Comments on: How to Win Friends and Influence People

By: alfon

alfon — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:08:33 +0000

this article very usefull for anybody that want to build a website. And about great content off course this is one option that they have think about.
as my experience. have a great content it enough without more traffic and how to get the traffic, we have to learn and pratice seo, and lucky factor its not enough we need serious work. by the way this article is very helpfull for me too.

i will save yout link for my next visit. thank for sharing :)

By: Paul Handover

Paul Handover — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:41:38 +0000

Alex, for what it is worth, I had a peek at your blog site and first impressions were that it was far too textual and rather visually off-putting. I wonder if others agree. Being old (I’m heading up to 65 years young) doesn’t mean that we don’t crave visual stimulation.
I started my own blog 2 days ago using a standard template from WordPress (Baseline Scenario also use WordPress). Impressed with the themes and flexibility offered. In the end, the clean style that BS use won over the day for me. Just a few thoughts, Paul

By: Dominic J

Dominic J — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:52:40 +0000

I’m one of those who found you through your bout of “luck”. However, thanks to your great articles, I still come back (although I haven’t been commenting as much as I used to). Yours is nowadays one of 4 economics blogs I find time for (Krugman, Mankiw and DeLong being the others).
Sadly, my comments here are a reflection of my own posting (ie not much of late – but I will return).

By: Jay (market folly)

Jay (market folly) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:49:16 +0000

Great information here & I’d also like to harp on the fact that interacting with the ‘blog’ community is key. Post on others blogs, email them, post your opinion on their pieces, elaborate on some of their topics, get a dialogue started for co-op projects, etc. It’s a great community out there and the main thing is to just put yourself out there and make the effort.

I’m a firm believer that if you put out useful or niche content, someone will notice it and will pass it on. It almost becomes a self-fulfilling cycle. However, you just have to take that first step and volunteer it. If no one out there is really filling a topic you’re an expert on, that’s an immediate niche for you to fall into.

By the way, pleased to make the acquaintance, I’m Jay from http://www.marketfolly.com where we track hedge fund portfolios and post up some financial market commentary as well. Me commenting here is the perfect illustration of what one can do to reach out and to expand the community. Thanks for your posts!

Jay

By: Philip H

Philip H — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:08:45 +0000

And make sure to follow a few rules while you are at it . . . . Thanks for the opportunity to articulate one of my pet peeves.

By: Joshua M Brown

Joshua M Brown — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:38:26 +0000

you missed one other key piece of advice…be the wittiest SOB in your niche…lol

good post, tons of great advice here

The Reformed Broker

By: Rolfe Winkler

Rolfe Winkler — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:46:55 +0000

James….thanks for another great post. One bit of color I would add. I agree that blogroll links aren’t the best way to drive direct traffic, but they are a great way to boost Google pagerank.

For instance, did you know BaselineScenario.com has a blowout ranking of 8 out of 10? That ranks you near NYT.com, which is 9/10, and above Drudge, which gets a 7. Anything above five is very good for a blog.

(If you want to see the pagerank of any site you visit, and you use Firefox, I recommend downloading “SearchStatus” add-on)

Higher pagerank means Google gives you more credit for being an expert regarding the keywords discussed on your site, so you will appear more prominently in a search for “TARP warrants,” for instance than a blog with a pagerank of 5.

The best way to build pagerank is to get links from other, highly ranked pages.

Blogrolls aren’t great at driving direct traffic, but they ARE great at helping boost search engine traffic.

Keep up the great work!

-RW

By: Jp

Jp — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:09:17 +0000

being a blogger myself, i have learnt over the past two years that traffic can eventuate in predominately two forms – the first is writing quality content reiterated by James. If popular, this will lead you to a diverse range of traffic sources, of which, fellow bloggers will form a significant portion of your traffic source. The second is essentially ‘organized manipulation’ which is SEO. For those who don’t know what SEO is (it stands for Search engine optimization), there are numerous websites, books and bloggers that can fill you in on the details but in essence, it is the art of writing your content to get ranked in search engines – which these days is a monopoly of google. Write for google and write for the world. … Just a thought.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:54:46 +0000

It’s like buying a yacht, if you have to ask how to do it….you can’t.

By: CB

CB — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:33:11 +0000

More power to you bloggers out there as thoughtful posts and comments are always appreciated. As a reader and only occasional commenter, I can’t conceive of the amount of time and effort that must go into what you do, let alone the pressure to come up with material on a frequent and never-ending basis.

As a reader only, the content gets overwhelming so concise writing on a blog is a must for me to stick with one and that’s what would make me think twice about removing one with my occasional culls.

A feeling of being indispensable to readers is a risk of blogging. Just want to say to all, don’t let it drive you nuts. Limit the stress if it gets overwhelming. Take a good walk daily to get a break from hearing yourself think! Readers may not want to lose you, but you don’t want to lose you even more! :)

By: Patty

Patty — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:59:21 +0000

Alex, maybe the physician’s group you speak of is a niche group, but there many consumers out here who are dying to find physicians who care about end-of-life and palliative care. Perhaps you could get AARP to run a little story about what you’re doing and mention your blog. I bet that would stir things up…:-)

By: Stefan

Stefan — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:52:55 +0000

Humility, balance, intelligence, thoughtful prose. That’s why your readership is loyal. Personally, I find the blogrolls at Calculated Risk and economistsview worthwhile. When you get tired of economics and seek diverting science and art, the blogroll at bibliodyssey is world-class, one of the very best.

By: Bayard

Bayard — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:44:06 +0000

I just have one thing to say. I find that about 80# of what you and Simon have to say to be interesting, and usually significantly different from other somewhat similar posts. I like a pragmatic, albeit fairly libertarian viewpoint, so your opinion crafting is right up my alley. You’re kind of the PBS of blogs, tough and fair. The emphasis here, and with most of your responders is appropriate emotionality combined with reasoning.

I will admit that I also follow those that you (more or less) recommend by reference or citation, but have yet to find anyone as consistant. Thank you for your clear hard-line thinking. It’s very refereshing from what I can get in most other information sources.

By: Karl Smith

Karl Smith — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:28:20 +0000

James,
Its great that you’re willing to take the time to help other people coming along. I posted these questions at Felix’s site but if you want to take a whack at them, it would be great:

When and how much should you quote someone vs. a simple link? How much context do you need to give vs. expecting that people are following the conversation?

When responding to someone do you just focus on the persons best points or address the entirety of their argument?

How worthwhile is it to link and/or quote something you agree with. It seems boring to say “yeah what she said” but if you never agree with anyone are you a douche?

On that same note s it arrogant to aggregate or have link dumps when you are obviously small time and most of your readers have probably seen this stuff already?

What’s the etiquette if people much more established than you link to you. Should you thank them? Is that kosher?

On that same subject should you make a concerted effort to link to people who link to you? Or, should you focus on the stuff you read the most?

Thanks

By: Pamela Mara

Pamela Mara — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:34:21 +0000

I, too, have been adicted to this website. It has given me excellent backround information. It has provided substantial information, in an otherwise wasteland of propaganda produced on the financial TV networks. This is a fine public service, and and thank you guys a million times.

Keep it up!!