blogging

Bringing Back Personal Blogging

Anyone who has read my writings and ravings here since 2006 will know I feel this exact way. Buy that domain name. Carve your space out on the web. Tell your stories, build your community, and talk to your people. It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t have to …

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Tag Your WordPress Posts, People!

I stress to clients that they have to tag and categorize their posts on WordPress. It’s one of the easiest ways to increase your organic traffic and discoverability in Google, but it also helps the web find you. So tag your posts, people! Also, good checklist here for setting up a WordPress website on a …

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WordPress 2020 Stats

Interesting… didn’t realize the bit about the WordPress 5.6 release team. That’s admirable and something that we need more of in the open-source world (and the tech world in general): One thing I’ll call out WordPress 5.6 had an all women and non-binary release squad of over 50 people, a first for WordPress and probably …

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Top Posts of the Teens

I started writing email newsletters in 2002 and blogging in 2003 for a couple of marketing outlets. I was mowing the lawn on October 13, 2006, and had the bright idea to start a marketing blog called CostPerNews. It took off rather quickly and before I knew it, I was getting citations on Techmeme and …

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Bring Back RSS

I’m admittedly from a generation that grew up with a web that didn’t include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even Google. I look back fondly on the early 2000’s when we all had our own blogs and shared thoughts and pictures and quotes there. I was just reminiscing about blogrolls this week with a client as …

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Why you should quit blogging

Fun post that highlights many of the concerns I hear from clients and friends when I encourage them to blog. Blogging and newsletters are still incredibly impactful for businesses, churches, nonprofits… or just sharing what’s on your mind. Get out there. Be yourself. It’ll be ok. You think that you are a terrible writer. No …

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You should blog

Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. We could say goodbye to the creepy targeted ads and the algorithms, to the Nazis and bots and propagandists, to the harassers and the people selling hate. We could stop being spied-on for profit… Or we can make the moral …

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RSS in 2018

There’s so much wrong with this post, but I’ll point out my biggest gripe here… RSS (like podcasting) doesn’t need the metrics of behavior tracking for it to be a success. It’s distributed. It’s not commercialized. It’s not tracked with clicks based on eCPM’s or eCPC’s or brand quality engagement views. And that’s ok. It serves …

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Blogging

“I keep remembering that, between Google Reader and its limits (items must have titles), and Twitter with its limits (only 140 chars, no titles, one link, no styling), same with Facebook (no links or styling) that my online writing has diminished dramatically, conforming to the contradictory limits of each of these systems. I keep working …

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short blog posts

Important as the web continues to develop… don’t put all of your content into a silo. If you arrived here via Facebook, you might see why. 2. You’re probably posting your short items to Twitter and Facebook. That’s wrong. Please, before you give your ideas to a silo, give them to the open web. Of course …

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Why WordPress Still Matters

Good thoughts from Om here about the place of having your own website (whether it’s at WordPress.com or a self hosted WordPress installation for more flexibility) and feeding the beast: Some Thoughts on the New WordPress.com and Mac App – Om Malik: “Most of those platforms are built to be silos, Facebook and Instagram being …

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You Don’t Need A Mediator to Blog

It’s very easy to blog. You should do it on your own domain. You don’t need a venture capital funded company to help you. If you need help, let me know. The future is independence from these sorts of silos. Medium is introducing a host of features aimed at encouraging users to post shorter, less …

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