Still suffering from the flue I just can´t set my mind straight and do the jobs that really need doing, so I reside to reading other blogs and a combo of entrecard-dropping, commenting / stumbling to at least do a bit of linking and socializing.

Marcus got me thinking with his really great post about the way we value ourselves and even though I can only agree with him, I am not going to take my PW banners off, not even when they show it is only $0.02 to advertise on my blog. Why? Because it reminds me daily that I am worth much more than that, just like my Blog Value Widget says.

Continuing with the entrecard dropping, commenting and stumbling process I just feel the urge to check up on the contest going on at Slyvisions.com… a whopping $10.00 for the comment King or Queen of February…. I am running second, having a fierce fight with the present comment Queen who always seems to have 10 comments more than I have. I make a few comments, catching up slightly and when I check back in again, she made the exact number of comments, again 10 comments ahead.

Remembering Marcus´ words, I start calculating a bit and it turns out that even if I win, my time spent commenting will only be valued at $0.25 an hour or so. Worth it? Not really, not at all, … but this competitive monster inside is sticking it´s head up and I just can´t help it…

I keep at it with entrecard, dropping until something else catches my eyes… “Using your domain names in comments is bad too”. This is the one thing that bothers me more than a “great post” comment… a “great post” comment without a name yet instead a keyword or domain name plug. Isn´t that just another way of spamming?

They go on about how putting their domain name in blogs with do-follow is upping their google rank for keywords and how to make sure their comment is not taken as spam…

This tactic really bothers me, especially since I am giving all my commentators plenty of linkluv (between the do-follow, commentluv and most popular commentators, there are 2 links given for every post, plus, making it to the top of commentators, it is another 60-70 links and growing!).

So I have decided to be a bit stricter when allowing comments, not wanting to greet “Viagra for Cheap” nor “Grow your Dick 3 Inches” anymore and having to thank them for their participation in this blog…

Meanwhile I am still thinking about that contest, should I or shouldn´t I give it another go… Looking for some other contests online I soon find there are plenty of others that might be easier to win, and the list of the ones I need to check and see if I have won starts growing.

Only a few minutes left when I come across something that looks pretty exiting… a monthly $1,000.00 prize sponsored by the Thousand Dollar Project. Imagine that, a random winner gets $1,000.00 for commenting on their forum and blog which is about making money online …

Anyways… my daily hour of wasting time is over so somebody is getting back to business.

Popularity: 28% [?]

4 Weeks ago I read a post by Chris Garrett on why a good blogger is like a Top Chef and the other day I was thinking of that post again. When I initially read it, I thought yeah cool, I can so relate to that, having been a chef for years and studied Hotel and Catering Business.

But now, a month later, my thoughts have changed a bit. I still believe that in order to be a good blogger, you have to love blogging, just like you have to be in love with food in order to be a good chef. However I feel the comparison isn’t all that great as I felt in the beginning, I think we should take it a step further.

But blogging isn’t just writing good content (or at least trying to), but so much more than that. In order to get interesting posts online, you need to do at least some planning on what your post is going to be about. You have to do research to make sure your facts are straight, read and reread the text to make sure it flows nicely, run a spell check and then recheck again before hitting that publish button. Plus you might like to find some nice picture in order to complete the presentation of your text, the finishing touch.

Much of this is completely comparable to the work of a Top Chef, going out to find great ingredients (doing the research), planning (the mis-en-place/prepwork), putting it all together (the cooking process), checking and rechecking (final tasting to see if the taste is 100%) and completing the presentation; preparing the plate before it goes out into the dining-room.

Truth is that even the best Top Chef will have little success if his dishes don’t reach his customers, so I feel we need to go a bit further than that initial comparison.

He needs a whole team around him in order to really be a success. The restaurant itself, the entourage you can compare in many ways with the theme and layout of your blog. It is the first impression the customer has of the place and even though it isn’t the only reason people will leave or stick around; initially it is of great importance.

The functionality of the furniture is also important. If a customer in a restaurant is really uncomfortable in his chair, feeling a draught, annoyed by the noise, he is not likely going to spend more time than the absolute necessary to finish what he came for.

Same goes for a blog. Having a lot of flashy content, colours that shout in your face, hard to read posts, no navigation system, a lot of unfinished bits and pieces, will have your reader run off without ever coming back.

And then there are the waiters who not only serve you but are also there for the PR, making you feel at home and trying to advice you on your choices or highlighting the “specialties of the day”. Their goal is to make your stay as pleasant as possible, elongating it in order to sell more and try to make you come back, without having you feel you are pushed around.

They are giving the customer what they came for and ideally a bit more.

So by now, blogging is certainly becoming a multitask activity, where it is not just about the content anymore, but where all other aspects of a complete Top Restaurant have to be taken in account in order to make it a success. If one of these aspects fails, it has an impact on the success of the whole blog.

Popularity: 46% [?]