When I heard about Twitter and started using it I though it was stupid. I didn’t understand it and I was ignorant towards it. Since then my bias has swung the other way drastically. I think Twitter is one of the greatest Social Media outlets available. It’s so freaking simple.

I currently operate two Twitter accounts, one for this site (and for me) and one for Swim University. If you use Twitter feel free to follow me (@swimuniversity.com – @overnightsite)

What is Twitter?

The way I explain Twitter to folks is, it’s like microblogging mixed with AIM. It’s an instant messaging system that you can talk directly to people or just say anything you want, like a blog. But instead of writing really long post, you write mini ones. Twitter only allows you to type 140 characters at a time. Sometimes I post a link to a website I’m looking at or what I’m doing or writing about. Sometimes I just post jokes or say dumb things to get a rise out of people, but mostly I use it for promotion.

Auto Tweet

There are two websites that I currently use to post Tweets with. I use TwitterFeed.com and TweetLater.com.
What TwitterFeed.com does is allow me to submit my RSS feeds so that every time I update my blog it sends out a tweet on my Twitter account with a link to my new post AUTOMATICALLY!

With Tweetlater.com I can type a bunch of tweets and time them to go out at different times of the day. I can also automatically follow anyone who decides to follow me and send all my new followers a welcome message.

These are great tools but it doesn’t mean that’s all you should do. Some people hate broadcasters, you know people who just self promote on twitter. You need to engage in conversations with others, be personal. So I mix the two together. I auto-tweet and manual-tweet all damn day. And now it’s my 3 highest referer site to TheOvernightSite.com and SwimUniversity.com’s Blog.

What next?

Subscribe to the RSS Feed

I am slowly going to construct a list of the best blog posts I come across about blogging and link them into this post. Occasionally I will bump it back to the top of the blog so that everyone will get a chance to sort through these until I have enough to create a dedicated page for these links. I was inspired by Steven Snell who runs www.traffikd.com. He has a post called 16 Critical Tips for Building a Blog Part-Time and I thought it was one of the best blogging post I have ever read. So I figured I might as well start with this one:

16 Critical Tips for Building a Blog Part-Time

http://traffikd.com/blogging/building-a-blog-part-time/

50 Simple Ways to Gain RSS Subscribers

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/50-simple-ways-to-gain-rss-subscribers/

How To Drive Traffic to Your Blog – The Advice of a 12 Year Old

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/02/13/how-to-drive-traffic-to-your-blog-the-advice-of-a-12-year-old/

8 Ways to Get More Followers on Twitter

http://www.seohosting.com/blog/social-networking/8-ways-to-get-more-followers-on-twitter/

Link Building : A Complete Walkthrough

http://www.saadkamal.com/featured/link-building-a-complete-walkthrough/

The 5 Basic Steps Of Onsite SEO

http://thekeywordacademy.com/onsite-seo/

What next?

Subscribe to the RSS Feed

When I first started this site using wordpress I went to serveral different websites looking for the best wordpress plugins to get me started. I’m sure I’ll be adding more, but if you are starting a blog using wordpress I suggest you add these plugins.

1. Akismet -Believe it or not you are going to get spam comments from drug companies and porn sites. This plugin weeds them out. Without this plugin you will get a ton of useless comments. Plus it’s time consuming to delete them all. This is a must have plugin.
2. All in One SEO Pack – If you want your blog to be picked up by the search engines (which we all do) you are going to need this plugin. It is one of the most popular wordpress plugins. It allows to you add all your meta data in one simple form.
3. cforms – On my contact page I have an example of this. It will create forms that users can fill out and it will send that information to your email. Pretty simple to use as well. And It’s fully customizable for any style form.
4. Google XML Sitemaps -Google can take a while to index your pages, especially if you are a new blog. This plugin creates a dynamic sitemap that constantly updates everytime you add to your blog. As long as you submit this sitemap to Google using Webmaster Tools, your webpages will be constantly indexed so that google doesnt have to pick them up naturally (which could take a while).
5. Simple Tags – Instead of trying to think of tags to relate you posts to for SEO purposes, this plugin scans your post and the internet and comes up with tags automatically so you don’t have to think about it. A huge time saver!
6. Subscribe To Comments – some people after they comment on your blog want to know what other people are saying. This plugin allows commentors to get an email every time someone else comments on that same post they commented on.
7. Tweet This – This plugin sends a tweet using your twitter account about this post. So if you want to share this post with your twitter followers, you can easily!
8. WP-Polls – People love polls, they are easy, quick and fun and this plugin makes it even easier. Create multiple polls and have them rotate on your blog or just create one. Immediate poll results.
9. WP Ajax Edit Comments – this plugin allows those leaving comments to edit their comments for a short period of time after they leave a comment.

What next?

Subscribe to the RSS Feed

I read these blogs everyday and they help me in making my decisions and giving me new ideas as to what I should do with my own blog and websites.

Problogger

This is a blog run by Darren Rowse and I consider him the authority of bloggers around the world. He is a full time blogger that writes about how to blog and how to drive traffic to your blog and more.

CopyBlogger

Brian Clark is a blogger who writes about writing. I have been reading this blog for about a year and before that anytime I would search Google on how to write a blog post, Copyblogger would come up.

Seth’s Blog

If you think Online Marketing, you must know Seth Godin. He has written books and has one of the most popular blogs about internet marketing. This blog is a must read, I highly recommend it.

Smashing Magazine

This is a great blog that is dedicated to website design and development. They will often post freebies like, fonts, wordpress themes and icons. Infact I got the wordpress theme I used to make this site from Smashing Magazine. They have only been around for about two years but are in the top 100 blogs on Technorati.

SEO Book

The SEO Master himself Aaron Wall runs this blog. The great thing about this blog is that it is updated everyday with about 3 long posts which is a lot of content. He also has plenty of SEO tools on his site as well as free informative videos.

SEO Hosting Blog

This is a blog that is run by Hostgater which provides hosting but their blog is awesome. It’s updated about twice a day will quick relevant content. It’s fast becoming my new favorite blog.

Website Magazine

There is a free magazine I get in the mail every month that is full of rich content. Well this is blog of the website of the magazine I receive. So basically its a blog about websites in general and it’s mostly breaking news about internet sites and for web designers and developers.

HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog

Hubspot is a company that specializing in providing internet marketing. They also have a fantastic blog about inbound marketing. You should also use thier Website Grader Tool, which I use to try and make my websites better. Oh and I almost forgot, they a great video podcast too you should check out.

Shoemoney

This dude has been around for a while now. He is an internet celeb. Jeremy Shoemaker has been helping bloggers and webmaster with internet marketing for years. He has that famous picture where he holds that Adsense check up. See below

Knowtebook

I’m not really sure how I feel about this one yet. Not to say it isn’t a good site but I haven’t been reading it too often. It’s fairly new to me, but check it out anyway and let me know what you think.

Bonus Blog – Gary Vaynerchuk

This dude is nuts but you gotta love him. I have always said, if you have ever seen “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” he sounds just like Charlie. He is an internet celeb with lots of funny and smart videos about making money online. This blog is really well designed. I suggest you check it out just for some inspariation if not anything else.

What next?

Subscribe to the RSS Feed