Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

In Los Angeles on November 3? Join me at BlogWorld!

If you haven’t heard already, BlogWorld & New Media Expo is coming to Los Angeles – November 3-5. I’m hoping that you’ll join me in L.A. to hear me – and 200+ other speakers.

The title of my BlogWorld session which I'm co-presenting with Rich Brooks of flyte new media, is: Hey Bloggers! How to Package, Promote and Profit from Your Expertise - All are listed here.

Watch a short video clip where I discuss BlogWorld and my session:

 

[Can't see the video in your feed reader? click here]

BlogWorld & New Media Expo is the first and only industry-wide conference, tradeshow and media event for all New Media! Anyone who is creating content online with Blogging, Podcasting, Vlogging, Web TV or Internet Radio, Social Media, or New Media Content of any kind should attend BlogWorld & New Media Expo!

This is the one conference where you’ll find the most comprehensive and critical knowledge for growing your business, brand and audience with the latest new media technology, methods and tools.

If you are interested in, or currently blog, podcast or vlog about business, technology, politics, sports, lifestyle & culture, general news items, celebrity gossip, marketing, entertainment, music or any other topic — you need to be here.

The good news? I have a special offer – 20% OFF registration pricing. Simply use the code BLOGSQUAD20 when you check out and you’ll receive the 20% discount.

Buy your tickets now and let's meet up in L.A.! (Let's have coffee or a chat, at the very least.)

I’m looking forward to seeing you in Los Angeles on November 3! And, if you can't attend the event in person, you can get a Virtual Ticket that gets you access to all the sessions as well as behind the scenes interviews. 

How to Manage Your Blog Sites with Google Docs (video)

How to Manage Your Blog Sites with Google Docs by guest author, Christina Hills.

One of the things that happens when you start building your blogs, is that you start to create so many websites that you have a hard time keeping track of them!

And a great way to keep track of all your websites is to use a spreadsheet like excel.  Well with our fast paced, multi-computer lifestyle, Google Docs makes it easy to keep track of your spreadsheets no matter where you are, and what computer you are using.

I have created a short video (under 9 min) for you to show you how to use Google Docs to keep track of your websites.

Christina Hills teaches people online tools to gain prospects and sell to customers. She helps small business owners, coaches, speakers, authors and any entrepreneur understand and use website tools, shopping cart systems, membership programs, autoresponder systems, and WordPress.

With her training, you can more effectively sell online by fully engaging with your customers and following up with your prospects. Her skills and background are unquestionably ‘technical’; yet her style is completely ‘user friendly’ and marketing oriented.

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New to Business Blogging? Start here.

Everyday I meet business owners and service professionals who have not yet started a blog for their business. I also know that everyday new people land on this blog because of organic search results. So, I've put together a list of essential articles about business blogging that I've been developing through other projects. They are longer than blog posts and shorter than a book! You can also find them by clicking on the link in the navigation bar that says "New to Blogging?"

These articles are a good place to start if you're wondering about what it takes to start a blog for your business and how to make it work for you. New articles will be added over time. The first 3 articles are:

Top Ten Easy Steps to Starting a Business Blog

7 Tips for Better Blog Posts

The Secret to Growing Your Blog Following

Feel free to post your blogging questions in the comments and I'll get to them as time permits.

I'm also toying with the idea of having a blog Q&A day every so often where I'll answer questions in the comments of a designated blog post during specific hours. This is not my original idea. Liz Strauss has been having "open mic" blogging conversations for a very long time on Successful-Blog and Paul Colligan did something similar recently on his fan page.  What do you think of the idea?

11 Business Blogging Books - Recommended Reading

Among the many questions I get about business blogging, one thing many people want to know is what books I recommend to learn more about blogging. Out of curiosity, I did a search on Amazon for "blogging" and got 50 results! The top 4 are also on my bookshelf and on my list:

1. Problogger: Secrets to Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by my colleagues Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

2. Blogging for Dummies by Susannah Gardner (3rd Edition coming out in February 2010)

3. The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging (I'm quoted in this book!)

4. Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business

5. Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies

6. Naked Conversations I believe this was one of the very first books about blogging

7. Blogging for Business

8. Clear Blogging

9. BlogWild! by my pal Andy Wibbels - another early book in the blogging genre

10. The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil

11. What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere (The Blog Squad has two chapters in this book!)

Well, until I started pulling books off the shelf, I didn't realize I had so many books on blogging!

What's on your blogging book list? I have an extra copy of What No One Every Tells Your About Blogging and will give it away to someone who posts their favorite blogging book in the comments. I will use random.org to choose the winner.

Blog on!

FeedBurner Problems? Check your Feedflares...

If any of you Typepad bloggers have noticed strange changes to your FeedFlares, we were alerted to problems with Feedburner yesterday. Thank you to Debra Dalgleish, an independent computer consultant, who's eagle eyes noticed the changes. Here's the message Debra sent:

Hi Patsi,

At the bottom of your latest article How NOT to Write an Email Promotion Message... there's a link "10 comments on this item" and it leads to http://www.hotsauceblog.com/hotsaucearchives/pimp-your-sauce-v3/

The "Email this" link looks suspect too. The previous article also has incorrect links in the Add a comment and Email this.

Regards,
Debra Dalgleish
Contextures

Please check your FeedFlares if you're using that FeedBurner feature on your blog that ends a post with Add a Comment, Email this, Twit this, or other choices. Fortunately, it's easy to deactivate FeedFlares on your FeedBurner account until the issue is resolved.

For more information on the issue, there's a FeedBurner Help Group on Google Groups. Even though it's apparently a FeedBurner issue, I was pleased to get a Typepad response within a couple of hours of opening a support ticket to say they were investigating with FeedBurner.

How to Automate Your Business Blog Marketing

Coach Deb Micek talked about business blog marketing essentials last week to over 700 of our listeners on the teleseminar: How to Make Your Blog An Automated Marketing Machine.

If you missed it, here's the audio replay: www.buildabetterblog.com/push-button-marketing.html.

We are all in favor of systems and blog platforms that can automate some of your marketing tasks. It's like having a magician behind the scenes working for you on your blog!

BLOGi360 offers many advantages to some of the other free and low-fee blogging platforms, especially if you use a blog for business and marketing.

So many professionals start a blog and then don't take the time to learn how to optimize it for business. Then they wonder why they don't get results. BLOGi360 offers many features that most blogging platforms don't include such as search engine optimization, sales pages, and training and support. And, they'll train you on what you need to know. They'll even set up your blog for you to get you started. Can't beat that. Check them out here.

P.S. We're not abandoning TypePad! It's our responsibility to let you know about software and systems that can serve you and best meet your business goals.

Andy Wibbels Shows off Blogs.com

At BlogWorld Expo I had a chance to talk with Andy Wibbels, currently working at Six Apart. Andy told us about his latest project at Six Apart - blogs.com - a human edited "best of blogs" site. Currently they have over 1100 handpicked blogs.Check it out. And be sure to submit your blog if you think it's one of the best in your niche!

Blog World Expo Returns to Las Vegas in September

It's back! Blog World Expo debuted in Las Vegas last year and it was a fantastic event. If you missed it last year, you can attend this year. The line up of speakers is excellent and includes your's truly speaking on a panel about How to Plan, Build and Promote a Blog for Small Business.

Like last year, this panel includes Rich Brooks of flyte blog (moderator), John T. Unger (TypePad Hacks) and Des Walsh.

The schedule is impressive with tracks on audio/video, Bleeding Edge, Business of Blogging, Citizen Journalism, Community, Entrepreneur, Executive, Intro to New Media, Monetization, and Real Estate blogging.  There's a full day on Entrepreneur and Executive Blogging prior to the official start of the Expo.

Many of our esteemed colleagues will be speaking or attending: Darren Rowse, Chris Baggott, Rohit Bhargava, Toby Bloomberg, Chris Brogan, David Bullock, Paul Chaney, Coach Deb, Brian Clark, Lee Odden, Wendy Piersall...and many, many more folks that I cannot wait to connect with again or for the first time face to face.

This is an educational event vs. a pitch fest type event so you'll learn a ton of great info about blogging and new media. It's well worth the investment in time and dollars.  And of course there's an early bird registration fee available now. You can save 25% if you register by August 22 -- only $300 for the 2 day Expo and $750 for the Expo and Entrepreneur full day of seminars.

Will you join us in September at Blog World Expo?

TypePad vs Wordpress vs Blogger

Nearly every week someone asks us which blogging platform they should use. As most readers of this blog know, we prefer TypePad. OK, we're biased because all our blogs are on TypePad. Well, not all. We also have our main hub site on SquareSpace and we're having a website built on the Wordpress platform so we can get more familiar with it.

As a guest blogger, I've also used Movable Type, Blogger and Wordpress.  This week we were copied on an email to Tom Antion by one of his clients who we met at Tom's recent ButtCamp in Los Angeles:

Hi Tom, I’m near the end of my trial run on TypePad.com and so far I’m more impressed with Blogger and WordPress as blog sites.

Patsi and Denise offered a lot of value on Blogs at your event in LA and I know The Blog Squad likes TypePad best, but I don’t...yet.

Can you see any reason for me to extend my subscription with TypePad? If not, I’ll let it lapse and build on my other two blogs.

Since we were cc'd, I responded:

Blog Designers: TypePad is Looking for You

Are you a blog designer? Or a graphic designer who designs blog themes? If so, Six Apart ( parent company of TypePad, Movable Type, Vox and LiveJournal) is looking for you.

A contest is currently underway for blog design themes. You may enter your design through April 4. Contest details here.

Design It with Style

Inspire bloggers around the world to bring their ideas to life by entering the HP"What do you have to say?" theme design contest. All you have to do is design a theme that showcases your personal style and creativity. The winning themes will be made available to millions of bloggers on TypePad, Vox and LiveJournal. If your theme is chosen as the winner, you will get some cool prizes from HP.

When I saw the announcement last night, there was one entry. Today there are now 24! If you're a designer you can get a lot of exposure so go to it!