Tag: blogging

Blogging with Facebook “Notes” to Improve Visibility

facebook notes for bloggingFor the past couple of months, I’ve been conducting a little experiment with Facebook’s Notes feature, and I’m ready to declare it something of a success.

I got the idea from a post I saw on Facebook (surprise!). A Canadian journalist named Mitch Joel mentioned that he was going to begin using Facebook’s upgraded Notes feature as a blogging platform. For years, Joel said, bloggers have hosted their blogs on their websites, or on blogging platforms. Then they would put a link to their posts on social media in an effort to drive traffic to their own site. Once someone is there, the conventional thinking goes, they may take a look around and maybe even buy something from you.

But readers are sometimes unwilling to click a random link to an unfamiliar site. And besides, they’re already on Facebook. If the point is to get readers for your posts, why not blog where the readers are? Continue reading “Blogging with Facebook “Notes” to Improve Visibility”

It’s Still Copyrighted, Knucklehead

copyright common sense courtesy of pixabaybanana gun suit-673697_640I’m not a lawyer, blah, blah, blah. And while marginally about copyright, this post is really more about common courtesy as well as common sense which someone (Wikipedia claims Voltaire) says isn’t so common. With a hat tip to Voltaire, I sometimes think common courtesy isn’t so common either. Maybe I should explain.

From a strictly legal sense, at least under US law, when you create a work of the kind covered under copyright law, you immediately have a copyright. While most of you think of this in terms of books and short stories, some of my musician friends are thinking in terms of recorded performances and lyrics to songs. Other artists think in terms of other output whether Kat’s photographs (don’t be using those without her permission), or the political cartoon in the Sunday paper, the same concept applies. Continue reading “It’s Still Copyrighted, Knucklehead”

How the Book “My Blog Traffic Sucks!” Helped This Author

BLOG TRAFFIC SUCKSFor any “How To” book to be useful, it has to be at the right level for your stage of development in the technique you are learning. Too far ahead and you won’t understand it. Too far behind, and you already know the stuff.

My Blog Traffic Sucks is exactly the right level for me: about two steps ahead. I was already doing about 3-1/2 of the 8 techniques, and knew something about two others. The rest was over my head, so I won’t be following Steve Scott’s footsteps that far.

The greatest value in this book is that, at its level, it is comprehensive. I have hundreds of websites bookmarked, telling me ways to improve my blog, my sales, and my writing. I never look at them. Continue reading “How the Book “My Blog Traffic Sucks!” Helped This Author”

Doing a Survey Using Google Forms

GoogleDrive create formIn a previous post I discussed various methods of conducting a survey on your website and a different post even conducted an extensive survey. Finally, here is the promised tutorial on how to do your own survey using Google Forms, the same method as was used in the survey we conducted.

While you can do this by the seat of your pants, if the survey you’re planning is going to have a lot of questions, especially if the answer to some questions is going to determine whether or not to ask follow up questions, it might make sense to rough out the survey, either on paper (maybe index cards) or in a word processor where you can easily rearrange. However, we’re going to fly by the seat of our pants today. Continue reading “Doing a Survey Using Google Forms”