Shoestring Branding Home

Marketing for Independent Professionals

Entries Tagged as 'Blogging'

Top Blog Posting Questions Answered

April 29th, 2008 · 1 Comment

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 […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Social Media · Blogging

Sustainable SEO: What Is It and Why Should You Care?

April 22nd, 2008 · No Comments

Photo Credits: tedkerwin
You Can’t Ignore Search Engine Traffic

submit_url = “http://www.shoestringbranding.com/2008/04/22/sustainable-SEO/”;

With all the hype around social media it is easy to overlook the potential of search engines to deliver targeted traffic. Search engines are probably the best source of targeted traffic and, as such, they should not be ignored.
While social media sites like Stumbleupon or […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Blogging · SEO

Problogger (the Book) and the Value of Compiling Content

April 16th, 2008 · 4 Comments

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 […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Blogging · Branding

Ten Essential Tools You’ll Need to Launch a Blog

March 17th, 2008 · 11 Comments

Photo Credits: spcummings
As social media grow in popularity, more small business owners are getting interested in blogging. Once they decide to have a blog the next question is: what tools to use, and how much do they cost?

submit_url = “http://www.shoestringbranding.com/2008/03/17/tools-for-blogs/”;

The cost of operating a blog is virtually negligible. Around $100/year will buy you […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Social Media · Blogging

Tumblr Makes Personal Blogging Easy

February 23rd, 2008 · 6 Comments

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 […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Social Media · Blogging

Selecting the Right URL for Your Blog

February 2nd, 2008 · 2 Comments

Photo Credits: Davichi

submit_url = “http://www.shoestringbranding.com/2008/02/02/selecting-the-right-url-for-your-blog/”;

Once you’ve selected your domain name, it’s time to set up your blog and choose what URL to use.
Generally, you have three choices:
1. Placing your blog in the root directory: yourdomain.com
2. Using a sub-domain: blog.yourdomain.com
3. Using a sub-directory or folder: yourdomain.com/blog/
While everybody […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Social Media · Blogging

What We Can Learn From a Blog and a Coffee Shop

January 30th, 2008 · No Comments

Photo Credits: JasperYue
A coffee shop in San Francisco has a problem: they need their tables free for the lunch rush hour patrons, but they’re taken by people with laptops who linger along taking advantage of the free wi-fi.
A young and extremely popular personal finance blogger, who frequents the place, writes a post asking his readers […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Social Media · Blogging

Small Business Blogging: Before You Start

January 27th, 2008 · 8 Comments

Photo Credits: ariel wants a chip

submit_url = “http://www.shoestringbranding.com/2008/01/27/small-business-blogging/”;

Should a small business blog? Every day, small business owners around the world ask themselves that question. While my answer tends to be yes, I would like to touch on some of the caveats about blogging to help small business owners make this important strategic decision:
A […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Social Media · Blogging

Rooting for Tumblr

January 22nd, 2008 · 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, I started my personal blog on a relatively new platform called Tumblr. Tumblr is technically a “tumblelog”. Basically, it works like a blog but it’s lighter on features and much easier to update and maintain (some people compare it to what blogs looked like in the early stages […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Customer Service · Social Media · Blogging

Looking for a job? A personal branding strategy to stand out from the crowd

January 12th, 2008 · 9 Comments

Photo Credits: laruth

submit_url = “http://www.shoestringbranding.com/2008/01/12/personal-brandin-job-hunting/”;

The traditional job-hunting approach advocated by human resources pundits (make a one-page résumé, don’t talk about personal stuff, make your experience look “broad” to appeal to many different industries, etc.) is basically flawed: by making your résumé look “standard”, and by rounding off the edges to try to be all things […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Social Media · Blogging · Branding