You might not have known that one of the secrets to blogging success is marketing your blog. In fact, you might not even be sure what blog marketing is, exactly. Here are 5 tips for improving your blog marketing (and helping you decipher just what blog marketing is)

1. Comment on well respected blogs and make sure that you leave a link back to your own site. The best way to do this is to enter your site’s url in the comment ID section. Make sure that your comments are relevant to the post topics though or you will get labelled a spammer!

2. Make sure that your site has trackbacks enabled. This will send pings to other sites when you link to them as well as letting you know when somebody has linked to you! One of the best “guerrilla marketing” techniques when it comes to blogs is to write about a post you read on someone else’s blog, link to it and then, when the post is live, click on the link!

3. Distribute your blog. Make sure that your blog has its own RSS feed and that you upload that feed to as many directory sites as possible.

4. Update often. Blogs that are updated frequently—especially blogs that build a reputation as being authoritave—have the potential to be listed in the Google News index. We all know how popular the Google News index is!

5. Your blog must be listed in Technorati. In fact, as soon as you get your blog up and running make sure you claim it in Technorati. Having your blog make one of Technorati’s “most popular” lists is traffic/advertising gold.

These are just five tips for improving your blog marketing. If you put your mind to it, you could probably come up with plenty of your own blog marketing ideas

We’ve all faced it: the blank page.  Whether your blank page is a large canvas waiting to be filled with paint or a piece of paper waiting to be filled with words, nothing is quite so intimidating as that blank page…especially when you aren’t feeling particularly creative.  Creativity is not something that you can turn on like a light switch.  You are either feeling creative or not.  The trick is learning how to fake your way through those times when you have a deadline looming but can’t come up with anything fresh and new

There are many tips on how to improve your creativity.  Here are just a few of them to get you started:

1.  Carry around a notebook with you everywhere you go.  Whenever you get an idea for an article, a website, a painting—anything, write it or sketch it into the notebook.  You might feel a little silly doing this, especially at first, but there is nothing quite as helpful as that notebook when you find yourself creatively strapped.  All you have to do is look through the notebook for ideas that you haven’t yet had time to work on.  Sometimes just looking at past ideas can help you form an idea for your present problem.

2.  Try coming at your problem from a new angle.  If, for example, you have been commissioned to create some art for a webpage about sports, try looking at sports from a different angle—instead of the traditional examples, think of other things that could be considered sports.  Sometimes, forcing yourself to approach a problem from the exact opposite angle can be enough to spark your creativity.

3.  Summarize your problem with a single and basic sentence.  Let’s say you have been hired to write a radio commercial for a local car dealership. Start with something basic like “car dealerships sell cars.” For example, car dealerships sell cars.  From there, ask yourself the who, what, when, where and why of your sentence.  Before you know it, you’ll have pages of ideas for your commercial.

4.  If all else fails, get up and walk away from your project for a while—even if you are staring in the face of an impending deadline.  Go for a walk, get away from the computer—just go.  Often when you feel stressed, your creativity gives way to practicality and that isn’t good for someone who needs to find a fresh idea.  What’s more, when your brain relaxes, you’ll probably find yourself flooded with ideas for your project!

Good luck!

BKWLD is a a wonderful design and development company with offices in Seattle and Sacramento. I had the chance to get some exclusive sneak peak shots because one of my buddies works there. If you aren’t familiar with BKWLD yet, you will be soon because it’s without a doubt that within the next couple of years they’ll be known nationwide. With an impressive client list (Shakira, Backstreet Boys, E-40, Microsoft, etc.) that rivals the likes of 2 Advanced and Fantasy Interactive, BKWLD has the experience and staff to become one of the greatest. But do they have the offices to prove it? Let’s take a look behind the scenes of BKWLD!

Exterior Look:

Weren’t too many exterior shots, but from the look of it, it seems like it’s a nice brick building with some decent landscaping. I can’t give it a solid grade though without seeing some real outside shots. N/A

Interior Look:

The interior look of BKWLD is awesome. I love the reception area with the overhead logo along with the brick and wood flooring and decor. The wooden rafters really give it a cozy feel, and the spot lighting gives the room a warmer look. I’m under the impression that they have just moved in recently to their offices as the place still looks pretty empty. But it’s got real potential and once they start hanging up some pictures and decorating, I’ve no doubt that this place will definitely start to shine. I’m going to check back with BKWLD after a couple months to do another follow up report card to see how much they’ve taken advantage of their great venue. But I’ve got to grade it in its current condition.

Grade: B-

Employees:

From the pictures, the employees at BKWLD seem to be very enthusiastic and social. They don’t look corporate at all. My good friend Garrett is working for them and was able to snatch a nice cameo of SNTNCS on the computer screen. That right there should get them an automatic A (as you can tell, Office Report Card is more about seeing the pictures, then it is getting the grade).

Grade: A

Environment:

Nice looking Macs, nice deep red brick walls, some delicious Starbucks, and a cool looking logo in the foyer. What more could you ask for? The environment of BKWLD looks to be a creative one an deviates from the traditional studio look. It’s got a kitchen! Come on now. I’d love to grill some some cheese sandwiches in between breaks.

Grade: A

Furnishings:

The furnishings look a bit empty right now. But they do have a nice plasma TV so that’s a start. At the moment, I know the office is pretty new so there aren’t too many furnishings, but hopefully when I check up on BKWLD again in a few months they’ll have gotten a furniture face lift. But hey…they got Macs.

Grade: C

Overall: B+

I’d love to work here. Great looking environment, friendly looking employees, and of course my buddy Garrett. Thanks BKWLD!

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Many employers are not regarded by their staff as a lot of ‘fun’. Moreover, perhaps it’s not always important to be seen as the life and sole of the party. However, there needs to be some balance where the boss can be seen as being a regular human being. Who can have fun and in return have more motivated staff ready to get down to work and produce results.

There have been multiple studies that show that employees who have fun on the job are more motivated and are far more productive as a result. They also take less sick time, and are more willing to bend on things like working part of their lunch break.

There is no need to make your workplace an adult version of the schoolyard. Nevertheless, a little humor and life in the workplace can be a great motivation tool.

There are many ways to bring a little fun to the working environment without disturbing the regular flow of the working day, while still injecting a good dose of motivation.

You could try simply being a little more easygoing in your day to day attitude, just basically lighten up a little , crack a joke, some employers even hold joke telling sessions to get the day started. This is a great tension and stress reliever, helping you and your staff to become more motivated to face the day.

Another simple motivation tool to listen to your employees opinions, they certainly have some. They will benefit from feeling that they are actually being listened too and that their opinion may count for something. Any worker who feels that they are part of decision making or at least considered worth listening too, will feel far more valued and thus part of the team.

Rewarding employees for a successful quarter or a great sales month with a small event like a party or a paintball expedition can make them feel that their efforts are noticed and rewarded. And so will make them strive to be noticed and rewarded again.
It really does not take that much thought to discover ways of motivating your team into a more productive unit who actually look forward to their workday.

In our line of work, creativity is arguably the most critical trait.

With that being said, it’s unfortunate that the current job market makes our industry seem as if we’re lucky to work for them. In hindsight, I think should be the other way around. There are thousands of freelancers. Unfortunately there aren’t many good ones, which ironically is also the cause for the dramatic decrease in our services, especially with the growing popularity of uniformed theme purchases (premium Wordpress anyone?). This means that every now and then an employer is lucky enough to “catch” the perfect freelancer. One who is consistent, punctual, and affordable.

But these freelancers are the ones who are the ones who are really fishing. They are looking for ads with creative employers who they feel will bring a positive working environment that’ll help push the project forward towards completion. Without an equally passionate or creative employer, it’s difficult to really convince yourself to work there.

So, my plea to employers - if you want a dependable, conssitent quality freelancer, it’s in your ads. Write good ones, and they will come.

Here are some examples for my fellow freelancers to apply for, and to serve as examples for employers.

Julian is looking for a Web Designer to “Help our company catch up to our growth and communicate our thought leadership.” on Smashing Jobs - check it out here.

The Authors Channel is looking for a Marketer to drive “3 million visitors per month, and we need someone who knows how to effectively use all media in order to get that traffic.” on FreelanceSwitch Boards - check it out here.

SEOmoz is looking for a Designer to “come to a place where your talents are appreciated, your voice is heard, and your code has an impact.”” on 37Signals Board - check it out here.

Woot.com is looking for a Designer to work with “the world’s first, best, and handsomest deal-a-day website, [that] drops mad bargainz every night at midnight, alongw ith near-lethal doses of irreverence and snot.” on 37Signals Board - check it out here.

“Large Business Consulting Firm” is looking for a Designer to “deliver the visual design and strategy for a few key pages” on 37Signals Gigs - check it out here.

So freelancers - it is equally important to pick out creative clients that’ll help put you in the mood when you design. You’ll find that you do your best work when it’s for important clients, or for people who you know can push you to be creative and allow you the space and time to work.

And in turn, you’ll see that the most creative individuals apply for the job ads that seem the most creative and will allow them to have the best opportunity to work efficiently.

Surprisingly one of the prominent reasons why most blogs are abandoned is because it takes much more time in maintaining a clean environment to freely work in than actually writing and promoting the blog. Fortunately there are ways to effectively block spam as I will be showing later in this post.

There are tons of ways to block comment spam but for now I will only be going into three basic common ways to be on the winning side of the battle against spam.

Captcha

This is one of the most effective ways in protecting your blog against automatic comment submitters, although it might be seen as a hassle for people who’d genuinely like to comment, I’m sure they’d appreciate the clean environment. You can easily get a free captcha add-on from http://www.captcha.net/

Registration

Restricting comments only to registered members with e-mail verification has also proved to be good at fighting the war against spam. This approach should be used with caution because it would obviously reduce the volume of comments you receive just because people tend to not comment if they have to register and login every time they wish to post a comment.

Pre-moderation

A lot of blogs make use of this feature just because they’ve had enough of spam and is the most easy to implement (just a setting in most common bogging platforms). It’s the most effective way to combat spam but doesn’t really reduce the time it takes for a blogger to manage a blog since every comment has to be approved. The other problem with using the pre-moderation feature is it disallows readers to chat/argue lively unless you’re going to sit at your computer all day and night approving or denying comments.

As you might have noticed my preferred method of blocking spam is using captchas, if this isn’t good enough for you I urge you to subscribe to my RSS feed as I’ll be posting another way to manage spam without using captchas in the near future.