Hi there Blokesters.

As you know I haven’t been blogging much lately, but believe it or not there’s been a method to my madness. I’ve intentionally blogged less because I’m running a little experiment (not to mention the benefits to my achy-breaky neck and back muscles).

Am I Dreaming?

I’ve been sitting quietly on the sidelines monitoring my results just to make sure I’m not dreaming. After all, to say that I increased my traffic better than 300% in a week is a fantastic claim and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating.

So today I checked my results again and pinched myself just to make sure … and guess what? I’m happy to report that not only is my traffic steady but it is in fact up 500% on average!

But wait! That’s not completely true because on good days it can even be up 600% or 700% (and I’m not talking about days that I’ve been Dugg or Stumbled either).

That’s not bad at all for doing nothing. Not bad! What am I saying? It’s phenomenal!

Work Smarter, Not Harder

What’s so amazing about this is I’ve hardly blogged at all since starting this experiment! So I’m not working nearly as hard as I used to and I’m getting much better traffic results (and position in the SERPS) than I ever did.

In fact, I’m getting hits and comments on posts that I wrote years ago that were buried by Google when I was still with Blogger.

Are you excited? Are you pumped? I know that I am. 

Of course this goes against everything that we’ve been told so I must be on to something. They told us that if we want better traffic then we MUST write more, continuously every day. Keep the content flowing and they will come.

Well I think I’ve blown that theory out the window.

I’m personally gratified with this result because honestly, I’m really sick of all those recycled junk posts out there that are being spewed by the probloggers. So let’s hope they take notice and stop wasting our time with all their crap. (About the only thing they are really good at is throwing a new spin on the same old content to keep you clicking on their ads).

Not Your Typical SEO Post

As you can see this series will not be your typical SEO blog tips post. I’m not going to just repeat what has already been said out there because unlike my competitors I don’t recycle content for the purpose of gaming the search engines or link baiting you to visit my blog.

Instead, this series will share with you my personal observations and what I’ve learned over the past few weeks (and years) so that you can make your own conclusions.

Proof is In the Results

Proof of course is in the results and if you don’t believe me then just click here and see for yourself. Depending on which version of Google you use I can be found in the top 10 search results for my “blog tips” niche. Whereas just before I started this SEO journey I wasn’t even on Google’s radar.

In the words of our friend Borat — NICE!

First let me clarify that I do not consider myself an SEO expert, not that there are that many out there anyway. Just like my “Blog Tips” niche, SEO is probably one of the most saturated out there. It seems like every other blogger is a self-proclaimed SEO expert, and I wish to state unequivocally for the record that I am not one of them.

In this series I will briefly discuss a few tried and true SEO maxims that you may have already heard before. There are some basic SEO truths that are important and should be given their just deserts. But I won’t delve too much into that because the series will be mostly about my own observations and what’s NOT been said until now.

Do You Want to Know a Secret?

Before I go any further I’ll let you in on a little secret. What started this journey was Darren Rowse offending me with his customary smug attitude during an email exchange that we had recently.

Amongst the many things we discussed I expressed my outrage that he moved in on my “blog tips” niche I had created many years ago. Apparently “making money” wasn’t enough for him.

You see, I gradually slipped out of Google’s radar because I wasted too much time blogging on the Blogger platform. The Wordpress copycats had moved in and crowded me out of my own niche.

It’s not because they were better bloggers, but the simple fact is Wordpress users have definite advantages SEO-wise and there is no way a Blogger blog can compete.

I realize the Blogger purists are not going to like my saying this, but the simple fact is moving over to Wordpress was the best thing I ever did and I will explain why in more detail later in the series.

If There’s One Thing I Can’t Stand it’s…

I thought it would be fun to knock the chip off Mr. Rowse’s shoulder and give him a little demonstration of what I could do with the power of blog SEO. So I ran a little experiment to see how hard it would be to regain my “blog tips” position with the SERPS.

But not even I could have predicted the amazing results and how quickly I would accomplish this. 

If anything this episode has proven that any dufus with a keyboard can do well in the SERPS :-) and after you finish reading this series you will be able do it for yourself (and it won’t even cost you a penny).

Like I said earlier my traffic is now up 500% and I’m back in the top ten Google results for my “blog tips” niche. Considering that I couldn’t even find myself listed a week before I started this journey, this result is simply amazing and even better than I could have hoped for! 

I fully expect it’s only a matter of time before I recapture my undisputed #1 position again. But what’s really amazing about this is how quickly it all happened. I did it without even writing a post for over a month, and unlike the copycats I didn’t have to hire an SEO expert to do it for me either.

So my first and foremost Blog Tip for you is this — if you want to be a serious blogger then do yourself a favour and quit Blogger … use Wordpress.

Right out of the box Wordpress provided better traffic results than I was with Blogger (and I hadn’t even done anything yet except to switch over). I reported this observation in my first official Wordpress post “Moving Blogger Over to Wordpress: The Good, Bad and the Ugly“.

There are a lot of reasons why Wordpress outperforms Blogger which I will explain later in this series. Ok, I’ll give you a little hint now – it’s not just the way Wordpress is designed. 

There are some really cool SEO tools that make a huge difference, and like any tool it’s only as good as the person using it. Why? Because what good is a tool if it’s not in the hands of a professional?

Don’t worry Blogger users because some of this stuff you will learn will also apply to you if you don’t want to make the switch. But the bottom line is no matter what you do, you will not be able replicate the results that Wordpress can give you.

So why am I willing to give you this information for free? Well first of all it’s because I’m a nice guy. No, really … I mean it. I AM a nice guy and I want YOU to have this information and not just the smug a-listers who only pretend to be nice so you can make them rich.

Well this post is already getting a little long in the tooth so it’s time to close this second installment. Stay tuned for Part 3 where I will discuss in detail how I was able to improve my traffic better than 300% in just one week (and so can you) …

P.S.: If you arrived here first don’t forget to read Part 1 of the series.

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I don’t know about you but I always get excited this time of year. Some of my fondest childhood memories are donning my favorite disguise (it was a toss-up between El-Zorro or a little Hobo) and disappearing into the gloom to soap-up cars and knock over trash cans gather up all of the sweet goodies in our neighbourhood.

I can still hear the rustling of the leaves as we ran through the darkness ogling flickering jack-o-lanterns leering at us from the windows.

Once again my 12 year old daughter is trying her best to convince me she’s old enough to go on her own (with her friends of course). But I can assure you the old man will be hanging around not far in the background watching her back. In this day and age you can’t be too careful as far as I’m concerned. 

After all, why should I ruin my Halloween dreams. This may be my last year until my granddaughter is old enough to start the cycle all over again.

I can’t wait. Happy Halloween!

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The problem is most of them (if any) rarely deliver on their promises. They also hate me because I blog the truth about making money blogging, and the ethics they are sorely lacking.

Brief Background

I’ve listed the top blog commenting mistakes near the bottom of this post. I think it’s important you are aware of events that led me to writing this article in the first place. But if you are not interested in the gory details you can jump directly to the list here.

So here we go. You will enjoy this because it’s funny (or at least I think it is).

Recently a blogger that I know wrote a post on the topic of SEO whose conclusions were strikingly similar to an article that I had just posted not long ago. His post intrigued me because we’ve previously had discussions on this very same topic and as I recall he was a little wishy-washy at the time.

He’s a regular reader of this blog and it’s not the first time that I’ve had other bloggers “bounce off” my posts without linking to me. But it didn’t really matter to me because I’ve known this blogger for a couple of years and we were on friendly terms (or so I thought).

He’s a Super Geek, Super Geek Y’all

Since he prides himself as a geek of geeks, for simplicity’s sake I shall refer to him as ‘Super Geek’ for the rest of this article.

So when I stumbled on his post I decided to pay him a visit and leave a comment. Heck, why not I thought to myself. I like to visit blogs and support them when I can and I figured he was due.

I want to stress here that I left a very nice comment and I was on-topic. However, unbeknownst to me at the time Super Geek is also friendly with a pro-splogger type who had trashed me on his blog not so long ago.

Enter Mr. Nutbar

Frankly, it was the most bizarre experience that I have ever had in all my years of blogging. His attack was not only extremely virulent, but it was also what I consider neurotic and borderline psychotic.

He (hereinafter referred to as Mr. Nutbar) accused me of trying to steal his readers by leaving a comment on his blog.

Huh?

Again, I want to stress that my comment was on-topic and nice.

Mr. Nutbar also went into a tirade about my niche. So I invited him to correct me if it was a problem for him, but instead he just continued with his malicious (and personal) attack.

You see, Mr. Nutbar read my post on how to identify blog scammers that I had just written and apparently the content hit a little too close to home for him. So he went berserk on me.

Fast forward again to Super Geek

It was just my luck that Mr. Nutbar was out trolling the night I visited Super Geek. Since this neurotic crazy person is a friend of Super Geek (and being the good troll that he is) Mr. Nutbar couldn’t resist getting in on the action and left a sarcastic comment to pick up where he left off on his blog. 

But to make matters worse Super Geek also chided in support of Mr. Nutbar’s (off-topic) attack. The next thing you know I found myself in the middle of a free-for-all swarming by the prosploggers.

So that’s the thanks I get for supporting Super Geek’s blog over the years. Well at least now I know where I stand.

The moral of this story is money talks and friendship walks.

Because Mr. Nutbar had tempted Super Geek over to the dark side of blogging for money, apparently old loyalties became null and void.  

This time I decided to fight back and I let them have it with both barrels. Anybody who knows me also knows that I can dish it out better than most, and when the dust settled I was the last man standing.

Nevertheless, the episode was unsavory as far as I’m concerned because it was stupid and I lost what I thought was a blogging friendship. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the experience.

The Saga Continues

The next day I noticed that Mr. Nutbar had subscribed to me on Twitter. A nice thing that I like about Twitter is I can block the trolls.

So that’s what I did … click!

SWEET!

Who needs them? I sure don’t.

I’m not going to give their names or provide links here because they’re not worth mentioning. I don’t want to encourage trolls over here or give them traffic they don’t deserve. No doubt they will read this anyway and they know who they are.

But I have learned something from this experience

As always, I try to turn a negative experience into a positive observation from which my readers can learn.

In the past I have been a user of the contrarian method of blogging (and it’s not called the ART of contrarian blogging for no reason). But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

When you’re in an extremely competitive niche like I am things can get a little hot, and there will always be jerks (pardon my french) out there who want to take you down.

Especially if you are successful and offer a different opinion on a topic as near and dear as “money”.

The Wrong Way to Leverage Your Blog

They will try to leverage off your success in a negative way to make you look bad, and thereby (hopefully) making themselves look good in the process. (At least that’s the theory anyway).

Super Geek has been leveraging off me for as long as I’ve known him, and this isn’t the first time that he’s tried to publicly humiliate me. But I always gave him the benefit of the doubt and I let it slide until now.

But no more.

I don’t mind constructive criticism or someone injecting a little tongue-in-cheek humor, but there was nothing intelligent or erudite about this attack at all. It was personal and malicious, by a sleazy dufus with a keyboard and nothing better to do.

Unfortunately for them their plan backfired. 

Looking Back On It All

What hurt me the most about this episode is I was a good friend to Super Geek. I supported him when his blogs were going nowhere. I gave him advice, encouraged him when he was down and even linked to him when it hurt my pagerank.

But that is all in the past now. Fool me once — shame on you. Fool me twice — shame on me.

It won’t happen again. Promise.

Thou Shalt Not Commit Comment Terrorism

Despite the fact that Mr. Nutbar did most of the attacking Super Geek is guilty of aiding and abetting the crime. Perhaps even more so for being such a sanctimonious hypocrite about it.

See No Evil … Hear No Evil …

From what I know of Mr. Nutbar it could be said his foolishness was just a bad case of immaturity. A quality that he seems to have in abundance. But as for Super Geek there is no excuse. He should know better.

In so doing they have committed the top 10 commenting mistakes of all time. Having said that it’s now time to get to the reason for this post.

Here are the Top 10 Blog Commenting Sins in all their ugly glory:

1. Do NOT make off-topic comments to rant against a reader for your own personal reasons.
2. You should stay on-topic when commenting and steer your readers back to the conversation when they take it off-topic.
3. You should never condone, encourage or engage trolls to attack your readers.
4. It’s not a good idea to make personal attacks — PERIOD, especially against readers who have supported you. (Even more especially if they haven’t said anything that could be deemed confrontational or deserving of your wrath.)
5. OR in other words – Do Not Bite the Hand that Feeds.
6. If you want to leverage off another blogger then do so intelligently and not in a mean spirited fashion. (Especially NOT off-topic in your comments section.) There are better ways for doing that.
7. Imagine what your readers will think. They will be afraid to leave a comment fearing that they may be next on your hit list.
8. Your comments section is not a subversive tool for you to blindside readers with Comment Terrorism.
9. Pursue your personal agenda elsewhere if you must, and use the proper tool if you have a beef … like email for instance.
10. Otherwise you just end up looking like an asshole with an axe to grind.

To commit any of these commenting sins is death by STUPICIDE.

It’s too bad. I’m sure that Mr. Nutbar and Super Geek have turned off what few readers they may have already had.

Both of these bloggers are losers because I will never subscribe to them, leave a comment, link to them or read their blogs again. As far as I’m concerned they don’t even exist.

Good riddance to bad rubbish I say. You guys owe me an apology.

On the other hand thanks for helping me come up with these blog tips for the top 10 commenting mistakes of all time.

P.s.: I thought you might like to read this article by TechCrunch called the “Ten Comments You Think Are Cool And Insightful But Aren’t“.

Touché.

Can you relate? Care to share your own experiences?

UPDATE: Although it might not be commenting related I thought it would be fun to mention the day after I published this article, Darren Rowse came up with this blog post: “10 Ways to Find Readers for Your Blog By LEVERAGING Other Online Presence“. So nice of him to “bounce off” my posts (again) and I’m really glad to be of assistance … but DUDE! Where’s my link?

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This was originally entitled “How to Make Money with Blogs” but it’s not really a how to make money video per se. Rather, it demonstrates what type of equipment and software you will need to make professional podcasts for the serious blogger who wants to make money (or not).

One thing that he recommends (and I agree with) is to use a camcorder and not your typical webcam or built-in monitor video. Camcorders have better optics and are designed to give you quality video for more professional results. He also shows in some detail the different types of microphones that you can use so you won’t sound like you are recording in a tin can.

One software package that I like for making podcasts is Camtasia Studio. I’ve been playing around with it, and it works great as an all-in-one solution for recording and editing audio or video as well as screen capture, voice-sound overdubbing, and powerpoint presentations.

You can read more articles about equipment and video tips by clicking on the podcasting link. There you will find recording tips as well as cheaper hardware alternatives and free software if you are on a tight budget.

I’ve been tinkering with the idea of podcasting myself. I already have a web-capable camcorder and decent microphones, and as soon as I give myself an extreme makeover I just may take a stab at it.

Now where’s my hairdresser…

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So very true. Here’s a tidbit of what he said:

First, cybercriminals will increasingly leverage personal information on social networking sites to more closely hone their attacks to their targets. This leads to the second trend, which is that the amount of socially engineered spam will skyrocket. Oh, and data breaches will help the cybercriminals.

The latest trend in data security is risk management, which can be equated to, “If I lose that much data, what will it cost me?” Enterprises can then do a calculation of the cost-benefit ratio and figure out whether or not the risk is worthwhile, much as Ford did with the Pinto, that tin can which was a ball of flame waiting to happen.

Then, stock scams will rise. Pump and dump scams will seem like nothing; Avert Labs researchers expect cybercriminals to falsely advertise security vulnerabilities in software or management changes at a public company.. Makes one wonder if the recent, untrue report of Steve Jobs having a heart attack was a scam, doesn’t it?

Lastly, the bad guys will capitalize on users’ desire to protect their PCs by faking security updates. McAfee has seen an increase in malicious software posing as applications from security vendors. Click on them and you’ve just gone on the highway to a very warm place. Source.

I especially liked the comment immediately below the post:

I heard this sound advice at a recent seminar I attended, “Don’t do something on-line that you wouldn’t do in person.” This includes throwing sheep, poking people on Facebook and similar behavior on other social networking sites. This article is another good example that unless you’re Clark Kent and have more than one valuable identity, it’s better to exercise caution.

Amen. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Like Jonah I don’t enjoy preaching the end of the world, but somebody has to raise the alarm. There’s just too much opportunity for abuse by the cyber creeps to not care.

So here’s a tip from your friendly Blog Bloke. Please take all necessary precautions to protect your online identity, unless you intend to enter the FBI Social Networking Witness Protection Program.

Tell them Guido sent you. Ciao!

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Although I try my best to create links to definitions of buzzwords or blog terms that you might not be familiar with, I sometimes might forget or make assumptions about your knowledge level that I shouldn’t. So if you find yourself in that category please forgive me but I think I may have found a solution.

Even Blog Bloke has to constantly learn to keep up with the fast pace of technology, so what I do is keep handy a few indispensable bookmarks. 

Some bloggers might prefer not to disclose their sources to keep you coming back, but I subscribe to the notion that if I give you a fish I only feed you for a day. Whereas if I can teach you how to fish, I empower you for life.

This is my cheat sheet so let’s go fishing shall we:

1. The first and perhaps most important blog resource I use that you have probably heard of is Wikipedia. It is invaluable for looking up computerese definitions and technical information that you might not be familiar with.

2. The next blog resource that I use a lot is good ole Google. Simply key in the following search term:

define: word

Where “word” can be anything that you want to look up.

3. More free blog resources that I use are:

Dictionary.com         WordWeb Online                    Answers.com 

Thesaurus.com         Free Dictionary.com               Webopedia                

Acronym Finder         Merriam-Webster Online         Word Spy

wordIQ                    World Wide Words                  ZapTXT

Take a tip from Blog Bloke and bookmark this list. The next time you are reading or writing a post and don’t understand something – go fishing for information at one of these great resources for bloggers.

Whatever you do, don’t be intimidated by something you’re unfamiliar with. We all start out as newbies, and the more that you read the more this stuff will sink in by osmosis.

Have I missed anything? Maybe you know a blog resource that I forgot to mention here. Let’s share our knowledge so we can all be better bloggers.

*This post was updated since it’s original posting 03-07

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Whereas some of my colleagues would drone on and on in court, I could sum it all up in just a few short sentences (much to the appreciation of the judges and is probably a reason for my success). 

After becoming a blogger I’ve continued with that tradition.

Having once been a litigator I also learned how to argue both sides of a dispute. Hence, the amoral duality of the profession and a reason why I no longer practice. 

So I’m also known as a contrarian blogger (probably thanks to that duality thing). That is not to say I’m necessarily snarky, although admittedly my tongue-in-cheek humor can sometimes get me into trouble.

Today I will be taking a non-traditional look at the so-called minimalist blogging movement. This can include such matters as posting less and brevity amongst other things, but for the purpose of this article I will be primarily discussing blog design.

After studying various minimalist designs I’ve been able to simplify their rhetoric into a basic formula. Minimalists use little or no borders. Instead they like lots of white space around objects and for background color, presumably for the best contrast and separation of content (especially those nice blinking ads).

That’s it in a nutshell. Isn’t it amazing that I could sum it all up in just two sentences, whereas these so-called minimalists can write pages and pages of stuff on the subject. But I digress…

Now using a white background makes sense because it is the easiest to read, and I do it myself with this blog. Lots of white space in and around elements is also a good idea for making it easier to read (separate) the content.

But a problem that I have with minimalist preachers is they can be quite snobby and seem to enjoy lording it over us with their so-called blog tips. They take great pleasure in telling us that if our design is not minimal then the obvious conclusion is ours is cluttered.

They enjoy rubbing our nose in it like the snobby neighbours down the road who look down on our messy homes and our messy kids, our messy cars, our… But what I find ironic about minimalist preachers like Leo Babauta is that they still manage to “clutter” up their blogs with huge splashy pictures and nice blinking ads in their sidebar.

Hmm … now don’t you find that a glaring contradiction? I know that I do.

Of course there’s a very good reason for that. Take away all those pretty pics and you would be left with a very boring looking blog — wouldn’t you?

I’ve often joked that minimalists promote their mantra because they are lacking in coding skills. Of course I had my tongue in my cheek when I said that, but I think there is also some truth to it.

For example, I once used rounded corners on this blog. I got tired of looking at all those square blogs out there, and round was the fad at the time. So I thought I would modernize the look of my blog so to speak and go round.

But admittedly I would probably never do it again because it is a very difficult design to maintain. Just to stretch the blog wider I had to fire up Photoshop and resize the border frame images, and if I use blockquotes or put a large picture in my post it can blow the margins apart. Never again.

In my case I’ve tried to find a balance between minimal and to also clutter up the layout just enough to keep it interesting. I’ve also attempted to show as much content as I can on the home page in order to showcase more of my work.

It seems to be working because I’m noticing readers are spending more time on the blog checking out the content.

Next time around who knows, I might go more minimal, but the moral of this story is beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and fads come and they go.

Here’s a blog tip straight from the Bloke. Nobody really has the final say on best design. What one person might consider minimal, another might consider it sterile, boring and lacking in character.

So the next time some minimalist bully tries to make you feel bad about your blog just tell them to go stuff it and come back again when clutter is in style. You’re already ahead of the game (or behind depending on your perspective of the space-time continuum).

The bottom line is (as always) the best answer to any extremist position is probably a compromise somewhere in between.

So are you a minimalist blogger or is your virtual home cluttered? This is your chance to speak now or forever hold your peace.

P.s.: I hear the 60s are back again — or is it the 70s. I knew I shouldn’t have thrown out those bell-bottoms.

UPDATE: This post was updated since it’s original posting 09-07

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