I see it in my comment box and on other blogs enough that it’s in my consciousness. Here, I often just quickly edit the comment to add a live link because it’s quick and easy.

But it’s also quick and easy to show you how to create your own live link that you can use in the comment box on almost any blog. It’s easy to learn and only takes an extra moment to write. And what you get is a real, live link to wherever you’re referencing in your comment.

But one note before we go on. Just because you’re about to find out how to leave links in comments, please only due so when your comment truly warrants it. Don’t add your affiliate links in the comment box. And don’t pepper every comment with 3 self-promoting links back to your blog. Both of these are prime ways to turn off the blogger you’re leaving comments with. Likely, you’ll not end up in the comment box, but in the spam filter. You may even mean well, just remember that spam is in the eye of the blog owner.

That said, let’s get on to it.

All you need to know to create a live link in the comment box is a very small bit of HTML. So, are you ready? Here’s how you create a live text link with HTML:

<a href=”http://dmiracle.com”>link to Dawud’s blog</a>

And here’s what it will look like in the comment box:

link to Dawud’s blog

That’s all there is to it. Really. It’s that easy.

Just be sure of a few things and you’ll be fine:

1. Be sure to open your your HTML tag correctly. Put <a href=”your-url“> just before the first letter of the word or phrase you want to make into a link. All the syntax as displayed is important – the placement of the < >, the = and the quotes around your-url.
2. Be sure you’ve typed a (space) href correctly as show above. I’ve been writing HTML for more than 10 years and I often mistype href or don’t add the space between a & href.
3. Your linked text. What will display, as you see above, is the text just after your > and before the </a>. What you place in that position is the text that will carry the link.
4. Be sure to close your HTML tag correctly. Close your tag means after the last letter of the word or phrase you’re linking, be sure to add </a> exactly as it’s typed – the slash is important. If you don’t close the tag, all text after will be a link. Probably not something you want to do.

So just to review, the syntax for creating a link looks like this:

<a href=”your-full-url“>displayed text link</a>

That’s it. Now you should be able to add links to your comments whenever you like, easily, quickly and without trouble. Just be sure the syntax is correct before you submit your comment. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Also, one further note. Some blogware will not let you add HTML to your comments. So try it and if you get a message that HTML is not accepted, you’ll know. Trying it won’t hurt anything.

Have fun…

I don’t login. Which means, I don’t leave a comment. Which means, no conversation and little chance at building a relationship with that blogger.

I think this is a bad idea. So do others. Forcing people to login to your blog just so they can leave a comment is ridiculous.

Think about it for a moment… If you write a blog post, you want people to read it, right? Otherwise, why write it? And if you offer comments at all, you’re probably interested in getting some sort of feedback, right? Otherwise you’d be like Seth Godin and not do comments at all.

So why would you make it difficult for me to leave a comment on your blog? Why would you force me to register and login? All that does is setup a number of barriers between you and I; your post and my commentary. Your making me take extra time just so I can share my thoughts on something you wrote on your site. Where’s the benefit for me?

If you have a business blog, think about the message you’re sending. If you’re making it difficult for me to interact with you on your blog, how else might you make our interaction difficult? How important will I really be to you as a client if I’m not that important as a blog commenter?

As you can tell, I think it’s poor judgment to make commenters register and login. There’s really no benefit for the commenter. It’s bad enough they have to fill-in a form each time they leave a comment on my blog. But at least they have the freedom to include what they like.

I’ve ranted on about this, what do you think? Do you comment on sites that force you to register? Do you force your commenters to register? I’d love to know why. Maybe there’s a reason beyond what I’m looking at. Or maybe it’s just a bad idea. Let’s talk about it…

Whenever I have something on my mind, it listens. If I need to explore a business idea, it patiently let’s me fumble around until I get it. If I’m down, it picks me up. And if I’m feeling inflated, I know it will bring me back to earth.

I love my blog. It’s a life-long friend I can really trust. But should I date my blog? Won’t that mess everything up?

Some, like Rory Sullivan, Kevin Mulldoon, George Manty and Google’s Matt Cutts think dating your blog is a necessity. Rory’s opinion is that dating:

“…makes the material seem timeless.The problem is with the word “seem”. Removing the time stamp is a trick, a gimmick.”

Yet, there are some, like Steve Pavlina, Dan & Jennifer, and the folks at Freelance Switch, that feel it’s unnecessary to date your blog. Daniel Scocco quotes Darren Rowse, who recently stopped dating his Digital Photography School blog, as saying:

“If the content is timeless and not ‘newsy’ in nature I think that removing the timestamp from a blog is a very worthwhile thing to do.”

And Maki, of DoshDosh fame, has also removed in the same post is quoted as saying:

“I don’t really have a concrete reason why I removed the time stamp, except that it doesn’t make the blog posts look dated. Going without dates also affects your marketing potential. For instance, it might make it easier to promote material on social voting/bookmarking websites.”

If you take a look at DoshDosh you’ll see that Maki had decided to date his posts on his homepage only. He doesn’t date his individual posts, however.

Personally, I like Maki’s approach. I just wonder – is it fair to my blog to only date it on the homepage?

What do you think?

For the past few months I’ve been using Akismet with the Math Comment Spam Protection plugin. The usual number of comment spam I would get was between 25-50 daily, with almost no comments ending up in spam.

Then Lorelle suggested that I remove the Math Comment Spam Protection and install Spam Karma2 and Bad Behavior. It made sense. And since I deeply trust Lorelle’s judgment on anything WordPress, I did it.

But since changing, I’ve been bombed with spam comments. Just yesterday I got 1,400 spam comments caught by Akismet – and that doesn’t include the 800 that Bad Behavior says it caught.

What gives? Why am I all of sudden being bombarded with spam?

Lorelle told me, and I ultimately believe her, that the Math Comment Spam Protection didn’t work. So no fault of hers.

Yet this tidal wave of spam hit me when I took down Math Comment Spam Protection and installed Spam Karma2 and Bad Behavior?

Coincidence?

Have I set something wrong with Bad Behavior and/or Spam Karma2? Or did the Math Comment Spam Protection plugin really work for me?

What are your thoughts?

Have you seen a huge increase in comment spam this week?

Any great resources for Bad Behavior or Spam Karma2 setup?

Lorelle VanFossen, of course, writes Lorelle on WordPress (RSS) – one of the best resources for anything relating to WordPress. Need a plugin? Lorelle’s likely written about it. Need to solve a problem? Lorelle may have covered it. Want the latest news? Lorelle’s the one. She even sums it all up with her WordPress Wednesday column on Blog Hearld (RSS).

Lorelle’s done it all. Including make every blogging mistake possible. At least that’s what she said in her interview with Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips (RSS).

Daniel: What is the biggest blogging mistake you did?

Lorelle: Oh, honey, I’ve done them all. I’ve been doing this so long, I’ve done all the big mistakes. When I read through blog posts listing their blogging mistakes, I think, “Yep, did that one in 2001. Oh, that one, I did it big in 1998. Been there, done that in 2004. Won’t repeat that mistake of 1997.”

Is there just one big mistake? Nope. There are only big lessons that come from every mistake along the blogging path. I tend to focus on the lessons learned and not the screw-ups.

Lessons…that’s the perspective I love about Lorelle. Having spent some time with her at SOBCon07 back in May, it was easy to fall in love with her. She’s real, she’s honest and she doesn’t judge. And just like me, she has her opinions…

Daniel: How long should a blogger wait to monetize the blog?

Lorelle: I do not think bloggers should monetize their blogs. I think that people who want to get into the business of blogging must make a business plan on how they will use blogging for their business or as their business, thus creating a plan for monetizing their blogs.

But general bloggers? Why should your hobby make money? If you want to work your way towards professional blogging, then blog for a year or two to get a feel for blogging and make your business plan. Then move towards being a professional blogger.

I couldn’t agree more. Too many bloggers are watching what the business bloggers are doing and think about the “easy money” they could be making off their blogs. But it’s not easy money. It’s hard work.

But so is blogging in general. Some days it’s easy, some it’s hard. Everyday it’s effort. That’s why many blogs aren’t successful.
And that’s what I love about Lorelle, she tells it like it is. She doesn’t sugar coat it. She’s honest about the ups and downs. That why I recommend that everyone read her new book, Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging.

I’ve read it three times cover to cover and it’s full of great advice. It’s literally the first blogging book I’ve read that’s really about blogging. Most blog books spend way too much time covering blog platforms or why to blog. Authors sometimes spend 1/2 to 3/4 of a book getting to the meat.

Blogging Tips is different in that Lorelle assumes you’ll get that type of information elsewhere. Instead, she gets right into meat. I highly recommend her book (and I’m not getting an affiliate kickback to say that).

I also really enjoyed Adii’s interview with Lorelle where they talk a bit more WordPress.

You know, it’s also kind of challenging to find photos of Lorelle. I snagged one with her and David Dalka (he’s on the right, I’m on the left and Lorelle is between us) when we were at SOBCon.

The question is, how importat is the .com? Should you get closetowhatIwant.com or should you get exactlywhatIwant.net or even mybusinessname.biz?

Alex King has been facing this exactly question as he renames his business from King Design to Crowd Favorite. Of course, he couldn’t wrestle crowdfavorite.com away from its current owner. So he came up with either using crowdfavorite.net or crowdfave.com.

Which would you choose? And why?

Alex polled his readers and got mixed feedback with crowdfavorite.net winning out by a small margin. Which was good because he had already decided to use crowdfavorite.net. But as he said it, “the response to crowdfave.com has gotten my attention. This decision is holding up a number of things, but I want to make sure I’ve thought it through completely.”

Personally, I’ve always held the position that the .com was ultimately better. And unless you really couldn’t find one you like, you should always choose a .com.

A couple of the comments Alex got made me think about this position, though. Brian Warren of Be Good Not Bad suggested:

…i’d rather have a .net domain and have it be the name of my company than have a .com and have it not.

Others had similar feedback. And there’s some great advice “out there” on selecting a domain name:

• @ Chrisg: Better Blog Branding: What’s in a Name?
• @ DomainName: Quick Tips on Choosing a Domain Name
• @ Dosh Dosh: 5 Easy Steps to Choose a Domain Name for Your Niche Blog
• @ Quick Spout: How to Choose A Brandable Domain Name
• @ Can I Make Big Money Online: How to Pick the Right Domain Name for Your Blog

But what do you think? Is a .com the only way to go? Or does the extention matter that much today?

He warned that the rush to make webpages more dynamic often meant users were badly served.

He said sites peppered with personalisation tools were in danger of resembling the “glossy but useless” sites at the height of the dotcom boom.

I’m with David Armano, I agree and disagree at the same time. I think that Web 2.0 sometimes sacrifices good website usability and design for attractive graphics and dynamic effects.

Yet, the trend I see with Web 2.0 designs is that they’re often much cleaner and leaner than most current websites.

Many have opinions on what Mr Nielson had to say:

• Jakob’s Rule for Web 2.0: KISS
• Jakob Needs A Makeover; And A ‘Fun’ Gene Implant
• A Quick Comment on Web 2.0 and Jakob Nielsen
• Web 2.0 Bad for Websites?
• Jakob Nielsen vs. Web 2.0

What do you think? Is Web 2.0 good or bad for websites and website users?

Of course I could make it easier for you to find a photo of me on my blog (that’s coming soon, btw). So when my good friend David Airey started his Face Behind the Blog Collection, I knew I wanted to join in.

David writes:

Putting a face to the name of someone you haven’t met helps recognition and adds a more personal feel to your conversations.

What photograph shows you in a light we don’t often see through your blog?

A few others have joined in so far.

• Gayla at Mom Gadget
• Char at Essential Keystrokes
• Robyn at Practical Blogging
• Paul at Reflections
• Rob at 2Dolphins
• Zep at The In-Sect
• Ingo at Stixster
• Stevie at Lost In Cyberspace
• The Paper Bull

So now it’s my turn. Below I’ve placed a few photos of me, my wife and my kids. I figure since nothing about me is complete without my family, you should meet them as well.

That’s us this past Christmas (2006). Clockwise from top left: My wife, Sabira; me; my 3-year-old daughter A’esha; and my 1 year-old son Ahmed.

Sabira and I married after knowing each other three weeks. The night we met it took about 30 minutes for us both to realize we’d spend the rest of our life together.

If you’re wondering about the garb, I’ve been seriously studying Sufism since 1997. It’s quite literally the foundation of my life. But that’s a bit of story.

This is Sabira and I at Bryce Canyon, UT in January 2003, a few months after we married. It was cold in Bryce that time of year. But we we pretty much had the park to ourselves.

Here Sabira and I are shortly after moving from Angwin, CA to Chelsea, MI in the spring of 2003. Moved, bought a house, gutted it and began rebuilding – until A’esha decided she wanted to join us.

Here’s me beginning a backpacking trip the summer of 2003. Since 1992, I’ve spent more than 500 nights in the backcountry all over the U.S. and Canada. I’m also a sea kayaker, mountaineer, and have ice climbed. Yeah, I used to be in much better shape.

Here’s A’esha a few days after her birth in December 2003. She was born in our home with two amazing midwives. My wife was incredible.

And here she is just a week ago (almost 3 1/2). Gosh they grow up quickly.

Ahmed (and A’esha) shortly after his birth in March 2006. He was also born at home – in pool. The water birth was an incredible experience for Sabira. A’esha holding him isn’t a rare sight – even today.

And here’s Ahmed just a few weeks ago at 13 months. He laughs a ton, is walking and more than anything just loves to follow his sister around. And unlike A’esha, I’m the only one who can get him to sleep at night.

There is one more family member I don’t have a photo of yet. We’re four months pregnant. We won’t get an ultrasound nor will we find out the sex of the baby beforehand. We’ll just wait to see what surprise is waiting for us in November. Be sure you’ll hear about it.

So you now know a bit more about me and you’ve ‘met’ my family. I’m a very hands-on dad, which can make working from home difficult at times. But I love it. I love being able to have lunch with my kids or watch them run around in the back yard while I work.

Now I want to know more about you. Please join in the conversation, ask me questions or tell me how cute my kids are (that never gets old). But ask away. I’ll tell you anything I can.

And I’m also going to tag a few others. You can go to David’s blog to see the details of how to post for The Face Behind the Blog. So I’m tagging:

• Liz Strauss from successful-blog.com
• Dave Olson from daveolson.ca
• Adam Kayce from monkatwork.com
• Edward Mills from evolvingtimes.com
• Wendy Piersall from emomsathome.com
• Chris Cree from SuccessCREEations.com
• Phil Gerbyshak from makeitgreat.typepad.com
• Easton Ellsworth from businessblogwire.com
• Tony D. Clark from successfromthenest.com
• Mark Goodyear from goodwordediting.com
• Kammie Kobyleski from passionmeetspurpose.com
• Lisa Gates from designyourwritinglife.com
• Ben Yoskovitz from instigatorblog.com
• Jesse Peterson from gitrsblog.us
• Jonathan-C Phillips from smartwealthyrich.com
• Randa Clay from randaclay.com
• Armen from iffect.net

And if anyone else wants to join in, please, feel free.

Learn:

• How Nike sells 2 pieces of cotton rubber and leather to people for $125.
• How your business can be revolutionary
• How to let a thousand flowers bloom
• Adding the big stones first

Enjoy…

What is popuri.us? It’s a single site where you can check a number of your blog’s rankings and popularity stats, including:

• Google Pagerank – Google Pagerank and the Prediction Tool
• Alexa Rank
• Compete Rank
• Quantcast Rank
• Google Backlinks
• Yahoo! Backlinks
• Live Search Backlinks
• Technorati inbound links
• del.icio.us bookmarks
• Bloglines subscribers

I used it and it ranked everything accurately as I know it. If nothing else, I got a bunch of information about the popularity of my blog with a simple click. Not bad. Useful to some degree.

What might be more useful is the popuri.us widget that can display live stats on your blog. I’m probably not going to use it just because I don’t want to add any clutter to my blog. But it could useful for others.

But I’ve always wondered if Google is always the best option.

Well Phil Bradley has compiled a list of what he calls Finding What You Need With The Best Search Engines. I’ve looked over the list and found the usuals like Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Live Search for keyword searches.

But there’s some other gems in the list. Like using Encarta and Answers.com for facts searching or GooFresh for new additions to Google. KartOO, of course, gives some beautiful, visual search results (try it if you haven’t) and can be fun to use. I’d never seen Quintura before, but I can see its usefulness. It displays search results with a tag could of similar search keywords.

There’s lots of good stuff on his list. Much you’ve probably seen but some I’m sure you haven’t. So take a look, and let me know what gems you find.

By the way, he plans to continue updating this list on a regular basis. Maybe this is a resource to bookmark.

I have a number of processes that help me keep a stable and productive workflow. Yet I’m always looking for better and more efficient ways to run my business.

So is Ben Yoskovitz. But he wants to help all of us with our productivity. That’s why he’s instigated (sorry Ben, couldn’t resist) the Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project Meme.

Ben kicked it off by tagging Alister Cameron, Adam Kayce, Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Andrew Wee, David Armano, Tony Clark, Mike Sansone and Chris Cree. As of tonight, Adam and Andrew have responded with some solid tips. I’d love to hear from everyone else Ben’s tagged.

You’re probably wondering how did I get here then? Well, Adam tagged me along with Dave Schoof, Char, Chris Garrett, and Karin H. H. Each should have some great feedback.

So are you ready to hear one of the ways I stay highly productive?

Focus. No, not you – if you’re reading you’re focused enough. My productivity tip is focus. For every 60 minutes of the workday, I stay micro focused for 50 minutes. Then I get out of my chair, away from my computer and out of my office for 8 minutes (give or take). The remaining two minutes I settle back down in my chair, look over my next todos and look at what I can accomplish in the next 50 minutes. Then I’m off to the races again.

During my 50 minutes of focus, I do nothing except what is on my todo list. If I’m writing code, I code for 50 minutes. If I’m returning phone calls, I do that for 50 minutes. If I’m writing a blog post, I do that for only 50 minutes. I keep a timer running in the background with an alarm so I don’t have to watch the clock.

This sounds similar to what Ben suggested about working in bursts. I take a bit different approach then being single tasked for a length of time. For me it’s all about how much I can get done in 50 minutes. Like Ben, I stay focused to one task at a time. But if I complete that task in under 50 minutes, I move on to the next task that needs to be done. Sometimes I can get dozens of tasks done in 50 minutes. Sometimes, like with coding and styling a website, I may work an entire day at 50 minute intervals. They key, for me, is in working uninterrupted for 50 minutes.

Also, during the 50 minutes I don’t answer the phone, I shut down my email client and turn off my feed reader. I minimize all programs that don’t directly relate to my task at hand. Not answering the phone and shutting down my mail client are TWO MAJOR KEYS to making this work.

So when do I answer email or return phone calls? Well, that happens in its own 50 minute block. As does scheduling coaching and consulting sessions with clients. I just don’t do these things during a 50 minute block where they’re not included.

One other trick to this…you have to walk away for the 8 minutes. Regardless of how little or much you’ve gotten done, stop at 50 minutes. Walk away. And then come back. That short break every hour has helped me stay even more focused during my 50 minute blocks. And, I find that I’m more refreshed at the end of the day.

So that’s it. This process has probably increased my productivity two fold, minimum. Probably more.

To summarize…

1. Begin with a clear task list for the day based on all the projects you have going on (I’ll let someone else tackle creating task lists)
2. Work through your task list in 50 minute intervals. Remain highly focused on the one task you’re working on.
3. If you complete your task in less time, move on to the next one. If not, stop at 50 minutes anyhow and pick up where you left off in the next interval.
4. At the end of 50 minutes – stop what you’re working on. Get away from your work, leave your computer/office for 8 minutes. Get some water, do something completely unrelated to work. Breathe…
5. After 8 minutes (or so) return to your office and spend the remaining two minutes preparing for the next 50 minute interval.
6. Repeat.

So now it’s time for me to tag some folks I’d love to hear from. I’m tagging Dave Taylor, Liz Strauss, David Airey, Ted Demopolous, Andy Beard, Mike Sansone (again), Edward Mills, Drew McLellan, Valeria Maltoni, Sarah Lewis, Doug Karr, Easton Ellsworth, Aaron Potts, and David Armano.

I’d love to hear feedback on anyone else who’s using or trying this method of working. It’s worked great for me.

I’d also love to hear your ideas for improving on it or adding to it with other productivity tips. So please, share your thoughts, ideas and tips.

And remember to visit Ben, Wendy Piersall, Kathie Thomas, Harrison Loke, Ploop, Engtech, Lorraine Pirihi, Janet Barclay – who have already shared their gems for productivity.

In the meantime, here is the best example of explaining RSS that I’ve seen. Thank you to Common Craft for creating this video. And thanks to Andy Beal, David Peralty, Amit Agarwal, Alex Raiano, and Brand Linder for putting this in front of me enough times that I couldn’t help but watch it and share it.

I had been avoiding it. So what changed my mind? First it was reminding me by showing up in my reader in a few places. So I took at look at ALA’s survey page and got the answser for me…

People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?

So get over there and take it. Whatever website design has given you, I’m sure you can spare 10 minutes to give back to it.

Need one more motivation?

Selected participants, chosen by random drawing, will win one free ticket to An Event Apart event held in the continental U.S.; an Apple 30GB video iPod, an Event Apart jump drive, or a funky A List Apart T-shirt.

But when I look at each, individual event – each day or moment – I’ve failed far more than I’ve succeeded. I mean, just something simple like not wanting to worry – I’ve failed at that a number of times today alone.

So what is failure? In general, failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective. Basically, failure means having things not turn out the way you want them too.

Is that a bad thing? I think not. As a matter of fact, I think it’s quite necessary.

John Berger once said, “At times failure is very necessary for the artist. It reminds him that failure is not the ultimate disaster. And this reminder liberates him from the mean fussing of perfectionism.”

Perfection is often what gets in the way of success. When we look only to perfection, we often lock in on a specific result being the ‘perfect’ one. Yet that means we’re not looking beyond what we already know. Hence, we can’t learn or grow, either in our business or our personal lives.

Phil Gerbyshak had a great quote on his blog yesterday, from Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” So change is the key to survival, to growth, to success. But there is no change if we don’t fail.

So let’s all fail more. Then perhaps we can find the success that Winston Churchill once described as, “…going from failure to failure without losing enthusiam.

Do you strive to much for one result? Why? Or have you been liberated by failure? How? I’d like to know so I can learn and grow.

Yet, as SOBCon07 gets closer, I can’t help but be excited. I going to get to rub elbows with 250 other bloggers – a number of whom I’ve already met in the blogosphere. So it’s going to be great to meet up.

And the presenters…come on. Some really great bloggers, and even better people. Phil Gerbyshak, Liz Strauss, David Armano, Mike Sansone, Drew McLellan, Mike Wagner, Terry Starbucker, Rodney Rumford, Ben Yoskovitz, Chris Cree, Scott Rafer, Diego Orjuela, Vernon Lun and Wendy Piersall are all top-notch. Throw in Andy Sernovitz, who literally wrote the book on Word of Mouth Marketing and you’ve got one great conference.

But there’s more to it. SOBCon07 is going to a different kind of conference. Liz has said again and again that they want the conference to be about the conversation. That’s right, the presenters are going to start the conversation and the attendees will pick it up and carry it along. Sounds like blogging, huh?

And look at some of the bloggers who are attending…

Sandra Renshaw Brad Shorr Timothy Johnson Tammy Lenski John Yedinak Joe Hauckes Tim Draayer Jeremy Geelan Carolyn Manning Sheila Scarborough Steve Farber Dawud Miracle (that’s me) Doug Mitchell Jeff O’Hara Dave Schoof Jamy Shiels Adam Steen Hannah Steen Chris Thilk Barry Zweibel Eric Bingen Ellen Moore Cord Silverstein Jean-Patrick Smith James Walton Sharan Tash Vernon Lun Tony Lee Paul Mangalik Scott Desgrosseilliers Mark Murrell Muhammed Saleem Kammie Kobyleski Easton Ellsworth Mark Goodyear Ann Michael Kent Blumberg Ashley Cecil Robert Hruzek Sabu N G Mazur Krystyna Lisa Gates Franke James Chris Brown Troy Worman Karen Putz Chelsea Vincent Jesse Petersen Terry Mapes Andy Brudtkuhl Premchand Kallan Lucia Mancuso Peter Flaschner Derrick Sorles Michael Snell Ella Wilson Mike Rohde Ayush Agarwal Thomas Clifford

The whole event is going to be a dynamic, open conversation. Not a bunch of lectures. But an open, free-flowing conversation all centered around taking your blog to the next level. How can you miss that?

Well don’t! Register today and join the conversation.

And if you’re coming, leave me a comment. I’d love to have a chance to get to know you before I come.

A few days ago, Randa Clay had the great idea of creating a badge. Great idea, I thought. Why didn’t I think of that? Well, the great thing is, she has.

What does nofollow do?
What it was supposed to do is greatly reduce comment spam. We all know that didn’t work. What it does do is tell Google bots, and other search engines bots, not to follow links in your comments. That means, when someone posts a comment, they get no Google Juice. I don’t feel that’s right. It’s sort of like thanking your clients by cutting off their hand (okay, maybe not that extreme).

Why should we remove it?
First, it doesn’t work to reduce comment spam. Or if it does, it’s quite minimal. Second, by removing it, you reward your commenters with link love. And link love is good. I’m all for spreading as much link love as I can.

Why the U Comment, I Follow Badge?
It’s one way to let your readers know that when they leave comments, they’re going to get link love. Sure, you can write a few post about it and even remind readers from time to time. But many will not see it. But the badge, that stays and your readers can see it.

More and more bloggers are removing nofollow every day. So what are you waiting for? Hop on over to Randa’s blog and get yourself a nofollow badge.

And if you still have nofollow on your comments, take it off, learn how. Using WordPress plugins, it’s easy. I’ve even found how to do it in TypePad – it’s just a bit complicated and would one long post. You can also remove it Blogger and Movable Type.

Let me know when you’ve removed nofollow from your comments. If you need help, let me know. And please, keep spreading the word.

But why? Why do we think that we need to tell our readers to click here?

I guess we believe that click here will make it clear to our readers that this is a link and that behind the click here link is something they want to read. But does it? Really?

Consider this:

To find out more about my web development services, click here.

versus

Find out more about my web development services.

Which link has more clarity about where the link will take you? In the second example, is there any question that when you click web development services you’re going to end up reading about web development services?

But click here – where does that lead? How can I be certain that if I click click here I’m going to end up reading about web development services? I guess I can assume that click here relates to the text just before it. But obviously I can’t be as certain about where click here will take me as I can with the second example. This is bad for your readers and worse for your business.

Perhaps seeing one example doesn’t make it clear enough. But consider seeing click here 2-3 times on every page of content on a website. This isn’t rare. So after a while, what does click here mean to your reader? Heck, what does click here mean on this post?

The better approach is to use contextual link text to clearly tell your readers where they’re going to end up when they click your links.

So is this only about your readers? Of course not. Everyone wants better search engine rankings, right? Well consider that Google gives a little more weight to linked text than to nonlinked text. That means you have an opportunity with your text links to be use keywords (there’s my free SEO tip of the week).

Taking that a step further, when I searched Google for click here this morning, I got back 1.04 billion (with a ‘b’) search results. Every one of those instances are likely sites using click here links.

One other consideration for not using click here is accessibility. Accessibility looks at how the web can be easier to use for people who are impaired in some way. Click here in a braille or aural web browser means very little to the site reader.
The bottom line is you want to link with words that best describe the content you’re linking too.

By the way, to illustrate the point further, every ‘click here‘ link on this post goes to a different location. So feel free to click here.

I’d love to hear what you think.

Guy’s perspective the core of a successful businesses is to make meaning. He says, “…those companies that are fundamentally founded to change the world, to make the world a better place, to make meaning are the companies that make a difference. They are the companies to succeed. My naive and romantic belief is that if you make meaning you will probably make money. But if you set out to make money you probably won’t make meaning and you won’t make money.”

I happen to agree with Guy on this point. It’s something my good friend Adam Kayce and I were just talking about this morning.

Take a look at this short (two and a half minutes) video of Guy talking about the three ways to make meaning with your business.

He cites the three ways as to make meaning as:

1. Increase the quality of life
2. Right a wrong
3. Prevent the end of something good

I’ve been thinking about this all morning in relation to where my business is now AND where my business is heading. Now I’m looking at my business from the stand point of all three points.

How about you? Does you business make meaning? How? Could it do more?

All the work I’ve ever done has been about caring for people and people’s needs. When I was a waiter, I took care of people’s dining experience. When I was buyer at a large outdoor clothing store, I brought in the products my customers most wanted. As a spiritual teacher and healer, I cared about the unveiling of my client’s authentic self. And even as a web designer and web-based business developer, my cares have been about helping my clients understand how to use the web to build their business.

It hasn’t matter. At every turn of my life my work has been about helping people. And that’s certainly extended deep into my personal life as well.

So why hide any more…I care about people. Really, I care about you. I care about your life, your well-being, your family and your business. I care enough to help you overcome your ‘problems’ and help you create success in all parts of your life. I can’t help it, it’s just who I am.

Even though I’m identified as a web developer and business coach, I do so much more. The only problem is I’m not talking about it with you until you become my client. That’s where I’m evolving. In the coming weeks, I’m going to rewrite my entire website services content to say more about what it is I actually do, how I do it and what you can gain from working with me.

It’s time to be open about what I offer my clients. It’s time I fully express who I am, what I do and how I can really help you develop your business.

So are you fully expressed in your business? How? And if not, what do you need to do to fully express yourself in your business?