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Surely You Have a Blogging Goal?

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The Ultimate Guide to a Wildly Sticky, Successful and Outstanding Blog
A SERIES

Finding A Direction — Goals, Titles, and Taglines

Whether you blog for money, or you blog for fun, a successful blog works like a successful small business. Every post is product made for customers called readers. Quality counts. So do schedule and budget. Having a mission and goals, knowing the what and how, and using the right tools for the job make your chance of success far greater.

Surely You Have a Goal? No? Gotta Get One!

A blogging goal gives a blog a heart and a direction. It’s powerful exercise in getting your thoughts focused in on why you’re actually doing this. In essence, a blogging goal provides a measure of success that is there to work toward.

  1. Should you be blogging? 23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers – Is a Blog Right for You?

  2. Wondering whether a blog is for you? Do you see yourself in this list of Top 10 Reasons to Start a Blog?

  3. Goals for New Bloggers is a straightforward outline of how approach setting up a blog on the path to success.

  4. We all have different reasons for why we invest time and sweat equity into blogging. Darren’s Blog Goals – Group Writing Project. Check out the complete list of submissions to read the goals of experienced and new bloggers who participated in the writing project.

  5. In the end, when it comes to Measuring Blog Success: It’s the Goals, Stupid! — No one else can decide the destination you’re seeking.

  6. Things changed dramatically the day I wrote My Blogging Goal. Every decision that I’ve made since has been to support what wrote in my blogging goal.

A Blog Title — Who Are You?

Names are the most important words that we know. They’re the first words we learn about ourselves. They’re how we begin to sort the universe. We say them soon after “hello” when we meet a new person. A blog name says something about the blog and about the person who named it.

Most importantly, outstanding blog titles are memorable and describe what the blog is about.

  1. If your goal is to write for yourself and few select friends, name your blog however you all might find meaningful. If your goal is to write for a large audience, name your blog using words THEY will understand and be drawn to find out more about. One way to draw them is to include Key Words in your blog title. Titles that Grab Readers are titles that simply say what the blog is about.

  2. Dorai answers the question How Do You Choose a Blog Title?

  3. For a look at the most popular keywords already being used, see How Do You Call Your Blog? Be careful on following advice in the post and comments. The information is interesting, but I don’t necessarily come to the same conclusions reading the data.

  4. Nick Wilson collected seven more articles on Killer Titles.

A Tagline — What’s Your Promise?

A fabulous tagline says what’s in it for me — the reader. It makes a promise that I can resist, a promise the blog never fails to deliver successfully.

5 Blog Taglines

Do you recognize these?
You’re only a stranger once. . . . Helping Bloggers Succeed . . .
. . . Copywriting tips for online marketing success . . .
Make money online blogging . . . create your blog free

They are: Successful Blog, Performancing, Copyblogger, Problogger, and Blogger taglines. Each one tells the promise of the blog they describe.

  1. Follow this step by step coaching session on to write a killer tagline.

  2. For more resources, you might review the 25 additional links to posts about taglines included in this piece.

A blog on its own is not really a business, but a wildly sticky, successful and outstanding blog has plenty in common with one. The more you know about your product, your readers, and what brings them together, the easier it will be to catch the attention of those who love what you do.

How are you serving the folks who read your blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Great Find in Chicago – Bridge2Growth: UK Market Opportunities

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Mitch Arnowitz emailed me about a meeting being held June 4 in Chicago. Small and medium Businesses can gain a foothold in the UK market with the help of this upcoming seminar. So I offered Mitch this opportunity to extend this invitation.

Bridge 2 Growth: A Quick Start, Low Risk Program for Pursuing UK Market Opportunities by Mitch Arnowitz

Bridge2Growth is a new UK government sponsored program designed to facilitate and complete the UK company start up process for small and medium sized Chicago companies with European expansion plans. The program brings together UK bankers, lawyers and property advisors, giving you access to them for your evaluation, questions and consultation. And it’s free! Join us on June 4th at Intercontinental Hotel. Register now to learn how to grow your business in the UK.

Visit the Website Bridge2Growth, contact info@bridge2growth.com or call 866-625-5136. There is no cost or obligation to attend, but advance registration is required.

You can now check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14645057982

Twitter @Bridge2Growth
—–

Thanks, Mitch!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

UK Trip 3: The London Tour and the London College of Communication

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Meeting Henry VIII and the Dean of the College

On our return to London Thursday, we took a bus tour through the city. I’m not much of a tourist, but with my son along, asking questions I managed to take in some history. George the 2nd (or was it the 3rd?) died on the toilet. The area down by Westminster Abbey is by far the most beautiful.

We saw the movie, “The Other Boleyn Girl” in Leicester Square later that night.

On Friday I took the tube down to Elephant and Castle to meet with Sue Pandit, the Dean of the London College of Communication. (Diane Keaton will play her in the movie.) She explained that their history as the London College of Printing was still thriving the print shop that still offers students one-color, two-color, and four-color presses as well as digital printing to produce magazines as well as surface printing, such as fashion design.

As Sue and I talked about the social web, I mentioned that conversations and relationships are happening underneath the surface of the Internet. She mentioned that, like so many, she tended to read the blogs of people in her industry, but only the blog posts not the comments that followed. I could see her become intrigued with what she might be missing.

Later in our discussion, Sue invited Chris Linford, a senior professor and lecturer to join us. When he walked in he mentioned that he knew my blog. During our conversation, Chris said that each semester his first job is getting students over fear of html. Most of the students at the college who blog use WordPress 2.3. When I asked about WordPress 2.5, Chris said, “Our IT guys won’t let us use anything in Beta.” He also said they use Wimba.

Meeting Henry

Liz Strauss and HenryVIII

It just wouldn’t be right to visit London and not take my son to Madame Tussauds House of Wax. We went Friday afternoon. It’s there I met Henry.

A third university and picture with a king. (Do you think he’ll call?) Not a bad day.

The question of the day was: What place do you think print will have in future communications?

How would you answer that one?

More to come about UK universities. [Check back for my answer yesterday’s question from at Oxford. now.]

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

The Mic Is On: Join Guest Hosts Phil Gerbyshak and Diego Orjuela

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Let’s talk about computers…

    logo.gif

  • Do you know your computer could be working better, but you’re not sure how?
  • Does your computer have a pesky little error message that you just can’t get rid of?
  • Wondering what the pop-up box that keeps showing up on your screen means?
  • Want to know the latest about virus protection, wireless networking for your house?

Got any other nagging computer questions? Never fear, we’ve got the answer for you!

Join Relationship Geek Phil Gerbyshak, MinuteFix CEO and founder Diego Orjuela and the MinuteFix tech support community as they host Tuesday Night Open Comments. Test drive the world’s greatest tech support community and say goodbye to your pesky computer problems…for at least one night!

Oh, and bring links to share — about computer problems.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Join Guest Hosts Phil Gerbyshak and Diego Orjeula

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Join Us Tonight

Let’s talk about computers…

  • Do you know your computer could be working better, but you’re not sure how?
  • Does your computer have a pesky little error message that you just can’t get rid of?
  • Wondering what the pop-up box that keeps showing up on your screen means?
  • Want to know the latest about virus protection, wireless networking for your house?

Got any other nagging computer questions? Never fear, we’ve got the answer for you!

Join Relationship Geek Phil Gerbyshak, MinuteFix CEO and founder Diego Orjuela and the MinuteFix tech support community as they host Tuesday Night Open Comments. Test drive the world’s greatest tech support community and say goodbye to your pesky computer problems…for at least one night!

Oh, and bring links to share — about computer problems.

The rules are simple — be nice.

Do be nice. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

MinuteFix: Computer help is only a click away

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I’m pleased to announce that this week while I’m in the UK,

Phil and Diego will be hosting
Tuesday Open Comments
Come Ask Them Questions!!

Minute Fix and Diego Orjuela
Guest interview by Phil Gerbyshak

Recently I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes chatting with my friend Diego Orjuela, founder and CEO of what will hopefully the world’s greatest tech support company, MinuteFix. Full disclosure: I got to know Diego at the 2007 Successful and Outstanding Blogger Conference, and have been working with him at MinuteFix since December of 2007 as the Customer Experience Officer.

I wanted to share this interview with the audience here at Successful Blog because a service like this can really help you out if you’re in a pinch working at your home office and you need tech support. If you don’t want to pay $50 or more to take your computer into your local computer shop, give MinuteFix a shot.

Without further ado…

Tech support from MinuteFix

An interview with Phil Gerbyshak and Diego Orjuela

Phil Gerbyshak: So tell me Diego, what is MinuteFix?

Diego OrjeulaDiego Orjuela: MinuteFix is the first provider of tech support that is powered by a community of experts. Think of it like a Geek Squad combined with the power of a community model like Wikipedia or eBay. Customers can get help for any computer problem, no matter how big or small, 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. The service is very affordable, at only $0.99 per minute. It doesn’t matter what the problem is, our certified community technicians will do
their best to fix it. And, if we don’t fix your problem, the session is free.

PG: Wow, why didn’t I think of that? Seems like it could be very useful for anyone working at home or with a limited budget.

DO: Absolutely! Imagine you are at your computer and you are having trouble with a
simple task like downloading an image from the Internet. MinuteFix can help you complete such a simple task in a few minutes, which otherwise might have taken you an hour to figure out on your own, all the way to more complex issues like virus or security problems. One customer last week lost her entire iTunes music library. We were able to help her recover it, and get her on her way, saving her tons of lost time and money.

PG: I hear you guys are very big on customer service. Why is that so important to you?

DO: Well, we are a company built by a passionate community of technicians who love what they do. With tech support from MinuteFix, we empower technology experts to work from home, at the hours they choose. Because they do what we love, we can offer a superior service. We deeply believe that technology should help us to interact seamlessly with the people we care about, produce tremendous results while making us more productive – and not get in the way in the process. We are your friend, and maybe even our neighbor, so we want to treat you as that. All Certified MinuteFix Technicians are thoroughly screened and tested, and must pass a customer service exam. Great customer service is the foundation of MinuteFix. [Read more…]