A day doesn’t go by when someone doesn’t tweet another posting on how to blog better, or how important it is to blog, or the power of social networks in building a brand, or…  You get the picture. Most of this advice isn’t new and it doesn’t even get right down to what is really important. If you want to increase your GoogleJuice or your Klout about a particular topic, it is all about focus and repetition.

I’m good at the latter not so good at the former. This is a classic case of do as I say, not necessarily as I do or have done in the past. Take advantage of me, many people have, learn from my mistakes, so you don’t have to apologize for your own or pay some other more costly price.

Search Engine Optimization is all about focus and repetition. Tweeting well often comes down to focus and repetition. You want a blog people actually care about and you want to be a person people come to for advice, you have to focus and you have to repeat the message you’re trying to get across.

Repetition

Repetition is no guarantee of success. Mindless repetition, annoying repetition, automated computer generated repetition, that can really piss people off and get you in trouble with the all mighty Google. What you really want is thoughtful repetition with variance. If you cram in the same keyword phrase over and over and over again on a single web page, GoogleBot will probably notice and you may well get punished for it. Instead of worrying about optimal keyword density, you should think how can I make my point effectively? You want to do so with as few words as possible, while still including the keywords, phrases, and most importantly the ideas you want to convey.

Repeating keywords and phrases over and over is so 1990s. Repetition in 2012 ideally involves having other people repeat your message, words, and phrases. You can write the most brilliant Tweet or blog post ever, but if only your 200 fans/followers/readers discover it, you’re not going to become influential or famous overnight reaching 200 people at a time. However if people ‘Like’ your post or Retweet your witticism you will reach a wider audience. The best kind of repetition is: voluntary, spontaneous, and someone else’s effort on your behalf.

In order to make it easy for people to Retweet and ‘Like’ what you write online you need social sharing buttons and you need to be active on social networks yourself. You also need a content management system. Hand coding and maintaining HTML is also not an effective use of most people’s time. You also need to choose your first words carefully. The title should be short and conveys the primary idea you’re trying to express. A good title is Retweetable. You also need to take the time to enter a brief description of your post into your CMS and craft a good opening sentence or two. Along with the title that is what people who use RSS feed readers and other news aggregators will see. People have become very adapt at scanning the screen for the most interesting tidbit of information and then focusing in and drilling down. 

Focus

I’m capable of focusing. I’ve completed degrees and other challenging tasks that have taken sustained effort over an extended period of time. But this blog and this domain contain a lot of information on too many topics. I’ve been self-publishing content online since 1995, my interests change. This domain has been in Google since 2001 and this blog online since 2005. I’ve written things I probably shouldn’t have. I’ve had to apologize, make corrections, even take stuff down. Muschamp.ca is my personal domain, this is my personal blog. It is all me, warts and all. However if you want to become famous or influential or make money off the content you publish online you need to focus.

You need to ask yourself why you want to publish online. Is it for fame or money? Is it to show off your expertise or talent? Is it to help other people? Knowing why you ‘re doing something is often more important than knowing how to do something. You can learn ‘how’, some people never learn ‘why’.

A lot of my blog posts I compose in my head while lying awake in bed. Then I eventually get up and write them down, edit them and make them less stream of conscious. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I rush home and write something in a hurry immediately after the event I’m writing about has taken place. Other times I’ll spend so much time researching and writing and gathering links ending up with a monstrous post few people will read and no one will Retweet. You never know what will become popular quickly, but you can make an educated guess.

When I help someone setup up a website or a blog, I try to find out why they want to publish online and what they plan to write about. People who don’t have a good answer to “why” rarely stick with blogging. It is important to determine what you plan to publish in advance. Writing about everything isn’t focused. I advise people to predetermine the categories they want to write about, enter them into their CMS, and to stick with them as much as possible. WordPress has both Categories and Tags, most modern content management systems have something similar. You sometimes see the rather imposing word “taxonomy” thrown about. Taxonomy is Categories and Tags and other methods of organizing and classifying data. The reason you need Categories and Tags is to help you focus.

As long as I’ve been self publishing online and as long as online search engines have existed I’ve taken to running little experiments. Often this has involved dubious keywords or slightly risqué topics or headlines. You should resist doing this. It takes away from your focus, it leads to dubious keyword referrals though amusing to some, ultimately aren’t anything to put on your resume. They could even land you in some hot water, remember you’re always writing for your future boss. As someone who doesn’t have a boss at this time, I’ve obviously not been doing a very good job or haven’t done a very good job in the past. Learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others such as Michael Crooks and Angie Varona.

Here are someone else’s 26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts, the advice is decent, practical, there are some good examples, but some people need to focus more on the why and less on the how or they could end up in a situation similar to Micheal’s, Angie’s, or mine. One last piece of advice never blog about human anatomy.

Update with more links

Focus must be en vogue, look what appeared in my RSS feed this morning, a quotation on the importance of focus. Maybe the reason you’re not a popular A-list blogger is your content just sucks. Other people continue to write about the importance of focus, including at the Harvard Business Review or at least their blog network. Focus, repetition, timeliness, and timelessness are the most important characteristics in Quality writing.

Related posts:

1. 10 Keys to Blogging Fame and Fortune
2. Writing for GoogleJuice VS Writing for Klout

Notice I wrote “self publishing” not “blogging”, the world wide web always had the concept of self publishing and user created content. Everyone was supposed to learn HTML and have a home page. It is only with the rise of blogging, social media, and various web services that self publishing has become so easy that even your grandmother can do it.

I’ve been self publishing content online since 1995, maintaining this domain since 2001, and even blogging since 2005. I’ve seen a lot of stuff come and go. I’ve used a lot of technologies and websites. I even have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and an MBA if that makes me more trustworthy or authoritative… In the 15+ years I’ve been doing things my way and helping others, I’ve formed some opinions and learned some hard lessons, so I decided to collect the best ten of them together in one place:

1. Make a commitment to post Quality, not frequency.
2. Timeliness and Timelessness are the two most important qualities to strive for.
3. Why is more important than “how” when it comes to self publishing online.
4. Choose an appropriate venue and content management system. I tend to recommend WordPress.
5. Know your audience: real people, search engines, news aggregators, your future boss, and potential mates.
6. Understand and leverage online communities and social networks.
7. Focus + Repetition = #winning
8. Learn to write for the web, people online don’t read, they scan.
9. Understand the difference between Impact and Influence.
10. Learn the jargon: blog, tweet, meme, hash tag, CMS, SEO, etc.

Passion

Although I allude to it, my top ten list neglects perhaps the most important factor of all in determining long term success in self publishing online, passion. If you are passionate about a topic you will stick with it despite it not being profitable, popular, or trendy. Passion trumps proficiency. In the ten plus years Muschamp.ca has been online, the single web page that I’ve consistently maintained and month after month is the most popular or among the most popular is my collection of miniature painting advice. During my third lengthy period of post Sauder MBA unemployment I’ve ceased actually painting miniatures and models, but I still add additional links to my ever growing collection.

Despite everything I still have some passion left for music, miniatures, and helping other people. 

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Top 10 Postings
2. Focus & Repetition

The other day I once again tried to pass on what is truly important if you want to have longterm success writing online. Whether you blog or not, whether you use Facebook or Twitter or some other niche social network, certain fundamental truths hold. Ninety percent of everything published online is crap.

You have only a few words beyond your title to prove your worth.

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.

I collect awesome quotations, the above one is from Kahlil Gibran. Finding the right words can be hard. Notice how much insight can be conveyed with such a simple observation. Short sentences have power!

Don’t overuse the exclamation point, two in one blog posting may be a personal record for me. Do however highlight your most important thoughts and words through clever use of typography.

Boobs and Kittens, two great things, that go great together.

Just like it is acceptable to reuse someone else’s words in the form of an attributed quotation, you can take advantage of someone who is famous or Internet Famous to make a point. Angie Varona is an example of someone who has become too popular online, just mentioning their name will lead to an increase in web traffic. I don’t recommend writing about celebrities, I certainly don’t recommend writing about human anatomy. However using someone famous, who has made some questionable decisions, to illustrate a point, can be quite apt.

Just like you need to establish your awesomeness in two or three sentences, the first image that accompanies your words can also be a very powerful motivator to get people to click on your post in sites such as Facebook. Sex sells. Cute sells. Always bet on cute. You can definitely derive a short term increase in visits from posting a clever image, but in the long run what you have to say is more important than the size of your breasts or how cute your cat is.

If you’re not a Internet pinup and you don’t have a cute cat, you have to rely more on your wits. Being funny or clever can work but it is a much riskier strategy. Humor is subjective. Illustrating a point with boobs and kittens may not go over so well with your future boss. Everything you write online may be read by your future boss or potential mate, whichever worries you more should guide your conscience. You might not care now, but as Angie Varona learned, once you’re famous online, say for posting provocative photos, it is hard to become ‘unfamous’.

To complete this multimedia extravaganza I’ll include a video clip. Video clips are much less effective in the long run than words or pictures in driving people to your website. Copyrighted videos in particular come and go online. Posting clips you make yourself can definitely make you Internet Famous but if you want people to actually pay attention to what you have to say, you may be better served learning how to improve your writing.

Sometimes however, you just need more cowbell.

If you haven’t already you might want to read my previous post on what is really important when self publishing. Or you could just wait another day for someone else to write another post entitled “How To Craft An Awesome Blog Post“.

Update Dec. 23rd 2012

Apparently the folks over at MSN Now, have nothing better to do than steal jokes from bloggers, but instead of making jokes about kittens and boobs, they make jokes about cats and racks, so much classier. They’re only eleven months late in making this joke, congratulations on both your originality and your impeccable timing MSN writing staff!

Related posts:

1. Focus & Repetition
2. Write On

I’ve actually already written more than one thousand blog postings, but some have been removed and some were posted elsewhere. There isn’t a prize for spending this much time online, but there is probably a badge for it over on Foursquare. As I noticed this somewhat dubious milestone approaching I figured I should mark the occasion in some way. I haven’t had a lot of cause for celebration during the six or so years I’ve been officially a blogger.

I started blogging during my MBA through the encouragement of some of my classmates. I guess they found me amusing or they took some pleasure from my misadventures. My MBA from the Sauder School of Business did not work out well for me and as the duplicity and callousness of my classmates became harder and harder to ignore, I grew more upset at how I was being treated. This post isn’t going to be another example of the Eternal Return of the Same.

During the time I’ve been using WordPress to blog I’ve mostly been sick and I’ve mostly been unemployed. A lot of painful events and experiences have been documented. Many have now been edited and/or removed, but the truth is still out there as the X-Files fans used to say. More and more I’ve tried to use this platform to teach, to pass on what little wisdom I’ve gained having gone through some very painful experiences.

Some people seem to think that blogging or social media is all good, all the time. Alas many people other than me have had negative experiences sharing their thoughts and life online with friends, family, and of course strangers. Some people have inadvertently made public something they wanted kept private. Others have posted some tidbits in passing that have later landed them in hot water with their employer or mate. I’m well aware of the of the dangers of electronic communication, others have warned of the perils of social networking too.

90% of Everything is Crap

It has been proven mathematically. That still leaves 100 posts that are worth reading. I’ve already posted enough Top Ten lists. So rather than follow that formula, here are some bullet points to consider:

• You are your Google results.
• If you don’t care enough to do or say anything, then you don’t really care.
• Some people will always seek to preserve the facade of normalcy no matter the cost to others.
• Ridicule is easier than Reconciliation.
• Be wary of anyone calling themselves a guru.
• Passion trumps Proficiency.
• Post Quality, not frequency is what matters.
• Focus + Repetition = #winning
• People who don’t have a good answer to “why” rarely stick with blogging anything.
• Saying you always look forward to seeing someone, is about the nicest compliment you can give them.
• Publishing daily leads to too much drivel.
• No blog is an island.
• A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a thousand words will perform better in Google.
• A good post title is Retweetable.
• Porn powers the Internet.
• Always bet on cute.
• Never Google “How to commit murder”.
• Never blog about human anatomy or your own mental health problems.
• Collecting strange keyword referrals and blogging about them, leads to even more disturbing referrals.
• Sometimes it is best to just step away from the keyboard and say nothing.
• No matter how many times experts claim it, not everyone can blog their way to a better career.
• “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
• “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

Now Some More Quotations

William Blake:

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Blake again:

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

Related posts:

1. Blog your way to a better career (no really)

I’ve been unemployed for too long. There are obviously reasons for this, but if I had all the answers, I wouldn’t be unemployed now would I? I try to shore up my weaknesses and leverage my strengths. I spend a lot of time online reading ‘expert’ advice on what to do and what not to do when looking for a job, or writing a cover letter, or during an interview. 

One piece of advice I’ve resisted heeding is to switch to a one page resume.

There are definite disadvantages to a one page resume, the biggest two are half as much room to cram in keywords and being forced to leave off potentially valuable skills and experience. The other big challenge facing job seekers, besides intense competition, is maintaining their online reputation and ensuring their Google results are acceptable. If a potential employer wants to find out more about me, the information is only a web search away.

My hobbies, my picture, my age, all of this can be quickly found out even if I leave them off my resume.

The other reason I have resisted making the change is I’ve put a lot of work into fine tuning my resume to include valuable keywords and the information that hiring managers have remarked upon the most. My resume was working just well enough to get the odd job interview, two last week, which is definitely above average. Creating a one page resume isn’t as simple as deleting the entire second page, you have to reword, rewrite, and relocate various information. I also had to reduce the amount of whitespace in my Microsoft Word file.

MS Word is the default format most employers want in a resume, though some ask for a PDF. Even as a longtime Apple fanboy, I’ve continued to use Microsoft Office. I’ve also stuck with the .doc file extension. Additionally, I’ve maintained an HTML version of my resume online for over 15 years. I spent a lot of time converting it to be an hResume. So in addition to having to carefully rework the Microsoft Word version of my resume I had to modify my carefully hand coded HTML. Printed HTML, even with CSS isn’t foolproof so it is possible I did not succeed in creating a one page version of the resume hosted on Muschamp.ca, but it is definitely shorter.

My entire employment history, along with all the places I’ve volunteered, the universities I’ve attended is in LinkedIn. I have some control over which information is publicly available and I also can restrict which LinkedIn users can see my entire profile, but as a job seeker you have to surrender a lot of privacy online. Once you surrender your privacy online you are unlikely to ever get it back.

I’m not sure the one page resume is right for everyone or appropriate for every single industry and job posting. Maintaining multiple resumes or regularly cutting and pasting content into and out of your resume is problematic. Customizing your resume for every single job application isn’t always possible due to limitations imposed by career websites for instance. You definitely can only post one resume on your homepage and you’re only supposed to have only one LinkedIn profile.

As I still have reservations concerning the one page resume, I decided to put it out there whether it is a significant improvement or if there are any glaring mistakes in my recently revised resume. Guy Kawasaki and Vivian Giang are adamant that hiring managers don’t have time and just don’t care to read resumes over one page in length.

Update April 10th 2012

In the month plus I’ve been using a one page resume it hasn’t resulted in a single job interview, all the interviews I’ve had were a result of my previous two page resume, custom cover letters, and whatever I typed into various job application websites. That said I’ve been unemployed too long and it definitely works against me. Recent research has shown recruiters only spend six seconds on your resume and what they look at it your current position, the position before that and your education when deciding whether you are a potential fit.

Related posts:

1. My resume is now an hResume
2. Resume Editing

It was someone else’s idea to cast her as Chun Li, but Morgana Mou (牟丛) is an aspiring model, actress, and martial artist. She has a demo real online which hopefully I can embed from Youku.com. Given how popular my blog is for some keywords I decided to share her clip. Chun Li despite being an iconic video game character has never been a success on the big screen. I don’t know if Morgana is the one to reverse that trend, but some think she looks the part, I’d need to see her in costume or at least with the correct hairstyle.

Given the success of the first Street Fighter movie and how I’ve never seen it, and given they tried to make a Chun Li movie before with even less success, which I’ve also never seen, perhaps Morgana can appear in the next Gina Carano film. “Haywire” I’ve also yet to see, but “Expendables 3″ or the next, next Gina Carano film might need a villain or a sidekick.  Maybe Quentin Tarantino will make a Fox Force Five film?  There was a rumor, he was remaking an old Russ Meyer film. Maybe Morgana could find a part in Kill Bill 3?  In case the video doesn’t work, let me also dig up a photo. I have no idea who holds the copyright for this image, I cropped it to fit beside the text, but the Chinese were already fighting over whose watermark should appear. I of course wish Morgana luck, but I can’t help but recall what happened after I posted a picture of another Asian lass who studied martial arts… Hopefully Morgana Mou makes better career decisions than Hitomi Tanaka. Some video game to film adaptations have worked out well, I read that every “Resident Evil” movie has made more money than the one that preceded it and all together they raked in hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe Morgana should appear in some Kung Fu Zombie film, zombies have box office klout. I wonder what Steven Chow is up to? I can see him doing a Kung Fu Zombie film. Zombie films usually make money as you just hire extras and stunt men to play the Zeds. Zombies have even proven to make good television. If you want to see a great martial arts film with a strong Asian female protagonist, I highly recommend “Chocolate”. Morgana or 牟丛 which is her name in Simplified Chinese characters has her own Weibo page which is one of the more popular Chinese social media networks. My Chinese isn’t good enough to actually participate in Chinese social media, but I keep an eye on it from time to time primarily through English language websites like the Hao Hao Report and Tech Rice. This post seems to be in the vein of the former… Using Baidu I was able to find a lot of photos of Ms. Mou. Like a lot of Asian women she is prone to posting pictures of herself on social media. Although not a Chun Li costume the second picture shows how she looks in character. She’ll probably regret getting that tattoo as it will have to be covered up with makeup in most roles.

Update

Late last night while watching martial arts clips on YouTube I stumbled on a breaking demonstration done by a Japanese woman in an evening gown at some sort of convention. My Japanese is actually better than my Chinese so I quickly found out her name, Rumi Maeda or 前田瑠美 in Chinese characters. She is a Japanese actress, singer, and martial artist. She has had a non-headlining role in a Japanese martial arts film called “High Kick Girl“. It stars the first ‘Karate Idol’, Rina Takeda… The Internet keeps getting bigger as there is now a website devoted to Japanese cinema in English with all this information. Rumi is about my age, one year younger, and of course has a homepage complete with photos. It also had even more YouTube videos such as the one embedded below:

Rumi has a blog if you want to see pictures of her getting her hair done.

Now that I have a trailer for a Japanese and a Chinese martial artist and aspiring actress, I should probably find a Korean woman too. Korean is the East Asian language I studied the least and I never could get the hang of typing in it, I think I’ve mostly forgotten how the alphabet works even though it is based on logic and not on memorizing characters and stroke orders. My brain still hasn’t recovered from all the abuse it was put through during and after my MBA. I know there is at least one moderately famous Korean women’s MMA fighter, I don’t know if she has acting aspirations. 

Seo Hee Ham (함서희)

Seo Hee Ham is a Korean MMA fighter who fought Megumi Fujii once along with many other Japanese female mixed martial artists. She has a blog, but more importantly for some of the people who surf the Internet for dubious content, she has great abs which you can see whenever she poses during the weigh in or after a fight.

She also can look cute or 귀엽다 or 乖巧 or most famous of all かわいい. If you put the Korean, Japanese, and Chinese word for cute into Google image search… I shudder to think. Actually it was a big disappointment, best to stick with one Asian language at a time if you’re obsessed with all things cute. The Japanese and the Koreans historically used the traditional Chinese language character set, though people are becoming more reliant on computers and cellphones for reading and writing them. Use of Chinese characters in Korea is less and less common. It is still a sign of a good education to be able to read and write Chinese characters though. The meaning of Chinese characters isn’t always the same across East Asian lanaguages and the pronunciation is definitely different. For instance 腹筋 is abdominal muscles in Japanese but apparently not in Chinese.  It might be 腹肌 in Simplified Chinese Characters, but it might also be some sort of compound phrase like 胃部肌肉, this was never vocabulary I needed to know in school. I did have the foresight to learn the Korean word for abdominal muscles, 왕짜, which is going to lead to some strange keyword referrals.

Women’s MMA like most women’s sports especially professional sports does not pay nearly as well as the men’s leagues. Combined with the fact getting punched in the face repeatedly is generally not enjoyed by the vast majority of the human race it is a strange career choice for an attractive South Korean woman. I swear Koreans practice looking cute in the mirror as they have certain poses and faces they always make.

Finding a training montage of Ms Ham will take some work, but during the researching of the Korean portion of this post I learned that Kim Ok-bin (김옥빈) studied martial arts as a youth. She has been in a movie directed by Park Chan-wook which I have seen. Park Chan-wook isn’t known for making martial arts movies though, what he is famous for is ‘the vengeance trilogy’ the best of which out revenges Kill Bill and stars Lee Young Ae (이영애). I can’t type much in Korean but I can cut and paste.

Update 2

I have to resist posting yet more content that will attract dubious keyword referrals, but today over on MMA Mania, the MMA blog I’ve been reading the longest, is a post about Nicole Chua who is set to become Singapore’s first female mixed martial arts fighter. Singapore is a pretty diverse place for Asia, but their official immigration policy is designed to maintain an ethnic Chinese majority and they are famous for some of their strict laws against things like gum chewing. Nicole is set to fight someone from India.

Most people think of China or Japan as the birthplace and hotbed of martial arts and that everyone in India is a pacifist like Gandhi.  However India has a lengthy history in the martial arts particularly in wrestling/grappling. India had secret self defense techniques that were only taught to members of the upper most class. The Sikhs in particular have long martial tradition and a fighting style that has almost died out that involved not only unarmed combat but the use of a variety of unique weapons.

I still don’t think women’s MMA will become a mainstream spectator sport, but the benefits of martial arts are many and varied. Some people feel the need to test themselves in competition, others are more interested in fitness, self defense, personal improvement, or the more spiritual side of martial arts.

Update 3

Nicole and Jeet’s fight was posted to MMA Mania, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube as well…

Related posts:

1. Google China Innovates
2. New Internet Cafés banned in China

Although I perhaps should have been using the time in other ways, I’ve spent considerable time and effort building a custom news aggregator.  I was able to leverage SimplePie and PHP to do a lot of the heavy lifting, but I also wanted to scour the Internet, social media, and all the trendy Web 2.0 networks for the best content related to the hobby of miniature painting.

I learned a few things along the way, like not all feeds are created equal, and not everyone uses hashtags or even content management systems to their fullest. Some preferences/prejudices were reinforced and some new tricks and tools were discovered, so since I’m still unemployed and you can use these tips and tools to monitor just about anything, I thought I’d list my Top 10 sources/techniques you can use to get RSS or Atom feeds.

1. Blogs It goes without saying there are a lot of blogs online. Blogger/blogspot.com and WordPress seem to be the two most popular blogging systems, both can produce feeds, but WordPress does a much better job of it. Even using FeedBurner to improve the default Blogspot.com Atom feed doesn’t give you the granularity and control that WordPress does.
2. Twitter is the world’s number one spot to break news or catch up the latest happenings and trends. Twitter has an API which you can use to search, but there are also third party tools that make searching and monitoring Twitter easier.
3. Topsy is a “real-time search engine for the social web“. It can search Twitter and Google+, but doesn’t work with every social network. For Twitter it does a great job, better than the default Twitter search. It can create RSS feeds and it has an API.
4. Tumblr gets a lot of press but I could list a number of reasons why I prefer WordPress and other publishing or cataloging tools. Tumblr’s RSS support isn’t as good as WordPress’s and it’s default search sucks. It is possible to use tools to monitor Tumblr for a particular topic or hashtag, such as this Yahoo Pipe, but it is definitely not as easy or as thorough as using Topsy to search Twitter.
5. Pinterest was at first dismissed as a Tumblr clone but it has really caught on, especially with women. Text is a second class citizen on Pinterest with image being everything. Pinterest has built in support for RSS feeds which I was able to use as part of my miniature painting news aggregator. Pinterest works well for niches and markets that lend themselves to glossy product shots.
6. Instagram is another billion dollar image sharing network. It is a less useful for following topics and trends but folks do use it to share photos, you can subscribe to an RSS feed for a hashtag, the problem with this approach is hashtags are not consistently and universally applied.
7. Flickr has long had great support for RSS feeds and an API. Yet Pinterest and Instagram get all the press these days. Flickr is still popular with serious photographers. Yahoo sells them premium accounts. Pinterest is for sharing photos you found online, Flickr and Instagram for sharing photos you took yourself. Flickr’s RSS feeds use an enclosure which includes a thumbnail, this is something Pinterest should be doing too.
8. Google Alerts are one of the oldest and still one of the best ways to monitor the Internet for a specific topic or keyword. I’ve used them for years, but every now and then an old dog can learn a new trick. It is possible to create a Google Alert and have it output RSS. Combined with say ‘site:domain.name‘  plus keywords and you can create custom search agents specifically for Tumblr or other sources.
9. Feed of Feeds is a technique where you take lots of smaller independent information sources and merge them together into one easier to monitor feed. There are a number of blog networks in the miniature wargaming hobby, a few use tools like SimplePie to create one single feed that can be subscribed to, that includes the latest posts from a variety of sources. I built my own feed of feeds and it was how I discovered a probable bug in SimplePie.
10. YouTube isn’t something I’ve traditionally tried to monitor, but it has an API which can produce an RSS feed. You can use these features to create a keyword search and then subscribe to the results, so if you want to see all the videos uploaded on a particular topic or in a particular category, no problem. Just like in Pinterest it is possible to subscribe to someone else’s uploads or favourites too. Videos get added and taken down quickly on YouTube and I don’t think the search result feed updates that frequently, but it is definitely another tool in the toolbox.

I looked at a lot of other tools and techniques, but if you have a killer one I missed, let me know in a comment. If you want to know more about how I used or created various feeds I’ll try to explain it better or find someone who can.

Update

Topsy now requires an API key to create the RSS feeds I talk about above and use in my news aggregator. These feeds were formerly a free service, but now they want you to transition to a commercial account. I have a 30 day free trial API key but unless they make an exception for me, I’m going to have to revise all my news aggregators and my other PHP code.

Related posts:

1. 3 Kinds of Feeds
2. Curation & Aggregation

And why do he and his buddies over at Caltrops.com find this acceptable online behaviour? Until this week I’d never bothered to read Caltrops.com or really look into who was running the website and why the hell they think they are so damn clever and superior to the rest of us lesser Internet users. Fussbett Sanitario seems particularly proud of his long association with Caltrops.com and is overly enamored with with the sound of his fingers hitting the keyboard. He’s also very attached to his online Internet handle and continually uses it or variants online. He and his buddies also play online video games and chat using AOL Instant Messenger of all things. Using my renewed annoyance at Mr. Sanitario and his pals over at Caltrops, last night I did some investigating.

Caltrops.com is proudly run by Robb Sherwin. His latest clever online Internet handle is Icecreamjonsey. He has the matching Twitter account and another website just in case he wants to distance himself from Caltrops when it is inconvenient, it’s called Jolt Country. Mr. Sherwin not only enjoys video games, he’s started making them. He finds Fussbett particularly amusing and has no qualms operating Caltrops.com where Fussbett and pals can engage in their own personal brand of online fun, such as picking on the mentally ill. Mr. Sherwin’s latest, greatest game is called Cryptozookeeper.

But enough about Robb, the enabler, lets return to our protagonist Fussbett Sanitario, the writer. Well he fancies himself some sort of writer, he types, and types over at Caltrops.com, explaining such useful facts as how he arrived at his AIM account name: Sanitario666. He’s been using variations for a long time. On Steam his account is Fussbett. All the Caltrops regulars have formed a group on Steam which includes the following handles:

• Jso, killer of zonbey goasts
• Clever Hans
• Dr. M. Von Katze, PhDD
• Francesca Lucchini
• Jackie Treehorn
• Jhoh (a tauren)
• Lizard_King
• McMoo
• Moop
• naknak
• Parkraz
• The Happiness Engine
• ToutSuite
• Worm

Of these Jhoh is the one to note. There is however, more to online gaming than just Steam. Over on Xbox.com Mr. Sanitario uses the account FSBT. Apparently he is the 7,829,974 best Street Fighter player in world. More importantly he can use this account to compete with his buddies for bragging rights. His best buddies are:

• Cable Bruddas
• Worm4Real
• Sun El
• McMoo tadc
• Shecky Kilowitz

What about the Sony Playstation, apparently Fussbett is an Xbox man, superior platform don’t you know. I’m sure someone can cross match the five Xbox handles with a corresponding Steam account. I’ll help you out, Cable Bruddas is Jhoh aka Jhoh Cable aka @jhohcable on Twitter. Although he obviously spends a lot of time on Caltrops, Xbox, and Steam, I’m not sure Jhoh is considered as ‘cool’ or ‘witty’ as Fussbett. He is less anonymous, he has his own website.

Lets get back to Fussbett, he likes to see his name in print on a computer screen. In addition to typing he also takes screenshots and posts them online using Photobucket. Using the URL for these photos you could see where besides Caltrops.com they have been posted… Fussbett is way too cool to use a Play Station 3, but apparently he’ll use other Sony products. If you’re starting to think Mr. Sanitario is a bit of a hypocrite in addition to being an asshole, well you’re entitled to your opinion.  

Although Fussbett Sanitario may fancy himself the sharpest knife in the drawer over at Caltrops.com and maybe compared to his peers he possess a certain low cunning. It was easy for instance to find out that Jhoh Cable lives in Garden City, Michigan and now enjoys Tumblogging. He and Fussbett used to be friends on MySpace, I guess back when it was cool. But MySpace was never as cool as AOL Instant Messenger. JHOH Cable, Sanitario666, and Zsenijeim use AOL Instant Messenger to chat about how awesome they are at video games I guess and how clever everyone is who posts on Caltrops. Zsenijeim is the AIM account for the person who decided I was a shiny new psycho that all the folks on Caltrops.com should pick on five years ago. Hi Zseni, sorry I neglected to mention you for seven whole paragraphs but your AIM buddy Fussbett Sanitario posts more frequently. Zseni’s claim to fame seems to be having the 2nd account banned on Caltrops.com, congrats on that, you can tell your grandkids.

I wasted time last night finding this information out and then I decided to type up some of what I discovered to see if the data would be useful to others. I’m also considering other options… Back when I used to work in the Downtown Eastside, one of my coworkers showed me Pipl.com that was what she used to do background checks. Pipl seems to think Fussbett Sanitario is Fred Pendleton of Toronto Ontario Canada. I’m not 100% sure. Fussbett does say he lives in Toronto multiple times on Caltrops, his whole family lives in Toronto. I wonder if they know he’s such an asshole online?

Being Fred Pendleton is more likely than Fussbett’s original claim of being Wagner James Au. Fred’s Facebook account has the privacy settings cranked way higher than Fussbett’s MySpace friend jhoh.cable. I’m not sure how Pipl.com works but supposedly it takes various data points, like the ones I’ve mentioned and connects the dots algorithmically. Fussbett’s MySpace profile lists him as being from Canada, probably verified using an IP address lookup, and lists his age being the same as Fred Pendleton’s Facebook page. Fussbett on Steam and FSBT on Xbox are also listed as being from Canada, again the video game companies probably used IP addresses to determine this, remember Caltrops.com forum members are all wicked cool online video gamers. So is Fussbett Sanitario, Fred Pendleton of Toronto, Ontario, Canada? Fussbett does talk about his age on Caltrops, Fussbett just posts way too much online to remain completely anonymous.

Update: I neglected to mention previously he has a YouTube account. I also learned I wasn’t even the first blogger with mental health problems the folks over at Caltrops decided to belittle. Apparently being an asshole online is something Fussbett and the rest of Caltrops have enjoyed for years. Apparently when you hide behind a handle and a keyboard you grow a pair of balls you don’t have in real life.

I ignored the folks over at Caltrops.com for years, I put up with a lot of abuse from a lot of people, if it wasn’t for web analytics and Fussbett Sanitario’s inability to shut up, I wouldn’t have written the last two blog posts and I would have slept better the last few evenings. I’ve tried hard to put my problems behind me and now that my mental health has improved I’m better able to apply myself, I’d prefer not to use my time tracking down the identities of people who enjoy tormenting others online. I hadn’t intended to use my valuable time trying to educate some people on ethical human behaviour, however my tolerance for abuse and Internet bullshit is considerably less than it used to be. Perhaps I’ll have to expend yet more time and effort letting Robb Sherwin know that Caltrops.com isn’t making the Internet a better place and years of posting offensive and hurtful comments using the exact same Internet handle will likely catch up to some people.

Fussbett Sanitario is no Keyser Söze.

Update October 11th 2012

It hasn’t been the best of times for many people. My problems have not all been solved but others have suffered more than I and cyberbullying and hiding behind Internet handles is in the news recently. Even the phrase doxxing has popped up which reminded me that this shit happened to me too. I wasn’t a teenage girl. I didn’t kill myself. I never frequented reddit. I’ve posted photos online I shouldn’t have or reposted or linked to…

I’m not claiming to be a Saint, I’ve regretted words and actions, I’ve apologized, but some people just don’t seem to be able to tell right from wrong. They won’t stop until there are consequences to their actions. The answer isn’t always laywers and police, surely what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Having been a target for abuse, having battled depression, having had to suffer and lose too much, I have empathy. I hope some people’s identities do get exposed and they face the consequences of their actions, rather than just hiding behind cowardly Internet handles and cries of free speech.

I don’t know why sites like Facebook and Reddit and the corporations behind them don’t act more pro-actively to stop shit like this. I also wonder why parents or teachers aren’t more active in the cases involving minors making questionable choices online.  I don’t know why more people aren’t taught about the Angie Varona’s of the world and the dangers of electronic communication especially on forums frequented by people who hide behind their Internet handle. I’m saddened by the news of Amanda Todd’s death and wonder how things could be allowed to go so far wrong.

Apparently Violentacrez is Michael Brutsch. I wonder if Adrian Chen used a similar process and tools as I did when I looked more closely into the activities of Robb Sherwin and Fred Pendleton. Michael Brutsch ended up losing his job when his identity was exposed.

Adrian Chen did not in fact deduce Violentacrez’s identity from publicly available information, but instead was told who he was. I had to invest considerable time and effort finding out who Robb Sherwin and Fred Pendleton pretend to be while they are online harassing complete strangers.

Haunter & Todding

Apparently picking on the mentally ill even after they are dead is considered fun by folks online. Haunter who was stupid enough to grant an interview with the Vancouver Sun about why he trolls, decided to use Amanda Todd’s death to increase traffic to his Facebook page. Someone dies and your first thought is how can I use this to increase traffic to my Facebook page? Who is mentally ill? 

Michael Brutsch was worried about his job when his online activity became know, Haunter, who describes himself as a student in IT, does he think being an asshole online will make him more attractive to future employers? Perhaps he should ask Kody Maxson aka kody1206, the alleged primary tormentor of Amanda Todd online what it feels like to be outed? The justice system moves slow, but I don’t think Kody or Michael will have much anonymity online or even offline now.

The Amanda Todd story doesn’t seem to end and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the list of people who think it is cool or fun to ‘stir the pot’ or however they want to justify their behaviour online.

Haunter’s Facebook group and many others like it that assaulted Amanda Todd’s reputation and death have since been removed.

Update March 18th 2013

Apparently another group of elite online gamers calling themselves “Team Hype” was upset at a journalist writing about a website they used to rip off XBox accounts. So one of their members Phobia also known as Ryan Stevenson allegedly sent a denial of service attack to ArsTechnica and the blog of Brian Krebs. Unfortunately for the elite gamer/hackers they weren’t as clever as they thought, as after sending a SWAT team to the home of the journalist, they appear to have taken down their Twitter accounts, YouTube accounts, and the rest of the online identities in fear of getting ‘doxed’ not to mention arrested. People like Phobia and Fussbett Sanitario or Ryan Stevenson and Fred Pendleton as they may well be known to the police seem to think the people they are harassing and disparaging online are powerless to stop them and incapable of using Google, or looking at server logs, or that they don’t have friends they can call on not to mention law enforcement officials.

Needless to say if I ever get well, I will definitely call attention to certain obscure blog posts and names so that people get the attention they so desperately crave and more people will know how incredibly clever they are, not to mention how they take great enjoyment making strangers suffer so they can earn l33t points with their online peers.

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Oddest Keyword Referrals

I just finished watching the documentary “Hitler’s Children” on the Knowledge Network.  It isn’t a great film, but it did get me thinking. Adolf Hitler of course had no children, but other members of the inner circle had children and now grand children. A Jewish filmmaker interviewed several of them and asked them about how they felt bearing such infamous surnames. Some of them have written books, some of moved out of Germany, others have avoided talking about it or had lived with fear or guilt or both.

I’ve written many times about reputation, particularly online reputation. People still end up on my website looking for information about some of the more infamous Vancouver rioters. It is one thing trying to live down something you did yourself, but if you’re the grandchild of a prominent Nazi and weren’t even alive during WW2 let alone took active part in it, how do you live that down? Google surnames like: Goering, Hoess, Himmler, Eichmann, or Frank. What could you possibly accomplish that would push Hermann Göring down the rankings?

The other thought I had was what if were kept ignorant of your famous ancestors? Ancestry.ca TV commercials are always encouraging you to join and look into your family’s past. Imagine discovering your father or grandfather ran a concentration camp? I’m not saying I have any sympathy for the Nazi’s themselves but how many generations have to pass before people are innocent of their forefather’s crimes and actions?

Some of  Hermann Göring’s descendants had themselves sterilized. How must it feel to want to end your family line, so no one shares your name? 

Related posts:

1. Beware the Dictionary

I’ve given and collected a lot of advice on how to improve your writing particularly online. That advice is spread over a number of different posts some of which get read, others go unheeded. While updating one of these old posts today I decided to collect the best of the best tips and links together in one single post. This will make it easier to share and possibly easier to find in search engines.

1. 10 Tips to Improve your Writing
2. What is really important when self publishing online?
3. Timeliness And Timelessness
4. Focus & Repetition
5. 10 Keys to Blogging Fame and Fortune
6. My Top 10 SEO Tips
7. Writing for GoogleJuice VS Writing for Klout

You can also read some of the things I learned while writing 1000 blog postings. Improving and demonstrating your writings skills is one of the many pieces of advice given by experts to jobseekers.

More Advice from Others

• Although I don’t advocate it, some in the blogosphere especially those in content marketing and search engine optimization will advocate writing a 1000 word post a day, here are some of their tips to break writer’s block.
• An oldie but a goodie, “Gentle Reader, Stay Awhile; I will be Faithful“.

Related posts:

1. 10+ tips to improve your Writing
2. Writing for GoogleJuice VS Writing for Klout

I only have so much time for online social networks, the one I use the most because I can use it on my iPhone easily is Twitter. One of the ones I use the least is Google+ because it is just too much of a Johnny come lately social network with no killer feature I wasn’t already getting elsewhere. I know, I know, “Circles” and “Hangouts” but I just don’t need em.  I have this domain and this blog, plus Facebook and Twitter were more than sufficient for me to share too much personal information online.  Twitter lists and a good RSS reader keep me well informed without having to use Google+.

So what use is Google+? Guy Kawasaki likes it the best, of course he liked Twitbird the best of all Twitter clients and we’ve seen how that worked out for me. The reason to use Google+ is because Google is still the most popular search engine.  Google+ is not going anywhere because Facebook is a real threat to Google’s search engine dominance and they definitely take money away from AdWords which is Google’s cash cow.  The company I currently work for spends more money on Facebook advertising than AdWords but that could change.  Choosing which websites and online social networks to spend your time and marketing dollars on is a question facing many.

I don’t plan on abandoning Twitter for Google+ and I certainly don’t see all my friends and family leaving Facebook for Google+, the network effect is very much against Google+. However I have spent considerable time today making my website more Google friendly, not exclusively for SEO purposes, but apparently there are benefits to claiming “Authorship“ over the articles and websites you publish online.

I know I wrote pretty much everything on Muschamp.ca, most people know I wrote pretty much everything on Muschamp.ca but today I had to prove both “authorship” and that I was webmaster for Muschamp.ca and most importantly all the subdomains on Muschamp.ca. Now “rich snippets” should be shown in Google search results possibly making my website more attractive to web surfers and possibly building my personal brand. As the official webmaster in Google’s eyes of Muschamp.ca and all the subdomains I get even more Google Analytics to amaze and astound. Maybe I’ll even stop using Mint.

To convince Google of all this I had to jump through many hoops. I had to upload files to my domain and subdomains. I had to modify my Google+ profile and pretty much every HTML page on the domain. I also added yet more plugins to my WordPress install specifically Yoast’s Google Analytics plugin and Google-Author-Link. I also modified my theme to be more Google authorship friendly. Everything seems to be working, but I may have to fix a few more things and optimize my Google+ profile.

I may regret some of my dubious posts and may remove yet more of them.  Here are two screenshots showing a test “rich snippet” and where you claim “authorship” of a domain or subdomain or App in Google+.

Here is a screenshot of my improved Google Analytics.

Related posts:

1. Google Analytics + Multiple Domains + iFrames FTW
2. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Google changed their search algorithm

Just like the weekend before, I spent too much time in front of my computer appeasing the Googlebot, or at least the powers behind the Googlebot.  Apparently it is necessary to be popular or at least prominent in search engines to be successful. It takes time for Google to re-index content but the early returns don’t seem to be very promising. I can’t say I’ve noticed an increase in traffic and I’ve been looking at Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools more than ever the last few weeks.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get official “authorship” of everything I’ve published online, I’m not sure I even want this. I’ve guest blogged for instance and written original content for organizations that no longer even exist. That isn’t going to help my Author Rank or my Klout, but I did modify two blogs I control over on WordPress.com to included links to my Google+ profile with ?rel=author and claimed I’m a current contributor to them on my profile. The rich snippets are supposedly working but I don’t see the “More by Muskie McKay” link, that feature has gone the way of the dodo…

I still plan to take a closer look at: schema.org, Yoast’s Google Analytics plugin, and probably change how I’m doing social sharing buttons again so that they fire off Google Analytics events, but one thing I also did this weekend was buy scrutiny and make XML sitemaps for my subdomains that are powered by WordPress. I also fixed some bad links and some missing meta data reported by scrutiny. I submitted the sitemaps to Google’s Webmaster tools, but without them being automatically updated, like the one generated for this blog, they are of limited use. I also modified my quotation mashup slightly as apparently Google frowns on multiple pages having the same meta description.

Recently I noticed individual quotations were getting keyword referrals, perhaps some of my updates will make that portion of my website more popular, but there are a lot more quotation collections online then there were a dozen years ago, let alone 1995 when I started uploading them to the Internet. I also noticed that Google’s Webmaster Tools Authorship seems to imply that four of my blog posts are the only things I’ve ever done online that are of any value. I even took a screenshot:

All the rest of my content is unimportant according to Webmaster Tools Author stats. In reality many other posts and static content get keyword referrals but the keywords must be of little value to advertisers.  I haven’t reported on all the strange keyword referrals I’ve gotten over the last few years, but just today Arstechnica did a post very similar to one’s I’ve done in the past that caused me grief and led to me attracting an unwanted element to the comments of this blog. I don’t know if Muskblog will ever recover from blogging about calves.

I do know I should have been using features of Google’s Webmaster Tools a lot sooner to actually blog about what is popular or at least valuable to advertisers. There are a lot of keyword phrases that I should be working into some mythical overly clever blog post, but time and energy for blogging isn’t something I have much of. I haven’t even made it to the gym this weekend. On the weekend is when I catch up on reading, blogging, exercising, and looking for a new job as during the week I don’t have that many productive hours left when I get home.

Now I’ve been pulled back into the search engine optimization game. One thing people seem unable to grasp even after all these years is it takes time. I claimed authorship, I updated sitemaps, I fixed meta tags, I installed plugins but it will take a while for that to have any major effect on the search engines. People are impatient, they want the immediate hit of a viral overnight success. They want to be the next Psy. Gangham Style was off Psy’s sixth album. So he’s an overnight success that took six albums to produce a hit song.

Why claim Google Authorship?

Besides vanity, having your picture beside your content in Google’s search results supposedly increased CTR (Click Through Rate) by up to 150%. Google Authorship is one of the highest percentage means of ensuring a “rich snippet” appears in Google’s search results. There is a lot of speculation on existing and potential future benefits to claiming authorship. Klout and Bing have supposedly joined forces to create a similar feature in Bing’s search results. Alas the number of people who use Bing despite the television ads pales compared to the number who use Google. Facebook’s open graph meta data is another means to encourage the showing of “rich snippets” though Google would prefer you use schema.org.

I’m still a little disappointed that out of the 1000s of pages and posts I’ve now claimed Google Authorship over, only these four matter:

1. 30 CFA Questions you should be able to answer
2. FREE CFA Level 1 Study Materials
3. The Largest Employers in Vancouver
4. CFA Level 1 Study Advice

It does show how much time I spent studying for the CFA Level 1 exam and looking for a job in Vancouver.

Related posts:

1. I finally found a use for Google+
2. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Google changed their search algorithm

Notice I wrote “self publishing” not “blogging”, the world wide web always had the concept of self publishing and user created content. Everyone was supposed to learn HTML and have a home page. It is only with the rise of blogging, social media, and various web services that self publishing has become so easy that even your grandmother can do it.

I’ve been self publishing content online since 1995, maintaining this domain since 2001, and even blogging since 2005. I’ve seen a lot of stuff come and go. I’ve used a lot of technologies and websites. I even have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and an MBA if that makes me more trustworthy or authoritative… In the 15+ years I’ve been doing things my way and helping others, I’ve formed some opinions and learned some hard lessons, so I decided to collect the best ten of them together in one place:

1. Make a commitment to post Quality, not frequency.
2. Timeliness and Timelessness are the two most important qualities to strive for.
3. Why is more important than “how” when it comes to self publishing online.
4. Choose an appropriate venue and content management system. I tend to recommend WordPress.
5. Know your audience: real people, search engines, news aggregators, your future boss, and potential mates.
6. Understand and leverage online communities and social networks.
7. Focus + Repetition = #winning
8. Learn to write for the web, people online don’t read, they scan.
9. Understand the difference between Impact and Influence.
10. Learn the jargon: blog, tweet, meme, hash tag, CMS, SEO, etc.

Passion

Although I allude to it, my top ten list neglects perhaps the most important factor of all in determining long term success in self publishing online, passion. If you are passionate about a topic you will stick with it despite it not being profitable, popular, or trendy. Passion trumps proficiency. In the ten plus years Muschamp.ca has been online, the single web page that I’ve consistently maintained and month after month is the most popular or among the most popular is my collection of miniature painting advice. During my third lengthy period of post Sauder MBA unemployment I’ve ceased actually painting miniatures and models, but I still add additional links to my ever growing collection.

Despite everything I still have some passion left for music, miniatures, and helping other people. 

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Top 10 Postings
2. Focus & Repetition

A day doesn’t go by when someone doesn’t tweet another posting on how to blog better, or how important it is to blog, or the power of social networks in building a brand, or…  You get the picture. Most of this advice isn’t new and it doesn’t even get right down to what is really important. If you want to increase your GoogleJuice or your Klout about a particular topic, it is all about focus and repetition.

I’m good at the latter not so good at the former. This is a classic case of do as I say, not necessarily as I do or have done in the past. Take advantage of me, many people have, learn from my mistakes, so you don’t have to apologize for your own or pay some other more costly price.

Search Engine Optimization is all about focus and repetition. Tweeting well often comes down to focus and repetition. You want a blog people actually care about and you want to be a person people come to for advice, you have to focus and you have to repeat the message you’re trying to get across.

Repetition

Repetition is no guarantee of success. Mindless repetition, annoying repetition, automated computer generated repetition, that can really piss people off and get you in trouble with the all mighty Google. What you really want is thoughtful repetition with variance. If you cram in the same keyword phrase over and over and over again on a single web page, GoogleBot will probably notice and you may well get punished for it. Instead of worrying about optimal keyword density, you should think how can I make my point effectively? You want to do so with as few words as possible, while still including the keywords, phrases, and most importantly the ideas you want to convey.

Repeating keywords and phrases over and over is so 1990s. Repetition in 2012 ideally involves having other people repeat your message, words, and phrases. You can write the most brilliant Tweet or blog post ever, but if only your 200 fans/followers/readers discover it, you’re not going to become influential or famous overnight reaching 200 people at a time. However if people ‘Like’ your post or Retweet your witticism you will reach a wider audience. The best kind of repetition is: voluntary, spontaneous, and someone else’s effort on your behalf.

In order to make it easy for people to Retweet and ‘Like’ what you write online you need social sharing buttons and you need to be active on social networks yourself. You also need a content management system. Hand coding and maintaining HTML is also not an effective use of most people’s time. You also need to choose your first words carefully. The title should be short and conveys the primary idea you’re trying to express. A good title is Retweetable. You also need to take the time to enter a brief description of your post into your CMS and craft a good opening sentence or two. Along with the title that is what people who use RSS feed readers and other news aggregators will see. People have become very adapt at scanning the screen for the most interesting tidbit of information and then focusing in and drilling down. 

Focus

I’m capable of focusing. I’ve completed degrees and other challenging tasks that have taken sustained effort over an extended period of time. But this blog and this domain contain a lot of information on too many topics. I’ve been self-publishing content online since 1995, my interests change. This domain has been in Google since 2001 and this blog online since 2005. I’ve written things I probably shouldn’t have. I’ve had to apologize, make corrections, even take stuff down. Muschamp.ca is my personal domain, this is my personal blog. It is all me, warts and all. However if you want to become famous or influential or make money off the content you publish online you need to focus.

You need to ask yourself why you want to publish online. Is it for fame or money? Is it to show off your expertise or talent? Is it to help other people? Knowing why you ‘re doing something is often more important than knowing how to do something. You can learn ‘how’, some people never learn ‘why’.

A lot of my blog posts I compose in my head while lying awake in bed. Then I eventually get up and write them down, edit them and make them less stream of conscious. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I rush home and write something in a hurry immediately after the event I’m writing about has taken place. Other times I’ll spend so much time researching and writing and gathering links ending up with a monstrous post few people will read and no one will Retweet. You never know what will become popular quickly, but you can make an educated guess.

When I help someone setup up a website or a blog, I try to find out why they want to publish online and what they plan to write about. People who don’t have a good answer to “why” rarely stick with blogging. It is important to determine what you plan to publish in advance. Writing about everything isn’t focused. I advise people to predetermine the categories they want to write about, enter them into their CMS, and to stick with them as much as possible. WordPress has both Categories and Tags, most modern content management systems have something similar. You sometimes see the rather imposing word “taxonomy” thrown about. Taxonomy is Categories and Tags and other methods of organizing and classifying data. The reason you need Categories and Tags is to help you focus.

As long as I’ve been self publishing online and as long as online search engines have existed I’ve taken to running little experiments. Often this has involved dubious keywords or slightly risqué topics or headlines. You should resist doing this. It takes away from your focus, it leads to dubious keyword referrals though amusing to some, ultimately aren’t anything to put on your resume. They could even land you in some hot water, remember you’re always writing for your future boss. As someone who doesn’t have a boss at this time, I’ve obviously not been doing a very good job or haven’t done a very good job in the past. Learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others such as Michael Crooks and Angie Varona.

Here are someone else’s 26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts, the advice is decent, practical, there are some good examples, but some people need to focus more on the why and less on the how or they could end up in a situation similar to Micheal’s, Angie’s, or mine. One last piece of advice never blog about human anatomy.

Update with more links

Focus must be en vogue, look what appeared in my RSS feed this morning, a quotation on the importance of focus. Maybe the reason you’re not a popular A-list blogger is your content just sucks. Other people continue to write about the importance of focus, including at the Harvard Business Review or at least their blog network. Focus, repetition, timeliness, and timelessness are the most important characteristics in Quality writing.

Related posts:

1. 10 Keys to Blogging Fame and Fortune
2. Writing for GoogleJuice VS Writing for Klout