The problem with blog add-ons, plugins, and widgets

• They can distract your readers from your larger purpose — giving them useful, relevant content that they want
• They slow down your site loading speed — even though many people have high-speed connections, making them wait is likely to make them want to leave your site altogether
• They don’t always add value — while they may be cool or unique, they may provide nothing that your readers are looking for when they come to your site
• They don’t always work — if something in your sidebar stops functioning even temporarily, you’re left with a big blank space, or worse some gobbledygook that makes your site look bad
• They can lure your readers away — some widgets are so cool that your readers end up visiting the widget-creator’s site and leaving your blog entirely

Tips for putting your blog on an add-on diet

Ask yourself these questions to determine which widgets/add-ons to keep, which to toss, and which to limit in some manner. If you answer “yes,” this widget is good for your diet. Any “no” answers mean it’s time to wean yourself from the widget or not consume it in the first place.

• Does this add value for my readers?
• Does this add value for me?
• Is this the most simple/pretty/clean way to add the functionality I seek?
• Can the look of the add on be made to complement my blog’s theme?
• Do I get enough control of the widget to create a professional blog presence?
• Is this add-on being used by my readers now?

If you have other tips for keeping your blog svelte and stylish, please chime in. Or, if you have examples of blogs from either extreme, send in the URL so we can all go take a look.

“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Know that when you’re in a blogging conversation–you write, others comment, you reply, etc.–you’ll likely have times when not all voices sound in accord. Learn to distinguish contradiction and alternative ideas from castigation and bullying. The former make for interesting and engaging conversation the latter make for unsafe territory that you’re likely to want to avoid.

“Enrollment is the art and practice of generating a spark of possibility for others to share.”

~ Rosamund and Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility

• Not every post you write will inspire others to comment. That’s fine. However, if part of what you want to do is interact with others, find a way to light that spark, drawing others out from their corners of the world to your circle. Imagine yourself as an ancient story-teller, Shakespearean bard, or someone who brings people together for an exchange of ideas.

“The masters in the art of living make little distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their minds and their bodies, their information, their recreation, their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which, they simply pursue their vision of excellence at whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing.”

~ James A. Michener

• Write with passion. If you start a post that lacks energy as you type, save it for later when it truly speaks to you. If you have nothing you feel compelled to share, don’t just make up a post to fill space. Blogging can benefit your business, but only if you do it with heart.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

~ Annie Dillard

• You are in this world for a reason. You have contributions to make and unique gifts to offer those with whom you come into contact. Let your blog reflect your larger life purpose. Show yourself as who you are at your core, not who you think you “should” be. Offer your authentic self–and give others room to do the same–and your blog will be one more place where you can fulfill the purpose for which you were made.

What I can do as your blog coach

• Translate technical jargon and more sophisticated features of blogging into simple, easy-to-understand concepts. Rather than getting stalled out because you don’t understand what an RSS feed, trackback, or blogroll is, I help my clients build enough general knowledge to become self-sufficient bloggers.
• Help you determine what design and organizational layout will best support your business objectives and your company brand. Many new bloggers don’t realize the flexibility that’s available in a blog design and therefore merely settle for the “standard layout.” I help you strategically think about what you want to emphasize on your blog and how to organize it to work best for you.
• Build a beautiful blog in WordPress that will strengthen your image, build your credibility, and support your key goals. Instead of just using a standard template that doesn’t fit your business or the goals you want to reach, I customize a blog design specifically for you and your business.
• Assist you in creating a marketing plan with a strong blogging component. Instead of relying on blogging as your “magic pill,” I can help you determine what group of activities and tools will best serve your marketing needs.

Clients I work with as a blog coach

• Coaches, consultants, service professionals. These people don’t have much technical expertise, yet want to be competent at maintaining their site. They want to use their blog to give people a “taste” or them/their style/their process and potentially sell products from their site.
• Professionals with outdated, ugly, or poor-performing websites. These people want to change and want the switch to be easy, cost-effective, and effective. Generally they don’t have the skills or time to do the work themselves.
• Business owners whose web designers no little or nothing about blogs. These people want a blog that coordinates with their existing site and they want to know how to use it effectively as a marketing and communications tool.
• Professionals with no existing website who are ready to claim their own piece of online real estate. Some of these individuals intend to take full advantage of the blog’s capability while others simply choose to have a fairly static site created using the WordPress blogging system.

What to learn before you hire your own blog coach

• What is it like to work with this coach? Read their testimonials and ask for references. Though you might not have the same needs or wants as their other clients, talking with these people will help give you a feel for the blog coach’s strengths, weaknesses, and work style.
• What specific skills or experience does the coach have? Are they a graphic designer with a blog specialization or are they a marketing professional with web design skills? Learn what expertise they can bring to bear for you.
• What is the estimated cost and timeline for the work? Know ahead of time, what the coach’s services will cost, how they do their billing (e.g., deposits, payment methods, going beyond the estimate, etc.), and how long the work is estimated to take.
• What are your responsibilities? Find out what the coach needs from or expects of you. This could be anything from access to your web hosting account and finished graphics files or regular feedback on the design in progress and the ability to upload your own plugins.
• What’s the end result? Though this might seem obvious, make sure that your vision of the end result is the same as the one held by the coach. For instance, they might think they’re simply creating a custom blog design that you will put up on your site yourself, add plugins, and maintain the blog yourself. Your vision might be that once they’ve created the design they’ll install it, test for any problems, and get all your desired plugins ready to use. Better to clear this up upfront than to have a misunderstanding to work through later.
• What blog system will you be using? Learn what system your coach recommends and why. Then make sure you think it’s a system you’ll be happy using over the long-haul. I use WordPress exclusively for customized blog designs, though I have provided some generic education for clients using Blogger. Other folks you might consider if you’re looking for help on a TypePad blog are Mike Sansone and Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff (The Blog Squad).

Of course you don’t have to hire a blog coach. You may have the skills, time, and interest in learning the ropes for yourself. However, if you are like many of the people with whom I’ve worked, knowing you have a partner (at least temporarily) in the blog creation process may help you navigate these waters more quickly, more effectively, and with more joy.

Written in non-technical language that?s easy to understand, you?ll discover how you can use a blog to:

• Reach more potential clients
• Share your knowledge and wisdom
• Create greater cash flow
• Promote your products and services

The Coaches’ Blog Book is a workbook that you use to find the right answers for your practice (it’s not a cookie cutter process). View a PDF preview of the book or visit my publisher to purchase your own copy today.

Why blogs are a great choice for coaches

• Blogs generally cost less to create and maintain than traditional websites. All my blog customization clients use WordPress which is free, so the only costs they pay are for a domain name and hosting (same as what they’d pay for a traditional site) and my customization fees (customarily under $1,000).
• Blogs are easier for a non-technically-skilled person to maintain. No more waiting for your “web gal” or your designer to make those changes for you. You can update your blog yourself.
• Blogs are more attractive to search engines. If you want to attract new clients, you first need to get in front of them and the search engines (SE) will do that. . .if you’re where the SEs can find you.
• Blogs can do anything a traditional site can do and more. Want to sell products? You can with a blog. Want to add audio or video to your site? You can with a blog. Want to have static pages and regularly updated pages? You can with a blog.
• Blogs can simply serve as a static web presence. If you don’t really want to use the article-writing capability of the blog system, you can still use it to create your coaching practice’s static website. While you won’t get as much value from using a blog system in this way, it can still be a great option.

Still wondering if a blog is the right choice for your business (whether or not you’re a coach)? Contact me for a complimentary consultation.

When thinking about blogs perhaps it should not surprise me that people often worry about how much control they’ll have.

What if I don’t want people to comment?

What if someone leaves a comment I don’t like?

What if someone links to my blog from an inappropriate site?

While you do have choices about what happens on your blog, you can’t control the other person and what they do elsewhere. Sure, you can disable comments (or not post a comment), yet that doesn’t stop someone from leaving that same comment somewhere else. To me however, that seems like saying to your audience, “Please do business with me someplace else,” rather than seeking to engage them directly on your blog. Obviously there may be some people who you choose not to interact with or do business with, but that’s an entirely different matter.

Read great thoughts about business, control, and social media

• Wendy Piersall seeks to answer the question, How Can You Keep Control of Your Brand with a Blog & Social Media?
• Valeria Montoni suggests that, You’re Asking the Wrong Question
• Geoff Livingston describes how, Fear Kills Social Media Efforts

“Social media involves conversation and conversation involves moving away from controlling the message. That?s a big shift for a lot of people.”

~ Valeria Maltoni

Take a look at some of the pencasting examples at Mandarine’s site as well as the tutorial for how to pencast.

When blogging wasn’t even on the back burner for me

In November 2007 I’ll be one of the featured presenters at the International Coach Federation Annual Conference. I’m co-leading a session titled, “Geek-free ways to use technology to attract clients with ease” where I’ll be speaking about blogs, podcasts, and other online ways to promote your company. I wanted to provide a resource for coaches in attendance to continue their learning about blogs after the conference, knowing that 90 minutes is insufficient for covering the topic except in a broad, overarching way. As an author of two books, I decided that a workbook would be the best way to offer this post-conference value, so I set about the task of turning my ideas and advice into a book.

Given my timeline, the book rocketed it’s way into #1 professional priority. Other “to do” items would be tucked aside until the book was finished. It was simply the only way for me to complete the book AND still enjoy a quality of life at the same time. Of course, it’s strange to be a blogging coach who doesn’t blog, yet it’s important to me to show people that even if blogging is a good thing, it’s not everything. Yes, it’s important to blog on a regular basis. Yes, it’s important to provide your readers with value. Yes, it’s important to create sustainable blogging habits. And just as important is our ability to know when, despite these other truths, blogging needs to take a backseat to other important things in your life.

I welcome stories of your own experience, your advice, and your tips for appropriately prioritizing blogging as one of your business marketing strategies.

Tags: prioritize blogging, importantce of blogs

Turn your blog content into great content that markets itself

• Write for people and search engines. Using your blog statistics (Blog statistics for business ? What to monitor and why) you can learn what phrases and words people use to find your site. Use tools like WordTracker to learn about popularity of keywords and use those that will help you stand out.
• Consider your entire post (and site for that matter). Do you use pretty permalinks (like mine) or the default ones that don’t tell users anything (ones that look like this http://yoururl.net/blog/?p=123)? Are you writing useful titles and using <h1> or <h2> tags inside your posts or simply making some copy bold? Are your page descriptions “junked up” with the full name of your blog?
• Make it easy for others to promote your work. Though you don’t want your site overloaded with plugins, it’s crucial that you give readers easy ways to pass along your work. This includes ways to add your content to social media and bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Sk*rt, Digg, Delicious. I also encourage you to have features that allow your users to print and email your posts.

Since you all know that even these tips don’t guarantee that your content will be promoted widely, it’s important to have content marketing skills of your own. Read how Chris Mitchell got Seven Tips for Taking a Laptop Traveling, his post, featured to two big traffic sites.

Expert advice on search engine optimization for your blog

I have beginner’s SEO knowledge, so I’m going to share some links to others who have a lot to say on the topic. There will be some redundancy here, yet sometimes reading the same advice multiple times helps it sink in.

• Entrepreneur Yaro Starak gives you the scoop on how to wisely use your time for search engine placement The 80/20 Of Search Engine Marketing - Part 1 and The 80/20 Of Search Engine Marketing - Part 2.
• Stephan Spencer reminds you not to be foolish in his post, Twelve SEO Mistakes Most Bloggers Make.
• Shari Thurow clarifies her thinking about writing for optimization in her post When Content Isn’t King in SEO.

If you have tips to share that have helped you make your blog highly visible to the right people, drop a line in the comments section.