What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome to this weeks list of reading tips! Hope you all have something useful, inspirational or interesting here. And don’t forget to add to the list in the comment box

We’ve all heard a lot and read even more on the economic downfalls the whole world seems to be dealing with and especially the US. I found some great tips on how to deal with what’s coming on Erica.biz revealing the most efficient way to invest in an economic downturn.

Darren Rowse made a pretty good point: no matter how popular your blog is, it’s still a work in progress. That’s why it’s important to know just how to capture more repeat visitors.

Amber Naslund of Brand Box published an article on how to turn weird business buzzwords into plain English, with lots of hilarious examples of what not to do.

Google page rands, organic traffic and statistics are part of our everyday world. Of the spiders, Google is the first one on our minds. But to really take our blog or site to the next level, Tad Chef things we should forget about Google. And he’s right, SEO 2.0 should be about people, not spiders.

Is there a better way to help SMBs understand the importance of reputation management better than an extreme example? Not really, and Matt McGee chose the best possible example to illustrate the fact that an online reputation is crucial to getting more business.

That’s all for today, see you all next Monday for another roundup of the most eye-catching stories of the week!

If you do, publish a post about it and besides impressing your readers with the techniques and strategies you put into building your blogs success, you’ll also have a chance to win some really cool prizes!

Alex Cristache of Blogsessive is hosting his very first group writing project and is offering a prize with a branding twist: it’s basically everything you need design wise to build a powerful online brand. And yours truly is in the jury!

On to the Rules

• Your post must be new.
• To be valid, you must include the a specific paragraph mentioning the sponsors.
• Recommended: link back to the announcement post.
• To submit your entry, use Blogsessive’s contact form. Choose ‘Group Writing Project’ in the subject, fill in your name, email address and use the Website field for your , entry’s permalink. Give a short description about yourself in the Message field.

I imagine some of you might have a problem with linking to the sponsors, but Alex got some really cool prizes from those two sponsors for you and we should be supportive. To improve my argument here’s the prize list:

1. One identity package - logo, business card and letterhead design - by Alex
2. One “Personal licence” for the Edge premium WordPress theme, created by Blog Design Studio
3. 500 business cards printed using your newly won design by U Printing

All these goodies will go to the contest winner. Also, there will be 2 consolation prizes, each of 250 business cards by the same U Printing.

Deadline: September 30, midnight

To find out more about this group writing project, read Alex’s announcement entry.

Good luck everyone!

A few days ago, I was talking to my friend and fellow blogger Alex about additional ways to promote a blog post he was planning to publish soon. I made a suggestion and a day later we discussed the effect. One of my reactions was: “I have pretty great ideas”. And he said: “Of course, that’s why you’re in PR!”.

And this got me thinking. We now have all the right tools, all the information, there’s hardly anything left to invent or discover. Is the PR success ensured by having great ideas of how to mix everything we can work with to get the best results? Is it already impossible to come with something completely original and has originality been pushed to how we apply what’s been done before?

Knowing the right people and connecting the dots, knowing which is the best media outlet for each story, blending everything new and old in a strategic PR plan, these seem to be the new tricks PR people should be mastering. If there is something called “Black Hat PR”, you know, spammers and the like, this dark world has nothing new to show either.

Then I started thinking of my very own experiences in PR. I’ve been directly involved in the PR and Marketing actions of Axigen for over 2 years now, less at first, more in the past year and a half. I’ve experimented with all available PR paths, some big highways already, others off road challenges for most. I’ve gotten better and better at choosing my own route, doing it creatively and with originality. But I surely haven’t built any new road from scratch.

I can now tell with good accuracy what works with what and share effective ideas with others. I do have great ideas. But when I say idea, I no longer associate the sparkling light bulb with something altogether new, I associate it with making the right connection or with finishing a complicated puzzle.

And if PR people are not shaking the ground with unseen and unheard of techniques, is it a problem? Not really, not at all. We offer the world something new with each clever piece of writing, with each great strategy we put together, with each unforgettable event, with each time we’re being honest and genuine and do the right thing, every time we take the risk of walking on less popular paths. Creativity and innovation are not only in what you’re doing, they’re also in how you’re doing it. Don’t you think?

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

It’s been quite a while since the last round of monday reading tips! The vacation had that weird effect on my blog, but I’m back with new great posts, all published sometime last week.

To start with, I chose something that really isn’t my style. But given the increasing number of people getting married to fast and ending up divorced, this really made sence: some really importantquestions to ask before getting married posted by Lin Burres.

Zane Safrit of Small Business Trends showed us a great way to keep our best employees as long as possible: greeting them with open arms.

Hendry Lee of BlogBuildingU highlighted an important aspect of off page optimization that we should always keep in mind: links.

Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer taught us a great lesson: how to work with brand enthusiasts and not against them. Looks like a very effective technique!

While Wall Street is going down, SEO seems to be growing fast. Tad of SEO 2.0 gave us 7 reasons why this was happening.

Meltdowns are something really hard to avoid. No matter how hard you try, they will still happen. Jonathan Fileds explaines last week that meltdowns are really not important, what’s important is how you handle them.

Robyn McMasters shared a writing lesson: keeping your text inclusive so that all your readers feel welcome.

And to round up this week, here are the top 5 reasons why blogging rocks our world day in, day out. Alex Cristache of Blogsessive is responsible for this one!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s list. See you all next Monday!

Guest post by Alex Cristache

The list of blogs and online magazines offering tips and advice has been growing exponentially every year. Even I am the founder of one such “blogging tips” blog.

With all the hype created around this type of blogs and the (in)famous “make money online” blogs, people seem to overlook one significant thing: these blogs offer tips and advice, but encourage you to experiment.

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