This post is part of a weekly series, Fetching Friday, featuring the best posts of the week in blogging, making money online, SEO, and social media on kikolani.com.
Happy Holidays
Before we jump into the goodies from the week, I wanted to take a moment to let everyone know this is the last Fetching Friday post for 2011. Next week I will be out of town and it will be near impossible to get any work done. I also want to say a special thank you to my readers – without you, I would have no passion to write! I hope everyone has a very wonderful holiday season and happy new year!
From the Forever Friends holiday wallpaper collection.
The Resources Mashup
Here are some of the best articles I have stumbled upon, retweeted on @kikolani, and read in RSS subscriptions this week.
Blogging / Writing
- 70+ Resources on How to Start a WordPress Blog – Just in case you missed it earlier this week, here are resources for starting your own blog on WordPress including choosing a domain name, purchasing your domain, hosting, WordPress installation, themes, plugins, settings, essential pages, backups, updates, and more!
- Atypical Tips for Writing Awesome Blog Posts – Over time the author had a lot of practice and picked up a ton of tips on blog post writing that he’s happy to share with you.
- 7 Reasons to Rethink Your Blogging Strategy: New Research – New research shows business blogging is here to stay. Check out the latest stats on professional blogging and how business bloggers are using their blogs.
- 7 Reasons Having a Twitter Feed in Your Sidebar is a Really Dumb Idea – Many people wonder if putting a twitter stream or feed in their website’s sidebar is a good idea. This article shows why it isn’t.
- 13 Vital Blogging Tasks for When You Can’t Be Bothered Writing – Sometimes writing a new post just isn’t going to happen. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of other stuff to do for your blog.
Business / Career
- The Entrepreneur’s Handbook: 101 Resources for First Time Entrepreneurs – 101 resources that will help you learn more about entrepreneurship, startups, small business, and much more.
- 50 Posts on Engagement for Bloggers, Businesses, and Social Media Enthusiasts – Ready to start increasing your engagement in 2012? Find out the best strategies for blogging, business, and social media engagement from these awesome posts!
- The Power of Persuasion: Storytelling & Personas in Content Marketing – What many companies are in need of today is understanding social technology adoption, social communications, knowledge transfer, community and collaboration.
- 4 Ways to Grow Your Business with Marketing Automation – If you want to increase your ROI, then implement the following 4 marketing automation ideas.
- 55 Business Marketing Mistakes – Answers from the contributor network of entrepreneurs, advisors and experts on the biggest marketing mistakes that they have experienced in business.
Personal Development / Productivity
- 5 Ways That Trying New Experiences Can Make You Successful – Have you ever considered that trying new experiences, such as eating new foods and trying new restaurants can make you more successful? Probably not, but there is in fact a very clear and profound link between the two.
- Make Goal Mastery Unavoidable: Put Everything In Its Place – Make reaching your goals unavoidable by putting everything in its place ahead of time; this post will show you how.
- On the Importance of Real Relationships and How Passionate Work Can Kill Balance – The world runs off relationships. So does our happiness. Sometimes deeply loving our work causes us to forget that. Here’s a reminder of what matters.
- Increasing Productivity with Home Office “Feng Shui” – Are you as productive as you could be in your office? Is your office a space that you like to be in or not? Perhaps it is time to get your feng shui on to increase efficiency and get more done.
- 20 Ways to Be Grateful – Here’s a list of 20 things you can start doing today to express your gratitude and to become a more appreciative person:
Search Engines / SEO
- The Best of 2011 – Posts & People Who Rocked Our World – The most popular posts from SEOmoz for 2011.
- 5 Great Keyword Research Tools That Are Cheaper than Ramen Noodles – This is a collection of five free keyword research tools that are not commonly known but are awesome.
- 5 Steps to a Better SEO Strategy – Having a great search engine optimization strategy goes beyond the basics… it actually starts from the very beginning.
- 103 High PR One Way Backlinks to Improve Search Engine Rankings – How do I improve my search engine rankings? The short answer is to get more backlinks. In this article, I list 103 sites that provide high Google PR one way links back to your site.
- SEO Strategies and Inbound Marketing Best Practices for 2012 – Here are some of the best practices on search, link development, social, content development, conversions and online branding for 2012.
Social Media / Social Networking
- 15 Sites That Help You Use Your Twitter Profile for Link Building – Want to use Twitter for link building almost on auto-pilot? These 15 sites will allow you to use your Twitter profile information for links!
- The Ultimate Guide to Optimized Social Media Updates – Learn how to optimize status updates on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
- How to Build an Effective Google+ Brand Strategy – Here are six steps to help jumpstart your brand presence on Google+.
- 10 Ways to Add Facebook Functionality to Your Website – By the time you’re finished reading this article, you’ll understand your options for turning your website into a social hub and how to get started.
- What You Should Be Getting Out of Social Scoring Sites – Think a little less about the number itself and be more concerned about the things you can learn from the top two social scoring networks.
Photo of the Week
This week’s top photo comes from a trip to the Grand Canyon last winter. This guy was having a little morning snack and was oblivious to us snapping photos of him!
Be sure to check out my photography blog for more photos and follow me @kristihines for my photography tweets or become a fan of Photostry on Facebook!
Forever Friends Christmas Movie
For those who celebrate Christmas, I hope this little movie warms your heart and makes you smile. For those that don’t, I hope you at least find the bears as cute as I do! 
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About Fetching Friday
Kikolani covers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers to succeed in search and social media marketing. Kristi Hines is a 
Happy Holidays Kristi.
Thanks for a year of awesome content.
Have a great time with your family
Roseli A. Bakar recently posted 20 More Unconventional Ways to Spice Up Your Blog
Thank YOU for an awesome year of sharing! Happy Holidays Roseli!
Thanks greatly for the post on 15 Sites that help you use your Twitter profile for link building!
I have added the “extra” link to my website in the text of my twitter profile, and will check out some of the sites you mention in the article.
FYI, I like the work you do for KissMetrics…. I am doing some advisory work for a company called Spring Metrics (conversion focused analytics), but my assistance to the company is primarily in the area of venture capital.
All the best,
…Tim
Tim Huntley recently posted Grilled Flank Steak with Mango and Avocado Salsa
Thanks Tim – I’m glad you’re enjoying my writing here and at KISSmetrics!
I hope the extra Twitter link helps you out in getting more traffic!
Well, seriously.. why would you post right in the middle of the holiday season? That’s part of the beauty of being a blogger, right?
Just stumbled upon your site! Cool beans.. Look forward to visiting in the upcoming year.
dee
Dee’s Small Houses recently posted In ten years will you regret not doing it?
I was able to post some things in advance for last year during the holidays. This year I’m just giving myself a breather!
Have Delicious Holidays Kristi!
The next Fetching Friday can wait for other week, I’ve enough material to explore on this one, for long time.
Hope the Best 2012 for You and Your Family
Cheers,
Gera
Gera@Blogging Strategies recently posted CommentLuv Global Search Engine
You too Gera – Happy Holidays!
Thanks for including my post Kristi!
Let’s all have a great year this coming 2012!
Happy holidays to you and your family.
BTW – Steve’s post really caught my attention
Jason Acidre recently posted SEO Strategies and Inbound Marketing Best Practices for 2012
You’re welcome Jason! Happy Holidays to you too!
Love the links Kristi and wonderful video!
I loved the teddy bears- they are so adorably cute!
I do look forward to your Friday goodies and book mark to read later. And now with these festive holidays- I would be reading them later well into the New Year, as I have my dad visiting us- so have my hands full as well.
Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Harleena Singh@Freelance Writer recently posted My Wish List and Resolutions
I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as well!
Thanks for including my post Kristi, and I’ll be sure to check out some of the others as well! Happy Holidays!
Pat recently posted Atypical Tips for Writing Awesome Blog Posts
You’re welcome Pat! Happy Holidays to you too!
Great link once again
And it’s cool how since I actually started using Twitter this week I’ve been clicking on links in that Twitter stream and I had actually seen some of these articles before today.
My concern this time (haha – oh pessimistic me) is with the Quick Sprout article. It says “You can also use CSS styles on images as a replacement for text.” I clicked through to that link to see how exactly this is SEO friendly, and I don’t think it is. They explain how you can basically replace text on your site with an image and an ALT tag, but I don’t think that this method is SEO friendly at all. I checked their source code and that’s all it really is….an image with an ALT tag. Can you imagine what would happen if an entire blog post was like that? I don’t think it would rank high at all. And then from a usability perspective – how are people supposed to copy and paste? I just don’t get it.
I’ll comment on their blog to ask too.
Thanks for the share!
Techie @ w3techie recently posted Full Guide to Breadcrumbs for SEO
Ah, you’re not a pessimist.
I’m glad you’ll comment on their article as well – much more likely to get their reasoning behind that point. 
Wow, what a great shot! I’m jealous you got that close. I love Elk, but I’ve never been able to get close enough to get a good picture of one. At least not in the wild
.
Jon Anscher recently posted Social Impact of Technology: Humans vs. the Machine
They are a little more trusting at the Grand Canyon.
Hey Kristi,
Awesome resources, as always. Thanks for the awesome content.
Happy Holidays !!
Dev @ WordPress Resources recently posted WordPress Deals for Christmas and New Year
Happy Holidays to you too Dev!
Happy Holidays Kristi and thank you so much for Fetching Friday. It’s been one of the most helpful resources for me throughout 2011. You are truly appreciated!
Nea | Self Improvement Saga recently posted 8 Ways to Turn Your Life Around
Thanks Nea! I’m glad you have enjoyed the Friday resources shared throughout the year. Happy Holidays to you too!
Kristi Hines recently posted 70+ Resources on How to Start a WordPress Blog
Happy holidaysto everybody! I hope you will have the best holidays ever this year! Thansk for the nice selection of posts!
Nice list, as usual. Checking out some of the business and SEO posts (plus one personal devel post, because personal devel kicks butt).
Thanks for this! And cool pic, as always. Hope you’re well, Kristi.
Ryan Critchett@Lehigh Valley Data Recovery recently posted Tablets And Mobile VS PC’s! What Will The Future Look Like?
Have nice holidays! We will be waiting for you and your new interesting and urgent articles!
Amanda@BuySellWordPress recently posted WordPress Themes
Have a nice holiday Kristi and I am wishing everyone a happy new year!
Noel Addison@Web Development Ventura recently posted 5 Things to Look for in a Web Dev Company
Thanks so much Kristi,
Especially for the productivity links. Based on personal evaluation, I need to live in that section until the new year and get some efficiency back! Catch ya in 2012!
RJ Ulbricht recently posted Running Compression Socks
Happy Holidays. All the best for 2012.
Swamykant@Your Digital Space recently posted 50 Stunning 2012 Happy New Year Desktop Wallpapers
I wish you wonderful holidays! 2012 is so near. Just few days.
I feel the new year will be much better than 2011, so many opportunities for anyone, this is my wish for all of you
Manuel Marino recently posted Gay Cowboys – And Other Hollywood Philosophies
Love the personal development links. Finally got to look at last Friday’s mashup as i’ve been away from internet for the last week! Torture…
Chris @ Austin Owner Financed Homes recently posted Where To Find Owner Financed Homes in Austin Texas
Happy Holidays to you Kristi.
I love the bears, It looks like exactly the one I gave as a gift to my cousin.
Take Care and God Bless you!
John Knights@Psd to WordPress recently posted How to choose a web design firm in the UK?
Another great mashup and hope your Christmas was great. Happy New Year.
Ricardus @WordPress Hosting recently posted Simple guidelines for WordPress 3.3 updates