This post is part of a weekly series, Fetching Friday, featuring the resources mashup, a great guest blogging contest, and an amazing timelapse video of the Discovery prepping for take off.
The Resources Mashup
Here are some of the best articles I have stumbled upon and retweeted on @kikolani this week.
Blogging / Writing
- 4 reasons to add a podcast to your blog – if only I could become comfortable with the sound of my own voice on recordings…
- Analyzing the value of a blog post – results of a succeful blog post in terms of social shares, new subscriptions, and conversions.
- 100 hacks to help you become a better writer – a short summary of 100 articles that will help improve your writing skills.
- 20 pages every blogger needs to hvae – I don’t have several on my site, so it’s a good wakeup call.
- 15 tips for attracting and connecting with non-blogging readers – sometimes it’s easy for bloggers to forget about new readers who may have never left a comment or subscribed to an RSS feed before.
Business / Career / Finance
- 25 free marketing resources – search tools, reputation monitoring, design, flowcharts, and more. Many good ones I haven’t heard of but will try out!
- Why your brand needs a villian to succeed – or how brands can triumph by solving major problems.
- Best Yahoo store feeds – for businesses using Yahoo stores, this is a must read.
- 75 big marketing ideas for small marketing budgets – tips applicable to businesses and blogs.
- 28 creative ways to get your marketing message across – tips for freelancers and professionals.
- Stay updated on the latest Facebook privacy changes – from the horse’s mouth.
- Facebook advertising – 10 laws every marketer needs to know – good tips, even if it is a repost from a year ago.
- How to make someone an admin of your Facebook page – nice idea, especially for pages of collaborative blogs and businesses.
- Do you ‘Like’ how I look in these jeans – and how much you really want to know about your online friends.
- 10 takeaways from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerber’s meltdown at the D Conference – or how not to handle pressure.
Humor / Infographics / Inspiration
- What does your email say about you – I feel good about this since I have my own domain and Gmail addresses. Fun tip: Gmail is looked upon as “more professional” than Yahoo, Hotmail, etc., so if you are job hunting, get Gmail.
- Oil spill infographic – find out how bad it really is in an easy to understand graphic.
- 40 inspiring examples of dark websites – some of these did a good job combatting the hard to read on a dark background issue.
- Creative and useful 404 page error design – a nice reminder (again) that I need to change mine up drastically.
- The evolution of television – large, detailed infographic timeline.
Link Building
- How to not start link building – a post on link building mistakes from a year ago that is still applicable today.
- Tips on developing a great viral marketing idea – link building with viral content.
- Build links backwards – what would you do for a link you really want?
- Free link building webinar covering tools to help you succeed in link building on June 10 at 11:30 AM EST – no, it’s not a post, but I figure link building enthusiasts might find it interesting.
- Link building tool interview with Eric Ward – a professional with some interesting insight after 15 years in the biz.
Making Money Blogging / Making Money Online
- 5 reasons you should bank on the internet to make money online – because who doesn’t like the sound of being their own boss.
- 10 easy ways to monetizing your blog – the basics.
- Review of the Amazon WordPress plugin for quickly building Amazon affiliate sites – a good way to increase Amazon sales on your WordPress blog.
- Details on whether Sponsored Tweets and other ad platforms are banned from Twitter – I haven’t tried any of these, but would be curious if they work.
- Win an iPad and earn money for referring influencers with MyLikes – a quick review of the MyLikes program.
- 5 steps to six figures – the formula for making money online from building a list to launch day of your product. Late addition.
Personal Development / Self Improvement
- Performance vs. fulfillment – which drives you, and how can you find balance.
- Why breaking bad habits just got easier – many people try to skip the “are you ready to break the habit” step which makes the actual breaking of it a problem.
- 5 tips on how to develop an assertive personality – simple ways to expand your comfort zone and gain confidence.
- Staying strong in times of emotional adversity – it’s easy to be strong when things are going well, but what do you do to stay stable when things are going wrong.
- When goals stop working – or how to perservere when your plans fall through.
Photography / Digital Art
- 27 recent photographs from le Flickr pool – an interesting collection of photos.
- A rough week for Guatemala – because the sinkhole looks like something out of a horror movie. Of course, so do these latest photos of the birds caught in the oil spill.
- 15 beautiful iPhoneography examples – simply put, wow – I didn’t know a camera phone could do that.
- Breathtaking closeups of animals – beautiful, but some are not necessarily great for the squeamish.
- 40 beautiful sunset photographs – I give props to people who can take these, because I still haven’t figured it out yet three cameras later.
Search Engines / SEO / Analytics
- How is your SEO strategy working – ways to find out if you are doing the right thing with your search optimization.
- SEO interview with Matt Evans of Monster.com – if SEO were a sport, it would be rugby?
- Make a webpage for each store location – how to utilize local search from the Google guru himself.
- 6 causes and 5 solutions for when your website is ranking for the wrong keywords – advanced tips.
- Why local SEO is harder than you think – in-depth analysis of how local search works in terms how the top site in local search results isn’t always the one that has done proper local search optimization.
Social Media
- 92 essential social media resources – a huge collection of Mashable’s social media articles for business, mobile, and tools.
- An illustrated guide to the science of persuasion and influence – I wasn’t quite sure which category this fit under, but I thought it was a good visual of how things work.
- 7 social media truths you can ignore and still be successful – touches on the elusive ROI and the one rule you MUST follow to be successful.
- 52 questions to ask when hiring a social media company – great way to find out if who you are hiring knows what they are talking about.
- How does social media aid lead generation – for clients and job opportunities.
Tech / Tools / Tips
- 27 useful screen capture tools – for when Print Screen doesn’t cut it anymore.
- Ultimate list of free Android apps – great apps. My tip of the day for Android users who haven’t upgraded to 2.1 – DON’T DO IT.
- Top 10 internet scams you shouldn’t fall for – there were a few that were new to me in this list.
- Top 10 Google products for bloggers – with exception to one or two, if you’re not using them, you should be!
- How to use your iPad for summer travel – apps for planning your vacation on your iPad.
- Twitter gets the you both follow feature – might be interesting!
- Paper.li – read Twitter like a newspaper.
- The new customer service for business – 3 reasons businesses should be using it.
- How to win or lose an argument on Twitter – fighting, 140 characters at a time.
- Ultimate list of 100 Twitter statistics infographics – for Twitter and infographic junkies, this post is heaven.
WordPress
- Top 5 plugins to convert WordPress to a membership site – convert your current blog or a new WordPress site to a membership site.
- Clone Yahoo answers with WordPress – a great interactive addition to any website.
- Beginners guide to BuddyPress – features BuddyPress adds onto the standard WordPress CMS, plugins, and themes..
- Scribe SEO – a review of the WordPress plugin that can act as your blog’s personal SEO guru. If you are a Third Tribe member, look for the Scribe thread – huge savings for the advanced plan!
- Complete to do list and plugins for WordPress site maintenance – if your site isn’t performing as well as you would like, it may be time to check “under the hood” of your WordPress install and fix some problems.
Famous Bloggers – ComLuv Guest Blogging Contest
Update 6/21/2010: My entry for this contest is a post on how to use CommentLuv to promote your articles on HubPages, Squidoo, Bukisa, EzineArticles, GoArticles, and other article networks and directories. A must read for article marketers – learn how to strengthen your article marketing strategy.
Famous Bloggers and ComLuv have teamed up to put together a month long guest blogging contest beginning on June 7th with a total of $2,450 in cash prizes (so far).
The sponsors for this contest are:
$300 Sponsors
- Andy Bailey from The ComLuv Network – creator of the CommentLuv plugin.
- Claims.com – specialists in accidents at work claims.
$150 Sponsors
- Hesham Zebida from Famous Bloggers, your source on how to blog.
- Brian Longest, who offers GoDaddy Coupon FAN3 30% Off and other promos.
$100 Sponsors
- FiddyP, the personal blog of Andy Bailey.
- FiredWok Chinese Takeaway & Delivery’s Chinese Takeaway Lancaster.
- GoodMillwork, a Florida based Millwork Architectural Mouldings producer.
- Andrew Rondeau, creator of Blogging Guide and the Income Blogging Guide Course.
- Marc Duquette of Scribnia, the blogging community.
- The Happy Guy Marketing, professional SEO consultant.
- The Online Recruiters Directory, executive search firms.
- Monster Auto, an auto monsters car blog.
$50 Sponsors
- DiTesco from IBlogZone, home based business resources.
- DennisEdell, Direct Sales Marketing Coach.
- Firas of WP Worx – WordPress Services.
- Kiesha of We Blog Better offering blogging tips & tricks.
- Melinda of Simple Home Organization.
- Dan Keller of TycoonBlogger with tips on how to promote your blog.
- ProjectCenter offering club flyers printing services.
- PPI Claims – payment protection insurance.
- Free Gifts – get free gifts via signing up for other incentives.
- Zoomit Canada, a site of social bookmarking just for Canada.
- Fence Houston, a Houston fence contractor.
- Fence Philadelphia, a Philadelphia fence company.
- Location Villa Costa Brava – lovely holiday destination.
- Buy Amsoil Motor Oil from Lube Oil Sales.
- Olympic EyeWear, retailer of designer sunglasses.
Sponsor benefits include getting a nice amount of backlinks from the following blogs: CommentLuv Community, Social Media Strategy, Income Blogging Guide, Blogging Tips, New Media Bloggers, Web Design, Good Millwork, Sharing Knowledge, Executive Gifts, FiddyP, and yours truly with your choice of anchor text for your links (as demonstrated above).
Being a ComLuv contest sponsor is a small investment for the exceptional link opportunities each sponsor receives not to mention the increased exposure you receive from over 20,000 bloggers who use CommentLuv. If you are interested, contact Hesham and stay tuned for more details about the contest on Monday on Famous Bloggers.
Week in Review
This week, Kikolani featured two great guest posts – 3 steps to find blogging inspiration and 10 things that can hurt your blog. The discussion in both are great, and definitely worth checking out and jumping in the conversation!
Rocket Timelapse
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The Fetching Friday archives – tons of useful resources on blogging, social networking, and more