CultureFeast » blogging

Blogging is More Than Formulas

Daniel Dessinger — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:50:58 +0000

By Daniel Dessinger

November 13, 2009

I’ve spent years reading, studying, and writing blogs to fit formulas in search of the golden ticket. And I’ve recently had my cathartic moment of truth when I realized my bloglife had to change.

Money is great. It pays bills. It feeds families. But I can’t blog anylonger with money as my chief goal. The message has to be AUTHENTIC, from the heart, and free of gimmicks. Much love to all the “how to blog” blogs out there, but my #1 goal is to write content worth writing.

Maybe that’s what they’ve been saying all along. But I was so busy trying to game the system that I went about blogging all wrong. I wrote what I thought people wanted to hear first. I did the keyword research. I used search engine optimized titles. I am, after all, a professional SEO (among other things). But I looked to the tactic to drive traffic instead of the content.

I abandoned my first love.

Don’t beat me up over semantics. I mean “my first love” in regards to blogging.

It takes more than a formula or a set of tricks to make a blog popular. It takes heart. It takes passion. It takes commitment. It takes focus. It takes expertise. It takes a person who loves the subject matter more than the dollar he/she makes from the subject matter.

I don’t mind the fact that legacy CultureFeast.com articles cover the costs of hosting and domain registration. But I’m headed in a new direction, even if that direction comes slow as molasses. There is no life insurance policy like living your dream and sharing your passion.

I’m on the path to a better quality of life (some might call it “the ABUNDANT life”), and I hope you’ll ride along with me.

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Freelance Writing Struggles

Jenni Hammitt — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:35:23 +0000

By Jenni Hammitt

August 26, 2009

Sometimes it feels like finding freelance writing gigs is a full time job on its own. I have these grand dreams of having enough gigs to make this writing my full time occupation. I know it will be a long road. I know I will have to keep applying and making a name for myself. I know I can’t give up or “take a break” or it will just take longer. There are weeks where I spend more time on the search than I do actually working on content.

When you are just starting out, you know things won’t just happen over night. You know it will take time to build a client base and to become one of those bloggers that can work from home and pay all the bills. What many writers do not realize is breaking into this market is very hard. I know I have had many false starts and put my goals and game plan on hold over the years. Sometimes the set backs were for good reasons, sometimes they were just bad choices on my part. However, I have learned that even short breaks can lead to basically having to start over. That is why I am not giving up this time.

Everyday I come home and spend at least an hour looking at job leads. At first, I just flag all the ones that at first glance seem like a good fit. Then I go back and look at each lead more closely. Applying or submitting a query for a gig that I am not qualified for or have little to no interest in is a waste of my time. If I can research the company, I take time to do that. If the add seems sketchy, I go with my instincts and just avoid applying.

When you apply for jobs, remember that many times it requires more than just a cover letter and resume. They may ask for writing samples. They may ask you to put specific things in your cover letter. They may want specific things listed in your resume. It helps to have a couple different resume templates ready to go. That way you can pick the resume that best fits your needs, and make the additional changes as needed.

I have a detailed resume, a shorter “one page resume,” a writing CV and a CV that combines my resume and my writing CV. I want to be sure to give the potential client or employer exactly what they request. Your goal is to first make it past the recycle bin and onto someone’s desk. Not giving them what they ask for is a good way to fail. Yes, just putting together the information needed to apply can take well over an hour, but each time you make a information packet, you get practice.

The worst part for me is the waiting game after you apply. Sometimes you never hear back. Sometimes you do get a positive response, but the editor is flaky and the whole project never takes off. Sometimes once you do hear back and you get more details on the project, you realize it may not be as good of a fit as you thought it would. Rejection is just part of the game.

The biggest challenge is to not get lazy. Don’t neglect your blog. Be discerning and avoid scams and jobs where the costs are less than the rewards, but also do not snub jobs that could be a great networking opportunity. Like consumertraveler.com (formerly Tripso) is an unpaid site, HOWEVER your post will be published along side posts from heavy hitters in the Travel writing world like Christopher Elliot and Janice Hough. Your post may be featured on MSNBC or another high profile site. If you want to be a successful travel blogger, you want these people to know who you are, take their advice and have them on your side.

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Creativity vs Revenue

Jenni Hammitt — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:08:59 +0000

By Jenni Hammitt

April 20, 2009

Writing fiction has been my life time goal. For a while that is all I worked on. Every night I would come home and spend hours working on my latest fiction pieces. That was my focus. That was all that mattered to me for the longest time. Then I started writing articles, and I had some success. It was nice to have the extra money coming in.

After the novel and the novella were done, I started gaining more interest on blogging, writing articles, and generating other content. I figured it would be nice to have a little side business. I could generate a little “fun money” while I wrote my fiction pieces. It was win/win. Even the non-paying jobs were getting me some nice attention and helping me create a presence on the internet.

About a year ago, things changed. My focus moved from my fiction to blogging, article, how to, and web site content. I’m not totally sure how it happened. It just did. When I didn’t get a teaching placement for the summer, I didn’t panic because I knew I could make up the money if I wrote at least three how to’s a week. Soon I was making enough to pay for my cruise in December.

Of course, the goal of most writers is to be successful. We want to develop a readership, but we also want to make a living off what we love. I also know it is easy to be sucked in by the easy money. I do not get paid for everything I write, but the revenue I have generated has been nice. Plus that work has helped me gear readers towards my novel and my novella. Fiction work does not have an upfront pay off.

If I just focus on one story (right now I have three going) and it takes me six months to a year to write it will still take me at least a year to find a publisher. Then it will be another waiting period before it goes to print. I won’t see revenue until that cycle has completed.

I think many writers are faced with this dilemma. Once we had dreams of a certain type of success. Now things have changed, and we have to decide which way to go. Do we sell out? Do we keep with our initial plan? Or do we create a whole new path by combining the two?

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Why I Don’t Blog Much Anymore

Daniel Dessinger — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:03:41 +0000

By Daniel Dessinger

July 25, 2008

While random people arriving here after a Google search don’t know me from Adam, I have a few friends and family members who note that they stopped reading CultureFeast.com because I no longer contribute on any regular basis. They don’t really care if what I write is relevant, so long as I write. As sweet as that is, I still don’t want to write.

It’s not that I don’t have anything to say. Trust me, that won’t happen anytime soon. Rather, it’s more a combination of freakishly busy and paranoid that keeps me from weekly blogging. Busy is not something I can change. But there are way around paranoid… namely, the super secret blog or two.

That’s right. Whenever possible, I blog to my heart’s content elsewhere. I found that I am all about the open confession / personal journal style of blogging, and that does not lend credibility to one’s professional life.

You heard it here last: Uncensored blogging can get you fired, mocked, abandoned, rejected, and more. My thoughts are too straight-from-the-hip. I call a spade a spade, and I don’t do so in a trendy i’m really artisticly random sort of way.

In review, I am one of those guys who points out society’s ills and demands someone acknowledge the damage that has been done. And if someone should admit the existence of said damage, I would go a step further and demand change. And then I would probably go gorge myself on some toxic Jack in the Box tacos while downing a Dr. Pepper or an iced venti vanilla latte.

It’s a confusing life we live, no doubt. And in the middle of it all, a guy like me wants, no NEEDS, to express himself daily in order to keep from exploding. And should I do so in plain view, someone somewhere will hold it against me because my opinions are black and white with little room for grey.

I should wear a sign that reads: CRAVES CONFRONTATION. And once someone has been a real jackass to me in public, I would go to a secret blog somewhere and really spell out all nine ways his jackassery took emotive expression.

So, other than that, I love blogging. Hell, I may write another CF blog tonight. I am Jack’s constant paradox.

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Blogging and Social Media Reshaped My Work

Daniel Dessinger — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:13:56 +0000

By Daniel Dessinger

July 24, 2008

If you were to have told me, about a year ago, that I would be using social media on a regular basis, I would have thought you were insane. To me, social media was nothing more than Facebook and MySpace, nothing more, nothing less. I thought that blogging was just for nerds and people with just too much time on their hands. However, after one of my PR courses (Strategies and Issues), I found myself slowly getting used to using, and understanding exactly what social media and blogging were. The course was very social media heavy; understanding the use of blogs and social media sites, how to effectively use social media today, and about half way through the course, each student had to create his and her own blog.

At first, I could not be bothered, and my friend Dara and I would just roll our eyes with sheer boredom. As she became less and less interested in the class, I became more fixated on blogging and the Internet. I was one of the very few students who updated their blogs more than once a week because I was genuinely interested in what I was writing about (Public Relations and Popular Culture).

As my program was winding down, past graduates and PR professionals were invited to the college for a Professional Development Day, that included seminars on compiling a portfolio, resume writing, a mock job interview and a an open Q&A. the woman leading the Q&A group was Zoe Siskos who works for Social Media Group in Dundas, Ontario.

She is like a social media guru, and her company works alongside many very well known companies, establishing them in the realm of the Internet and becoming more social media savvy. Zoe began talking about how awesome and important social media was in today’s world, and she name-dropped a site called Twitter. “That’s an interesting name for a social media site,” I thought to myself. Zoe explained the concept of it to us and described it as micro-blogging. I took down the website address, and forgot about it for about a month.

When the class ended, so did everyone else’s blogs (with the exception of a few). I decided that since I had grown to love blogging and social media so much, that I was going to continue updating. I also remembered that Zoe mentioned Twitter, so I signed up for an account and was on my way.

Fast forward a few months, I am working full time now. Many of the projects I have been working on, and have been assigned have had a very youth oriented and social media feel. It is now my job and responsibility to create fan pages on Facebook and MySpace, establish a YouTube account, and the biggest, and most important task I am responsible for (and it really is my baby), is the photo blog created to help promote an upcoming event at my work.

I definitely do not mean this in a harsh way, but many of the people I work with and around, have no idea what is going on in the world of social media, or what it really means. During my job interview, I mentioned my online activity and the Special Events Manager and HR Associate looked at me bewildered and asked me to explain further, what exactly a “Twitter” was. The pair were amazed that I was blogging for a website thousands of kilometres away in Texas, while I sit and write from my home in Ontario. While my co-workers are busy planning the events, I am busy promoting them online.

Sure, I would have been able to do the majority of the things I complete at work without the help of that social media class, but just knowing how to create and maintain projects has really helped. Because of that one small step I made, I find myself more and more interested in learning about social media and dipping my toes into the waters of Web 2.0. There is more to life than Facebook and MySpace, and I kind of like it.

Not only that, but because of Zoe and her passing along of information about Twitter, I would not have met so many great and amazing people from around the world, been able to share and exchange ideas with my new friends, and the most important part, I would not be contributing to Culture Feast.

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Chris Smith Speaks on SEO for Bloggers

Daniel Dessinger — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:13:22 +0000

By Daniel Dessinger

March 30, 2008

Christ Smith has just taken the stage. We will begin coverage immediately. Please refresh this page to see more coverage as it unfolds.

Chris Smith specializes in local optimization. He contributes to SearchEngineLand.com and WebProNews.com.

Optimizing Your Blog

Beef up your internal hierarchical linking structure

tag clouds and tag pages (ultimate tagwarrior plugin)
related posts (contextual related posts plugin)
top 10 posts
next & previous posts

Build inbound links

add technorati tags to your posts (claim your blog first)
get onto bloggers' blogrolls
trackbacks and comments won't help with link gain in most cases

Compelling Illustrations make articles interesting. If you post photos to Flickr and link to your blog as a source of the photo, you can get some traffic and rankings from it. Photos need to be visually engaging.

Hop on a PR Feeding Frenzy

hop on it early
say something significant (don't just rehash the same info)
link over to other top blog posts (Google blog search)
watch top stories mentioned by Techmeme and comment on them

Note: I know people who have done this and made money strictly from this.

Research Jeff Crilley for tips on gaining publicity.

Link to your blog from LinkedIn.

Title Tags

put your blog name at the end of the title tag, not the beginning
tag name should go in the title on a tag page
customize with additional keywords for display only on your home page
override title tags with a custom one (SEO Title Tag plugin) (note: his company, NetConcepts, created this plugin)

URLs

Rewrite to contain keywords, using hyphens not underscores
301 redirect from yourblog.com to www.yourblog.com (canonicalization)
maintain legacy URLs even after switching blog platforms

Keyword rich domain names and blog titles are helpful.

Anchor Text

make the post's title a link to the permalink page
internally link back to old, relevant posts within the body of a blog post. use keywords for your anchor text

Header Tags (h1, h2)

category names on category pages
yes for post titles, no for post dates

Sticky Posts

always appear at the top of the page
adhesive plugin

Add author profile page and author links for group blogs

Add nofollows to trackbacks and comments where you don't vouch for a site.

Ping search engines with each new blog post – pingomatic.com, etc

Optimizing Feeds

use full text, not summaries
20 or more items (not just 10)
multiple feeds
keyword rich item
brand name in the item
compelling site description

End of session. I need caffeine.

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Dallas WordCamp is Coming Soon!

Daniel Dessinger — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:31:54 +0000

By Daniel Dessinger

March 15, 2008

Mark your calendars. If you are a WordPress junkie and you live anywhere near the Dallas/Fort Worth area, you better be in Frisco on March 29th and 30th for our very own WordCamp. "The largest gathering of WordPress bloggers, podcasters, designers, programmers, and aficionados that Big D has ever seen."

Saturday will focus on general user topics. Sunday's focus will be mostly developer topics. Did I mention it's only $20 to attend?!?!? Coffee, snacks, and lunch will be provided both days. Register now and you'll get a WordCamp t-shirt as well.

Here's the schedule for Dallas WordCamp 2008

Saturday, March 29th

9:30am Registration and Coffee

10am WordPress 2.5 and Beyond – Matt Mullenweg

11am 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog – John Pozadzides

12pm Lunch

1pm How to Prevent, Detect, & Stop Content Theft – Jonathan Bailey

2pm GeekBrief.tv Discussion – Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell

3pm C'mon, Let's Talk: Building Influence and Interaction with Blogging – Liz Strauss

4pm WordPress Power Tips – Lorelle VanFossen

Sunday, March 30th

9:30am Registration and Coffee

10am The WordPress Podcast Live – Charles Stricklin and friends

11am SEO for Bloggers – Chris Smith

12pm Lunch

1pm TBA – Aaron Brazell

2pm Panel: The Business of Blogging – Mark Ghosh, Liz Strauss, and Aaron Brazell

3pm Testing with WordPress – Jacob Santos

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How Do I Write for a Non-MySpace Blog?

Daniel Dessinger — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:27:54 +0000

By Daniel Dessinger

January 15, 2008

While a lot of people are MySpace savvy, many MySpacers still don't understand the difference between a MySpace blog and a professional, public blog. MySpace is typically the place for random half-thoughts and copies of email spam and pics from one's latest night on the town or baby photo shoot. It's a place to share stuff with friends, hence the tagline: "A place for friends." But MySpace doesn't challenge people to fully develop their thoughts or share information in sensible stages. In fact, I'd say that the majority of MySpace bloggers are lazy, only posting anything when they have an inspirational blip, which typically disappears mid-post.

Brian Clark shared another valuable post on strategic content development from his Innovative Content series recently. This is stuff that every aspiring blogger should read and every established blogger should revisit. Because regardless of our background and experience, it's easy to get busy and lazy and let the content of your blogging suffer. And let's face it, everyone loses when your blogging suffers.

Rather than plagiarize Brian's content, go read the post for yourself. When you are taking on a new blogging project, it's good to begin by asking yourselves the right kind of questions. It can be difficult to break out of the generic mental vomitting style of MySpace, but just asking yourself these questions and following these three steps will prepare you to write a more informed, adult sounding piece.

Always make sure you have fun with blogging, but part of the fun lies in doing something well. Nobody would pay Kobe Bryant if his shots were all air balls.

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Blog Crazy

Daniel Dessinger — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 19:22:08 +0000

By Daniel Dessinger

October 24, 2006

I must be blog crazy. Iâ€™m lying in bed at 4am, and my brain is buzzing. My heart rate is accelerating. You know what Iâ€™m thinking about? You guessed it – blogs. I got it bad. I lost sleep over it last night. I donâ€™t lose sleep over ANYTHING. Seriously. Iâ€™m one of those people who can lay their head down on the pillow, close their eyes, and within five minutes be off to Sleepy Town. And I can do this day after day after day. How this began, I have no idea. It wasnâ€™t always so. But last night was different.

MySpace had a similar effect on me when I first created my profile. I was as giddy as a schoolboy (havenâ€™t seen a giddy schoolboy in a long time, but take my word for it). All the creative possiblities. All the different ways in which I could express who I am. Or who I want to be. Or who I think other people should think I am. Orâ€¦whateverâ€¦you get the picture.

Blogs, blogs, blogs, blogsâ€¦. everywhere I see or think blogs. Call the acupuncturist and the herbal remedy lady – Iâ€™m gonna need a blog cleanseâ€¦. ewwâ€¦. do you think that would hurt as it passes?

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Want to Contribute Your Own Writing to CultureFeast?

Daniel Dessinger — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 13:44:40 +0000

By Daniel Dessinger

October 20, 2006

I’ve seen a decent enough of a rise in traffic over the past month to wonder whether or not these people are getting enough new content to keep them coming back. The truth is, I’m working hard to get into the groove at WebSwank and sometimes it’s hard to spend any extra time near the computer. So, I’ve decided to try an experiment. If you want to write, email me an article/blog post along with a brief bio (nothing fancy – just give me an idea of who I’m dealing with). The way it will work is simple: if I like what I read, I’ll post it. If I don’t like it, I won’t post it. I won’t contact you with reasons why, simply because I don’t have the time. Just send whatever you’ve written to daniel@culturefeast.com.

I’m going to limit submissions to 500 words. If your article or blog is twice that size, try splitting it in half and submitting it as part one and part two. Don’t forget to include the bio. Hey, who knows? Maybe this could turn into a regular thing for one or two of you with nothing better to do than showcase your brilliance to the world. I have already been approached by one person this week looking for a job. This is NOT an opportunity to make money on CultureFeast. I don’t even make money from the blogs I write (not enough to buy a meal, anyway).

So why, then, should any of you waste your time posting your thoughts here instead of creating your own blog? Well, look at my traffic. I’m no SEOmoz or BlogMaverick, but you can get some decent exposure here. I will post your name clearly so that everyone can see who is the genius behind the magical pen! Anyone who gets 50 articles/blogs posted on this site will start receiving links to their own personal blog with each new article/blog they post on CultureFeast thereafter. What do ya think? Anyone interested? If so, drop me a line.

If you have any suggestions, post a comment down below.

Thanks,

Daniel Dessinger

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