Free Trial

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Note from Michele:  this is one of my favorite online marketing tools.  It has literally saved me hundreds of hours of research time.  I use it for both myself and my clients to quickly help them find the "right" key words for products, blog posts, websites, articles and more. Keywords Analyzer could easily be priced significantly higher (and it would be worth it), instead it's a steal at $97.

An additional bonus is free software updates...so each time they make the software better, you get it at no additional cost!

Read on if you are interested in understanding how to better connect with your clients and find prospective clients.

Or, CLICK HERE to go directly to the Keywords Analyzer Website....

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Vacation Part 2: A New Hard Drive For My Computer and Then The Computer Crash

Part two of vacation consisted of performing a computer lobotomy on my desktop, wine and keeping Eli occupied. 

For the few years I've been whining about all of the time I've lost with needing to reboot because some thing happened whether that be identifiable or not.  I've also spend a lot of time just waiting for things to open or for my cache memory to clear so I could do my work. 

Another issue was that when firefox has a few tabs open for a while it hogs memory and my computer would hardly move.  Yes I can hear you saying, well just close the tabs.  Well when you work with multiple people throughout the day, and multitask between calls closing every thing is a real pain in the butt - so I'm not sure which slowed me down more, waiting or opening and closing every thing multiple times.

Free SEO Tools from SEO Chat

I've been busy on the web and have buckets of great tools you may find helpful with your website.  Today's tools are for search engine optimization (SEO) - for the online newbies out there that means helping your website, blog or sales page increase it rankings.

SEO Tools offers great free tools that will help you...

• CPM (Cost Per Month) Calculator - i.e. are you making a profit on what you are spending?
• Keyword Density which analyzes your keyword density values for one, two and three word values
• Keyword Position Check
• Page Rank - see how Google Ranks your webpage
• Spider Simulator - this tools simulates a search engine spider and shows you exactly how your page is viewed
• and much more

You'll also want to check out the SEO CHAT Forums.  There is a lot of helpful information on website optimization, page rank, Alexa, pay per click (PPC), understanding google analytics and more.  Be sure to set a timer for a specified amount of time, because it's sure easy to get sucked right in and find that more than an hour has gone by.  Enjoy.

It's been fun checking out some of the stats on one of my current affiliate projects that is turning a nice little profit just over a week after being up.  I have to admit that the first sale is always the sweetest to me.

I also immediately set up both a google adwords campaign as well as installed MUVAR which is a split testing software that you can use on as many websites as you want which makes the $100 investment a steal.  MUVAR Installs In 10 Minutes. Test Unlimited Variables. Automatically Adjusts To Most Profitable So You Can Set It And Forget It!

I consider myself a willing to learn home based mom with no formal technical training. The install onto my c-panel did take less than 10 minutes after I watched the training videos, which means if you have common sense you can do it too once you understand how to FTP to your host. My recommendation is to give yourself a good hour if not more your first time around to watch the easy to understand training videos, install MUVAR and add the variations you want to test. Of course another option is to pay someone $20 on RentaCoder , Scriptlance or another pay for hire site.

Regards,

Michele Corey, writing for Knee Deep:  A dose on insight and a little crap from your not always average home based business and Internet mom and Money Wise Women: A Blog for Women that are ready to get their financial house in order

PS. What have you written lately that has touch moved or inspired your blog readers?

Taking Action Creates All Sorts of Surprises

Original Post: (see part 2 below)

Last Tuesday I found James Braush's Internet Business Blog.  It started on one of my information quests on how to download  a wordpress blog.  My journey stopped for a while on tubetutorial which has some great free tutorials to CopyBlogger because Brian is one of the "voices" on tubetorial.  From Copyblogger I learned about Glyphius Copywriting Software which lead to James Brausch's Blog. 

I figured I'd check it out and see if James has any good tidbits to help with my other business, the online journey.  Well within the first week he was offering some thing for free - an external CD writer.  Looks interesting I thought as I moved on with my own to do list.  Then he posted the next day and said...hey no one is taking action and voila comments and the requested trackbacks appeared.  I decided I'd jump on the band wagon and say, hey I'd love to have the external CD RW Drive  (this link is for the internal one) - as I have said before pick me, pick me I even have some thing to give back...see below.

I even have a wordpress tip to share with you James which I learned on the journey that helped me find your blog -   I know you could use it as your posts look like this - http://www.jamesbrausch.com/?p=562 which is the default permalink structure.

How to make your wordpress blog posts more SEO friendly by changing the Permalink Structure

Deep Thoughts and Review on The Diamond Cutter

Right now I'm part way through four different books, one of them being The Diamond Cutter:  The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life by Geshe Michael Roach. 

Little by little I've been making my way through The Diamond Cutter and I'm about a third of the way through it and feel the need to write about what is showing up right now and not waiting until I'm finished. Its that being a mom of a 3.5 year old that means reading when opportunity strikes such as during an infrequent Eli nap,  getting up early, staying up late, by my bedside and carrying a book in my purse to read a page or two when the reading opportunity arises such as I've arrived some where a few minutes early.  I think this is part of the reason why I often have so many books going - they are strategically placed to pick up in a seconds notice.  Plus I think I developed what I'll call the ADD reading habit that likes to graze and go where my energy and passion is for the moment.

Any way, one of these moments struck yesterday and I found myself inspired as Geshe Roach spoke about hidden potential and was wishing for a few extra moments to write and get my thoughts down.  This morning I have my opportunity.

The Diamond Cutter is based upon a book written by the Buddha over 2,500 years ago. It contains secret wisdom and reaching success with this wisdom.  Michael Roach renders this wisdom into three principles that he speaks in today's layman's terms.

1.  business should be successful -  it should make money

End of Year Reflections

Year End seems to be the good time to be consciously slowing down as well as the  perfect time for reflection even if it's only for a short period. I find that it's so easy to get caught up in all of the "need to do" and "must do it now" things in my life - especially while playing the fragile balancing act and game of work, motherhood, wife, being part of a large family and friend.  And the Christmas / Holiday season often adds to this stress for many of us.

In November I began toying with the idea of taking the last two weeks of December off to focus "on" my business which means to slow down long enough to reflect on what I want it to be in 2007, the reality of what is true for it now and the current gap that exists.  I also wanted to take time to tie up the personal things that pile up between Thanksgiving and Christmas - such as managing our family finances, getting that huge pile off my desk, writing and getting the family holiday newsletter out to my 250+ list, pour the plum cordial we've been aging into pretty bottles for gifts, etc.

The impetus for all of this was simply remembering back to last year and the previous year and remembering all of the running around that seems to pop up out of now where - ok, we all know it's out of the need to figure out gifts, holiday schedules, figuring out when Eli's or your child's classes begin their winter break, extra dinners, cooking, socializing, etc.  Whew, just writing about it brings me back to those feelings the the who reason why I want the time off.

The first week of December I announced to my clients via an email that I was taking the last two weeks of the year off from client work - it felt and feels like a luxury.  This year is the first time I dared such a feat of spending and focusing two weeks of time on my own pursuits since I became a home based internet mom, coach and consultant 6 years ago.  In retrospect I don't know why it seemed to be such a difficult decision.

What I've learned so far....

Expect the unexpected - isn't this really what life is about...going with the ebb and flow?

• I had one client that I felt I really needed to meet with my first day off so that I could move into the rest of the time without a lot of energy being sucked out because it was unfinished business

Recommended: MindJet Mindmanager Software

Earlier this week my coach and mentor was working with me side by side helping me brainstorm around my own client coaching and consulting process using this great software called Mindjet Mindmanager.  As soon as I was able to I jumped on to my favorite online discount store - Ebay for a quick Mindjet search.

Within minutes I was bidding and within the day the owner of the pro version at a significant discount which delighted this home based internet mom.  Of course if you are not a fan of bidding on ebay you can always do a quick search on Google which has resellers offering a variety of prices or pay full price at the Mindjet site, with the pro being you can try the software out first to see if it's some thing you really want.

Other than touting itself as the easiest way to organize your ideas and information, this is what Mindjet Mindmanager pro 6 says about itself: 

Mindjet MindManager 6 is the market leading productivity software for visualizing and managing information, allowing individuals and teams to more effectively think, plan, and collaborate.

Why I'm giving Mindjet MindManager Pro 6 two thumbs up and highly recommending buying it:

• The software is that it's very easy to get up and running and it makes capturing information whether it be brainstorming points or client facts to follow up on. I find this very important to all of us that work from our home because we generally don't have the best tech support and training department.
  
• The company has done a great job of having both short snippet video tutorials on the software it self as well as additional video tutorials that you can download.   The only downside is that there is not audio on them.  Hint, hint...add audio.
  
• The kicker that really got me excited was that they have a resource library of completed mind mapping templates which have been created both by Mindjet and happy customers that you can view online and then download if you find one you like.