# Blogging



## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

Who is Blogging?
How do you get your ideas?
How often do you post?

Here is a great example by George Z


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## ewingpainting.net (Jun 2, 2008)

I have been considering bloging. One thing i have thought about is a description on products, what they do and what other coatings are compatable for that product. Also, a coating system's' int. ext., wood finishs, ect. and why you think it would be best. 
Another idea is one on workers comp or licensing. What it is and why it is important to have. I am amazed how many ho dont think much of it until you inform them. 
Good luck!


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

Just a side note, and I am sure Chris already knows this.. Use your blog to create inlinks to your main site. Also, it is best for SEO to install your blog on a different Class IP server than your main website.


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## George Z (Apr 15, 2007)

Here is a link from it to Painttalk 

Some times I am running out of time, or topics to discuss,
so a few pictures of a project and a few words will do the trick.

Another way to do it, is give your employees and other people you work with
space or a category to write in.

It's good to keep writing.


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## bikerboy (Sep 16, 2007)

Have a blog setup, but just been too busy to post. (worked all weekend, 10 hours today) Am waiting for it to slow down, and at the same time praying it won't.


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## George Z (Apr 15, 2007)

I just created this simple post in 15 minutes.

A feature on a fellow contractor, 
with a valuable anchor text link
and of course fresh content Google likes.

RCP, you like?


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

George Z said:


> I just created this simple post in 15 minutes.
> 
> A feature on a fellow contractor,
> with a valuable anchor text link
> ...


Very much!:thumbup:
That is a great idea, takes adding links to our sites to a whole new level.
I like the blogging, facebook and twitter because it is so easy to do things like this. I always agonize over making changes to my website!

Thanks George!


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## nEighter (Nov 14, 2008)

Will be doing :thumbsup:


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

not sure if you all would be interested in this, but I was visiting a local painting co's site and found myself reading the blog - which I usually do not. 

the owner writes well and on pertinent stuff. 

Here's one you all will enjoy:



> Posted by Nigel Costolloe
> 
> That tearing sound you hear is me pulling my hair out.
> 
> ...




I guess the point of this post, is that you really need to be a good writer and have a pertinent subject on which to expound. Between Facebook, Twitter, email, and Blogs there is enough useless chatter on the internet. One should be careful not to define his/her company as being the purveyor of more. 

I have chosen not to, although if a subject comes up that helps Suzie and Harry better understand and appreciate a professional install, I will post a little dissertation in my "Wallpaper FAQ" section.


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

Bill the odds of someone actually reading your blog are very slim. I look at it as more of an SEO thing.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

Whatta ya mean Ken! All this angst over prose and no one is going to read it!

I agree, I think it is all about the complete package, branding, marketing, being a presence. I do use my blog, facebook and youtube to answer questions from customers when possible.


Although there are several blogs I do read daily!


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

I hear ya Chris. Some of my blogs outrank my website. I don't have too much trouble with the writing part as I enjoy writing and God has given me a blessing in that department.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

PressurePros said:


> Bill the odds of someone actually reading your blog are very slim. I look at it as more of an SEO thing.


Well, then that gives even me less motivation to clutter the interent with more blog. That sounds like a total exercise in futility. IMO, there are better ways to build SEO than wasting writing talents (or lack thereof) on something that has a slim chance of being read. 

Thanks for the heads up, I will cease worrying about jumping on the blog barge


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

Bill, you worry about internet clutter over promoting your own business? THE most important thing you can do for a website is to build inlinks to it. Blogs are just another piece of that. Its well worth the time if you have the inclination/motivation to keep it updated. The internet is infinite. I don't think we have to worry about clogging anything up.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

LOL, and we know Bill has something to say on a variety of topics!:jester:


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## nEighter (Nov 14, 2008)

BTW have you guys noticed the "promote" tab on a google search? You can actually click on it promoting your site to the spot above the one you hold. Try it, it is the arrow pointing up.. right next to the comment button.


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## bikerboy (Sep 16, 2007)

RCP said:


> LOL, and we know Bill has something to say on a variety of topics!:jester:


While at the same time keeping a lid on some of our opinons on a few topics.
:whistling2:​


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

bikerboy said:


> While at the same time keeping a lid on some of our opinons on a few topics.
> :whistling2:​


As with my own also.
To stay on track with the purpose to this Bulletin Board.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

PressurePros said:


> Bill, you worry about internet clutter over promoting your own business? THE most important thing you can do for a website is to build inlinks to it. Blogs are just another piece of that. Its well worth the time if you have the inclination/motivation to keep it updated. The internet is infinite. I don't think we have to worry about clogging anything up.



Ken, it's not about "clogging up" the internet. That fear is long gone. We need not worry about bandwidth anymore.

It's about, as I said originally, having others define one's company by what is on one's site. Pertinent, useful, and intelligent info is good. Useless chatter is not. 

And now you say that folks don't even read blogs. So now I'm really lost. Why do I want to take time to write thoughtful and intelligent compositions if no one will read them? 

Obviously one needs to build SEO. Key words, content, and backlinks are all part of that. AND if one has something to say about their business in a blog, by all means, say it. But again, one should be careful not to fall for the temptation to write useless drivel as I have seen on many blogs. 

Others are not enamoured by our words as much as we are. We shan't shed a bad light on our companies by blogging useless chatter. 

I am not advising others to NOT blog, just advising it would be prudent to be judicious about what one DOES blog.


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

Bill, you bring up totally valid points about writing poor copy solely for the sake of an inlink. I write with a mindset towards "somebody may read this" on almost everything I put out. On the contra side, I have paid bloggers with a high PR blog to write things for me and include linkbacks. Unfortunately, as these are sometimes owned by those without a grasp of the English language, I get a blog post that sounds like it was cut and pasted from one of those free translators. These blog posts disappear into the mire of the internet. Google knows they are there but 5 people on the planet have actually read the post. Its a tradeoff that for me, has a positive ROI.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

I thought about this today as I was working with a teacher to manage their blog, there are so many ways to use them. Some may not read, some may follow daily. 
Here are a few of my favorites. 

Student Blogs I have learned so much from the kids by reading their "free writing"!

Dooce Supposedly makes big bucks off this blog!

Oasis of my soul
This guy travels on a sidecar motorcycle with his dog and takes stunning photos. His life story is pretty touching.

Out of the Bucket It's Brian, nuff said!


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## DarthPainter (Jul 26, 2009)

You guys would be surprised about the whole unlimited bandwidth myth. As it is right now, the United States is sitting on an old and broken down infrastructure; and with the massive surge of people posting useless blogs and youtube videos, etc, our bandwidth resources are being stretched very thin. This is a result of our broadband resources being owned by private third party companies, rather than our government.

Also, I am vehemently opposed to blogs which serve the singular purpose of boosting site traffic. There are better and more efficient ways to achieve this, and unless you have something valid to contribute, you shouldn't be using a blog as a means of promoting your career. Just my 2 cents.


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## aaron61 (Apr 29, 2007)

DarthPainter said:


> You guys would be surprised about the whole unlimited bandwidth myth. As it is right now, the United States is sitting on an old and broken down infrastructure; and with the massive surge of people posting useless blogs and youtube videos, etc, our bandwidth resources are being stretched very thin. This is a result of our broadband resources being owned by private third party companies, rather than our government.
> 
> Also, I am vehemently opposed to blogs which serve the singular purpose of boosting site traffic. There are better and more efficient ways to achieve this, and unless you have something valid to contribute, you shouldn't be using a blog as a means of promoting your career. Just my 2 cents.


NO MORE GOVERNMENT PLEASE!!!!!


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## aaron61 (Apr 29, 2007)

This is great blogger http://sethgodin.typepad.com/


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

I love his blogs, the "Tribes" concept is great!


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

DarthPainter said:


> You guys would be surprised about the whole unlimited bandwidth myth. As it is right now, the United States is sitting on an old and broken down infrastructure; and with the massive surge of people posting useless blogs and youtube videos, etc, our bandwidth resources are being stretched very thin. This is a result of our broadband resources being owned by private third party companies, rather than our government.
> 
> Also, I am vehemently opposed to blogs which serve the singular purpose of boosting site traffic. There are better and more efficient ways to achieve this, and unless you have something valid to contribute, you shouldn't be using a blog as a means of promoting your career. Just my 2 cents.


Darth,

Please be careful. What I highlighted in red is the type of "innocent" comment that can set off a political firestorm.

thanks for being EXTRA careful in the future


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

Darth, bandwidth is consumed when data is transferred. A blog sitting on some server, unless it is being accessed by more than a Google Bot once per month is meaningless in terms of bandwidth consumption. I won't comment on your government comment.


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## DarthPainter (Jul 26, 2009)

daArch said:


> Darth,
> 
> Please be careful. What I highlighted in red is the type of "innocent" comment that can set off a political firestorm.
> 
> thanks for being EXTRA careful in the future


It wasn't meant as me criticizing our government's policy. It was a simple statement of fact; the real culprits are the third party businesses who choose not to upgrade our backbone connections, leaving us with an infrastructure far behind our peers.

PressurePros, you are correct in that bandwidth is the moving of data between peers; however, while one simple blog doesn't consume a lot of bandwidth, that's not true of the millions, if not billions, of blogs which sit on the internet that merely take up space with no content. They do still consume bandwidth and in more ways than you're considering. It's, in reality, no different than the argument that one plastic bottle being thrown into a landmine has a negligble effect on the environment; the problem isn't that it's one bottle or one blog: it's one bottle per person sitting in those landfills.


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

Darth, you are talking in idealisms. Oh to be young and liberal. Nevermind, I don't want to be either of those things again. Here's my capitalist reply. I could care less about the internet, its backbones and how clogged it is. I promote my business using every legal means necessary. I do not spam or troll forums. Innovations and improvements are borne from necessity. When the backbone gets too burdened, the government will step in, force growth, add a tax to the ISP's which will get passed onto us consumers and on it goes. That's how America works (for better or worse). 

What truly clogs the internet are social media. You mention in another thread you dislike them. But without those I would not have found my high school and college friends and learned a ton of information from forums such as this one (which ironically you are posting on gathering your own information, and letting your voice be heard). You may even be reading this with a container of bottled water by your side. These are good things. I'm just giving you food for thought and throwing in a little quib against the hypocrisy its easy to get caught up in.

PS: I don't drink bottled water and I do recycle. I'm also just having fun with you. :jester:


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## DarthPainter (Jul 26, 2009)

No worries, PressurePros, I'm hardly an Idealist; I'm a total pragmatist. I know that humans will behave as humans do: without cause or concern for their own well being (in the long term that is) or the welfare of others. However, the reality of enforcing the internet or the networking behind it is not as plausible or easy as you're implying; the internet is still a very new commodity and is constantly undergoing metamorphosis; there a very few precedents set for its governing, and as of right now is in a very, very gray area legally. Sure, the government can put pressure on companies, but they have no legal ground to stand on; they can no more force the ISP's to provide a better infrastructure than they can force you to use a certain brand of paint or paintbrush.



> What truly clogs the internet are social media. You mention in another thread you dislike them. But without those I would not have found my high school and college friends and learned a ton of information from forums such as this one (which ironically you are posting on gathering your own information, and letting your voice be heard)


I dislike social networking sites, which I don't believe this site falls completely under, and I am not using it as such. I use it as a knowledge resource in the same way that I might use a Wikipedia like site, only the content is arguably censored. I don't advertise for my company, nor am I looking for referrals or to even make friends. And I don't drink bottled water; tap water is considerably healthier, as there are not very strict regulations as to what constitutes spring water, and tap water has minerals and typically fluoride, which spring water lacks. I think it tastes better, too. (I'm a health nut)

PS: I don't mean offense, and I'm not trying to undermine your advice which is almost always on point with my own and always applicable. I'm just offering a counter point to blogging.


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

I enjoy the discussion! Here is a question that comes from my own ignorance. Who actually owns the internet?


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

I do.

I was given me by the person who invented it. 

(and that's ALL I'll say about THAT ! ) :whistling2:

But to the point, isn't the whole point of the Internet is that NO ONE owns it ?

Certain entities own hardware and software that enables it, but those are just the small pieces (or large pieces, as you wish) but NO ONE owns the whole thing.

Do I get a gold star ?

or at least an aluminum foil one ?


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

PressurePros said:


> I enjoy the discussion! Here is a question that comes from my own ignorance. Who actually owns the internet?


Google - period. They make the rules and we must abide by them (if we want rankings and relevance)


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## DarthPainter (Jul 26, 2009)

PressurePros said:


> I enjoy the discussion! Here is a question that comes from my own ignorance. Who actually owns the internet?


Technically, it's a world collective organization. In reality? America has had a pretty good death grip on it for a long while, though France, in particular, has been challenging that, too. They're trying to appeal through their own supreme courts about the legitimacy of America's essential claim to the internet, as ARPANET was the first fully functional network in existence and was built by the US. It's not like we've been able to totally regulate it anyways, since the Great FireWall of China is in place, and we're powerless to do anything about it...aside from hiring white hats to surreptitiously sneak in backdoor protocols, like Cult of the Dead Cow's Back Orifice...not that an upstanding citizen like myself would know of such things...:whistling2:

On the other hand, the concept of the World Wide Web was dreamt up by Tim Berners-Lee, who worked and lived in Switzerland but was of English birth. So, arguably, America holds the "patent" to network technology while the Swiss, arguably, hold up their end with the WWW side. Beyond that, it gets really tricky, since TBL and WWW Consortium are trying to implement Web/Internet 2.0 , which despite all the latest fads of calling social networking and google the Web 2.0, has yet to see the light of day. Web 2.0 is a collection of concepts, mostly focusing on cloud computing and the likes, but that's for another thread, I think.


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

Back Orifice. I had some serious fun with that one. Have you ever seen the video of the guy that had B.O installed on his computer. The hacking half of the equation took over his webcam and started sending microsoft warning popups.. "Why don't you get off IRC and spend some time with your girlfriend... she's waiting on the bed in her black undies". The dude's expression was priceless.


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