6 no budget marketing tips

Friday I promissed to tell how I got a 120 hits on one post in a few hours, which is my maximum. It was not on my English blog, but on my Dutch blog for a post on education.
What were the ingredients:
(1) a good post - original idea, humour, serious aspect, knowledge plus new angle
(2) topic is in the news
(3) 2 forums on related subjects where people know you, open a topic
(4) enough time to go visit some new blogs on a related topic to leave a fresh link, choose some blogs that are about the same as yours e.g. at the http://truthlaidbear.com/ecosystem.php
(5) Here I wrote:
go to http://www.ultralinking.com/, submit your blog address and immediately cut and paste their code into your blog. Then go back to ultralinking to check if you're submitted.
But as Mark comments, after 2 days of many new hits, I have to pay. I don't think they're a scam, but it's not no-budget publicity either. I didn't proceed to pay.
(6) react to an article in the news on a subject that is closely linked to one of your topics of interest. Leave a link.
Probably there was more to it... what
I forgot.

Puzzle sunday (14)

Houses and schools, puzzles and tools, scaffolds and posts, maths and hosts that's what this blog's all about, and here is todays puzzle for you to check out.
I know, I've had a hard day and I'm sublimating.

better education; icerocket trends

Icerocket statistics look a bit like scaffolds, don't they? According to icerocket trend, there were about 4600 - 4900 posts on education and learning every day in the past three months, against only 20 on scaffolding. I'm guessing this means scaffolding is not yet very known to many who write about education. That's a real pitty, because it is a method that builds children, adolescents and adults and we know already, that there is a relationship between the development of skills and frustration. If we want to do things better, more scaffolding techniques is one of the ways.

Chez Odile is not original?

I have read about referrer spam and wonder if I did something wrong... I read the article in question about Methylation and I was excited about it. I wrote a comment on my blog, not for profit. I think it might be a piece of the puzzle in what I write about and it might have implication for psychotherapy. This is important! but unfortunately there are people who leave comments only for improving their ranking. It's a pitty that it afflicts those who do have original thinking to put in their blog. I think what I did was legit. What do you think? Is there a second Chez Odile anywhere around?

What is a crog?

I feel very fortunate to be able to hold this blog. But is it a blog?

or is it a crog?

Cuttner defines a crog as a carefully researched weblog.

I do research, but some is on the web and did study to be able to discern fact from fiction, but how can we ever be sure of what is true or not?
I have many links to scientific articles and sites and books. I add meaning and critical thought, sometimes some irony.

The word carefully is a problem though. I'm worried that a professional journalist would do more thorough research. Is that worry justified? Journalists are only human too. They cannot read everything either...

I was adjusting to using the word blog and I'm not ready to call myself a crogger yet.

Whats more, crog is the name of a webvirus...

Weather to blog: clouds of tags

Do you like clouds of keywords? These are a visual representation of tags for your website or blog. I don't have one here, but I have one at del.icio.us . I'm a very busy mother and I like that I don't have to bother with templates and clouds, when I don't want to. The point is, that I do have children that want to learn and this is why I try to be a step ahead and read about how to make use of the cloud of tags in an educational fun way.

That's why I love sites such as Hackzine.

list of carnivals of education

Do you know what a blogcarnival is, exactly? I came across these when I started blogging. Carnivals are lists of blogs that blog about a certain topic. They are a not complete but good way to find a lot of blogs that you might want to read.
I found this list of carnivals of education. Don't ask me why it is called carnival.

about links and visitors

Before I forget I have to blog about it. I found a tool today on Internet that finds links to a site and compares it to sites in about the same category. The reason I prefer it to the tool I put on my blog before is that it is more interesting for bloggers who prefer relatively small audiences. You might want to check it out. Remember that having many visitors is not the principle goal. I rather have content visitors (in Dutch, content = satisfied). I also love to comment on other blogs and love it when they leave comments here. Finally, I'm thrilled when someone in Asia or Africa reads my blog. Somehow, it makes me feel as if a little bit of peace and friendship just happened.

Icerocket: sexy is less sexy than thinking

According to the icerocket sexy is less sexy in blogs than thinking. The last few months, there are many more blogs with the word "thinking" in it than with the word "sexy". This reminded me an article that I read about how blogs are attractive for brains. After reading this article I thought about brain loneliness... Virtual brain meetings... brain creation meetings... brainy debates about brains...

How the man on the box would have been happy blogging

I started blogging as a way of expressing my thoughts that I used to keep to myself, because most people don't like "deep" conversation as much as I do, though all over the planet many people resemble me and prefer to have these conversations on a broad variety of subjects but cannot always do so. Also I wrote a book and I started thinking about how to market it. A blog would serve both purposes: it's useful for my book and a space to express myself, because I really need to express myself in between doing the laundry.

I think about the man standing on a box in a park and speaking out to the people in the street walking by. How big is his chance at attracting the audience he would have wanted to hear him. Today, I have a better chance to attract some people that will enjoy what I have to say than that man in the park had and better yet, they can actually say something back. I can use keywords in my blog that will attract only those who want to read about that particular subject. How happy would this man have been if he could have blogged...

I have been reading how to build a niche and stumbled on a discussion that I would like to share especially with other writers that blog to build a platform for their book. The discussion is about the choice of wanting to reach large numbers of readers or a small particular audience.

Blogging

blog organisation

A medical metaphor of blogging

Blogs are body cells of an organism. There are more and more of these created and after a while, when a body grows, the cells start to specialise themselves, mostly according to their position. They take on functions and create organs. Some become digestive, some canalise (like blood vessels), some are highly specialised, from some it is not clear how they are developing.
Am I clear about how I want this blog to develop?

A theatrical metaphor of blogging

Blogs are fully equipped stages where people recite monologues. Some recite all on one stage at the same time. There is a choice problem. There is a programming problem. Nobody holds the program. There is a map, this map is made by listing the labels.

A mole model of blogging

Blogs are shops in a mole that change of owner and specialisation all the time. You go to the mole and go to the shops picking out blogs by the title hanging over the shop.

Blogging

bloggers increase / stratification

http://www.libraryjournal.com/clear/CA6357084.html
In the article about the increase in number of bloggers the use of blogging at universities is recommended. I think this is a good idea, because it helps students not only to formulate ideas but also to find out what reactions they can expect. In this way it is like a playing ground. This should help refining ideas, work out details, get new ideas. On the blog that I linked earlier, serendip, you also have a forum that is shaped as a discussionblog. On the other hand, I think it is important to observe that there is a tension between sharing ideas and keeping your ideas to yourself until you publish them.

Also I have an idea about blogging I want to call "stratification". I mean the organising of blogs in layers that are about the same content. This not according to topic, but according to level of originality, use of difficult words, content, images, ... I would not use language, because there are many who read more than one language. Readers might differ in preferred language level though.

Blogging