I will be posting a weekly wrap up every Friday. The wrap up will cover things such as:
- What’s new with NBB
- What’s coming up in the week ahead
- Notable websites to look into
- Interesting and informative articles I’ve read
- New applications I’ve looked into
- WordPress news and plugins
- Trending News & Events
- Etc.
What’s new with NewBizBlogger?
As you may have noticed this site has had a bit of a face lift with more changes to come. I felt the need to lose some dead weight, so I toned things down a bit and simplified the design. This is coming off from my post on ‘Is Your Website In Need Of A Makeover?’ I’ve also added a new logo that better depicts what service my site provides.
Challenge Recap
It’s been a crazy long three weeks. For those of you following me on the NBB Content Creation Challenge, today marks the end of the third week of the challenge …one more week to go …woot, woot!
The challenge involved:
- write a minimum of 4 post/week for a month,
- share the post with at least 3 social networking or bookmarking sites
- track the results
As of today, here are the results:
Site visits (as per Google Analytics) – up 28%
Feed readership (as per Feedburner) – up 21%
Google position for main keyword – constantly fluctuates between 8th and 16th place.
News From The World Of Blogging
This weekend starts the beginning of BlogWorld. For those of you not familiar with BlogWorld, it is the largest social media conference held yearly. Social media experts, bloggers, who’s who in the world of Social Media attends this yearly event.
Check out what’s happening now by visiting their Digital Newspaper powered by Paper.li.
Also, here’s a cool video from CNN reporter Don Lemon talking about BlogWorld and #beatcancer. Shows you the power of social media!
Social Network & Bookmarking Sites Of Interest
NewBizBlogger recently has been approved to be included in BlogCatalog . BlogCatalog is a large social blog directory that can potentially bring your site lots of recognition and traffic. You will need to embed a badge on your site prior to submitting your site for consideration.
Articles & Videos of the Week:
Here are some of my favorite articles and videos this week that I think you may enjoy as well.
My friend Onibalusi over at YoungPrePro put together a post on ‘Entrepreneurial Advice from 23 Successful Online Entrepreneurs’. Great read if you want to tap into the minds of successful bloggers.
DiTesco from IBlogZone.com gives a very good read on ‘Google Search Based Keyword Tool Discontinued’. Google is updating this tool and DiTesco touches up on some key changes.
I’m a big fan of Ted.com. It’s a conference that showcases some of the greatest minds in the areas of Technology, Entertainment and Design. Here is one from Richard St.John on the 8 Secrets of Success.
My buddy Fred over at SoloCoachBiz.com just started his weekly Friday Business Roundtable, which I think is very cool. It’s a “place for solo business owners to network and share ideas, great articles”, etc. You should go check it out.
Cool WordPress Plugins to Check Out
Insights – This plugin allows you to quickly search and insert information (links, images, videos, maps, news..) into your blog posts. A super SEO friendly plugin that I highly suggest.
Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting plugin – This plugin adds podcasting support to your blog. It has full iTunes support, integrated media players, supports many media formats, etc. Nice!
Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin- Very simple plugin that adds a client side generated checkbox to the comment form requesting that the user clicks it to prove they are not a spammer. Bots wont see it so their spam comment will be discarded.
Note: In order to use this plugin you need to be using the WordPress default comment system.
Hot New Applications To Look Into
Want to organize your Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format? Check out Paper.li. It can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag. It’s an awesome application so for you Twitter users, definitely look into this!
If you own an IPad, you may want to consider this app TED By TED Conferences. View Ted Conferences using ITunes on your iPad.
That’s a wrap! Have a great weekend and please don’t forget to show some love and share this post with your friends. 
Wow, thanks for the mention. Pretty good wrap up and I see that your “challenge” has been generating some positive results. Hopefully this is was you were expecting.
OK, to wrap up (lol), I like your new logo, clean design and correct me if I am wrong, you said that you were approved for Brian’s BlogEngage? So what’s up with BC? Just kidding. Have a great weekend.
yikes!!! I meant Blog Catalog! That’s what happens when you are posting 4x a week, redesigning your blog amongst other things!! …LOL Thanks for the catch DiTesco =)
Thanks for the compliment…yeah I feel better about it. As for the challenge, definitely please, but not sure if it warrants posting 4x a week…we shall see. =)
Thanks for your feedback and double thanks for noticing the oops. =)
Awesome post Michelle,
This is really cool and I will be happy to see how everything goes.
I am also enjoying the challenge and I am noting a slight increase in my traffic (and subscribers). At first it wasn’t that easy to keep up but now I’m finding things easier, in fact, if it were possible I will be writing two posts a day
Thanks so much for the awesome support,
-Onibalusi
Onibalusi, you are a force to be reckoned with! Yeehaahh!! =) Yeah, I noticed that is got a bit easy by week three but not sure if I will continue that after the challenge. Thinking I will go down to 3…we shall see. =)
Thanks for stopping by and finish strong week 4!
Hi Michele,
That’s cool. I am a fan of wrap up. I am able to read some posts or visit some blog that are unknown to me. Your blog challenge results has been very positive. So are you going to continue when it ends?
Keep up the good work. One more thing i am a fan of your new logo as well.
Lye
Hey Lye,
Not sure if I’m going to keep it up at the same intensity. I have a lot of other things I want to work on, so 4x a week may be a bit too much. Thinking about 3x instead, 2 regular post and 1 Friday wrap up. Thanks for asking. =)
And thanks for the compliment on the logo…I like it a lot. Works for me at the moment.
Have a fabulous weekend!
Hi Michelle,
I like the new Logo! Clean and concise, well done
Thanks for sharing the comprehensive list of resources and have a fun weekend.
Ryan
Thanks for the compliment Ryan…I dig it too! =) Have a good one and thanks for stopping by.
Hi Michelle,
First off, thank you for taking the time and effort to put out a quality site, I appreciate being able to “look over your shoulder” as I start my learning process.
I enjoy posts such as this that have a list of useful resources. For a beginner they are great, and I am sure that some of the old-timers find a new thing or two.
I also enjoyed the is your website in need of a makeover post. A lot of things to think about as I start in the blog world. I am sure I will be taking some of the suggestions to heart as a continually try to improve the design. However I have to remember that worrying about the “perfect” design can lead to your blog dying because you do not provide the content.
Thanks again and have a great day.
Alan
Thank you Alan for the lovely comment! I am so glad you find my site useful… it means I’m doing my job. =)
You are right, aesthetics are great, but if you don’t have the quality content to back it up, then all will be in vain. The great thing is that you are not married to your design! Pick one, start really concentrating on putting some great content out there and then slow nip and tuck your site to your desire. But I totally get it… I’m a perfectionist too =)
Welcome and please let me know if I can do anything to help you out! Ciao =)
Let me know if the tutorial was useful. I’ll try and do some more tutorials if this one is recieved well. Also, if you’ve made a time-lapse, post a link to it in the comments.
I would go for support and would like outside views. Yes I didnt do my math homework. That just started it.