Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship » Blogging Tips

11 Places to Put Your Email Signup Form

Cory Miller — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:52:58 +0000

VR suggests 11 places to put your email form, including on your blog, and for that I think the most important place is on your single post pages (interior posts)

How to Transfer a Feed in Feedburner

Cory Miller — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:44:58 +0000

I’ve never had to transfer a feed from Feedburner until today … actually, I’m on the receiving end of a transfer, but anyway, I noticed that Feedburner now offers an easy “transfer” option.

Here’s what it looks like:

Source: Feedburner

4 Ways My Blogs Help My Business

Cory Miller — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:45:30 +0000

Chris Brogan, an extremely entertaining speaker at SOBCon08 in Chicago, asks How Does Your Blog Relate To Your Business? Since there were already 39 comments when I found his blog, I thought I’d give my answer here.

Answer: My blogs are one of my primary marketing tools for my business.

Through my blogs, and search engines, I seek to find new prospective customers for my various business products and services.

I don’t do any offline marketing (unless you count giving out business cards). So everything I do for my business is online.

And after almost two years of blogging, and learning about marketing online, search engine marketing, pay-per-click advertising and now, ecommerce best practices, I’ve found blogging to be one of the most cost effective (cheap) ways to help prospective customers to “know, like and trust” me …

Most business people want some kind of return on investment bottom-line figure, but it’s hard to put a number to what blogging does for my business. I do believe that if I stopped blogging, my business would not grow as fast …

Here’s four ways blogging helps my business:

Blogging puts a face to my business – I think people are more comfortable purchasing from someone they actually know, in some virtual way. Brian is a testament of this. His customers follow him almost like a fan club. And I think they buy because they like and trust him.
Blogging helps new customers find me, or vice versa — I’m thinking more in terms of finding new customers through the search engines here.
Blogging demonstrates my expertise in my business field — My hope is by blogging things like this post, those who have been hanging around my blog, but never bought from me or communicated with me, also see that I know what I’m talking about.
Blogging is my way of educational marketing — I try to be a practical blog writer and give readers something they can use in their businesses. I enjoy teaching through blogging. And my goal is to teach people how to use my products and services in a way that’s valuable to them even if they don’t buy from me though.

Upgrading WordPress with a Plugin

Cory Miller — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:52:40 +0000

I just upgraded (manually) this site to test out the new 2.5 version of WordPress. I’m totally in love with the new interface! (Here’s more detailed account of all the great new features in 2.5 here) It’s elegant and such an upgrade for usability.

Anyway, one of the new features with 2.5 is it includes links to the plugin repository in the Dashboard and I just found a great plugin called WordPress Automatic Upgrade.

It automates the upgrading process …. and I tried it out on a 2.3.3 version blog and it worked great. All I did was upload the plugin, activate it and start the process.

Upgrading can be scary the first time you do it (not with the plugin) … but if you’re really scared, go ahead and manually export and backup your blog before doing so (even though this plugin does it for you).

Use Photoshop Online for Free

Cory Miller — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:05:39 +0000

I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop, the market leader in image editing software, for well over 10 years and there are still things I haven’t learned yet. Now Adobe is offering their Adobe Photoshop Express version online for free.

This is great news for those of us (i.e. bloggers) who don’t want to plunk down a couple hundred dollars for the full Photoshop version.

I got a free account and did a quick test on the photo in this post of me and my new nephew H.D. Miller to see how it worked. It’s pretty neat. Professional or advanced users of Photoshop will of course hate this version because it lacks features and is slower. But for bloggers or home users, it’s great.

One feature I love is after I cropped the photo, I clicked on the Embed option and it automatically copied it to my clipboard …. then to put it in this post, I just pasted in the embed code.

Right there, it saved two pretty vital steps for most WP bloggers: cropping the photo and getting it into a post.

An Email Newsletter Template to Emulate

Cory Miller — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:49:48 +0000

I’ve been sending email newsletters for several years now and have to admit I haven’t perfected the skill of offering an email that maximizes click-thrus and actually gets read.

One of the most unique and effective examples I’ve seen of doing a blog-related email newsletter is from copywriter and internet marketer Michel Fortin. I can’t recall when he changed it to its current format, but it almost always gets my attention — for content and design — every time he sends it out.

Here’s an example of how it looks:

Michel’s email newsletter has several features that are quite distinctive:

You know who it’s coming from
The design is clean and crisp
The signature adds a personal touch
You have one link to click

Great work! What do you think? What techniques and tips can you offer?

How to Tweak Your Meta Tags on Your WordPress Blog

Cory Miller — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:40:42 +0000

In my new video tutorial package — 7 Steps to Optimizing Your WordPress Blog — I give the “best practices” I’ve used from more than a year and a half of blogging to garner more than 60 percent of my site’s traffic from the search engines (namely Google).

One “best practice” or step that I offer for free is this vide on How to Tweak Your Meta Tags on Your WordPress Blog.

Here’s how to do this and what I suggest …

To put in your new meta tags, go to Presentation / Theme Editor and then click on the header.php theme file.

In your Header theme file, you’ll want to add meta “description” and “keywords” for your site. (See the video for

Here’s the code you’ll want to include inside this header area, with sample content from my website:

Download the meta tag sample of the accompanying ebook tutorial here

Why These Meta Tags?

I suggest the Meta Tag Description because often Google and the search engines will use the Meta Tag Description in their search results for your site. Here is how it looks for this site in Google for the general keyword search of “cory miller”:

And the Meta Tag Keywords also show the search spiders what keywords you want your site to be included for … I think it’s just one more indicator and way to highlight the main keywords you want to be found for in the search engines. I would caution against overloading this meta tag with keywords that your blog doesn’t cover. Just pick out the main ones and highlight them here.

OK, that’s it … you can purchase the rest of the 7 Steps to Optimizing Your WordPress Blog here, which includes my QuickStart Guide to Using WordPres ebook as well, for an introductory price of $67.

How to Market Your Blog in Two Hours a Day

Cory Miller — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:53:34 +0000

One of my clients, Jonathan Fields, just asked a bunch of great bloggers (including me) this question for a post on blog marketing:

“If you had 2-hours a day to devote to no-cost, off-blog (even off-line) marketing for your blog, what would you do?”

I’m privileged to have my answer included among an all-star blogging cast that includes Darren Rowse, Penelope Trunk, Maki at DoshDosh, Chris Garrett and a bunch of others … you can also Digg it here.

Check out the full post here.

Why Your Blog Needs a Most Popular Posts List In the Sidebar

Cory Miller — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 13:51:08 +0000

As I’m continuing to see more and more “Most Popular” lists pop up on blog sidebars, I thought it was time to share my experience with them and give a couple of reasons why they are probably a good idea for your blog.

A while back, on my largest blog, I went into my stats and made a list of the most popular posts on that blog … then I simply listed them on the sidebar.

Of course, they weren’t all necessarily THE most popoular posts. I editorialized a bit and listed the ones that had the best content that would also showcase my blog’s topic.

[BTW, Although there are plugins for this, I wouldn't personally mess with them.]

Since I did that a few months ago, I’ve noticed those posts continue to be among the most read (and found via the search engines) on the blog. So when I went to redesign this blog (yet again), I realized that this feature would be one of the first things I added here …

Here are three benefits I’ve found to making a “Most Popular” post list on your blog’s sidebar:

It gives first-time guests a place to start – it gives those single posts visitors a roadmap to surf around your best content.
It highlights your best content — duh! And demonstrats what topics you write about.
It enhances search engine visibility – if you put those posts on the sidebar, you’ve given them site-wide link love. The spiders can help but notice that.

A neat alternate name for this list: SkellieWag calls this her “Reader Favorites.” And uses a graphic to link to her popular posts.

Four Questions with Maki from DoshDosh.com

Cory Miller — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:21:32 +0000

I’ve been reading Dosh Dosh, a site dedicated to helping you make money online, for a couple of months now and have been impressed by not only the practical advice I’ve gleaned off it, but also the style and quality of blog writing you can find there. So I emailed Maki a couple of questions to see if he’d share his expertise with you all.

Here’s the outstanding answers he sent to my questions:

1. You write consistently excellent titles … what quick advice can you give for helping business bloggers?

The title and copy you should use really depends on your specific topic and the voice needed. There is no guideline or template which is absolutely necessary. I would suggest focusing on creating titles which are descriptive and relevant to your main copy. Over selling in your titles can be a turnoff if your content doesn’t match what you’re promising ( i.e. don’t call an article an ‘ultimate guide’ if it isn’t comprehensive or value-packed). Last of all, mix it up and play around with your copy. Don’t use the same title formats all the time as they can get rather predictable or dull.

2. Follow-up, you write posts that are quick reads, scannable, and value-packed … advice?

Always write with the view that your audience might not be privy to the knowledge you have. Don’t assume that everyone has examined the same subject in equal depth or knows all the intricate details for an product or service. Always try to make your content easy to understand. This allows you to communicate your ideas effectively and content is all about communicating concepts and ideas to people who may or may not be familiar to them.

3. What one thing would you encourage a new business blogger to do?

Don’t sell your product or business aggressively. Instead sell the benefits of your product, business or service by writing about the industry/niche you are in. Build trust and offer value before extracting profits. Developing a strong reputation for your brand is more important than initially selling units or services. Aim to be regarded as an authority on a specific topic and naturally you will be able to increase the perceived value of your business and hence, your selling price.

4. Why should more small businesses be blogging?

Small businesses should blog because of several reasons. Firstly, a blog gives a small business a lot more search engine visibility and hence, possibly more targeted search engine traffic if you successfully rank for a variety of longtail and core keywords. Traffic converts into supporters and customers if you have an effective conversion model in place.

Secondly, a blog is a good platform to build one’s business brand by offering free information, tools or actively networking with bloggers within one’s niche. Sending out links and making friends or connections through blogging will eventually extend your business reach and reputation.

Lastly, a blog allows one to project a specific voice or quality. CEOs often have ghost writers maintain blogs for them because it humanizes management and evokes familiarity, both of which are qualities needed to build successful long term relationships with associates and customers.