Doshy Link Attack! Social Media, Word of Mouth, Wordpress Themes and Usability

Rob Watts writes about building your brand with social media and tells us that being sociable on these online communities can really help to develop your perceived authority and personal brand.

I’ll just like to highlight one mistake that I’ve often seen on social news websites: consistent submission and promotion of your own content and nothing else.

It makes your brand look bad. Instead of submitting your own content to sites like Sphinn all the time, try submitting someone else’s work. It gives you credibility and I’m sure other bloggers or webmasters would really appreciate it as well.

The guy who is Stumbling or Digging or Sphinning or Bumping blog stories will at somepoint make it to the top of a list somewhere, his ‘brand’ will become increasingly associated with the ‘products’ that he is pushing. As time progresses he may even be seen as some maven, the opinion former, that guy who spots ‘good’ things and brings them to the attention of others.

Church of the Customer does a case study of a successful book that has sold over 1.5 million copies so far. Six key factors of success are highlighted and I feel they are excellent tips which you can apply to your own websites. Niche targeting, visibility and word of mouth buzz are some of the topics covered.

Creating something worth talking about is the alchemy of word of mouth. What’s worth talking about? The answer lies somewhere in the stew of the marketplace of ideas, the social sciences and popular culture. It’s between what’s new, what’s old and what’s ready for a comeback. It’s also the gulf between what’s expected, and what’s not.

Cory Miller, a great Wordpress designer and marketing consultant has released some free Wordpress themes specifically designed for Internet Marketers.

This means you can run the traditional one-page salesletter through Wordpress, while easily making any updates or changes. Quite useful if you are only familiar with Wordpress and no other ways of creating webpages or sites.

Bill Hartzer writes about how to claim your stumbleupon blog through Technorati. Great step by step instructions and if you haven’t done it already, this mini tutorial is worth checking out. Thanks, Bill!

Here’s an interesting tip that you probably haven’t thought of yet. In fact, this will increase the number of links to your StumbleUpon blog, and will automatically increase the “link juice” to every page that you add, review, or “Stumble” using the StumbleUpon service.

Liz explained the secret to massive digg or stumbleupon traffic and it involves a little basic courtesy. Saying thank you to the StumbleUpon or Digg user who made your article popular is a great way to get them to come back and do it again.

This method is consumes a little more time and effort but is incredibly useful. Now if only a Digg power user would consider submitting anything from Dosh Dosh… I really don’t have anyone to thank yet. ^_^

Just say, “thank you.” Yep. That’s it. Say, “thank you.” Find a way to show your appreciation. That Digg/StumbleUpon User probably sends tons of traffic to a number of sites every day. Yet, rarely does someone stop to say “thanks for the effort.” Be that someone.

Digg recently underwent a redesign and some members of the Digg community don’t really like it. I don’t fancy the changes as well because it really makes it a lot harder to follow the submissions of your friends.

Some users do reciprocal digging to build an account but there are some others who genuinely have an interest in tracking the latest news via their active friends, especially when you can get it 5 to 18 hours before it hits the frontpage.

By penalizing friend-oriented digging and emphasizing page views, Digg reduces usability and makes it inordinately more difficult to access news on a regular basis.

Skellie recently concluded her ‘Simple Web’ series, a collection of articles dealing with means to help you achieve the goals you’ve set for your website or blog.

The series is well structured and I do recommend checking them. I found it a great read and there are some tips that’ll improve your site usability and branding.

Evaluate every action, every possible change, and every existing feature of your blog or website, and ask: Is it gripping? Can the reader resonate with it? Does it make it easy (and rewarding) to interact? And most importantly: is it easy (or rewarding) to talk about? That’s all you need to know. Do these things, and you’ll get everything you want.

I recently stumbled upon an interesting article on the biggest mistakes in web design. Some of the terms coined in the article are pretty funny. Ever heard of ‘Mystery Meat Navigation‘ or ‘Heroin Content‘?

I think most of you out there don’t make the mistakes listed in the article but if you know anyone that does… spread the word!

I’ve gathered what I think are the biggest web design mistakes committed during the period 1995 to 2015. Yes it is a little facetious to say these mistakes will be made in the year 2015, but it’s human nature to repeat your mistakes over and over. But it’s human nature to repeat your mistakes over and over.

I’m sure most of you have already seen Darren Rowse’s video post on picking a profitable niche and why you shouldn’t really create a make money online blog.

I agree with Darren and would like to add that the traffic levels for make money online or meta-blogging blogs are truly pathetic, when you compare them to other niches like technology or entertainment.

Use the blog as a means to network and build your personal brand. Being recognized as a thought leader will open up doors for other opportunities to generate income.

The problem is that the ‘make money online’ niche is crowded, there are already many established blogs, to be successful in it you need credibility and runs on the board (or a unique approach to it) and it really has a limited audience when compared to many other niches.

And that’s all for today. Enjoy your weekend!