North x East

What to Do After Writing a New Blog Post?

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:11:09 +0000

If you want a successful blog there are many things you should be doing after writing a new post and below I will explain a few of the most important things you should do after every blog post you write.Doesn’t it always feel good to publish a new post on your home based business blog? I know I get a sense of accomplishment every time and I am sure you do too. But remember that when you’re done writing a new blog post, you still have some work to do. If you want a successful blog there are many things you should be doing after writing a new post and below I will explain a few of the most important things you should do after every blog post you write.1) Edit Your PostI know it may seem very obvious but the first thing you need to do when you finish a new blog post is edit it. Many people forget to do this and it can be detrimental to the success of your blog. Don’t publish your post until it has been completely edited and checked for spelling/grammar errors. Read over it carefully and make sure everything flows and that everything is written correctly. It doesn’t have to be perfect but you don’t want it to be full of errors either. You also want to make sure all your spelling and punctuation is correct. One good way to do this is to paste it into MS Word and run a spell check.2) Ping ItIf your blog does not automatically ping new posts then you need to manually do it after each post. Go to a site such as pingomatic or one of the many other “pinging” sites and ping your blog to let everyone know you have published a new post.3) Bookmark the PostThe next thing you want to do after you write a blog post is to bookmark it. There are a lot of social bookmarking sites on the internet that you can use to do this. Some of the best and most popular are Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious, Mixx, and Reddit. Make sure you bookmark your post to at least a few of them.4) Tweet ItAfter you write a new blog post you should always “tweet” it. Twitter is really popular right now and it only takes a few seconds to tweet your followers about your post. This can give you extra traffic and maybe even a few people will retweet it or link to your post, which will help even more. So make sure you take a little time to tweet about your post whenever you publish a new one.Alright, that should be enough to get you started. Just remember that after you finish writing a blog post you aren’t done with the work. If you do the things listed above then you will have a much better shot at building a successful blog.

How to Hire Someone to Do Your WordPress Design

admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:49:30 +0000

While there are a lot of free templates as well as premium or paid ones, still nothing beats a website design for WordPress that is specifically made for your requirements.WordPress is currently the most popular blogging software or platform and is the choice of most professional bloggers out there. Even those who are just starting out in blogging are already stepping into using WordPress as their main blogging tool. While there are a lot of free templates as well as premium or paid ones, still nothing beats a website design for WordPress that is specifically made for your requirements.But something that is tailored fit to your needs will surely cost you money. Nevertheless, if what you want is a unique look and feel for your blog or web site using WordPress, hiring the professional services of a good web designer will always work wonders for you. So here are a few tips to help you with your search for that web designer.1. Hire someone who has experience working with WordPress.WordPress as a content management software or system has its own requirements and unique features that only experienced web designers can fully understand and utilize. So this means that for an effective web design for WordPress, you certainly want the services of someone who has designed for that platform in the past.2. Understand what your budget can buy for you.Experienced and extremely good web designers will ask for higher fees and that is just understandable with the level of expertise that they have. But if what you want is a really catchy and effective web design, do not think so much about the fee but look at the end results you will be getting. 3. Look at the web designers portfolio.Ask for sample web sites or blogs that he designed and carefully look at those sites. Do they load fast enough for you? Are the layout intuitive and the interface easy to understand? Are the color combination just right or is it too hard to look at? There are still a lot of design and usability elements that you should look for but the point is, make sure that you see some of his works first before you commit yourself on hiring him.

How to Submit Articles Automatically With The Help of PHP Scripts

admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:55:01 +0000

Article submissions have a significant impact on your SEO efforts for a website. Use a php script to send article submissions efficiently and automatically.One of the ways webmasters get backlinks and traffic to their websites is through article submission. Articles often times have what is known as a resource box which contains a link back to the webmaster’s site. Article submissions have a significant impact on the search engine marketing (or SEO) efforts for a website. The number of submissions to the various websites is also important and webmasters have a goal of submitting articles to as many directories as possible in the shortest amount of time. This is where a php script can be used to send article submissions automatically. What is meant by ‘automatic’ is that the script can go from one directory to the next submitting the article with no human intervention.There is no need to visit each submission site individually with this automation. Logging into each site in order to submit an article is time consuming. Plus, you have to remember the login and steps in order to do a full submission. With an automatic article submission script, the parameters needed to login to each article directory site are stored and can be automatically retrieved. Some scripts also store the parameters necessary for filling out the forms on each of the individual directory sites. For example, one directory site might have several different fields required to be completed for categorizing an article. Some submission scripts will record that this form requires these fields and gather the information prior to interacting with the form.With the article submissions, there is always the requirement for unique articles. Some article submission scripts can make alterations to existing articles so that the new ones end up a certain percentage different from the original. Even though articles can be changed, it is wise to edit them for correctness for which there is no automatic replacement.

Are You Blogging With Your Neighbours?

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:58:32 +0000

The word out there is that the world wide web is making the world smaller, giving the voice back to the people, and making us all more tolerant, more understanding, more global. But is this really happening?When we posted our “NxE’s Fifty Most Influential ‘Female’ Bloggers” list, we went through the blogosphere as we know it: the blogs we read, the blogs our friends read, the blogs we know people to be reading. But no matter how careful we were, we still missed a lot of blogs that others would consider influential. In a world where Technorati is tracking over 112.8 milllion blogs, I hardly find this surprising.However, there is more to learn from this than just the simple fact that there are too many blogs for us to keep track of.The blogosphere, just like the physical world we live in, is divided into neighbourhoods that have only limited interaction with each other. The online neighbourhoods might be divided differently than their physical counterparts, but apart from that they share similar characteristics. For example, in the blogging world, I belong to an English speaking neighbourhood interested in business, productivity, serious blogging, and personal development, although physically, I am located far in the north, in the European country called Finland.These bloggers are the people who I know by name and with whom I chat first when I plug myself to the Internet – they (you) are my neighbours. But why these people, and not some others?First, there is the language issue. If I don’t understand the language of your blog, I can’t read it. For me this rules out blogs written in languages that I have never studied (like Chinese, Japanese, Russian), as well as languages that I rarely use such as French or Spanish.So far so good. The language is a natural restriction: if you don’t understand a language, there is no way you can enjoy a blog written in it.But that’s not all. There are many blogs written in English that I have never heard of. In fact, I’m willing to bet that there are blogs that are massively influential within their own neighbourhoods, but still virtually unknown to the masses because the link out from the neighbourhood is missing.Online, just like in real life, it’s all about links. Like the popular saying goes, it’s not about what you know, it’s not about who you know, it’s about who knows you.New friends are usually made through old friends and acquaintances. Who you know defines who you will know – unless you make a conscious decision to change that fact and build new links outside your immediate neighbourhood. And as who you know pretty much defines who knows you, this becomes an important question to think about when trying to grow your blog’s audience.

Are you blogging for your neighbours?

From the fact that you are reading North x East, I am going to make three assumptions – or educated guesses – so bear with me (feel free to use the comments section to tell me if I got these assumptions wrong).First, I’m going to assume that one of your most important blogging goals is to gather a big audience. You watch your RSS subscriber count carefully, and you can tell the number of unique visitors in your sleep. And when the growth halts for some reason, you are not far from losing your sleep.Second, let’s assume that a big part of your readers found you through links from other people’s blogs. This is a fairly safe guess, even if you have done all your SEO work and made Google your best friend.Third, let’s say that the people who link to your blog are people who follow your blog.When these three assumptions hold true, a funny (but common) situation where everything spins around in a circle is created: you link to people you know, they link back to you, and the same people read both of your blogs. Every now and then this might result in a few new readers finding your blogs – but in most cases even these new readers are people just like you, from the very same neighbourhood.And after a while, you will run out of growth potential in this neighbourhood. Everyone who could be interested in what you have to say is already following you, and the rest just don’t care. What do you do next?This is when you need to find a way to get noticed out from your town and look for other neighbourhoods interested in similar topics as yours.

Link and be linked to

Once you have decided to get out there and broaden your neighbourhood, that’s where the real work begins.The idea itself is simple:

Find a bunch of blogs from a close neighbourhood that you believe might be interested in what you have to say
Subscribe to the blogs, and make sure to read them
Start interacting with the bloggers and their readers through comments, e-mail conversations, and guest posts
Bring more value to the new neighbourhood

I have to stress the last item on the list: If you just wait for new people to arrive to your blog, you’ll have a long wait ahead of you. Instead, what you need to do is to get out there and make a genuine contribution to the new neighbourhood. And only then, after you have become a part of that new circle of bloggers, you can expect the readers to be interested in what you have to say as well.But how do you find those blogs?First, in every circle of friends there are some people who have more connections than others. They are the connectors who like to hang out with all kinds of people, and are always happy to introduce their friends to each other. A person like this can well be the first one to introduce you to new people who you never would have met otherwise.The risk in only relying in connectors is that if your friend isn’t really quite that well connected, all her friends are from the same neighbourhood as you. And in this case, the effect (for blog marketing, that is) of meeting new people through them is not quite as high as it could be.A solution to this problem is to come up with a list of descriptions of possible neighbourhoods you might be interested in joining. Show this list to your connector, and she will tell you if she knows anyone who would match the profile. This list of requirements can also help you search for relevant blogs by yourself too. Just fire up Google and see what you can find.To conclude the discussion, here are some examples of what to be looking for:

People blogging about a subset of your topic: If you are writing about food, take a look at blogs writing about baking or making soup
People blogging about a broader topic than you are: If you write about baking, how about checking out blogs about cooking, taking care of the home, or food in general?
People writing about your topic in a different language. This requires that you know the language, and that the neighbourhood knows yours and will be able to read your blog.
People from a different race. Unfortunately, race still seems to matter – people do primarily hang out with people who are just the same as they are. If you are brave enough to cross this line drawn in the air, you may soon be lot wiser, and a lot more popular than you are right now
People of different age. Older than you, younger than you – doesn’t matter. Just find a big enough age difference so that you have something unique to learn from each other.

Are you ready to step outside your comfort zone, and start blogging for more people than just your closest neighbours?

Ratings for Web Hosts

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:57:19 +0000

Last week we mentioned some of the factors new bloggers need to consider when choosing a hosting provider. In this article, we’d like to point you in the direction of another host ratings site, Web Hosting Rating.On more than a few occasions, I try to find places where I can share my experiences with the greater blogging community. Seemingly everyone I know in the space has hosting concerns and questions, so I’ll go out to various outlets and post thoughts on my hosting provider (disclosure: MediaTemple Grid-Service). And since the hosting landscape is constantly changing with all the players out there, I feel it’s worthwhile to give an update periodically or stay current by reading others’ reviews.Feel like you to learn more about web hosting before you can add value to the discussion? Take a look at this blog-style web hosting guide, which consists of a series of authoritative articles dedicated to the subject. Or take a look at WebHostingRating.com’s monthly awards for website hosting providers, as voted on by visitors like us. The winners are what the community considers best-in-industry for the following 12 categories:

Best Budget Web Hosting Provider
Best Blog Web Hosting Provider
Best Forum Web Hosting Provider
Best Unix Web Hosting Provider
Best Windows Web Hosting Provider
Best PHP Web Hosting Provider
Best Email Web Hosting Provider
Best ECommerce Web Hosting Provider
Best Multiple Domain Web Hosting Provider
Best VPS Web Hosting Provider
Best Reseller Web Hosting Provider
Best Decicated Server Web Hosting Provider

Do you have any good/bad hosting experiences to share with your fellow bloggers? I suggest that everyone give back to the independent web publishing community by adding your own unique hosting review.

Recommendation Engine for Content Sites

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:48:20 +0000

One of the major goals for content-driven websites, and blogs especially, is to increase page views consumed per visitor. So how can we as web publishers improve on this important metric?One of the major goals for content-driven websites, and blogs especially, is to increase page views consumed per visitor. So how can we as web publishers improve on this important metric?The basic reasoning is that increased consumption leads to higher ad revenues (on a CPM basis), and that consumption is often a good indication that your readers are satisfied with your content and are likely to return.For larger blog sites with a vast libraries of content, it’s tough for a user to dig through past content, and just as tough for the administrator to select links to promote across the site. That’s where a recommendation engine like Strands Recommender can help simplify the process and increase reader engagement. In the same way that Amazon recommends products, Strands can recommend interesting content based on your past browsing patterns. This method of “behavioral targeting” puts more relevant content options on every page, and therefore makes your site more appealing and unique for each individual visitor.For more information on the Strands value proposition and implementation, take a look at their available Social Media Solutions.

Choosing a Web Hosting Service, and More

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:22:50 +0000

Every blogger, at some point in time, will have to ask themselves: “What web hosting provider will best serve my needs?” The vast array of vendors, product choices and pricing levels can be daunting for even the most experienced blogger.Most bloggers I know (myself included), would prefer to focus their time on the best aspects of blogging. We love the creativity and freedom to express our ideas, discussing and debating topics with our readers in the comments section, leveraging social media outlets and finding new and unique ways to promote our sites to a broader audience.The work of deciding on a web hosting provider is absolutely necessary, and that’s where a website called WebHostingGeeks steps in to save us some time. They’ve been publishing descriptions and rankings of the best web hosting services ever since they launched in 2004. Each hosting vendor on their site is categorized and receives an independent 9-point review from WebHostingGeek’s experts, along with hundreds of user-generated reviews and comments. This is definitely the most in-depth host rating service I’ve found on the web.For any readers that are beginning bloggers, an inexpensive shared-hosting environment is the way to go. WebHostingGeeks rates their top blogging host of 2009, who provides an installation of WordPress (the powerhouse behind NorthxEast).For the wildly successful blogger, your traffic may grow to the point where your current shared hosting environment performs too slowly for your readers, or isn’t flexible enough for your technical needs. In these cases, vps hosting (mid price range) or a dedicated server (a machine you lease that is solely devoted to your site) can give you the flexibility to optimize your servers and the power to deliver those page views.With all the information you need to make your decision in one place, you can calmly decide which service best suits your needs. Check out WebHostingGeeks at http://webhostinggeeks.com

Tomorrow’s Star Bloggers Talk About Blogging

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:00:21 +0000

When a blogger becomes famous, everyone wants to get in touch with her, asking for interviews, sharing their post ideas, or just looking for a quick chat. But at that point, reaching out to her might already be too late. Unless the blogger tells you otherwise, there is nothing wrong with trying. Most of today’s stars are nice and friendly and love to be contacted – just a bit busy.But there is an easier way to get to talk to hard core bloggers and learn from them: Look into the nearby future and say hi to the star bloggers of tomorrow. That is, bloggers who are doing a great job building their blogs today but aren’t yet overwhelmed with contact requests, email and other PR duties.

But who are the rising stars, then?

To make things easier for you, I did a quick study and collected a group of inspiring bloggers who are on their way to building something big. Here’s how the study was organized:

I sent out an email message to some bloggers I concider elite citizens of the blogosphere and asked them to point out one to five rising stars who they think are still not too hip to stay in touch with regular people like you and me.
Then, I went through their recommendations and picked a handful of interesting bloggers. I contacted them to see how they would respond and asked each of them two interview questions regarding their blogging.
Finally, I asked each blogger interviewed if they wanted to point out a few more rising stars, and repeated from step 2.

The list I’m about to present you is by no means a complete one. Not even a particularly wide selection of all the upcoming star bloggers out there. But nevertheless, these nine people will surely change the face of blogging in no time, so you’d better get to know them now instead of later.And even more importantly, I’m sure you want to hear what they have to say about their blogging success and the challenges they are facing so that you can be one of them!

Tina Su

Tina Su blogs about finding clarity, simplicity, creativity and personal happiness at Think Simple Now. Although she started her blog less than a year ago, it has already collected a big audience, and an RSS following of over 7000 subscribers (Not to mention the huge number of Diggs here posts generate!). But this is just the beginning: Tina’s friendly voice and practical approach to her topics are keys to still many more happy readers to come. Here’s what she answered to my interview questions:How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and success?

Knowing specifically what my goals are and why. Making sure my goals were measurable.
Having absolute faith that I was going to reach my goals.
Dedicating myself to producing the best content possible.
Telling everyone about it.
Helping other bloggers whenever I can.
Once I reach my immediate blogging goals, I set new ones. Typically, I re-visit my goals at the start of each month to evaluate my progress and to set new ones. I’ve written about this topic extensively at ProBlogger: From 0 to 2000+ Subscribers in 90 Days

What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?The web is an incredible platform for reaching out to people of diverse culture around the world. At the core of what we do, our most basic motives and emotions are universal. We are all human. We all want the same thing: happiness.I see this platform as an empowering tool to spreading messages that can increase the quality of people’s lives, regardless of cultural background. The opportunities are boundless.A handful of powerful posts written by Tina Su:

Nick Cernis

Nick Cernis is a web designer turned entrepreneur with a nearly-magical touch with words. He blogs about productivity and living the lives we love at Put Things Off and is the author of the masterful eBook on paper based productivity, Todoodlist. As you can see from his interview answers, this guy is definitely up to something big in the near future:How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and success?I don’t consider myself particularly famous. I’ve just worked hard at something I love. I think to chase after fame or some other dangling carrot directly would be disastrous. Fame and success should always be secondary; do something you adore and do it with passion — the recognition will follow.What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?I plan to write a book, if not this year, then soon. After that, I’d like to do more video work; not the monologue-to-webcam kind, but the storytelling kind that reaches out and touches people. I think there’s scope to extend what I try to do with my writing — to make people think about their lives — but to do it on film in a light-hearted, mockumentary style that’s more accessible than traditional productivity and lifestyle advice.Five strong posts from Nick Cernis’s portfolio:

Steven Snell

Steven Snell is a designer balancing his time between graphics, writing and entrepreneurship. He runs three blogs, including design blogs Vandelay Design Blog and the (just started) Designm.ag, but is also one of the most active contributors at the blogging and entrepreneurship blog Blogtrepreneur.Steven attributes his success to being active in social media and a putting in a consistent effort:How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and success?What I have been able to achieve has primarily been the result of consistent effort. I’ve been building my blog pretty aggressively for just over a year now and through that time I’ve come from knowing next to nothing about blogging to building a decent-sized audience in a competitive niche. Most of the other bloggers that I interacted with during my first few months either completely stopped posting or they fizzled out and occasionally post something, but with no consistency. I’ve been eager to learn and willing to try new things while I’ve watched other blogs that have more potential than mine just get bored. That’s fine; no one should have to build a blog if they don’t want to. A lot of people say they’re committed to doing something special, but when it comes down to it, they’re not willing to make the necessary sacrifices. Most of us are building blogs part-time, so sacrifices are inevitable.In terms of specific strategies and keys to growth, two things really stand out to me – content and networking. I know I’ve written my share of horrible posts, but I’m always trying to improve and create something that will generate interest. Over the course of a year I think I’ve been able to improve the quality of my content and really narrow the focus of my posts to match what most of my readers want to see. Networking is something that I never really gave much consideration to when I started blogging. I had no idea how powerful it would be. I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know some great bloggers that have really helped me out along the way.Other things that have been huge for me include guest posts / freelance writing at other blogs and social media. Social media is actually what first got me excited about blogging and made me see the true potential.What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?My biggest challenge right now is deciding exactly what to pursue.I currently have three blogs of my own. One is more of a side project that gets only a few hours per week of attention, and another one was just launched less than 2 weeks ago. Aside from that I write for several other blogs, at some points as many as 5 others per week. I never intended to be a freelance blogger, I just kind of fell into it, but I love it.The problem for me is that I’m always stuck trying to decide what to spend my time on. I’m a designer too, so I have to balance design projects, maintaining my own blogs, writing for other blogs, and pursuing ideas for new projects. It’s really a challenge for me to find the balance. It’s teaching me a lot about time management and pushing my limits, but I really have no idea what I’ll be doing even a few months from now. I had been planning on phasing out the freelance blogging to focus more on my own projects, but recently some great opportunities have come up to write for some really popular blogs, so I’m going to give it a shot and see how it works out.Five quality posts from Steven’s inventory:

Skellie

After starting her blog, Skelliewag.org, in mid-2007, Skellie took over her niche like a storm, quickly becoming one of the household names of blogs about blogging. These days she keeps blogging at Skelliewag.org and her other blog, Anywired, and works as the editor of leading freelancing blog FreelanceSwitch.This is how Skellie describes her blogging career so far:How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and success?I started Skelliewag.org in mid-2007 and it grew very quickly from that point. At the beginning of 2008 I started my second blog, Anywired. Together they have 8,000 subscribers. You can’t really take someone who writes about creating a popular blog seriously if their own blog isn’t popular, so that was a pretty strong motivator for me!I have been quieter on the blogging scene lately as I try to solidify a career in creating and promoting web properties, but I’m rushing to get that all sorted so I can start producing new posts as much as I’d like!What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?My biggest challenge is definitely the “Success Penalty”, which is a term I just learned about from “the other” Dave Navarro. Basically it’s what happens when you experience success and, as a result, receive a whole bunch of amazing opportunities at once and eagerly accept them all, only to find that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.I’m at the point where I’m trying to maintain some of the best opportunities I’ve been given — like working with the awesome folks at Envato, formerly Eden, or being asked to write a book on creating popular blogs — without sacrificing other things that matter, like consistently updating my own two blogs. The good news is that I feel like I’m almost there.Five important posts written by Skellie:

James Chartrand

James Chartrand is one of those people who seem to be everywhere you look at. Together with his friend and business partner Harry McLeod he blogs about freelance writing at the successful blog Men With Pens. But that’s not all: James also writes to a variety of popular blogs including Copyblogger and SmallFuel Marketing Blog, comments like there is no tomorrow, and replies promptly to his email.How is it possible for one man to do all of this?How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and success?I have to credit most of my fame and success with my level of self-confidence. It’s the single factor that allowed me to put myself out there, market myself hard and seize opportunities the moment they occurred.I got where I am because I stepped out and made people take notice in any way I could. I didn’t wait for the spotlight to swing my way. I grabbed it and shone the light right where I wanted it.It’s a tough line to walk. You have to find that balance between “Look at me!!” and “I’m just like you” so that you both attract attention and make people feel comfortable. No one likes a stage-hog or an arrogant person, but I think you have to have a little of both if you want to reach goals of fame.If you want the milestone path of how I got from there to here, I started by going out to other blogs and commenting frequently. Once I began to be recognized, I guest posted where I could. I wrote emails and introduced myself to people. I joined conversations. I started to use social media. I blogged about my life experiences.In honesty, it’s all a little surreal. I don’t feel I did anything special to deserve this – I just made sure people knew I was alive and that I wanted to be part of the party.I will say this: I have to attribute much of my success and fame to Harry’s support. He’s not in the spotlight with me, but he works very hard behind the scenes. I was just saying to him recently that had I been alone, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to reach the heights I have.It’s worth repeating: Support from people who care about you matters a great deal in achieving your goals. So thank you, Harry, for being there for me.Now get back to work. What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?We found adjusting to fame tough. We thought we were ready for it (and we were), but it’s always surprising when success happens – a little more than expected, too. We hadn’t realized we’d achieve our goals so quickly and had to adjust to that rising popularity. It’s been a wild ride – and a great one.Because of our position now, we need to maintain that edge and remain unique. We need to keep it going – and that doesn’t come easy. With so much competition out there, we’re jostling to hang onto what we have and grow this vision even bigger at the same time.The demand for our business and services has increased proportionately as well. Each day brings new clients and new faces to work with, which is great. We’ve been adapting to their needs continually and are preparing for the next stage in our business.Some of the biggest challenges have been finding time for projects that we want to accomplish while still pushing this dream forward. It’s an amazing feeling for us to juggle our dream, our business, and our goals all together and come out at the end of the day knowing that we can do all this easily and with great pride.We have some plans in the works for bigger and better things, and they’re already in motion. You see, that’s the thing that I feel sets us apart. We want this, we’re ready for it, and we already have a solid framework in place to meet any opportunity or challenge head on.What we enjoy too is knowing that anyone can build what we built. We were the little guy coming out of left field, and it’s amazing to see where we are now. It takes hard work and effort, but we enjoy putting that what we love the most.Five great examples of what comes out of James’s pen:

It would not be fair to list James’ writing and completely ignore the other half of Men With Pens, so here is a collection of quality posts written by Harry:

Clay Collins

Clay Collins started his blog just eight months ago, in January 2008, but has been making his way towards the top with full speed. Today his blog, The Growing Life, shares authentic productivity advice with over 3,000 RSS subscribers. Clay is also working on a new project about to launch soon, Finance Your Freedom, a blog about freedom and lifestyle design.But Clay says he is not writing to increase his subscriber count but to make lives better:How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and success?I believe that I arrived at my current state by positioning myself well within the productivity blogosphere and also by writing infrequent but value-packed articles.I try to not focus on “tips, tricks, tweaks, hacks, etc.” but instead try and give perspective and focus on crafted and quality writing.I’m not writing to provide validation to my readers. I’m not writing to give nifty new ideas to fuel intellectual debates with friends. I’m not blogging for Digg (Digg articles are way to general and I just don’t feel them). I’m not trying to give interesting bullet pointed tips that people skim. I’m not writing for productivity hobbyists, personal development hobbyists, or people who get a kick out of this stuff, or the blog “culture.” I’m not writing to make people laugh, or for cheap StumbleUpon or social media traffic. I’m not writing to make friends with other personal development bloggers (although that is a nice side-benefit). I’m not writing in the hopes of getting 1000 more subscribers.I’m writing in the hopes that I can give my readers solid, tangible, and practical solutions that make their lives better. And I consider my blogging career successful to that extent that I can do this.What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?The biggest challenge is knowing which opportunities to take and which to turn down. Even when you start having just a tiny bit of success, people will want to interview you, call you on the phone, have you write guest posts for them, etc. The trick is to focus on the high-leverage opportunities.In the blogging world there are lots of flattering opportunities that have almost no payoff. The challenge is let your ego suffer a little and try and ignore “soft opportunities” to the extent possible.5 life growing posts by Clay Collins:

Naomi Dunford

Equipped with the most honest voice and the warmest heart in all of Internet, Naomi Dunford blogs about marketing and running a home business at her blog, Ittybiz. Unless reading the word “shit” makes you uncomfortable, I can guarantee that you’ll fall in love with Naomi’s writing.Let’s hear Naomi tell us why:How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and success?

I tried really, really hard not to give up on my own voice. The reason a reader chooses blog A over blog B is the writer. You have to be very conscious about not abandoning yourself in your quest for page views. It never works.
Commenting. As a marketing consultant, and one whose client base consists of nearly 50% bloggers, I can say for a fact that there is no better activity when it comes to ROI. They say content is king? I’d say commenting is king.
Email. Contact is forged by the commenting, but relationships are forged by email, at least when it comes to blogging. Get out there. Find out people’s kids names and dogs names and whether or not they hate their mother-in-law. Treat people like people, not just like bloggers. That gets you the loyalty. When you have the loyalty, you don’t need much else.

What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?Honestly? Right now I’m frustrated. I have a bazillion ideas and I don’t know what to do with them all. There aren’t enough hours in the day. For all intents and purposes I’m a full time blogger, and I still don’t feel like I have the time to follow through on a quarter of the ideas I come up with.At this stage in blogging’s evolution, there aren’t any guidelines for how to deal with the challenges that come along with this lifestyle. You can’t exactly head on over to your local Barnes and Noble and buy “How to Face the Challenges of Being a B-List Blogger.” How do you manage your time? How do you parse between good opportunities and neutral ones? How do you deal with all the goddamn email? Anyone? Help?An itty bitty collection of excellent posts by Naomi Dunford:

Brett Legree

Brett Legree blogs about life at 6weeks.ca, where he asks the question “What would you do if you only had 6 weeks to live?” Brett is father of four (three of them triplets!), a nuclear engineer, a writer, and still makes time to build a blog with a strong community and following. He sure must have found the secret to adding more hours to your day:How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and success?I certainly wouldn’t be where I am now with my blogging without the great community of people to help me. I started out by visiting other blogs (such as IttyBiz, Men with Pens, and many others), and then started leaving comments – getting to know people. I was encouraged by a blog post at Remarkablogger which basically said, “get out there and blog, instead of thinking about it” – so I did it.Then I had a custom design made up by Men with Pens, and they helped me to set it up from start to finish (getting the hosting service set up, Feedburner, etc.). So, lots of help from the great people out in the blogging world.Then I just try to be honest when I write, and especially when I comment. And I try to respond to each comment personally (not hard right now, as I’m not that famous – yet!)What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?The biggest challenge would be balance – I have to remember what is important to me, and also why I started blogging in the first place.I have a wife and a big family (four kids!), and a full time job as a nuclear engineer. Plus I’m writing a couple of books, and am starting (very soon) a fledgling technical productivity consulting business. More on that on my blog in a bit. So the main thing is to stay focused on what I really want to do – my blog is really a great way for me to interact with people and network. It isn’t the end game.Five posts you should read if you only had six more weeks to live:

Dave Navarro

This Dave Navarro (not the rock guitarist) is the only personal productivity coach you will ever need. In his blog, Rock Your Day, Dave takes care of your productivity, bad habits, sleep quality, and anything that is keeping you from enjoying your days to the fullest. Here’s what Dave has to say about blogging:How did you get to where you are now, in terms of blogging fame and successSuccess at anything comes from years of practice – in my case it was years of improving my writing skills. Ever since junior high school I’ve used writing as a tool to make money, persuade people and get noticed, so that gave me a solid head start in blogging. But that’s just a foundation – the real key to building an audience is learning how to market yourself, which ironically seems to work best when you help others market themselves. I’ve always believed that “givers get,” and the more I link out to other bloggers and put the spotlight on them, the more I see the favor being returned.To anyone starting out in blogging, I’d recommend that you focus on being a contributor to others. Add value to their blog comments with conversation provoking questions, talk about them on your own blog, get to know them via email and discover ways you can help them out. That’s the simplest and most ethical way to get on someone’s radar – and what goes around comes around often enough to make this a winning strategy.What are the biggest challenges and/or opportunities you are facing right now in your blogging career?Right now I’m learning to balance writing for my blog with tuning my blog – tweaking it to increase search engine rankings, page views, RSS subscriptions and comment participation. That’s always been a challenging arena for me, so I’ve been hiding for a little while in content creation mode in order to avoid dealing with these technical, behind-the-scenes sort of things. But I realize I can’t scale this way, so I have to build my blog in a way that will make the most of all the traffic it gets.Fortunately, I’ve spent a lot of time contributing to bloggers who have mastered these facets of blogging, and I’m happy to report that many of them are returning the favor by mentoring me in the art of building my blog. Givers get, and because I’ve focused on that I have some wonderful opportunities ahead of me.Posts that rock — by Dave Navarro:

Now it’s your turn! Find the star bloggers of the future (leave a comment and let me know who you would pick), get to know them, and take time to help each other on your way to blogging greatness! That’s how stars are made.

NorthxEast and Freelancer Magazine to Merge

admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:12:47 +0000

I am pleased to announce that NorthxEast.com and FreelancerMagazine.com will soon be merging and operating as one site. Our combination unites two complementary resources, with NxE aimed at helping bloggers, and FM providing additional resources on marketing, productivity, self-management, and more.What this means for our readers:All articles, including new ones moving forward, will be published at FreelancerMagazine.com. Please update your RSS readers – Freelancer Magazine RSS Feed – and bookmarks accordingly to continue receiving content.Not only will you continue to receive articles geared toward bloggers, but a wider range of articles devoted to helping independent workers better manage all functions of their businesses and work-life balance. Here is a sampling of articles you will find at the new NxE / FM:

We appreciate your past and continued readership, and hope to provide some great resources for you moving forward! Feel free to comment on the new site, or add suggestions for types of content you’d like to see.Cheers,John CottoneNorthxEast.com, FreelancerMagazine.com

Find out How to Create Your Own Website with a Catchy Look

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:50:51 +0000

When it all comes down to the looks, design does matter if you’re ambitious enough to strive for success.You should be aware of the first impression a person gets by assessing anything, especially if it is your business. The business cards you distribute is an important asset of your career which contains not only the details and the contacts but shows the face of the whole company. The suit you wear to a business meeting reveals your attitude towards the job. You always try to be committed, determined, trustworthy and reliable.Likewise, when you try to create your own website you are guided by the same principles.It really doesn’t matter if you do it yourself or hire a professional, either way the first thing you care about is high-quality design. Being committed to quality requires time and effort; nevertheless it pays off. A good-looking, fully functional website that is easy to look at will definitely make your Internet space look classy and memorable.Lets say you are not an HTML expert, you have never heard about coding, source files or any of that stuff but you can always estimate a tidy and professional look of a web page. Frankly speaking, that’s what your clients do when they visit your website.Site builders are the best choice nowadays for beginning or developing corporations and companies. They supply you with all the necessary information and tools that you require to create your own website, even if you have no specific programming skills or sufficient designing knowledge whatsoever. The cost of a package is rather small and doesn’t require a tremendous amount of money to be spent at once for setting your site up.Templates are ready made solutions for your future website, so you can start off by using them. In this case Template Monster would be the best choice to begin with, that’s why Site2you site builder works only with world’s best template provider. When you create your website you expect it to be functional, well-designed and reliable. You will find all of this with the Site2you building team that guarantees the quality of a job done.It’s time to forget about annoying web pages with a poor look. Create a website with a fresh, vivid design with the help of a powerful Support Team. Color scheme and the top image can be changed within minutes by qualified personnel while the other content is easily replaced by an Admin Panel. Customizing your personal template has never been so easy and rapid. A solid team of highly trained personnel scrutinizes every detail of the work in order to correspond to your needs.Create a website with a trustworthy team that will reinforce the name of your brand and improve your business performance.