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When Things Get Personal On Blogs

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jun 19, 2010

This is a rant post, and I’m naming names. I’m going to try to be fair, but if I’m not, part of me doesn’t care, but the other part almost apologizes up front; almost, that is.

There is a post on a blog called Growmap that’s ranting against Akismet. Okay, Akismet might not be perfect, but I’ve been a major supporter of the program for almost 4 years, and I’m not going against them now. The writer, Gail, has done some testing and supposedly she has seen that some posts end up being killed by Akismet. Not moved to the spam folder, but killed overall. Or so she says; one never really knows if a post was accidentally deleted by someone when they emptied their spam folder or if a post was deemed as being spam by the reviewer. I know many bloggers who say they never check their spam filter; that’s not good, but it’s their blog so life is what it is. I will say that in reading other posts of Gail’s that she tends to be very thorough, as much as one can be.

Anyway, she and a few other people have gone on a crusade against Akismet, even though Gail states that she doesn’t hate it. Okay, that’s fine. I put a comment on her post saying I support Akismet and was a major fan. It wasn’t all that long a comment, and it wasn’t the first. However, the response I got was way out of proportion to my original comment, and other people were skipped; to me, that was intentional and personal, and I didn’t like it one bit. And me being me, well, I don’t demure from certain things, so I commented back, trying to temper my language (I don’t curse, but I can be kind of mean spirited at times when pushed), and I think my response was okay.

Next thing I know, I receive responses on this blog from two of her supporters, one writing from a place called Linda Christas, which is supposed to be an online training organization of some sort. They’re supporting Gail, which is fine, but they wrote these long comments on a post of mine that has nothing to do with the subject matter I wrote about. In my mind, that’s spam, and I don’t appreciate it, and I went to Gail’s blog and said as much. There’s a point at which things cross the line and get truly personal, and I don’t take that kind of mess kindly, especially when the people saying stuff are trying to hide, in their own way, who they are.

One of the people, a woman named Leone, wrote with the email address of this Linda Christas. There’s this woman who either really works there or is a scam of some sort who calls herself Dr. Ann. This person has posted comments on my blog and other blogs. At first the comments seem to match up to the content. Then they go off topic and start this rant against Akismet. It seems Linda Christas is on a crusade against Akismet, and they’re trying hard to pull other people into the process. If you think I’m the only one who sees this and is calling it out, check out this post on TechPatio titled Comment Spam, She’s Back: Dr. Ann Voisin From Linda Christas College. And if you want to see his first post on this person and this college, which was only days earlier, check this one out as well, titled Akismet Blocking Your Blog? No Way, Just a SPAM Trick!.

Of course my respect for this college is gone, especially since I just saw a post on their site, unordinarily long, ranting against Akismet, and frankly it parrots the same type of tripe I’ve seen coming from a few other places. At least Gail did a study of some sort, which I applaud her for (see, I’m trying to be fair here). Of course, Gail also called me out on her blog asking if she’d ever written anything that I considered as spam on this blog and I had to tell her yes, the last time she visited, which was June 2009. So, this could color her idea in some way of what spam just might be. Her last response to me, before I got mad because of the other people who came from her blog to post their “threats” about not visiting this blog again, was not in attack mode, and I appreciate that as well.

I need to say this. I have gone on attack mode on other people’s blogs, so I’m not totally innocent here. However, if I do that, I do it for one of two reasons. One, you don’t get to go after any of my friends without a confrontation from me; that’s what loyalty is all about, and if my friends don’t breach the rules of proper decorum in another place, I’ve got their back. Two, you don’t get to get away with racist or misogynist or any other type of hateful speech and think I’m going to let it go. Too many people decide to turn the other way and let that kind of thing go by, and that’s why we end up with some of the problems we have in this world. Sure, I don’t expect the majority to always step in to help fight these things because it’s not in their interest; they have nothing to gain by speaking out for those who they indirectly believe are less than themselves, even if they don’t express it. So, if anyone goes to Gail’s blog and reads my initial post and thinks I attacked her in any way, please explain to me how I did it. If you believe that disagreeing with the host on a blog is attacking, then so be it. Rose and I don’t always agree, but in the end, I hope she doesn’t think I’m ever attacking her, and I know she’s not attacking me either.

So, I have no respect for Linda Christas and the type of people it seems to put out; yes, that’s an attack. If people representing them believe they can come into my house and spit on my rug, it’s not happening. I left the other comment on my previous post, even though it had nothing to do with the topic; believe me, that won’t happen again, and if someone wants to cry censorship, tough. I pay for this space, and there are comment rules; don’t follow them, don’t expect anything extra-special coming your way on my part because you feel you have the right. That mess won’t be tolerated. Now, if it happens on this post, it might be tolerated, since I’m in attack mode, so to speak. But we’ll see. Meanwhile, I’m going to continue using Akismet, and I don’t care who likes it or doesn’t like it. People who use Disqus or Intense Debate know I don’t like those things, and yet they continue using it. Because it’s their right to use it, just as it’s my right to use Akismet. We can debate the merits of it; no problem. But when it goes further, when it gets personal… I’ll stop there.

Blogging, Personal | 58 Comments

Traffic And Buyers

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 7, 2009

Our friend Sire and I have had some interesting conversations lately on two topics. One is the concept of trying to drive more traffic to one’s blog. The other was how to turn people into buyers, especially if they’re actually clicking on your links.

Let’s address the first topic of traffic first. I’ve actually broached this subject many times, in different ways. I asked what people would do to get more traffic. In that post I talked about those websites that you can pay that supposedly will send you lots of traffic. It’s not targeted, and you’re not sure any of those people actually clicked and read your stuff, but you’re somehow getting traffic.

I mentioned free traffic exchanges, which comes from Pei Profit. I mentioned the concept of better SEO and organically driving traffic to you and your site. And I mentioned myself the idea of blog commenting to drive traffic as well. I like the last two the best, although SEO can take awhile and blog commenting is a lot of work.

Of course, there was my rant against those folks who write all these posts about driving massive traffic to one’s blog but copy what everyone else has been writing; I hate that kind of thing. I also have shared something where Alvin Phang talks about how he drives traffic to his blog. And I also have asked people how far they’re willing to go for promotion, although that wasn’t specifically for traffic, but if you promote yourself well you’re probably going to get better traffic.

The reality is that it’s hard getting traffic to come to your site unless you can figure out a way to stand apart. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with content anymore; sure, content adds value, but I’ve been to some blogs where the entire post is two paragraphs, or is a lot of nothing, and that post will generate 50 comments. It might have something to do with blog commenting, because people see what you have to say and if they like it they’ll visit you. I think this thing Kristi does every Friday called Fetching Fridays is a wonderful concept, but wow, what a lot of work! However, it generates lots of visits because the people she highlights love it, and people who drop by get to see lots of topics and visit blogs they may never have heard of that have articles they want to see. No, I won’t be doing anything like that on a regular basis, so you’ll just have to deal with my occasional highlight of websites you might not know about.

One other thing. This concept of niche blogging is a good one, but just selecting a niche isn’t going to get it done as far as driving lots of traffic, or even making a lot of money. Today I posted my 201st post on my finance blog, Top Finance Blog, as today is the blog’s anniversary (200 posts a year there, 300 here… man, I’m tired!). The niche is finance, which one would have thought was a big issue in this past year with the terrible economy, but it’s generated very little income, few visitors by comparison, and not all that many comments. So, it really depends on picking a niche that you know everyone else is really interested in, then being able to consistently write on that niche without being boring or stealing from others for inspiration.

In other words, other than blog commenting and figuring out how to promote yourself better, I have nothing to add on how to drive traffic to a blog or website; at least not fast.

Now, on to the topic of turning people into buyers. Sire stated on his blog that he believes it could be tied into getting more traffic. I disagreed with that assertion. We both put up our monthly income stats. I made nothing for Commission Junction in November, but I had 283 people actually click on the links, which means they checked out products or the websites. But no buyers. Sire had around 170 or so, and the same thing. Most sales professionals will tell you that you should average at least 1% sales; we both missed that.

One of my friends, Monique, wrote to say that she felt if one actually talked about the product then marketed it that it would generate sales. I didn’t totally dismiss it, because that does sound like a great strategy, but I’ve done that. I talked about my Casio watch and even put the watch I bought at the bottom; no clicks. I’ve written on other products, and I’ll be writing on another product soon; nothing. I’ve actually written 2 posts on the ebook 20 Ways To Make $100 a Day, and never gotten a click, even though I bought the book and it’s what’s led me to my latest career in writing and blog writing for others.

Is it a matter of trust? Well, this guy named Todd asked if people like and trust you, and I commented that I hoped so, but I wasn’t really sure. I get visitors, have subscribers, but no buyers. So, does that mean people don’t trust me, or just that I’m not offering anything that they need? Do folks know that I can find almost any product they’d be looking for and possibly get it for them at a discount through my Commission Junction affiliate program? Well, you do now!

Then I said to Sire that we had to look at each other to see what makes us respond to buying things. And we really don’t have an answer for that; I think that’s interesting, and something worth exploring. Actually, I asked people before what makes them buy stuff, and got at least a few comments on it. I’m asking again, because I’d love to hear from more people on the subject. And of course the question comes up as to the types of ads people respond to better, banner ads, product ads, or text ads. I’ve tried them all; still no idea.

Either way, it’s probably the question of the ages for anyone trying to market themselves online. I have a lot of questions, but not all that many answers. Anyone figured out the full formula yet? Let us know. Oh yeah, it’s also the last day of my wife’s pillow blanket holiday special; gotta keep promoting the wife, you know.

Marketing | 15 Comments

Some Random Thoughts

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Mar 20, 2009

I won’t be doing this all that often, but I’ve had some random thoughts that I wanted to put out there, mainly to get them off my chest, but to see what you think about them. More personal stuff, but let’s see where it all goes.

I’m wondering if it’s time to change how we treat certain criminal acts. Most of the time people are sent to jail for what I deem are more emotional acts than criminal acts. Does it really behoove us to put someone in jail for 10 to 25 years on a first time drunk driving offense that kills someone, or putting someone in jail for 3 to 5 years for marijuana possession? I’m not saying don’t punish them in some fashion, but it’s costly putting these folks in with the really, really bad guys. There has to be options that still punish, but make these people still contribute something to society, and potential victims, in other ways, doesn’t it?

Also, something different has to be done with released sexual predators. Right now, even if they serve their entire sentence, they’re harassed wherever they go when released, can’t get jobs, can’t live here or there, and thus what options do they really have outside of prison? Once again, not saying we don’t punish these people for their crimes, but there has to be a better way of handling this issue.

In New York, Governor Patterson is taking heat from many sides because he’s proposed cutting different types of programs across the board, and taxing this thing or that thing that someone else determines they don’t like. There are even commercials being produced against him from different organizations. Thing is, no one wants to be affected, but no one has offered up anyone else for cuts, or come up with another way to do things. Everyone always wants to protect their own piece of the pie, but when everyone’s hurting, no one deserves to be protected way more than anyone else. Fairness has to be maintained in some way. Isn’t it time people who decide to complain about something offer up something else as a legitimate alternative?

The same goes for President Obama. He’s bee in office exactly two months, and everyone feels he should have solved every problem in the world, let alone the United States, that took 8 years to mess up. No one can truthfully say he hasn’t reached out to the other party, yet they’ve found that, for the first time in eight years, they can bind together almost unanimously to try to upset the process; so much for bipartisanship. Get over it, Republicans; you lost the election, and your popularity as a party is tumbling drastically as you subconsciously have appointed Rush Limbarf as the leader of your party. The Republican party is quickly heading towards separating into a southern states versus everyone else who wants to be considered as a Republican, and, if no one’s been paying attention, that’s happened before in history; anyone remember the Federalist party? For that matter anyone remember that many of today’s southern Republicans used to be democrats? You’re close to becoming a non-entity, like religion; anyone seen the stats on religion in America lately? Those who consider themselves as being part of a religion is as close to becoming a minority as it can get; give it ten more years. Both of y’all better get it together, or you’ll be, as the original Star Trek alluded to, “dunseled”.

What’s with this rash of two new sets of killers, the ones who decide to take out a bunch of people before offing themselves, and these guys who decide their entire families must be killed before offing themselves? Is there really anyone left who can legitimately say they don’t believe gun control is a good thing? Is anyone else getting tired of hearing “he was so quiet” when they really mean “he was that weird kid who sat all by himself because people picked on him”? Anyone notice it’s always men? I’m not in school, but someone’s not paying attention to what’s going on anymore, and parents are as much to blame for not knowing what’s going on with their kids as anyone, in my opinion. I’m thinking we need more Boys and Girls Clubs, and some more proactive punishment against bullies. Using the excuse “they’re just acting like kids” isn’t going to get it done anymore.

And, as a sidebar gripe, what’s with the ones who keep forgetting that babies aren’t Sketch-o-Matics and try to shake them quiet (and they end up quiet for good)? How did this get to be a modern phenomenon, and who started this mess, since we all believe that this type of behavior is learned?

Isn’t it about time that these men who believe hitting women is a good thing (yeah, it’s their fault because they made you mad; punks) should be getting a little bit of “an eye for an eye” and be put in a lineup of all women to be slapped and kicked, like a fraternity initiation? By the way, I’m against that mess also, as more and more young adults, who must have a great sense of need to put themselves through stupid mess like that, are getting themselves either killed or seriously hurt? Hazing; a fancy word for bullying.

I doubt the show Entertainment Tonight goes around the world, but am I the only one who noticed, and was disappointed, that they wouldn’t even use the name of one of the competitors on their show, Nancy O’Dell, who was a competitor on Dancing With The Stars (no, I don’t watch it), just because she works for a competing show? If she hadn’t gotten hurt and had made it into the final group of competitors, would they have just stopped covering the show in its entirety? And, since she’s going to be up for competing on the next reiteration of the show, will they continue this stupidity?

Has anyone really been paying attention to the weather? Europe had some very nasty weather this winter; hurricanes and typhoons are getting stronger and coming more often; some areas have more drought, some areas have more floods; we’re hearing of more firestorms than ever before; tornadoes have lost their mind! Does anyone who’s under the age of 40 other than Elizabeth Hasselbeck really believe global warming isn’t upon us? Have you heard how much glaciers have receded, how much ice has withdrawn from both Greenland and Iceland, lakes and some rivers have disappeared in Russia, and there’s actually land being seen in Antarctica and the North Pole? Have you heard that not only is the hole in the ozone getting bigger, but there’s a second one forming? Incidences of skin cancer are jumping, folks; I hope we’re not too late to save the environment from catastrophe.

I’m going to make a case that there’s something happening with our foods that are changing humans in interesting ways. Right now, the average height for women is 5′ 5 1/2″. In 1981, the average height for women was 5′ 3 1/2″. At the turn of the 20th century, the average height for women was 5′ even. The average height for men is now 5′ 10″; back in 1981, it was 5′ 8 1/2″. At the turn of the 20th century, the average height for men was 5′ 4″. There are women who are suffering from bone loss who eat lots of vegetables, yet don’t seem to get any Vitamin D from it. There are higher incidences of people with heart problems and clogged arteries now, yet at the beginning of the 20th century they ate more fat than we do now and weighed less, had fewer heart ailments, and little illnesses related to cholesterol problems. Yet, on average we live longer. We’re changing at a much faster rate as far as evolution goes than Darwin ever predicted. At 6′ 1/2″, I used to be considered tall; now there are 14 and 15 year old girls taller than me. It’s unnatural what’s going on, but I don’t know enough about biology or nutrition to have an answer as to why. But it’s somewhat scary if you ask me.

And finally, one back to what we usually talk about. I’ve written comments on fewer blogs lately, but it’s not because I have less to say. It’s because I’ve been taking a little bit more time lately in looking at people’s blogs and some of the products they market, because I figure everyone’s taken time to put some of these things up, so why not stop and take a look at some of them. I’m still wondering how many of you are actually taking time to check out other people’s about pages. Many of us want to make money, and we want people to visit our blogs and read what we have to say. I’m realizing that, even with all the content I’m putting out there, I’m not honoring other people if I don’t take some time to at least look at what they’re doing and putting up. For instance, how many of you have noticed the types of things Sire has at the bottom of his Wassup Blog (though lots of things change, I noticed something there that I’m thinking my wife might like)? Or even a site like Uber Affiliate, who has things he’s advertising that look like a lot of what we have, but every ad he has is something I’ve never seen elsewhere before (at least I don’t remember it)? In the end, it is supposed to be all about us, or can we still learn something by seeing what someone else has on their site?

Why is there so much hate towards poor people? How come not enough people commented on this post on poverty on Blog Action Day? I hate that, whenever anyone talks about either welfare or Medicaid that suddenly it’s open season on the poor. People are always saying that poor people should just get jobs and go to work. How smug are some of you feeling now that unemployment is moving towards an all time high? How many people can care for their families in today’s world when minimum wage is only $6.55 an hour, especially if they have kids? If they were allowed to work and still get some assistance, even only another $2.50 an hour from the government, they might have a realistic chance at a basis living in America, but those aren’t the rules? Instead of talking about welfare mothers, why not come up with a way to train them and have daycare so they can leave their kids with someone competent, learn a nice job skill that may pay them more money, then help them find work, instead of deriding them? And, by the way, for those who use “welfare mothers” and think of minorities first, 2/3rds of all welfare mothers in America are white.

I think I’ve ranted enough. These are short takes on topics that I could probably expound on for a long time, but we don’t need to go there. I’m interested in your thoughts, believe it or not, because, though I have my opinions, I know some of you have other opinions, or things you’d like to say. I’m betting this one will be a spammer’s dream; don’t worry, I’ll eliminate all of it.

Personal | 20 Comments

Stuff You Probably Missed

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 20, 2008

Like most blogs, this one has gone through a bunch of changes since the first post, which was pretty lame; heck, most people’s first posts are pretty lame. My writing style has definitely changed, but it also changed with my business blog. I tend to believe that, as writers and bloggers, we’re allowed to go through style changes, because when we’re true to ourselves, our readers can feel it.

I have some interesting plans for this blog. Some of the things you see on the sides are changing, or have changed, and there’s more to come. I plan on putting together a set of my favorite blog posts, and hopefully continue updating it as I go along. I’ve already mentioned in the last post that I’m putting together a series on writing a book and the rest of the process; the first installment of that series will commence tomorrow morning, while I’m at a meeting; talk about pre-posting. I will probably be putting together a set of all my posts that have some sort of video on them; I’ll need to think about that one a bit more. I’m probably going to be adding something called Scratch Back at some point, which does on the concept of a “tip jar”, where people can pay for a nofollow link on your site to honor your blog or blog posts while advertising themselves and their websites. Of course, I’m getting the idea of this one from Lynn Terry and John Dilbeck (man, I feel like I’m becoming a promoter for John; I think one of you other guys needs to do something special lol).

There’s things coming, and I figure this blog will always evolve. However, even before I hit my regular stride, there were some posts of mine that I thought were either pretty good or pretty entertaining for one reason or another, and pretty much no one except Sire (yeah, Sire got his plug also) saw any of them. Now that’s what friends are for! Anyway, I wanted to highlight here 5 of my favorite posts from early on that you probably never saw, along with 5 of my favorite posts that contained videos. However, when it came down to it, the videos were easy to do, but my favorite 5 has turned into my favorite 7. So, here we go, highlighting 12 posts of mine that I hope all of you will go and take a look at; you can even leave a comment if you wish to. And, along with some other things I’ve done, I’m thinking this is something those of you who have either older blogs or lots of previous content, should do from time to time. Sometimes, it’s hard for our new readers to know what meant a lot to you.

So, here we go:

This was an early post talking about How Affiliate Marketing Works

This was my take on the dust up that came about when Joel Comm released the latest version of Adsense Secrets and along with it came a continuity option that was hidden, which I was glad I read about before I went ahead and bought the book.

Before I started talking more about internet marketing so much, I asked the questionHow Far Are You Willing To Go For Promotion

Later on, I decided to follow the previous post up by asking How Far Will You Go To Brand Yourself> after attending a local marketing seminar

I wrote this gripe post asking Is It Easy To Comment On Your Blog after wanting to post a comment on some blogs and having them either wanting me to register to make comments or search all over the place to see if there’s a way to leave comments.

Of course, one can’t always talk about marketing online; sometimes you have to talk about offline marketing also

This was probably one of those important and oddly motivational posts asking people How Big Are You Ready For, because most people want to be rich, but many people really aren’t ready for it if it came.

That’s the serious stuff; stuff that wasn’t so serious includes:

One of my favorite TV clips of all time was Harry Belafonte on the Muppet Show singing Turn The World Around

I found this intriguing; people always learn things better when it’s attached to music, and that includes Rapping About Web Design

I don’t know how many people remember this little goofy kid who did this screaming rant that he filmed and put up on YouTube when Britney Spears was going through her meltdown phase. I’m betting that you would be just as entertained by watching this

Man, if you needed a boost in the early 90′s, there was no other song that quite got you there than singing 2 Legit 2 Quit

This last one was just so funny that I really didn’t have to write anything, because no one ever saw it coming

There you go; twelve posts of mine that I hope you’ll go back and take a look at. And even if you don’t, I figure I just gave myself some link love; I’d best not hear any of those comments about “loving myself”.

Blogging | 16 Comments

How To Be A Prolific Writer

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 7, 2008

One of the weirdest things about blogging is that not everyone wants to leave comments on the blog. Sure, I’d love that as much as anything, but what sometimes happens is people will send you an email to tell you things or to ask you questions. I take that as a compliment, especially since no one has sent me anything bad yet.

Anyway, there’s one question I get more often than any other. The odd thing is that I get this same question outside of this blog. I get it on my other blog. I get it from my newsletters. I get it from people in organizations I belong to. I sometimes get it from people who have been forwarded things that I’ve sent to others. And I always get it from my friends, because I tend to chronicle my life and then share my stories with all my friends. I’m betting some of you would have loved to have been on my personal mailing list when I talked about the day the plane I was on that was trying to take off hit a deer. Or, if that’s not good enough, how I, as a five year old child, walked away from a crowd in downtown Japan and went on my own adventure, while teachers scrambled to find me.

Anyway, that question is: “How can you be such a prolific writer?” Well, it’s just what I do. As some of you may know, I’ve actually written a book on leadership called Embrace The Lead, and an ebook called Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool, two books that have nothing in common with each other except the fact that I wrote them. I’ve also got 5 other books in the works, but who knows when I’ll finish any of those. I’ve written tons of articles in multiple places on a variety of subjects, and I’ve been published in a few national magazines and newsletters. Frankly, I wish I could get more people to pay me for writing, because there’s nothing I’d rather spend time doing, other than playing poker (yes, my wife knows this, so go ahead and tell her).

Okay, enough of the self promotion. How does one go about being a prolific writer? How does one come across so many ideas to write about?

I like to think of myself as someone whose real business is the accumulation of knowledge. Other than geography and entomology, I have this insatiable thirst for knowledge. I just want to know things. I also like to think I have kind of a discerning eye for being able to step outside of a situation and view it as a story. On this blog I posted something short, with videos, on how I felt after Barack Obama was elected president. I’m not sure how many of you saw this accounting on my other blog of what went on with my wife and I the night he was elected, but I’m happy to share it here.

Anyway, after I’ve accumulated some knowledge, or after I’ve had time to digest an event as a story in my mind, I love sharing my thoughts and happenings with others. Maybe my goal should be in storytelling, because I just love to tell my tales and share information as much as I can.

So, getting back to the point, which is how you can become a prolific writer yourself. Here are five ways you can become a prolific writer:

* Write like you talk – I see many blogs where people seem to be trying to figure out how to write rather than just writing. Most of the time when I sit down to write, I write directly into blog, real time, and I don’t stop until I’ve written the entire thing. Most of my posts take between 5 and 10 minutes to write; that’s about all. Now, it takes a little longer to finish if I’m adding links, which is always a smart thing to do if you can, but otherwise, my posts are usually done fairly quickly. Even most of my very long posts have been written that way. This post is being done differently, as I’m writing it in Word (word to the wise; if you compose something in Word, then transfer it to an HTML based program, you need to remember to change all the quotation marks so your coding will be recognized; maybe Microsoft will fix that one day) and then I’m going to transfer it over. I’m taking a little more time with this one because it’s a listed post.

Anyway, when you write, whether it’s short or long, ask yourself if you’ve written in your voice. With short posts, ask yourself if that’s how you would present yourself if someone was sitting with you and talking to you. If you’re writing a long post, do the same thing.

* Think of every situation as a story – Who doesn’t love hearing or telling a good story? The truth in life is that almost every moment of interaction with someone else can be told later on as a pretty good story. Right now, I have a story in my head about the adventures my wife and I have had over the past two weeks with a chipmunk that’s somehow found its way into the house, and how even the exterminator has seemed to have lost this battle. I don’t have a place to put it, however, but it’s a story I can tell friends. However, when it comes to your blog, telling your story about an implementation you did with new hardware on your computer or new programs you’re trying to run are all stories that you could probably tell on your blog.

* Don’t niche yourself into a corner – There’s a lot of talk on the blogosphere about selecting a niche and sticking to it. However, there are also thousands of blogs that have been abandoned because those people couldn’t continue thinking about what they wanted to write about. People who write financial blogs seem to run out of things to say because they think their niche is finite, but it’s not. Right now, I’d be writing about the price of gas, the bad news about the car and housing industry, credit cards and their changing of interest rates and top dollar limits, why keeping health insurance is important in a bad economy. There are thousands of ideas related to finance that aren’t directly related to the stock market that they could be writing about.

One of the issues I’ve had with many blogs I’ve been reading lately is that it seems many of us tend to keep writing about the same issues over and over, and at the same time. Days ago I wrote about commenting on blogs, only to discover later on that four other blogs had written on the same topic on the same day. When we talk about blogging, we tend to stick to specific niches that help drive blogs into prominence, hopefully. That’s why I break out into other areas from time to time on my blog, throwing up a video or two, giving a personal opinion about something, or sometimes going in directions that don’t have much to do about blogging at all, but are important to me at that moment. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I believe Sire’s guest post on why he loves blogging was a very important post because he’s someone who refuses to be locked into a corner as to what he can write about on his blogs, even if they have a specific focus.

* Don’t worry about perfection, but check your grammar here and there – There is no such thing as the perfect post. I’ve written some that I think are pretty good that get few writers, and some things I thought I was just putting up to have something to write about that have touched a lot of people. People sometimes worry what someone else is going to think about what they’ve written, and that can help to paralyze them and stilt their writing. I’ve never had that issue; I write whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like, trying to offer something pertinent or personal, and that’s that. I don’t use profanity because I don’t use, and never have used, profanity in my real life (I’ve also never had a drink in my life, smoked cigarettes, taken illegal drugs, or, for balance, gone to church since I was 11 years old).

At the same time, I have to admit that there are times when it’s hard reading a blog post or an article where the grammar is choppy and sentences don’t flow in some fashion. I make allowances for people for whom English isn’t their first language, because I’ve seen how some of the posts I’ve tried to do in other languages (thanks, or kind of thanks, to Babelfish). And by grammar, I don’t mean using a word like “y’all”, which is a part of my language, and I don’t care how many people tell me it’s not a real word. I’m talking about major misspellings of easy words (it’s easy to tell a typo from a misspelling), picking the wrong words (”there, they’re and their”, as examples), or missing words throughout someone’s copy.

* Write about what you love and like – I love blogging, and it goes well with this blog. I love finding all sorts of things on the internet, which I can write about on this blog. I love writing about the things I do on my business blog. I have some kind of passion towards everything I write about, whether it’s positive or negative. When one has a passion, one can do a lot of things and talk about a lot of things. Everyone has a passion, and many people are hesitant to release it to the public. Trust me, there’s so many more things I could talk about on this blog that would make people’s heads spin, but that’s not what this blog is about. I have a place for that sort of thing, but I’m not sharing it here, so don’t ask. As I was listening to Lynn Terry on a conference call earlier today, she was saying how she has multiple outlets of expression under pen names that she doesn’t tell everyone about because sometimes she just needs to step out of being Lynn Terry for a few minutes. I’m the same; every once in awhile I just have to be someone other than Mitch Mitchell, or T. T. Mitchell, my business name, or whatever my wife feels like calling me at a particular moment. Still, being passionate about something, and adding a passion for writing into the mix, is probably the most important thing about blogging, and something I cover in my blogging series.

If you can put all of those things together, you can be a prolific writer. Some of them might seem like it’s a lot of work, but trust me on this one; if you’re doing something you love, it’s never work.