A new year has come again, and it’s the perfect time to start things right. Many of us may have made handfuls of mistakes last year, but this year signals an opportunity to realign things, to put them in order, and to begin anew. However, things left unfinished last year should not remain untouched; this new beginning is the best path we could take to fix or complete these things.

Some bloggers act like they’re celebrities in the blogging world. They divulge full details about their life and business. There is nothing wrong about that, since blogging is always personal and it is up to you to say and write whatever you want.

As a businessperson who blogs, it is unavoidable for me to reveal some details about what is happening inside my business. Many of my secrets are disclosed as I reply through threading comments, which I found harmless as long as the message is delivered in words that will not hurt my business strategy. However, I am not the type who announces everything about my business. I suggest leaving your serious mistakes as secrets, and having them fixed while delightfully continuing blogging.

As a blogger, I believe that you don’t have to delete your old posts or your whole blog to begin anew. Perhaps you can write a post to announce your excitement to do business. Excite your readers with your optimistic posts. Let them feel that something new is about to happen to your business. As a customer, it’s always good to hear something new about a certain store or product. read more

When I first heard about Paul Thewlis’ new book, WordPress for Business Bloggers, I was very excited. As an avid WordPress user and a business blogger, I was very keen on the idea of reading a book targeted specifically to my kind of blogging. Though I’ve owned and read many books about WordPress and about blogging in general, none have seen so targeted to me.

However, the title of the book doesn’t do a great deal to describe it. One could not possibly do a thorough job of describing business blogging and WordPress within the confines of the same 350 page book so it has to either be A) A book about business blogging that touches on WordPress or B) A book about WordPress that touches on business blogging.

The book, for better or worse, is the latter. Only one chapter, the first, really delves into the business blogging and most of it is about planning. The rest of the book is a basic, if solid, overview of blogging and WordPress in general.

This is not to say that it is a bad book, just that those who might be most excited by the title may find it a bit basic and frustrating. On the other hand, there are others that might pass it over that could find it very useful. read more

Google’s Matt Cutts writing on his personal blog offers up three tips for company blogging.

His best tip is #2:

Don’t trash talk a competitor.

Your product should be strong enough that you don’t have to diss a competing company. Back in 2002, an article in the Boston Herald showed up about another search engine. The article claimed that “The entire XXXXXXXXX Catalog is updated every 9 to 11 days.” I knew for a fact that wasn’t true and at first I wanted to rip that claim to shreds like a bulldog. But (with the advice of some wiser Googlers), I decided to take the high road instead of picking a fight. In fact, claims like that motivated Google to be fresher and faster. Now I believe Google has the freshest index of any of the major web search engines.

What advice would you give someone blogging for/about their own company or employer?