As I finish up a few tasks in my home office today and get ready to welcome in the New Year of 2011 with family and friends I’ve been reflecting on my online journey.

I started my current consulting business, Mission Springs LLC, in December 2005 just five years ago. For nearly three years I have been running my business full-time after leaving my J.O.B. at Becker Furniture World as their I.T. Manager.

But, my journey to learn how to make money on the Internet or from doing work involving using the Internet started way back in 1994 and 1995 when I was first exposed to the WWW (World Wide Web). Back in September of 1994 I started to use Netscape Navigator while taking a business management program at a local college.

I will spare the details of the experiences I had back then but I will say that by the winter of 1994-1995 I made my first income by teaching others how to use the Internet for business. As a matter of fact, one of my most interesting students was the CIO for a local small business called Cargill. He came to my class to learn how to use the Internet to build the company’s first website. You can see one of their first designs here at Archive.org from 1996.

http://web.archive.org/web/19961223102940/http://www.cargill.com

Later in 1995 I started to talk with my local banker, telling them that they needed a website for the bank. After a couple months of me “pestering” them they said that I should go ahead and build the first website for them. So, along with Larry Hill (who worked for the bank) we set out to do that working on an old PC with a dial-up modem. You can see an early version of our design also at Archive.org.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970117011500/http://www.the-bank-er.com

Between 1995 and 2008 I worked at three different companies in their Information Technology departments and at each one I had a hand in website design or Internet systems. While working for my first IT company I built the first website for the City of Chanhassen, MN. Here is one of the early designs I did for the city… really lame looking I know. But hey, the paid me to do this.

http://web.archive.org/web/19961031160637/http://www.ci.chanhassen.mn.us

I did my own consulting and website work back then under my first business name, G.T.A. Business Solutions. Again, not a really great looking website but it got me business.

http://web.archive.org/web/19961103225347/www.elknet.com/gta/hpgta.html

In the mid to late 1990’s while working full-time at IT jobs for others I helped several local businesses in Elk River with their first online ventures. And now, I’m getting back to where I started.

I’ve tried to help other people who wanted to learn how to build online businesses. I build websites for their various “make money on the Internet” ventures but most of them never became successful for lack of money, skills or time to see success happen.

Last year I joined the Elk River Chamber of Commerce and started attending the weekly Tuesday morning Chamber Connections networking meeting. This step, along with some other key steps, has now brought me full circle back to working with local businesses and organizations.

Over the last several years I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars by using and from using the Internet and helping others to use it to make money. My goal for 2011 is to do more teaching and consulting with businesses in the Greater Elk River Area, to help them maximize their ROI of advertising dollars by using the tools available online.

In the past several months I have positioned myself with some of the top resources and people who I can call on to provide the tools and services local business owners need to gain the competitive advantage in their organizations.

If you are a business owner or know a business owner who needs a better plan for utilizing the Internet in 2011… please contact me. I can help you to leverage your good business to make it a Great Business and draw clients and customers to you that you don’t have now. Also, I can help you earn more repeat sales from existing clients and customers using the technology of online business.

Have a wonderful New Year of 2011… I plan to.

About six months back my I had a major change with my business plans so I’ve been working more on other websites and projects and not doing much with this blog. Now that I’m further along with those projects we are working on doing the updates and theme changes that I want to make here on WhoIsHenry.com

It will probably take a week or two until I get things the way I want them so please pardon the mess while we work. I’ll give you a full update to the new things that are going on here after the site remodeling is done.

WordPress blogs are wonderful tools for building your home based business for many reasons. One of the reasons that blogs work so well is something called pinging. No, it’s not the pinging of sonar in those submarine movies but, in the same way that sonar helps to locate other vessels in the ocean, blog pinging helps to let others know that your website is there.

Blog Building Using Pinging for One Way Links

What is pinging?

Pinging is a way of letting search engines know that you’ve created a new post, or updated an existing post on your blog. A ‘ping’ is a message sent to a ‘ping server’ notifying it that the blog has been updated with new content.

What is a ping server?

A ping server is a web-based service that accepts messages in the XML-RPC format. It uses the information in these XML-RPC messages to publish a list of blogs which have updated content. Some of these ping servers run their own blog search engines, and some propagate the information to a number of other ping servers and search engines.

How does pinging work?

Many blog publishing platforms, such as WordPress, have a built-in pinging tool. In the case of WordPress, pinging is turned on by default and pings go out to one ping server which updates several search engines.

You can also notify a ping server that you have updated content manually by going to their website and submitting your blog’s name and URL.

One popular ping server is PingOMatic, found at http://pingomatic.com/. When your blog pings PingOMatic it then notifies a number of search engines that your blog has been updated. Many of these search engines also have their own ping server as well.

These search engines can then update their listings with new content almost instantly. This of course will give you one-way backlinks to your blog from these search engines, many of which have a high Google PageRank.

Four things you should know about pinging

1. Only ping when you have updated content. Otherwise, your site might be blacklisted as a spam blog, also known as a splog.

2. If you tend to post to your blog and then re-write the post frequently you might want to make sure you only ping when you actually post new content, not on updates. If you are using WordPress there are a few plugins that make sure that pings are only sent when a post is created.

3. It’s a good idea to ping several ping services, especially the ones that notify several search engines. Don’t overdo it though. Make sure that if you are pinging a niche search engine that your blog falls into the relevant niche.

4. Make sure that if a search engine is notified by a ping server you are already using that you don’t add that search engines own ping service to your list of servers to ping. Because blog spammers have abused ping servers if you are pinging a search engine multiple times your site might end up being blacklisted, and not appear in the search engines at all.

Popular ping servers

Finally, here’s a list of popular ping servers you might try to get you started.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://ping.blo.gs

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

One of my favorite Sunday afternoon pastimes is watching NASCAR racing and, when not taking a Sunday nap, reading blog postings by some of the master bloggers like Yaro Starak, Darren Rowse and Chris Brogan.

If you want to learn how to make money by Blogging using WordPress I highly recommend that you find and follow successful Bloggers who have already learned the techniques and tricks.

Of course the main “trick� to building a successful business in blogging is content. When you post content that is useful to your readers you will attract not only the search engines but also real “eyeballs� to your website.

When you build a following to your blog you can then begin to monetize your website by adding affiliate links, ad banners and product reviews. You can also market your own products and services using your blog.

To be successful with any form of Internet Marketing and particularly with blogging, you need to stay focused on your goal and post good content often. Today I read a post from Darren Rowse where he talks about the, “16 Important but Potentially Distracting Blogging Tasks.�

Another great post by Chris Brogan gives us, “50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level� which I have reposted before by permission from Chris. Be sure to add to his list by posting your comments on his blog at www.chrisbrogan.com

[BTW, Jimmie Johnson can in second today in the first Race to The Sprint Cup, oh well]

50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level

Blogging is as varied in its applications as using the telephone or taking a picture. The tool doesn’t predict the output. You might be using your blog to post recipes, or to inform the local community about information you find elsewhere on the web. Maybe you’re just trying your hand at writing, and the web is as good a place as any.

If you’re looking to go beyond that, however, you’ll need to take steps to improve your blog from at least five different perspectives. In 50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level, I wanted to share my thoughts on how you should consider your goal, your design, your content, how you promote it, and the business aspects of your blog. Please add to these ideas in the comments, and let’s grow the list out.

50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level

Make Your Goal and Target Audience Crystal Clear

My point with this entire post, but most especially this section is to ask you to admit what your real goals are with your blog. If you’re not sure, that’s fine. You might not really want to take your blog to the next level just yet. But if you’re feeling as if you want to get serious (in whatever direction that takes your efforts), give strong consideration to the following.

1. If your goal is to be an entertainment or news blog, be very clear that it’s that and not a “fun� blog. Consider splitting off your personal or fun blog.
2. If your blog is to be your business, treat it like that. Get into stats. Get into building audience. Get into delivering something unique. Don’t straddle back and forth on this.
3. If the goal is to be a great community resource, mix your blogging time with time spent reaching out to the community you propose to serve. If that’s an offline opportunity, like something local, be there. Be active. Be a connector.
4. If you’re going to be a professional about your blog, carve out the time to do it right. Never, ever, ever post a “sorry I haven’t posted lately� blog post again. Ever.
5. Up the ante on delivering original material. Get outside the echo chamber. Writing a me-too blog isn’t the way to build your blog to the levels you seek to attain.
6. It’s okay to use a personal voice. In fact, there’s no point blogging if you’re going to write like a cold robot. But keep personal and useful in balance.
7. If you are attempting to do real business via your blog, look for ways to convert readers into customers.
8. If it’s just an ad revenue business, compete, and be honest about that. Compete with others in your space for audience, value, and better deals. My point in this regard is that going halfway into the water doesn’t make you less wet.
9. If your blog is the premier source of information for nonprofits, for photographers, for whatever, then be sure you’re scouring news feeds and finding information outside the blogosphere to keep that relationship informed.
10. Make a point of engaging your community often in the comments section, on their blogs, on the other social networks where you cross paths.

Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep

Consider the design elements of your blog. They do change the way people perceive your work. And, they can help you improve your potential business opportunities.

1. Get your own unique URL. It matters in the long run, especially should you choose to change hosts. For instance, if you move off a blogger account at *.blogspot.com , you lose all link equity and page rank for that domain. This means you’d have to start again from scratch. Already in that position? Make the switch now.
2. Consider moving to a hosted blog. You can get a hosted WordPress blog set up and running for only $10 USD a year at Bloghost.me. (Note: if you use code “brogan,� you can get it for $9 a year. Andy’s a friend.)
3. Consider using a professional theme. I am an advocate for Thesis by Chris Pearson. There are other premium themes out there, as well.
4. Consider getting a customized WordPress theme. That link goes to Nico Pin, who designed [chrisbrogan.com]. There are others who do this kind of work, obviously.
5. Are there several unnecessary widgets on your blog? Review them and decide which add value to your audience.
6. Is your layout readable? Are your fonts clean and easy to read? Are your color choices all they can be? A little time with your stylesheet goes a long way.
7. If you have ads, are you choking your community with them? Do you actually endorse the products on them? How effective have they been?
8. Is your blog design and layout configured well for SEO? Several blogging platforms now have SEO plug-ins/add-ons to help with this. That doesn’t beat having a professional take a swing at improving your blog’s SEO, but it’s a good first step.
9. A logo and matching favicon doesn’t hurt. You can find various price points for this, and many different people offering the service. Mine was created by Justin Evans and his team at StressLimit Design. I also have friends in California that I highly recommend, as well.
10. Consider the graphics you post on your site. Do they add to the story you’re trying to tell? If not, seek upgrades. There are many freely available graphics at Flickr, if you search by the appropriate Creative Commons license level.

Make Your Content Top Notch

Growing quality blog posts isn’t magic. We don’t sprinkle cookies all over the house and hope that the Blogging Fairy comes along and writes us posts in exchange for the cookies. It takes lots of work, and a strong commitment. And if it doesn’t come naturally, you CAN learn how to improve.

1. Put your blog posts on a diet. Read them with your audience in mind. Can you thin them out? Remove unnecessary words. Make them tight.
2. Lead with the main point. If you’re attempting to be a quality news or opinion blog, make your main point at the top of the post. Don’t make us dig.
3. Link. If you’re writing about another person, post, or website, link appropriately and thread the web. It fleshes out the story, gives us places to explore, and shows a “good neighbor� practice.
4. Vary up post lengths. If you write a “feature length� post, have something brief come next to avoid reader fatigue. (Unless you’re writing an essay-length blog all the time, and hey, good luck.)
5. Read. Read. Read. Get outside the blogosphere. Find sources of information that span far beyond what your competitors are covering.
6. Get on a regular writing/posting schedule. Extra points for writing a few posts ahead of time for those days when you can’t get to it right away.
7. Work on your titles. A great title drives visits, but also informs us as to what we’re going to learn.
8. Refrain from “me too� posts. If you’ve got something to add, do that and link to the original post, but if you’re moving up to the next level, lose the “pointer� posts. (Your mileage may vary on this one).
9. Consider video, audio, and rich media. If you’re doing a text-mostly blog, consider mixing it up from time to time. It might find you new audience, and it might also give people a more dimensional sense of who you are.
10. Review your blog posts monthly to see if you’re covering the same ground. If you are, consider building an editorial calendar to post from, so that you don’t overlap and repeat topics too often.

Promoting Your Blog

No one loves someone who talks about themselves all the time, but if you’re going to work on bringing your blog up a few notches, make sure your efforts aren’t for nothing.

1. Use a social bookmarking plugin like AddThis or Share This on your blog posts so that people who like your work can share it easily.
2. Make a very prominent option to subscribe by email available on your site. More than 50% of my readers do so via email.
3. Add your blog URL to your email signature.
4. Make sure your blog URL is on your twitter profile, your facebook profile, added into Friendfeed, and several other outposts. This helps people discover you who might not have noticed your work before. (Note: Steve Rubel said that to me many months back. He told me that he “discovered� my blog via Facebook. I’ve been a believer ever since.)
5. If you’re going to promote your blog via places like Twitter, be sure to do it tastefully instead of just dumping links into the stream. Consider asking a question, or pointing out a rather insightful comment.
6. Make sure you’re doing the basics, like listing your site in Yahoo!, Google, DMOZ, and claiming it in Technorati.com (each of those sites shows you how via the help function).
7. Commenting on other well-known blogs in your same space in a not-spammy way is a great way for people who might like your work to discover you. Don’t put blatant links or otherwise be rude. Just be thoughtful and helpful to the community at that site, and leave a useful comment. They’ll come, if they like what you said.
8. Don’t forget posting the occasional blog post in LinkedIn’s status message. It reaches some interesting people from time to time.
9. Is it fair to Digg or Stumble your own posts? There are mixed opinions on this. I’ve had little to no success with Digg in this regard. StumbleUpon is a different story. Decide for yourself if you think this is okay to do. I’ve heard it called “patting yourself on the back in public.�
10. Write the occasional post that’s worthy of bookmarking. When someone adds a blog post of mine to Delicious, I often get lots more traffic than from other promotional angles.

Building Business From Your Blog

You might be trying to make money from your blog directly, perhaps through advertising or affiliate marketing. Or you might be seeking to establish thought leadership and promote consulting opportunities. You might be simply looking to drive even better awareness of a social cause or have a nonprofit or educational motive in mind. In any case, think of “business� to mean “value beyond the blogging itself.�

1. Build conversion opportunities. If you’re selling something directly, think of clever ways to post about it that educate, inform, and encourage a call to action.
2. Make sure your blog design points people towards the action you want them to take. (See Financial Aid Podcast for an easy example).
3. Ask for the sale. If you’re selling something, don’t be shy. Ask for it. Do so in a blog post, or in an ad of your own creation. Be direct and honest about this.
4. Mix free value and additional opportunities. If you’re selling something that’s not unlike what’s available on your blog for free, demonstrate the dividing line. Even consider giving a hint of what’s on the other side.
5. Make it easy to opt in. Like asking for the sale, make sure you help your prospective customers/cleints/partners know how to get into your sales funnel, should they be interested.
6. Make content that sells. If you’re blogging or posting video to promote a business objective, work at building the content such that it drives that end decision. Too 1.0 for you? At least open conversations up about what you’re trying to accomplish.
7. Make it very easy to contact you. Make your About page very clean and easy to read. Put some real human names on the website, and even consider adding a photo, so that people know who they’re addressing. (I say this all the time, but I see so many examples daily of people who could use this advice.)
8. Build relationships with similar blogs and share opportunities. If you’re blogging about real estate, get to know the other real estate bloggers and learn from each other.
9. Give “serving suggestions� on your blog. If you’re blogging a particular kind of offering, is there a way to share what it does, or how you want to be involved?
10. Remember: even if your blog’s main goal is selling, be human, be interesting, be involved. This isn’t the old Internet. We have these nifty social tools that remind us to be human. Let’s use them that way.

My goal in writing this was to offer advice and suggestions for how one might transform their blog from “another one in the pack� to something of a destination on the web. It’s not my opinion that we should all be following this advice. There are several blogs that I love exactly the way they are, and I’m sure their respective owners do, too.

We all do this for different reasons, and one size does not fit all. For those of you who DO intend their blog to be an authoritative, professional-minded presence on the web, I hope this helps.

Do you have something more to add? What’s your take? What have I missed completely? What other questions to you have?

]]> http://whoishenry.com/watching-nascar-cup-race-studying-some-master-bloggers.htm/feed 0 http://whoishenry.com/results-of-reader-survey-who-are-the-bloggers-and-who-are-reading-blogs.htm http://whoishenry.com/results-of-reader-survey-who-are-the-bloggers-and-who-are-reading-blogs.htm#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:25:38 +0000 Henry http://whoishenry.com/?p=232 Continue reading →]]>

Do you have your own blog?

Over the Labor Day weekend here in the USA I did a survey of one of my reader lists regarding Blogging. I wanted to find out who those are that are reading blogs and how many on my list are blogers themselves.

I have been blogging, discovering how WordPress works and the cool tools that are available for WordPress for the past year or so. Many of my clients are now using WordPress blogs themselves and finding out how easy it is to build a business, and earn income, blogging.

My survey is not very scientific but it does confirm some things that I have been seeing and what Internet Marketers are telling me… Blogging with WordPress is great.

In a resent interview I did with my friend Willie Crawford, who at last count has over 2000 websites, he said that over 90% of the new websites he is building are WordPress blogs. If Willie Crawford, who has been doing Internet Marketing since about 1996, thinks that blogs are the way to go… well, I think it is always a good idea to copy success.

Below are a few of the questions that I asked in the survey and images of the pie charts of the replies. I will provide more about this in a future posting but I wanted to get this out before any more time goes by.
Thanks to all who replied to this survey. I hope you have taken time to download the free gift and read it over. Lot’s of interesting information in the Blogging Cash Method eBook.

For anyone in need of website hosting or help with setting up your own WordPress blog, please click on the contact link and get in touch with me. If you are not already blogging and using your blog to build you home based or online business… Get Started Now.

If you answered Yes to having your own blog, how often do you post to it?

Do you leave comments on blogs you visit?

Ben Cope

Ben Cope, the Internet Genius behind the great WordPress Dream Theme, will be a guest presenter Thursday evening August 14th at 9PM Eastern time for the Midwest Internet Marketing Super Conference, pre-conference calls.

THE WEBINAR IS OVER – REPLAY LINK FOR AUDIO HERE!

Ben Cope is a DotComPreneur, Web Designer, and Internet Marketing Consultant whose goal is to help people understand how to make the web work for them. As the creator of numerous high-end, profitable websites for clients all over the world, Ben’s work has earned him the title of “Internet Genius.”

Ben is the founder of Epic Web Strategies, an internet marketing blog providing tips, techniques, and strategies for success on the internet. Additionally, he is also the creator of WordPress University, a site dedicated to teaching people how to use WordPress more effectively. He also works behind the scenes for several other well-known internet marketing experts.

Jeff Mills is host for the conference which takes place in Minneapolis, Minnesota September 19-21, 2008. This is the third year for this conference which has drawn attendees from across the United States and other countries.

Each year Jeff Mills invites his conference speakers to join him on a pre-conference call or webinar to share some of their secrets to success and introduce themselves to those interested in attending the fall conference. Jeff also invites a few “bonus experts” to these calls each year. Jeff has asked Henry Griner to interview Ben Cope and share with his list members how they can use the Magic of WordPress to explode their online businesses.

No matter what your topic or niche in the online business world there is one tool that everyone needs… a WordPress Blog! This one simple to use software tool can build your online marketing empire quickly and easily without you needing to become an “html code-head.”

WordPress blogging software is sometimes referred to as a Content Management System (CMS). It is fast to install, easy to learn and is often provided as a FREE tool with most web hosting companies. Themes or template designs are found free all over the Internet but you may wish to purchase a custom design including installation such as the WordPress Dream Theme designed by Ben Cope.

If you are already online with your own Internet marketing business or, you are planning to start your own home based business using the Internet, you must listen along Thursday night, August 14th at 9PM EDT, 8PM CDT, 7PM MDT and 6PM PDT when Ben Cope and Henry Griner discuss how you can turn on a flood of traffic to your own blog using WordPress and the WordPress Dream Theme.

Ben’s SPECIAL OFFER from the Webinar of both his WordPress Dream Theme + Video Sales Letter Theme is only available when you use this SPECIAL OFFER LINK! Save $297 TODAY… This link may not be active for much longer.