Improve Your Blog’s Brand by Creating New Jargon

Yaro Starak has some great advice for bloggers in one of his recent posts. He advises us to create new jargon for our niche. This strategy builds the perception that we are experts who know what we’re talking about. Also, a new term or buzzword can function like other branding elements such as a logo, blog design, or writing style since the term will remind people of our blog. Borrow Terms From Other Niches You don’t necessarily... 

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Why Being Self-Centered Can Actually Help Your Blog

Brian Clark from Copyblogger recently released a free report entitled The Lateral Action Guide to Becoming a Creative Entrepreneur. I just finished reading it and like most of Brian’s stuff, it was very good. I was surprised though at one of his recommendations. He advised aspiring entrepreneurs to be self-centered. He pointed to 37signals, a popular software company that’s become very successful by only creating products that they themselves would find useful. On page 14, he quoted the... 
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Dave Grohl: Another celebrity disses Twitter

Outspoken Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has laid into Twitter, or — more accurately — the people who use it, suggesting that they are wasting their time. “F**k Twitter! That’s the biggest waste of time. If people got their head out of their ass, they might f**king get out and accomplish something.” Presumably, he’s hurling his insult at the stereotypical couch potato Twitter user who simply tweets about what they’ve just had for lunch, rather than the myriad of... 
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A Blogging Case Study: Covering a Big Event in My Niche

A couple days I tried an experiment in which I covered a big event in my niche. My blog is in the gaming niche. More specifically, I write about Magic The Gathering (MTG), a popular trading card game. MTG recently had their World Championship Tournament. This tournament happens once a year and take four days to complete. It is the most prestigious event on the calendar with over a quarter million dollars in the prize pool. This year the winner received a $45,000 check. I knew that many players would... 
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Wordpress.com proves why you’re always at the mercy of free blogging platforms

The news that Automattic has finally rolled out email subscriptions on WordPress.com goes to prove the point that, no matter how good a free blogging platform is, you’re always at its mercy when it comes to features. That might sound obvious, but it’s something that’s easy for new bloggers to overlook. While it’s wise to keep a blog simple, features such as allowing your readers to subscribe via email are near essential when it comes to marketing, because many visitors don’t... 
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Microblogging drives mobile Internet usage

If you’re in any doubt that adding geotagging to Twitter is a good idea, the latest survey from Novarra has found that microblogging services are driving the use of the mobile Internet. In the past year, mobile usage of URL shortening services such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com — near-essential for sharing links on Twitter — has leapt by 1,068%, while page views of Twitter grew by 3,500% in the first half of 2009. VP of marketing at Novarra, Randy Cavaiani, said that Twitter was a great viral... 
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Five Ways to Tweak a Wordpress Theme

Ah, free Wordpress themes. I’m convinced they’re one of the biggest reasons Wordpress is the most popular blogging platform today. From one-column minimalism to grid-based magazine layouts, photoblogging styles to made-for-Adsense themes, there are free Wordpress themes for every taste- just download, install and activate! But to set your blog apart, you’ll want to tweak that theme- and when I say tweak, I mean make small changes here and there. To make these tweaks to your theme... 
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Performancing Releases the Herald Theme for WordPress

Considered one of the premier sources of blogging news, commentary and information, The Blog Herald has gone through different iterations since its inception in 2003. Among the most successful designs was Brian Gardner’s grey-themed three-column layout released in 2007. Performancing is releasing this theme as our latest free WordPress theme as the Herald Theme. Sporting a grey-dominant color scheme, with red and blue highlights, the Herald Theme looks clean and crisp, with a wide main content... 
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Twitter geotagging: Will you be using the new service?

Do you Twitter from your mobile device while on the go, or do you tend to use the service from the comfort of your home computer? Twitter’s recent announcement that it has added geotagging capabilities to its API means that we will soon see a number of third-party Twitter applications taking advantage of that. Geotagging is one of the latest crazes, it seems, with many devices now containing GPS devices and making the task very easy. Yet, while taking photos and geotagging them some time later... 
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Paul Scrivens to Take Over as Splashpress Media Publisher

Splashpress Media, the parent company of Performancing, has recently announced that Paul Scrivens will take the helm of the network as publisher. Scrivs will be our captain and conductor, managing our assets, coordinating our efforts and hopefully expanding our reach. Along with this new leadership comes a bit of reorganization. Andy Merrett (a regular contributor here), who has been a community manager and channel editor to sites like Forever Geek, 9rules and Performancing, will take the creative... 
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