The Secrets of My (so-called) Success
Posted by Paul Woodhouse at March 3rd, 2006
Do I believe your blog only requires twenty minutes a week spending on it?
NO.
Do I believe blogs are about gaining #1 positions on search engines?
NO.
Do I believe you need to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a ’special report’ to find out about blogging?
NO.
Having completed one of the longest interviews on record for the subscription only site Secrets to their Success I thought I’d use this blog post to set the record straight about a thing or two.
I tend not to turn any interview down, whether it’s student researching a paper or the mainstream media. However, I’m not always a fan of being used to endorse somebody else’s agenda or product. In the case of this particular interview I’ve been used to plug their report on blogging. Now it may very well be an astonishingly good report, but for one thing I haven’t read it and for another I can assure you that all the information you need about business blogging is available for FREE on hundreds of business and marketing blogs already. (Note to self: Stop being so wet behind ears.)
One of the first I’d recommend for a brilliant basic background to corporate blogging is CorporateBlogging.Info.
To understand (or not as the case may be) the ethics and values behind business blogging as I see them you can always trot over to Blog Core Values.
And then you can allow yourself to wander from these two blogs and see where it takes you.
Also, seeming the interview is subscription only, I thought I’d let you read the unedited version - warts and all.
First round of interview questions.
Second round of interview questions.
I’m not trying to say that it’s ‘my way or the highway’. However, if you have a question about blogging you’re more than welcome to contact me personally or leave a comment.
Let the conversation commence……..
Hey Paul,
I just analyzed your unedited interview against the one published by Internet Marketing Center (IMC), and wanted to drop you a line. In short, your full interview is much more useful since it paints a fuller picture of what blogging demands and what the potential rewards are. As you can imagine, IMC downplayed the first and overplayed the second to the best of their abilities. Also, the published interview is chased by a 2-page ad for their “traffic strategies” package that undoubtly concentrates on blogging. But hey, everybody’s in it for the money, so such use of your interview could only be expected. All in all, thank you for taking the time and the effort. Your insight was definitely educational, and I certainly hope this interview will pay off for you in additional quality traffic.
I like your three opening statements a lot. Very true - especially the first one!
Just wanted to back you up regarding CorporateBlogging.Info - it is a very useful site indeed. Great for basic busines blogging information.
true very true. blogs have become dumo yards for many. good thoughts keep it up.
Thanks for that Paul. However, all that’s happened is that they’ve pulled the interview from their site and all the additional (non-targetted) traffic probably had something to do with with my host disabling the damn databases. Is there a lesson there somewhere?
Easton:
I’ve yet to meet a proper blogger who can write anything from conception to completion in twenty minutes - unless it’s just a throwaway type of posts. And we all know that leads to a throwaway type of blog.
Sarvpriya:
I think you might just be going into my spam bin.
You’ve just reminded me that ‘my lot’ generally think this stuff doesn’t matter to them - about time to point them over here methinks.
Thanks Paul…
What stuff would that be Dennis?
Sheet metal, charging for reports or success?
I haven’t played out with ‘your lot’ for ages now. Have they gotten weirder or just more desperate?
Blimey Paul this site is incredibly funky - this took more than 20mins todo! I’m going to forward this post onto a friend who has just started blogging - she is an exjournalist and has taken to blogging like a duck to water. Unfortunately her family have been left behind on dry land! see http://elleeseymour.blogspot.com/ How hard is it to set her up with a cool blog like this?
Well all the credit is down to the guys who originally made the theme for typo then ported it over to wordpress- both of their links can be found on the footer.
All I did was replace a header image, slip in a nav bar and change a few colours. Oh, and then I watched the bugger freak out on me as certain plugins didn’t want to play with each other.
The funkiness was there to start with. I also expect WP blogs to get funkier by the minute.
It honestly doesn’t take too long, although I’m a bit limited on setting up certain gallery scripts within this particular theme. My php is hardly up to scratch.
You could always set her up on wordpress.com to see how she likes a lighter version of wordpress. At least then there’s no hosting costs and no messing with plugins etc.