If you’ve been reading my blog you know that a couple of weeks back I got involved with the Technorati Favorites Exchange meme. I thought it would be an interesting experiment in networking and traffic building. And getting into the Technorati Favorites Top 100 seemed possible.

So I did it. I spent a good part of a couple of days adding blogs to my Technorati Faves and then visiting their blogs and commenting so that they would know I added them and then would add me. Soon, I was faved by almost 200 bloggers and climbed to number 87 on the Top 100 list. A little more effort and I could have climbed another 20-30 slots (I’m about to drop off the list).

Overall, I’ve made the statement that I thought the meme was a waste of time – my time and the time of the people who read my blog. To you who read my blog regularly, once more, I’m sorry to have wasted your time. Please keep reading because I hope to turn this into a positive.

Did I gain from the meme? Sure I did – a bit of traffic and some readers. I’m happy about gaining the readers. Am I disgruntled at the results, as Richard Cunningham suggests? No. Not at all, actually. Do I think bloggers should meme-link? Yes, I do actually. First, however, I feel it’s important to be clear what we’re aiming for.

This is the point I feel is being missed…participating in memes should be something you do to serve your core blogging goal.

Let’s face it, memes are going to increase your reach, land you more traffic and potentially grow your readership. No question about it. And if constantly increasing reach, traffic and readership is the core goal of your blog, great – do every meme that comes your way. Personally, I have no problem with it, if that’s your goal.

But what if your goal is great content, engaging conversation and building relationships with your readers? Then does meme-linking serve your existing readers? Maybe, but maybe not. That’s what’s being missed by some of the comments I’ve seen around the Technorati Faves Exchange.

For instance, Gary Lee suggested, “I think it would be fair to mention how many backlinks you have also received from this meme just to show that their have been some benefits.” Likewise, Maki’s take was, “The fact that you’ve received 69 comments in the previous post is also not a waste of time.”

Both great points. But, they’re missing my point – the meme doesn’t serve my blogging goal – which is to create great content, engaging conversation and build relationships. Sure, it increases my traffic which may allow me some new readers. But it does so at the expense of my current readers. And since no where in my blogging goals do I mention getting new readers and increasing my traffic, I simply don’t feel that these types of meme-links are valuable for my blog. It seems, instead that I’m sacrificing my current readers to reach new ones. And I don’t think that’s necessary.

Of course, Maki’s point is a bit off in that only 1 of those 69 comments was to engage me in a conversation. The rest were just link hunters. That’s fine, I participated in the meme and expected that. But it isn’t the type of commenting I’m looking for. I’m looking for commenting that lead to rich conversation – such as in these three posts.

Mark Goodyear gets it with his comments, “Memes are fun, but typically they distract a blog from its thematic purpose” and “the best inbound links come from a carefully targeted market.” As does thepaperbull with his comment, “I wanted to know how many people favorited me because they valued my site / content.” And Ruhuel added in his comments, “I too prefer consistent traffic over superficial traffic.”

All of them speak closer to what I feel is being missed in all this – The most useful memes are those that benefit everyone involved and your readers first. Memes aimed at just increasing links and traffic simply don’t add value to my readers. So I’m not going to participate in them any longer. Memes, however, that do add value by being content focused – such as Ben Yoskovitz’s Ultimate Guide to Productivity and Mohit Singhania’s Be Original Project – I will continue to participate in – and have (respectively).

So Doris, gilda*su, and Ari, when you asked me about gaining new readers – of course I’m grateful. Not for the traffic nor the favorite links. What I’m grateful for is you – you as a reader and a commenter. As you can see from this post, I care deeply for the people who take the time to read my blog. And for those who comment and engage in the conversation. That’s why I put so much of time and all of myself into it.

And that’s why I don’t want to waste your time with writing about memes that are just about building my traffic. You deserve quality content from me, instead. And I trust in you that if you find value in my blog, you’ll not only continue to read, but you’ll get my feed, you’ll link to me from your blog and you’ll share my blog with others. That’s how I’ve built my traffic so far. No tricks. And I love the results.

Are there faster ways? Sure. I could do a lot to grow my traffic in ways that aren’t about my readers and my content. But I won’t do that – at least not any more. My blog goal is about creating conversation and building relationship and that’s what I’ll focus on.

Your thoughts?

Want to know the secrets that make Guy Kawasaki such a successful blogger? Here’s a 15 minute interview where he lays it all out. He even talks about how he’s passed Scoble in the Technorati rankings.

Guy’s his usual, controversial and honest self. And, there’s a nice tip or two. Take a look. Please view the video on Doug Karr’s site.

Guy Kawasaki on Blogging Evangelism

UPDATE: I intended to show the video on my site. But the producer insists on having password access to my blog in order to share it. While I’m sure that’s a fine policy, I couldn’t get the service to accept my password. So, just take a look on Doug’s site. I’m sure he won’t mind.

UPDATE: I am no longer participating in this meme.

We all want more traffic, right?

Well, I’ve been watching my friend Garry Conn participate in Dosh Dosh’s Ultimate Technorati Favorites Exchange. Gary has seen huge traffic increases. As have a number of other bloggers.
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Do you think of your consumers as clients or customers? I know I often use these terms interchangeably. Yet, I always think of customers as people who buy products. Since I don’t sell any products (yet), I always end up thinking of my consumers as clients.

But what’s the real difference?

I know there are a number of ways to look at this so let’s begin in the most obvious place, the dictionary. Dictionary.com defines each as:

• Client: a person or group that uses the professional advise or services of a lawyer, accountant, advertising agency, architect, etc.”
• Customer: a person who purchases goods or services from another; buyer; patron

Interesting. So by the dictionary’s definition, a client is a person who uses services while a customer is someone who purchases products or services. Does that then imply that clients are active users while customers are simply purchases – who may or may not use what they purchase?

So what would you rather have, clients or customers?

The goal of your website copy is to get your prospects to identify themselves in your business. You want to show them clearly that you understand their problems and can provide a unique and workable solution.

One way to do this is through testimonials and case studies. You know, something like this…

When Judy called me, her business was struggling, her website traffic was stalled and her newsletter list was all-but stagnant. I helped her see what she was doing wrong. I corrected those problems for her and now he business is thriving.

Sounds fine, right? My client needs to be rescued and I can save them from their peril.

I thought so too until I read Drew McClellan’s post Are We Playing the Wrong Role in Our Stories. Drew’s post changed my thoughts on how I approach case studies and testimonials. He suggests that when we tell out clients story we have the classic setup…

We have a hero, a problem/villain, a victim and a glorious solution.
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What do I get?

Every single person who visits your website or interacts with your business is asking this question. And most often, we’re answering them with, “if you do this you’ll get that.”

You find this way of thinking everywhere. Yet I say it goes against our true human nature. Yeah, sure, we want to rule and control our environment. But even that gets old. Think about the last argument you ‘won.’ Might have felt great for a little while, but didn’t you soon start to feel a bit empty inside, as though something got taken from you?

Now think of the last time you gave something to someone. Not just gave something, but gave them something they loved. Now go further in thinking about the last time you gave something to some that they loved openly without wanting or expecting anything in return – at all.

Didn’t that feel great? And do you remember how the feeling filled you up with excitement and warmth that stayed with you for a while?

That is THE secret to business success…giving. But not just giving, giving freely, openly without expecting anything in return. When you give like this, it’s like planting seeds fertile soil. With a little time, some sunshine and regular watering, that seed will product a tree that gives you fruit year in and year out.

So give. You’ll find it to be the most effective marketing approach you’ve ever used.

So, how do you give?

Last week I had the priviledge of speaking with blog consultant Mike Sansone of Converstations.com and BlogTalkRadio. Mike is one of the organizers of, and a speaker at, SOBCon07 this May in Chicago.

Mike and I talked for quite some time, covering many topics. There certainly were highlights I took away from our conversation.

But one comment Mike made to me stood out. At one point, when we were talking about how we found each other’s blogs, Mike said, “I saw your name come up constantly in blogs I read and comment on. I had to find out who this ‘Dawud Miracle’ was.” (note, not a direct quote)

This moment in our talk really stood out for me. Why? Because that’s exactly how I sign all my comments – Dawud Miracle.
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Like anything involving business, a blog should be part of an overall web-based business strategy. It should serve a purpose and that purpose should be clearly defined and understood. Moreover, if a business decides to blog, they should learn a bit about how to best use engage the blogosphere.

Lee Goff from GetUWired asked the question a while back, do you need a blog? He wrote:

Many small businesses are finding that a business blog is the best way to both establish a web presence and disseminate information to clients, customers and employees. …The best small business marketing blog allows a company to handle all kinds of dynamic information exchange internally and with the public.

Now his writing is a little dry for my taste – and he never really answers the question – but it did get me thinking…why do small businesses and service-oriented professionals need to be blogging? What do they gain? And what are they missing out on if they don’t blog?

On Friday I had a prospective client ask me this question, “What do you get from your blog?”

My answer was quick and certain…”I get a website that’s alive.” And that’s exactly what I think I’ve gained from blogging – a website that’s alive.

Static websites are just that – static. Most often for small businesses static translates to stagnant. Stagnant websites are rarely engaging to read, they don’t offer your prospects a way to interact with you, and they seldom truly display the type of service your clients get from you. Worse yet, the content is usually out-of-date because they’re often not easy to update.

So, in essence, static websites are often (but not always) dead. Even if they’re drawing business.

But blogs are alive. Like vegetables growing in the garden, they need sunlight, water and nourishment to grow and thrive. And when they do, they provide an endless potential to feed new clients into your business.

How is your blog alive…or, what do you get from your blog?Â

I get asked often…”How do I find topics to write about on my blog?” The answer is pretty simple…I use my feed reader.

What I’ve done is identified a number of topics that I want my blog to focus on. I then search for those topics in Google Blog Search. Once the search results come up, I subscribe to the RSS feed for that specific search. Now each time I update my feeds, I get an update of the most recent and relevant results of from a search for that topic.

This may not seem like such a big deal. But think of it this way…if I want to seach for 10 topics each day to write about, I would need to go to Google Blog Search, search for each topic, read through the results, click on interesting links to read about the post and then somehow capture the link for that post for future use. And, I’d have to do that 9 more times to search 10 topics.
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