At my recent advanced blogging course, my students picked up on the fact that I kept telling them things they should do before they hit publish on a new blog post. And one particularly wise one (the lovely writer Louise Allan) suggested I write a blog post on all of this. Smart move (that's why …
Blogging
The Ballerina Syndrome, or how keyword-rich titles are better than beautiful ones
There are two kinds of bloggers in this world: those who title a blog post based on what is about ("How to cook a lamb roast", for example) and those who believe a title should be clever, arty and/or beautiful ("What to eat even if Tom Cruise invites you to dinner" - watch this old Aussie TV ad for …
Custom domains and why you really, really need one
When I teach blogging, I make it nice and simple to get started there and then, in the lab, by having my students use Blogger.com. It's totally free and it's really straightforward to use so we spend eight hours talking every aspect of blogging I can cram in as well as putting it into practice …
New bloggers and new blogs on a sunny October day
One of my favourite ways to spend a Saturday, I have to admit, is running my one-day blogging course for UWA Extension. I know, it's not exactly cool to love working on the weekend but it is honestly just heaps of fun to meet a dozen or more bloggers-to-be and turn them into published bloggers by …
My bewildered blogging friend proves content is king if you want to “go viral”
Every now and then one of my clients will send me an email or casually ask me at the end of a session something along these lines: "How can I go viral?"They've seen a photo or video or blog post go wild around the world and produce incredible amounts of promotion for someone else, and they want to …
Speaking at Media140’s DigitalMe conference: “Let’s blug – putting the “u” into blogging”
The Media140 DigitalMe day took place last Friday and I spoke in the afternoon - and I have to admit that before I showed up I was a little nervous about speaking at the Northbridge Piazza. I don't know why it felt any different from a lecture theatre or conference hall but being outdoors with a …