Post Amigos

With so many different types of blogging platforms available, how is anybody meant to choose what is best form them? Well, here is a brief breakdown of some of the most popular blogging platforms around at the moment and who they are best suited to.

Blogger – Perfect for beginners /personal blogs
This Google owned platform is a popular choice by many thanks to its simple joining process and easy-to-use interface. This is a great blog for people who are looking for their first place to tell the world a bit about themselves. It’s also 100% free so is a good choice for people who might just want to dip their toe in the blogging space as there is no need to commit to a long term contract. It’s no surprise that Google’s Adsense programme is naturally incorporated so bloggers can start making money from the get go.

WordPress.org
WordPress is a free and incredibly popular open source blog publishing platform, powered by PHP & MySQL. It isn’t as simple to set up and configure as some of the other blogging platforms because the user has a lot more control over the HTML/CSS codes that are involved in creating a site from scratch. The user is also required to provide their own hosting. However, once all the set up is complete, the platform is simple and it’s easy to create a site to look exactly how you want it.

WordPress.com
This .com version means you are able to host on the wordpress server and so the process becomes so much simpler. Set up is much quicker and as with the .org site, you’re rewarded with thousands of plugins, themes and other features to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Both of these platforms have excellent features such as custom design templates, integrated statistics and automatic spam protection to name a few. This is a great platform for anyone starting your own business .

Tumblr
Although classified as a micro blogging platform, Tumblr can be a great choice for a blog. Tumblr lets you to share whatever you want easily. You can post simple text, photos, quotes, links, your favourite music, and videos, from your web browser, phone, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colours, to your theme’s HTML but beware that it is a little harder to get the site looking just how you want it. Some of the free themes that are available look fantastic but a lot of them are very limited. Tumblr is a great option for those in the creative industries. These include photography, illustrators, clothing designers and musicians.

Facebook
Most people know Facebook as the top social networking site, but did you know you can also use it as a blogging platform? Features such as the fan pages and notes are a great way to share information with your fans and friends. You can also tag people in your photos and posts so they receive notifications when they have been mentioned. One of the most appealing things about blogging via Facebook is the fact that is is so easy for your posts to get seen my thousands and even go viral. If you are just writing about your personal experiences as a way of sharing with your friends and family and you are not trying to make money from it, I would definitely recommend Facebook.

As you can see, different platforms are useful to different people, it all depends on what you are after. This post has only touched on a few of the most popular platforms available but there are plenty more out there to get you started.
This is a guest post from Roxanne from link building site SEO-Doctor.co.uk.

As many you are aware, I created postamigos.com so that other bloggers can connect with each other. I launched it, and didn’t really have any expectations.  The site has only been live for less than 3 weeks now, and I was looking to get some additional feedback from the site.

This is where I met Alex Matthews from compensationclaims.net/ and he gave me some solid feedback.  Where did I meet him you ask?  I met him on Post Amigos through him listing his blog on the site.  The feedback was fairly clear. Everything is great, except a few things:

1. The guest post article section is being indexed, and considering Post Amigos is all about original content, I probably should prevent search engines from indexing that
2. Others can possibly steal original content without actually applying to the article request.
3. You can get more traction by asking other bloggers on other guest blogging sites to get their feedback.

Through postamigos.com I was connected with the author of GayDatingSites.com. She posted a request for someone to write an article about “10 ways to respond to: It’s not you, it’s me”. The description said it could be funny, and could even be george costanza like.

Now, considering I am a huge Seinfeld fan and consider myself to be a little bit on the funny side, I said CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! The result was this: How to respond to: “It’s Not You, It’s me”

I had a fun time writing, and the author subsequently published on our blog.  We exchanged a few emails afterwards, and we built a start to an online blogging relationship!

Now, to the title of my blog post.  Although I’m straighter than straight, the content of this blog is fairly interesting.  My favorite post being Ten Celebrities that are probably gay.  Now i’m going to start looking more into queen latifah, I always suspected of her being gay!

The rest of the blog contains great other content relevant for a wide audience, and the rest of the site serves as the source to find good gay dating sites online.  What the author realizes is that the blog must match the main purpose of the site, and the blog content is straight on (no pun intended).

I’m just happy we were able to use the post amigos platform to connect us!

I’m a WordPress Fanboi.  I bet you thought fanboi’s only existed for apple & google, but oh no – I am hear today to prove you wrong. I love everything WordPress does.

With news recently that WordPress is now powering over 50 million blogs across the world, it got me thinking: Is there anyone out there in their right mind who doesn’t use WordPress for their self hosted blog?

According to the article that is 14% of all the websites in the world. Not BLOGS, but websites. That is truly an impressive feat. I do advise most of my clients to use WordPress for their blogs & websites, and I have never heard a single complaint about it.

I’m a developer & IT Geek by trade and the simplicity of wordpress is amazing.  However, it’s one of those tools that allow you to dive deep into the details and customize any which way you want to.

1. Install is mad fast & simple. 5 mins setup is a lie. it’s more like 3 mins.
2. The simple things are simple, and the complex things are simplified but give you enough power to control what you need to control. To have that in a platform is VERY hard to do.
3. Themes,Themes & more themes. Free Themes too.  What i’m using now is a free theme.  The theme is a premium free theme from WooThemes.  It was setup to give me options on how to customize the look and feel of it. And yes, it works very well.
4. SEO plugins are amazing. Search, install, customize, index. DONE.
5. It just works. Sure, there might be some CSS issues once in a while, but that’s usually theme specific and not caused by wordpress.  It’s stable, it’s minimal, it’s everything you wanted and more.

I used to follow Seth Godin’s blog all the time & I have read most of his books.  I used to recommend his blog to everyone, and I even email subscribed to his post.  Seth is a marketer at heart and he is amazing at what he does.  However, my love for seth godin slowly slipped away all the way to the point of me unsubscribing from RSS feed and no longer buying any of his books.

There are 5 main reasons why I decided to unfollow him and stop buying his books:

1. He schedules his blog posts to post every single day at the same time.  There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with scheduling, but the way this is done actually bothers me.  It doesn’t feel natural to have a blog post posted at the same time every day consistently.  As a marketer, he understands that consistency is key for engagement – but it’s to the point where his content suffers because he blogs because he has too, not because he wants to.
2. I don’t think he writes his own blog posts.  I really don’t.  The posts never talk about his experience, but always has DIY tips or motivational tips that never involve what he has done.
3. I don’t receive value from his books anymore. I received value from reading a few of his books, but after that there was no value left.  It was the same talk over and over.  At this point, I think he is writing books just to make more money.  He has a great brand name, a great speaker, a great writer – but i’m missing the originality of Seth and i’m not learning anything new.  Which is a sign I needed to stop following him.
4. He doesn’t engage online.  It’s a one way conversation.  His blog don’t have comments enabled. His twitter feed is a glorious RSS feed for his blog. His Facebook page posts are another glorified RSS feed. He doesn’t even respond to comments on his own squidoo page. AND FYI, he CREATED squidoo.
5. He is a marketer, marketing about marketing.  He stopped being an entrepreneur in my mind and has focused on writing books & going on speech tours.  Don’t get me wrong, I think that is great – but the basis of his content is now based on something he did 10 years ago and not something he has done recently.

It’s only been a week since I’ve had a Google+ account and I can already see how G+ is looking to take over your personal blog.  You can post as many characters you want and you can share each individual post with who you want. Google+ is superior for personal blogs for two reasons:

1. Creating content & sharing your content is all done in the same place.  Normally, I would create a post on my personal blog, then go to Twitter & Facebook and post links back to the blog.  Google+ essentially gets rid of this entire process.  My content is essentially exactly where it needs to be. I will still need to do that in the interim, but I can imagine me stop posting links on both places in the near future.
2. It allows you to live a dual life in one place. I can post pictures of me & my family & blog about business in the same place and ensure the business people don’t see my friends & family posts.  Ever hear the quote: “Facebook is for your high school friends & Twitter is for people you wish your high school friends”.  Well, Google+ adds a big twist to that statement.  Google+ essentially is for BOTH.  The circles feature forces you to create these groups, and forces you to segment off which audience is the best for your specific post.
3. It allows for multimedia posts. Google+ allows you to upload videos straight from your computer without requiring you to have a youtube account. this means i can just upload it and not have to use another service to embed it in.

I tried hard to find a suitable picture for this post, and this one stook out to me as the funniest so I decided to use it. [source]

Why do people blog? What’s in it for all those bloggers out there?  Don’t these people have anything else better to do then blog?  Is it really just as the picture states: For money?

I blog for several reasons, but mainly it helps me keep my mind moving. I don’t do it to relax or to clear my mind like many out there do, but I do it because it keeps my ideas flowing and it keeps me thinking about the site I created for other bloggers: Post Amigos. In my case, the end result is not for the blog to generate me money, but for Post Amigos to generate me money.  The blog is an avenue to bring traffic to the site and get loyal readers & hopefully loyal users of the site.

The hardest point about blogging is being able to do it consistently, especially if you are not a full time blogger.  It’s a struggle to keep the posts flowing day after day after day.  You  have to mentally set time off almost every single day to focus on the blog, otherwise there will be no benefit of it.

I am on post 4 of my blog at Post Amigos and I have blogged 3 days in a row!  My goal is to have at least one new post published every day until the end of the year.  Post Amigos is about blogging, and therefore I don’t really have a choice!  Thank You all for reading this blog, and feel free to comment below.

I first found Mark Suster via a guest blogpost on techcrunch.com. Mark is a entrepreneur turned VC and currently blogs regularly on Both Sides of the Table.

One of the first blog posts that really got me into Mark was a blog post about why startups need to blog (and what to talk about).  This blog post hit a topic I was familiar with, but really reconfirmed my thinking.  The answer is easy, but actually doing it takes dedication & focus.  This is where many bloggers fail.  The best part about all of this, is that he follows his own advice & he follows it religiously. His blog posts are always insightful, lengthy, original and yes interesting. Every single one.

Why would a VC blog though?  He’s not a startup entrepreneur,  he doesn’t have a product.  Why does he waste his time blogging?  I think the answer is clear: to become one of the top VC’s in Silicon Valley.  His product is funding / servicing startups. Entrepreneurs aren’t the only one that need to make a name for themselves, and he’s proven it with every blog post.  If I ever get to the stage where I think Post Amigos needs / deserves funding then Mark Suster would be an ideal VC for me to seek after.  His blog posts have proven to me that he does care for the little guy, and he is genuinely interested in their success.

Here are are some things that Mark Suster does that every blogger should follow:

• He’s Consistent - He’s not a John Gruber type of blogger where he blogs 4/5 times a day, but more of a once or twice a week.  And he does it consistently.  Consistently blogging is probably one of the hardest things to do consistent if it isn’t your full time job.
• He Tells me something I don’t know – I genuinely learn something everytime I read any of his blog posts.  He uses his experience as an entrepreneur and a VC to share back with the community.
• It’s Personal – His blog posts hit home consistently.  His posts are usually lengthy, but I read every single line of them.
• He makes me WANT to meet him or be part of what he’s doing. - To be able to get this feeling from someone I’ve never met in real life is almost impossible. With every post from him, I feel a deeper connection and a deeper sense of “If I can do business with Mark, I’ve reached a milestone in my entrepreneurship”.  The best part is that he’s never said “Here’s how to reach me”, etc.  He will find you.  And he will find you the same way you found him. Through hustle & dedication & blogging.  But it’s also one of those, I need to deserve a part of Mark’s time.
• He’s an entrepreneur in a VC’s body. This is also a big reason why I like reading Mark’s blog posts. I know he’s a VC, but I also knows he was an entrepreneur and he understands what entrepreneurs go through.  That is priceless on every level. He has taken his startup advice and applied it to his own world.

In the end, I thank Mark for contributing to the blogging community and he can rest asure that I will be one of his avid readers for the foreseeable future.

I figured a good way to get this blog about blogging going is to instead of writing about best way to blog, write about other blogs I have written for.  The first blog I will write about is 24 / 7 Tech Junkie.

I approached Jonathan Ah-Nee and asked If I can write a blog post on this blog and he gladly obliged. Considering his blog is technology & gaming focused, I figured I can jump write in there and contribute to his very active blog.  I’m actually more technology based, but I wrote what I knew the most about: iPad Games!

The blog post was fairly short, but I wrote about my obsession with Plants Vs. Zombies and why there isn’t a plants vs zombies 2!  24 /7 Tech Junkies is a very interesting blog, and I found myself immersed in the variety of articles posted on the site. You can tell immediately from arriving on the site, that it is very gaming focused by the crystals background and the various gaming pictures leading the headline articles.

Another thing that sticks out about this site is that it is very guest blogger friendly and this is what Post Amigos is all about.  Have a technology / gaming article that you think would be appropriate for 24 / 7 feel free to reach out to 24 / 7 Tech Junkie on twitter or on their facebook fan page.

Thanks John for letting me be part of your site & the best of luck to you and your blog’s success!

Today, I am happy to announce that I was finally able to launch post amigos. Post Amigos is intended to be a website where blog authors can give & receive original blog content. Anyone who has spent significant time blogging understands that with thousands of blogs being created daily, it takes a lot of energy to keep yours relevant.

Guest posting allows you to give content for free to other blogs in return for some publicity to your blog.  Post Amigos was created to make the process of finding bloggers who want to participate in guest posting easier.

Stay tuned to this blog for more updates regarding post amigos, and blogging related content.