Michael Martine offered to help me out while I was in Austin. He actually sent more than one idea for a high-value guest post. This one on content strategy appeals to the editor in me and also to the business strategist.

Do You Have a Blog Content Strategy?

by Michael Martine

A content strategy is a plan for how you will create content for your blog. Having a content strategy and following it will accelerate your blog's growth. In this article, I'm going to explain how to develop and use a blog content strategy so you can get the best results. This is something that I have done with demonstrable success, so you can, too.

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Although this is far from being the weirdest union (or proposal, for that matter) we've ever seen, Xanga user p3ng decided to throw tradition to the wind (at least momentarily) when proposing to his now-fiancée. Put simply, he built a custom version of Bejeweled (the lady's favorite game in the whole wide world) in which a pixelated engagement ring scrolled onto the screen once a certain score was hit. Needless to say, his awestruck girlfriend could barely contain her excitement as she uttered "yes," and we absolutely expect the Guitar Zeros to be the house band at the forthcoming reception.

Filed under: Design, Internet, Web services

Browsershots is a free web service for viewing a website in about 50 web browsers among 4 operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, BSD). This is helpful for checking your web design on multiple configurations without having to use virtual machines or extra hardware and software.

I love SEO conferences and meetups. I've met most of my favorite people on the planet at them. There's also lots of douchebags, who really don't get what an incredible community of people it is most of the time. I sat down with Mike McDonald and talked a little bit about what to do, and what not to do at SEO Conferences. I thought I'd do a written version for the things I forgot as well. So here is what you should do if you really want to be a total outcast douchebag at an SEO Conference:

by Stoney deGeyter



Over the past ten years the mindset of SEO has evolved significantly. In the early years, website optimization was considered more of an IT expense handled by computer geeks. But over the years, businesses (and SEOs) began to change their frame of mind, realizing that search engine optimization was much closer to traditional marketing than they had thought.

Adamant Solutions in Australia (and our friend Moojj) has just released the Beta of their new utility called StumbleUpon Alerter. Let me reproduce Adamant's description of the software here.

StumbleUpon Alerter is a small tool that sits in the system tray. It keeps an eye on all of your discoveries on StumbleUpon and plays a noise whenever someone reviews or gives your sites a thumbs up. Open the main window to view information about each discovery - including a list of people who have reviewed, thumbed up or thumbed down your sites.

Adamant Solutions in Australia (and our friend Moojj) has just released the Beta of their new utility called StumbleUpon Alerter. Let me reproduce Adamant's description of the software here.

StumbleUpon Alerter is a small tool that sits in the system tray. It keeps an eye on all of your discoveries on StumbleUpon and plays a noise whenever someone reviews or gives your sites a thumbs up. Open the main window to view information about each discovery - including a list of people who have reviewed, thumbed up or thumbed down your sites.

Filed under: Design, Fun, Windows, Freeware

File this under the "totally useless but very cool for a few seconds software" section. Napalm is a small program inspired by Linux's Compiz window manager (specifically the "Fire" effects plugin) that displays burning text on your desktop.

Burning text. Words that are on fire. On your desktop. That's what Napalm does. That's all it does.

From a business standpoint, a lot of small business have some pretty distinct advantages over much larger organizations.

Not always, but in some cases, they can be more flexible, offer personalized options, provide faster/better service, and involve senior experienced level people in implementation.

Skellie is a regular writer for ProBlogger. Check out her new blog Anywired if you're interested in earning an income online.

Usability.

Yaaawn, right?

Think of it like this: the art of making it as easy as possible for your blog's visitors to do exactly what you want them to do.

That simple, super-effective tip on putting your feed icon high up in your sidebar is usability at work. So is putting social media buttons at the bottom of your posts. So is putting popular posts in your sidebar. In fact, some of the coolest, simplest things you can do to get more subscribers, links and loyal readers come from usability.