Thanks Randy! 7 Links and Old Friends

This post is part of a challenge that I originally declined due to being in a state of flux, although having been pushed into the challenge by Randy Smith and looking through my blog archive it would appear that is my normal state!

The challenge was to find 7 posts that meet the set criteria and the first was most beautiful which is such a subjective thing . This made it a particularly hard category but one post stood out due to its balanced use of images, it also actually describes a world that thankfully has mostly passed, the world of the multi-speaker pitch fest. Ladies and gentlemen I give you…’Apologies to Bacon’

Looking over my early posts the one things that struck me was my lack of images at the top of each post which is now an essential element of any successful syndicated post. However when looking at my most popular post the easiest way to determine that is by comment count and one stands head and shoulders above all others, ‘If its Good Enough for Sally Count Me in!’. This one reflects the way that I unfortunately work, grasping select opportunities but overlooking many others. Sally had told me about the 100 blog comment challenge but I also was half way through the first of Chris Farrell’s Facebook webinars.

That webinar led me over the next 4 very long ways to discover the potential of Facebook and create an ebook explaining how to exploit that potential. Looking back over the comments there are many familiar faces that I still chat with and somehow Randy Smith  made an appearance, looks like I have come full circle as he is the reason I am involved in this 7 Post Challenge.

I do not tend to upset the apple cart that often but of the 2 posts that fit this category I think that ‘Is Ymail Dead?’ to be the most beneficial to you, the other one about the demise of The News of the World is a sad tale of stupid knee jerk decisions which ultimately benefit no one.

For a small fish like me to call out the demise of Ymail and recommend no one uses it was a sad day. Ymail and its provider Yahoo which were once powerful and strong brands today cannot even be trusted to deliver mail messages as their service is considered by many spam monitoring services to be a primary source of evil and criminality. A warning to us all, Ignore the trends in your brand at your peril.  

My most helpful post is perhaps not the most obvious one but if you take the message to heart then you will cut your development time drastically, the title ‘Sally Went Deep’ pretty much says it all and now I am actually using images at the start of my posts which helps when sharing them on Facebook and other social sites.

If you want to succeed in anything then you must devote yourself to that one thing and if this plays to your natural strengths then so much the better, this is what Sally Neill did whilst I was trying to continue working against myself.

Success is a hard thing to quantify so what better way than to see what Google thinks, I have always added my name as a tag in all content I create and this includes blog posts. As the name of the game with a blog is to get noticed then what has Google ranked highest? It would appear to like a post from September titled ‘Don’t Tell Mum!’ Unfortunately the facts in that post are all true, 1 subscriber at that time due to changing services several times and then focussing on anything other than list building!

On the subject of our parents it was just under a year at the time or writing that post that my  mother passed away and unfortunately due to a family dispute where I took my ex-wife’s side, my last word to my mum was simply ‘goodbye’ almost 10 years prior to her death.

Thus if I ever say goodbye to you then you know it is highly unlikely we will ever talk again  but thankfully no one else has yet forced me into that corner again.

On a happier note, ultimately your blog exists to promote your business and not to promote itself, a lesson that only really sunk home recently when Steve Roy shared an interview that…well lets just say it did not go as expected, listen here

The secret Ingredient of Top Blogging Sites this post only got one comment and yet highlights the key ingredients to creating a successful blog and Internet business and its the one thing that Randy Smith never fails to mention at every meetup. As a techy type I am most happy when faced with a problem to solve and going solo for hours until the solution is created does not faze me, in fact as you know I often forget to eat, with that I have just set my eat alarm!

Yet as Randy Said in the interview with Dawn Kay, we are in the people business and thus we need to actually make all of our Internet activity more engaging and sociable to give others a reason to talk about our business.

This post highlights how my initial brand, Starting an Online Business, came into being and I love the informal and honest  manner in which I share how it came to be. I still use the same graphic artist to this day, his ability to take my thoughts and turn them into things of beauty is fantastic plus as he lives in another country it is all normally done whilst I am sleeping.

Cor Blimey Guv’nor look Whatcha Gone ‘n’ Done

With the 7 posts located it is now time to take a look over those people who commented on each post and see if they are still active online, as I said I know many are but what of the rest?

It is with a warm heart that I can report that most of the bloggers from last year are still with us and thus lets share the love with

Robyn Campbell

Charles Mburugu

Sue McDonald

Stan Young

John McNally

Now over to you, so how did I do?

igor Griffiths


Enter Your Details for Tips on