Working at Home on the Internet

3 Articles Submitted to the Blog vs Website Contest

 Just a little update on the Blog vs Website Contest. There aren’t really too many entries so far, but the one’s we have are really good.

Here are the most recent entries:

• Debra Dalgleish of Contextures Blog has submitted this post entitled… Blog vs Website
• Brooke Long of Cataluña posted her entry here at WAHI entitled… Web Sites Versus Blogs
• Lucy Nixon of Corporate Eye sent in this little gem, Website or Blog - Daddy or Chips?

All three are really interesting takes on the subject of the differences between Static Websites and Dynamic Blogs.

But they need a little competition to get the blood flowing. It’s not too late to submit your article, we have until Midnight (EDT) Monday July 14, so join in the fun and tell us what you think in the Blog vs Website controversy.

New Here? You may want to Subscribe to my RSS feed for daily updates. Or if you prefer, Subscribe by Email What is RSS? Thanks for visiting!

July 12th, 2008 at 10:51am | Posted by Joe | Blogging, Community, Websites | 2 reader remarks | Print This Post

Blog vs Website Contest Extended and Enhanced

 Ok, call it bad planning on my part and really bad timing. What with Canada Day, 4th of July, One judge on vacation, Unclear Rules for participation and probably a slew of other mistakes I made setting up this contest.

So, to make it up to you I’ve extended the submission deadline to 7/14 (yes, I realize it is Bastille Day in France) and Chris Garrett was gracious enough to offer an additional prize to sweeten the pot even more.

Prizes:

The Secret to Writing a Successful and Outstanding Blog

An Insider’s Guide to the Conversation that’s Changing How Business Works

by Liz Strauss

My personal (hard)copy of:

Step Into The Spotlight!  (’Cause All Business is Show Business)

 A Guide to Getting Noticed

by Tsufit

And the Newest Edition:

Your Blog Expertly Critiqued and Reviewed

by Chris Garrett

Concept…

The idea is simple, to help people determine the Advantages or Disadvantages of using a Blog or a Website (or a combination of both) to enhance their business, personal, charitable presence on the Internet. It can be about your experiences, successes and/or failures using either type of web presence, or even your opinion on the good vs evil of each as a way to reach potential or existing customers, friends or contributors.

It’s pretty open, whatever has worked for you, you think could work for others, barriers you have encountered. Whatever, as long as it has a Blog v Website theme.

Revised Rules:

• The post Must be Original. Written by you or someone involved with your blog.
• The article must have been written no earlier than the pre-announcement (6/25).
• All Submissions must be submitted through my contact form subject:contest.
• If you don’t have a blog or it would be inappropriate content for your blog, write it up on Notepad or similar and I will post it here for you. 
• No purely self-promotional posts, please. You know how much I hate SPAM. 
• Linkbacks/trackbacks are optional.

Judges…

Dawud Miracle builds static websites and blogs and also help small business owners understand how to use the full internet to expand their own businesses. He also does a great job at business coaching and consulting. 

Chris Garrett is a professional blogger, Internet Marketing Consultant, new media industry commentator, writer, coach, speaker, trainer and web geek. He was also a founding member of Performancing.

Me You should know me by now I hope.

Depending on the number of articles submitted, I will post updates with links to the Original Articles daily or every two days, with a Final list being published on the last day of the project.

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The Results will be announced on July 16 and believe me, these are All Great Prizes and the Winners will definitely benefit from any one of them.

July 8th, 2008 at 11:33am | Posted by Joe | Blogging, Community, Websites | 3 reader remarks | Print This Post

When the Reality of Linking Too Much Hits Home

I was going over my statistics over the weekend and noticed I started losing RSS and e-mail Subscribers recently. I have Text Link Ads in my sidebar, they allow eight (8) ad links and I had maxed out until recently. Now I’m down to Five. I had Hundreds of visits and pageviews per day, now they’re in the 2 digit realm. Everything was going really well on the Blogging Front for over two years, increasing all along the way, then…

 PLOP!

I couldn’t figure it out. I was getting busier in my consulting business as a result of what I was doing here. Writing, saying and sharing my experiences while Working at Home on the Internet. Anything that could be useful to others trying to run a Home Business was on the agenda. So, why were things starting to take a such a drastic down turn?

I was going through some of the links that I was getting and checked out all the Blogs that were linking here and came across something by J.T.Dabbagian with a list of 5 Websites for Being Productive and I quote:

Working at Home on the Internet - Another Web-Worker based website that seems to act more like a hub for productivity on the net. Its main feature is its Blog Carnivals, which are links to even more cool stuff. It seems, however, to be more of a linking blog then an site with real original content, but you should check out The Blog vs Website writing project to get something if you win. (Emphasis mine)

Now, I Really do appreciate the link and the Plug for the Blog vs Website contest, but it still hit me like a ton of bricks. Did you notice the “however” part?

With almost 1100 posts, 95% of which are original content and the remaining 5% being Carnivals and Weekly Helpful Reads, I could almost feel forgotten or worse, unread. Providing Work at Homers with helpful information has always been my objective, but it seems I haven’t been doing my job of late. At least not giving my readers enough original content of my own and giving them different and new ideas to try to enhance their Work at Home Business through experiences I have faced.

So, what does this tell us (me)?

1. The old adage of “Content is King” is just as valid, if not more, than ever.
2. Link Blogs don’t get (nor do they deserve) the respect that they crave.
3. Blogs that don’t provide Real Value to their readers with originality and good content won’t last.

Being busy with the Consulting part of the business is no excuse. There are plenty of other people out there who are far busier than I and still find time to write for their readers, because it’s important to them and their community.

I am going to strive to be more on the ball and provide all of you with interesting and informative information. I will still use links, but I hope to provide you with more of my own successful and even failing endeavours so that we can learn together what it takes be a Successful Work at Homer.

Joe

Your thoughts?

July 7th, 2008 at 06:28am | Posted by Joe | Basics, Community, Linking | 3 reader remarks | Print This Post