Today is the first day of Daylight Saving Time here in the US. I did a little research about the practice of Daylight Saving Time around the world. It starts today for most of the countries who participate west of the Atlantic in the northern hemisphere. It spreads east of the Atlantic in a couple weeks, and it ends in about a month for our friends south of the Equator. I still get amused when I hear people, especially politicians in the government, say that they are adding an hour of daylight every year by doing this, as if they could actually affect the rotation of our planet by making us all get up an hour earlier.
We have made it through another week and I want to share some of the posts that I have read recently from other bloggers. You may have noticed in the title that I used the French word for four, “quatre.” I did the same last time with the Spanish word for three, “tres.” I figured I would do something slightly more interesting than just call this a Weekend Roundup every week.
I didn’t post a roundup last weekend because I was working on something else (more on that later) so I will add a couple more posts, because I was still visiting and reading other blogs. So without any further ado…
Are You Ignoring Existing Customers?
If you are running a small business then you know how important it is to be acquiring new customers to grow your business, right? But what about your existing customers? Are you taking care of them too? In the first post this weekend, Kurt Kummerer talks about the importance of customer retention. He mentions several statistics, one of which is that 80% of your future profits will come from 20% of your existing customers. If that isn’t a compelling reason to give your current customers some attention then I don’t know what is.
Check out what Kurt has to say about serving your current customers in Customer Retention Strategies For Your Business
How to Turn Visitors into Prospects
Does your website get enough traffic but, for some reason, they don’t stay? There is so much information available online and so many places where you can find similar information. You’re probably not the only person on the internet offering what you have to offer. So, how do you get people to realize that you are the best?
In the next post Kim Willis shares eight strategies to get your website visitors to stick around longer and engage more with your content so that they can become your prospects and customers. Read about it in 8 Ways to Convert Uncommitted Lookers Into Hot Prospects Online.
Twitter Management
Twitter management? Is there really such a thing? Spending time on Twitter can be a bit overwhelming if you follow more than a few people. There is so much going, messages constantly coming into your feed, direct messages, replying to mentions, new followers. It never ends. You can easily lose hours on Twitter if you don’t have a plan for how you spend your time there.
That’s where Ana Hoffman comes in with one of her recent posts. She surveys several top influencers on Twitter about how they spend their time on Twitter then shares her own daily twitter routine and some tools to that the pros use to manage Twitter. Check it all out in How to Manage Twitter Like a Pro.
An Unusual Source for Blog Inspiration
Willena Flewelling has an interesting source to go to for blog inspiration, for both blogging ideas and for ways to improve the effectiveness of your blog. She picks up magazines and sees what they do. Why not? After all, they’ve been doing essentially the same thing that bloggers are doing for much, much longer, and with less direct interaction with their readers.
Read more about what you can learn from a magazine by reading Willena’s blog post: Use a Magazine to Improve Your Blog.
Republishing Your Content on Medium
You’ve heard that having duplicate content is a bad thing, right? Google will penalize you for it, or at least that’s what you’ve heard before. Chelsea Baldwin explains why that isn’t really true. Then she goes on to explain why you might want to consider syndicating your blog post to other content sites, in this case she recommends Medium. She also walks you through how to set up your free account on Medium and publish your first syndicated article.
I’m going to try it out and see how it works, so I just created my account. You can find me on Medium by searching for Ben Carter and selecting the one with the willow tree like the one at the top of this page. Read about what Chelsea has to say about duplicate content, syndication and Medium – How to Get More Traffic from Every Post by Republishing on Medium.
Life By Default
The last post this weekend is by Marquita Herald where she talks about the problems with living by default. Just accepting everything as it comes to you instead of creating a life that you want to live leads to a lot of dissatisfaction. As the quote in the picture says, “once you settle for less, you always will.” Read more by checking out what Marquita has to say in The Real Problem With Living Life By Default.
Some of My Latest Posts
On my internet/network marketing blog I wrote a longer post last week about why and how to build an online presence. It was based on an outline that I wrote for an interview that I was going to do for the network marketing company that I work with. The interview did take place but they decided to go in a different direction, so I used the talking points to create a good blog post. Read more about How to Build an Online Presence.
There are many kinds of inserts to put in your shoes for a variety of reason. Have you every heard of using magnetic insoles in your shoes? I have had them in my shoes for most of the past ten years and I won’t go far in a pair of shoes without them. Find out about magnetic insoles in What Are the Benefits of Magnetic Insoles.
I think language is very important in personal development and I do my best to be very careful to only use words that are supportive. With that in mind, I wrote a about the difference between being content and being happy. Do you know the difference between the two words? See if you agree with me about Being Content versus Being Happy.
Finally, I wrote a post a few days ago to share a project that I have been working on and off on over the past year and a half. I think the best way to learn about how something works, and to truly appreciate it, is to build it yourself. With that in mind, I decided to build my own opt-in form and email autoresponder as a WordPress plugin. It’s a crazy project but when it is done I will understand a lot more about how WordPress works and what you need to know about crafting emails for business purposes, and I’m going to share it all as I figure it out. Read the first installment here: How To Build An Opt-in Email Autoresponder.
Now It’s Your Turn
As always, I’d love to read your thoughts about the articles that I have read, and a few that I’ve written, in the past two weeks. Even more, I’d love to see what you are reading, or writing, so that I can maybe share it in the future. Let me know in a comment below.
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