Mobile phone use is growing by leaps and bounds around the world, and every day more people access the web from their phones. I recently spent about an hour to create a mobile-friendly version of my blog. I am going to show you how I did it in the next few paragraphs.

What users want and don’t want in a mobile site

When accessing the web from their phone, users want easy navigation with only a few options, pages that render fast, and quick access to the content. They usually don’t want sidebars, menus with a hundred different options, icons and banners, and excessive formatting.

Where to start

I used a service called Mofuse, which makes creating a mobile site a snap. Go to mofuse.com and sign up for an account. You will be prompted to choose a sub-domain. You can choose yoursite to get a URL such as yoursite.mofuse.mobi

Next, you’ll be prompted to add your RSS feed. Mofuse will take your feed and make it the default home page of your new mobile site; it will show as a collection of links, starting with your most recent post, more or less like this:

Customizing your mobile site

I didn’t want my mobile site to default to my RSS feed. Instead, I decided to create a menu with three different options: Blog, About and Contact.

To do this, take a look at the Your Mobile Content section of your control panel’s right sidebar, click on the link to your RSS feed, and change the title to “Blog”.

Next, go to the Add Content section in the sidebar and click on the Add a New Page link to create your About page (you can put a picture of yourself with a brief paragraph about you or your elevator pitch). Do the same to create your Contact page.

After you do this, Mofuse will automatically create the menu and it will show in your mobile site’s homepage.

Finally, go back to the Your Mobile Content section and organize the three links in the order you want. This is how they look on my mobile blog:

Adding a logo

Go to the Make It Unique section of the sidebar, click on Your Logo, and upload it. If you want a tagline to go with it, go the the Add Content section and click on the Edit Homepage link. Then, just type your tagline. This is how it looks on my mobile site:

Using your own domain

Mofuse gives you the option of using your own domain or sub-domain. The universally accepted convention is to create a subdomain of your main site using just the letter “m”. For me, it is: m.shoestringbranding.com. To create it:

• Go to your domain registrar or hosting account control panel and edit the DNS records to create an alias called m.yoursite.com and point it to yoursite.mofuse.mobi. (if this sounds too technical to do by yourself, email tech support with your request).
• Go back to the Make It Unique section on your Mofuse control panel and click on the Custom Domain link, to set it up as m.yoursite.com.

Remove advertising

By default, Mofuse will show small Google Adsense ads at the top and/or bottom of your mobile pages. You can remove them by clicking on the Monetize link in the Other section of the sidebar and unchecking the box next to “Yes, I want to make money with my mobile site”.

You also have the option to remove the “Powered by Mofuse” icon from the bottom of your pages, but I decided to leave it, since I’m extremely happy with the service and wouldn’t mind more people knowing about it.

Publicizing your mobile site

Click on the Mobi Badge link in the Promote/Integrate section of your control panel’s right side bar and choose one of the “mobile-friendly” icons. Get the HTML and paste in on your blog’s sidebar, to let people know that you have a mobile friendly site.

If you want to get really technical, generate a QR code for your mobile blog and put it in your stationary or other printed material. QR codes are two-dimensional bar codes that can be read by mobile phones. Go to this page and type in your mobile site URL to generate your QR code.

Mine looks like this:

To enable your mobile phone to read QR codes, you need to download a QR-Code reader. Once you do that, the reader will turn your camera phone into a scanner: just take a picture of your QR code and you will automatically be transported to your mobile site.

That’s all there is to it. I hope this brief tutorial is clear enough and that it encourages you to build your mobile-friendly blog. Let me know how it goes.

Photo Credits: WalkingGeek

Blogs, wikis and social networks are being credited for a renewed interest in writing among college students. Having an audience and a medium for self expression are encouraging members of our younger generations to find their voice and share it with the world.

At the same time, the popularity of texting and micro-blogging platforms like twitter , which limit the number or characters you can use to send a message, are teaching us to be more concise and to make our point quickly.

As more people create content, our attention span keeps getting smaller. There is just too much to read, listen to or view these days, that is why when it comes to blog writing it pays to follow a few simple rules to make our content easier to read.

Here are a few of them:

• Write less: Try to use 50% of the words you would normally use. Once you finish writing, go back and try to further reduce your word count. Repeat the process until your paragraphs are short and tight, and your message is clear.
• Try to make your paragraphs short; three or four lines work best.
• Use headlines to break the discussion into several paragraphs. Breaking the discussion into small, manageable chunks, each dealing with a sub-topic of your discussion, makes it easier for readers to scan your content.
• Use other elements that facilitate scannability, like bolding key words and phrases, and using bullet points to organize your content.
• Link to complementary information instead of trying to include too much information in the body of your article. Linking to sources of information is not only good ettiquete but it helps to put your writing in the right context, both for your readers and search engines.
• Use an easy-to-read font size. Normally, 10pt or 12pt are good choices. Use fonts like Arial, Verdana or Georgia; they are optimized for computer screens and easy to read.
• Use plenty of contrast: black text on white background works best, followed by white text on black background.
• If your article is long, consider listing the three or four major takaways at the beginning (news items in cnn.com show a good example of this technique), or include a ‘Summary’ paragraph at the end.
• Learn how to craft informative and/or catchy headlines. In aggregator sites like Alltop, on Twitter posts, or in search engine results pages, your headline is usually the only thing your readers will see. If your headline fails to garner attention, your article will never be read.

I’ve always been impressed by brands and products that build their competitive advantage around the concept of “Easy”. That’s why I decided to check out Posterous.

Posterous is a new blogging platform launched a few months ago by two young entrepreneurs under this very simple premise: to make blogging as easy as sending an email.

Since all you need to do to post is send an email to post@posterous.com, Posterous comes in handy when you just want to blog a picture with a quick blurb of text directly from your mobile phone.

Posterous takes ease of use so seriously that you don’t even need to sign up. When you send your first email post, your account is automatically created for you. Furthermore, your Posterous posts can be automatically routed to your main blog or Twitter page.

I have created a Posterous blog to try it out, and have linked it to my Twitter account. It will be interesting to see if Posterous can remain consistent to its implied brand promise of “the easiest way to blog” as they add new features in the weeks to come.

Photo Credits: jared

If you are an independent professional who has embraced blogging for marketing, you’ve probably asked yourself these three questions:

• Should I write long or short posts?
• Should I write only original content or can I write about somebody else’s content?
• Should I post daily? Weekly? Monthly?

Long vs. Short Copy

While some pundits argue in favor of writing long articles, it really depends on what you’re trying to do. “How to” articles dealing with complex subjects will usually be longer. Bloggers like Skellie and Maki excel in this blogging style.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible to communicate powerful insights with only a few lines of text. Client K (one of my favorite business blogs) does exactly that every day.

Original vs. Derivative Content

With so much information already published on the web, writing something completely original is quite difficult. It is even more difficult to do so day in and day out.

If you are a guru that can write original content with half your brain tied behind your back, great. However, the rest of us can do just fine by analyzing a common problem from a different angle or re-purposing existing content for a specific target audience.

Also, there is nothing wrong with writing quick posts that link to other people’s content. If you see something that can be useful to your readers on another blog, by all means link to it. Don’t let the Not Invented Here syndrome dictate your blogging policy and stand in the way of your readers receiving valuable information.

Posting Frequency

Here I have to agree with the experts: it is better to post frequently. While posting daily can be tough (especially if you blog part time), posting weekly should be doable.

Consistency, though, is more important than frequency. Posting consistently every two weeks is better than publishing daily for three weeks and then disappearing for weeks or months.

However, don’t be so hung up into sticking to a publishing frequency that you start posting filler content. Avoid publishing something of inferior quality just because too much time has passed since your last post.

In Summary

Writing long or short posts depends on what you want to accomplish. If you find something interesting on another blog, by all means link to it. The best posting frequency is this: post when you have something important to say. If that occurs frequently (weekly or more often), even better.

Darren Rowse, publisher of the wildly successful Problogger blog, has recently written a book . Problogger is all about making money online, has 45,000+ subscribers and features more than 4,000 posts. Probably most of the content in the book can be found by reading and digging deep into the blog (a real treasure trove of information). So, if you can read Darren’s blog, why buy the book?

The answer is simple: in the information age value can be created by simply aggregating and compiling information. We don’t have time to hunt for information. We want it fast and in a format that’s easy to consume: why browse through 4,000 posts when we can get a selected, condensed, organized and neatly packaged version of that content? That is why Darren will sell a ton of books.

Have you thought of all the possible components of your value curve? Are you addressing all the ways in which your customers may want to consume your product or service? Are you packaging your expertise in a way that’s easy to communicate and spread?

Tumblr is a relatively new blogging platform that lets you post short blurbs of text, links, pictures, quotes, audio and video quickly and easily. Blogs that follow this format are called ‘tumblelogs’.

In essence, Tumblr and tumblelogs remind us of the early stages of blogging, when bloggers acted mostly as editors, pointing readers to interesting resouces and adding short comments to put them in the right context.

How does Tumblr Work?

In Tumblr, each style of post has it’s own posting mechanism, which makes posting anything really easy:

For example, if you want to post a quote, you click on the ‘quote’ icon and get a short form where you can paste the quote and the attribution.

If you want to post a picture, you click on the ‘photo’ icon and get a short form that asks you to browse through your hard drive or type in the picture’s URL.

To make posting even easier, Tumblr offers the option to add a bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar. The bookmarklet (see screenshot below) lets you post content quickly, without having to go to your Tumblr control panel every time.

You can also post content from your mobile phone and IM, which makes Tumblr ideal for people on the go.

Another neat feature of Tumblr is that you can publish your Tumblr blog on your own domain or sub-domain.

Why is Tumblr Becoming Popular?

Some people just want a quick and easy way to post and share things. For them, full-featured content management systems like Wordpress or Typepad are too complicated, time consuming and difficult to maintain, and more suitable for long, editorial-style posts. Tumblr and its back-to-basics approach is a godsend for this segment of the blogging market.

Where Does Tumblr Fit in Your Content Strategy?

Tumblr (like Twitter and other micro blogging platforms) is just another way to expose readers to your brand. Sometimes, people don’t feel like reading long, in-depth articles, and just want to consume content in small, manageable chunks (John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing calls this trend ‘content snacking’).

Tumblr can also become another important tool in your personal branding strategy: Tumblr is ideal for personal blogs, where you can freely talk about non-business topics.

For example, I have many interests that don’t fit the topic of my business blog: traveling, cars, food and personal finance. My Tumblr blog lets me talk about those subjects, so that I can keep my business blog focused on branding, social media and small business.

The Icing on the Cake: Publishing Feeds

Tumblr lets you publish up to five RSS feeds, so the articles you write in your business blog can also be featured in your Tumblr blog with no extra effort on your part. Sharing your professional content in your personal blog is a plus, as it makes it more interesting.

Some bloggers that I read often who have also created Tumblr blogs are: John Jantsch, from Duct Tape Marketing (his Tumblr blog is cleverly named Duct Tape Strips ); Lee Lefever, owner of CommonCraft and creator of the popular In Plain English explanation-video series; Tina Su , the multi-talented blogger behind the Think Simple Now motivational blog, and blogging guru Skellie , author of Skelliwag and Anywired.

The Future of Tumblr

Tumblr plans to have 1 million users by the end of 2008, still a far cry from a Facebook or a Wordpress, but not too bad for two kids following a passion on a shoestring budget, working from a sub-let office in New York.

As far as features are concerned, it is rumored that Tumblr will soon offer a way to add comments and tags to each post. In my opinion, they should probably just add tags and leave it at that. A big part of Tumblr’s appeal is its simplicity. It would be a shame to see it ruined by feature creap.

To give Tumblr a try, go to http://www.tumblr.com.