Blog Marketing Academy

My readers know that I'm a huge fan of Aweber. I've been with them myself for years and I truly think they're the best option out there. However, their new message editor is... disappointing. The Editor Shortcomings My standard workflow when I send out an email is to write the message in a text editor and then paste it into Aweber. Alternatively, I will sometimes type the email directly into Aweber. Most of my emails are simple text-only emails. We do have a full HTML newsletter for … [Read more...]

Why so many people end up doing business with GoDaddy, I have no idea. But, of course, I must look in the mirror. As I used to use GoDaddy for my domains. Well, not anymore. Like many who've been in online business for awhile, I owned a lot of domains. Close to 90 of them, actually. I have been meaning to ditch some of them that I realized I'd never use. But, in the process, I've decided to transfer the ones I'm keeping away from GoDaddy. I'm switching everything to Namecheap. In fact, … [Read more...]

This whole biz-ness of internet marketing and social media has it's share of little buzz phrases. And some of them just need to go away. Let me explain... "Let's Connect" or "Engage" We see this one dropped by social media people all the time. We're told to "engage" with our audiences. To "engage" people on Twitter. No, I really want to "just connect" with you. "Let's connect". Here's my problem with it... It makes simple human relations seem like a tactic. As if communicating … [Read more...]

Today (Jan 18th) is a large-scale protest day to SOPA/PIPA. No doubt, you've heard all about it. Many large websites are going black today in protest of the bill, including Wikipedia, Wordpress and Google (in the form of a censored logo). If I had more time available, I might have set things up to black out DavidRisley.com and PCMech.com. But, I don't really have the time to set it up in the right way. I am, though, in full support of the protest. SOPA is a legislative reaction to a … [Read more...]

There are two different worlds that I straddle - blogging/social and internet marketing. Internet marketing conferences have little resemblance to the typical social media conference, and the two crowds don't usually interact. Both crowds dabble in the other, but they have very different outlooks. While most bloggers aren't making much money while they focus on things like Twitter and branding, internet marketers are usually making some money, but suck at blogging and think things like … [Read more...]

The 2010 Blogworld Expo is THIS WEEK. In fact, I'm flying out tomorrow morning (yes, a bit earlier than most since I have some meetings planned before the event starts). I've been watching the #bwe10 hashtag on Twitter and there appears to be a lot of first-timers to Blogworld this year. And that's AWESOME. It is great to see so much interest in this. This will be my third year at Blogworld. Even though there have been a number of posts out there with Blogworld tips, I thought I would … [Read more...]

We love Wordpress. And, yes, we love the fact that it is free. Wordpress is also GPL. Thesis (the popular premium theme) is not GPL. Matt Mullenweg thinks it should be. The argument is that, because Thesis is a "derivative work" from Wordpress, it is required to also use the GPL. There is a counter-argument, too, which says GPL doesn't apply. But, the debate got louder today and now there is even talk of Mullenweg suing over the issue. Here's my take... Oh, GPL. Oh, How Confusing You … [Read more...]

This post is an off-the-cuff, shoot-from-the-hip response to a guest post today by Derek Jensen over on Blogussion. In his words, stop blogging about blogging already. In short, I agree with his post. But, I thought I would just offer my viewpoint on this – from the perspective of somebody who clearly blogs about blogging. Stop, Drop And Think First If you are brand new to blogging, or even if you have had a little success at it, it doesn’t mean you can enter this niche and cash … [Read more...]

I want to tell you a story. Actually a couple of them. :) Back in January of 2009, I was sitting on the balcony of my cabin. Sitting there on the Crown Princess (A Princess Cruise lines ship), my wife and I were relaxing in our cabin. We decided to get away – just after the 1-year birthday of our daughter. There is no land in sight. Just the blue water of the Caribbean, racing by several decks below at a speed of 20 knots or so. I pulled out my laptop. Oh, don’t worry, I had no … [Read more...]

I am a big fan of working “in the cloud”. Meaning, I like working online and having things based on the Internet. It means I can run things from anywhere and from any device. In running my online business, I’ve come to rely on a handful of web-based services. For me, these are the most important ones. Google Yeah, well, I’m sure this one isn’t any revelation, but have you ever stopped to think just how many services Google offers that many of us rely on every day? Gmail. This is … [Read more...]