Lexus has their annual December to Remember campaign going on. The ads start with a little boy or little girl speaking directly into the camera, a voice from the past, reminding you how excited you were to get that Atari or that pony, and how you thought that was the best Christmas ever.

Parents and siblings interact with each other in the semi-sepia tinted background while self-centered, spoiled Johnny or Sarah is childishly unaware that Christmas is about something bigger than expensive toys.

The commercial ends, of course, with the little child from your past taking you aside and saying SPEND SOME TIME WITH YOUR FAMILY THIS YEAR, NUMB NUT, AND REMEMBER THE REASON FOR THE SEASON, YA BIG DOPE.

No, shockingly, the commercial ends with the stunning revelation that the best Christmas ever would be one in which you get a Lexus.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that school kids are often introduced to logical fallacies and critical thinking by exploring advertisements. Check out this lesson plan for a quick review of logical fallacies (or this site for a comprehensive list) and how they show up in everything from magazine ads to infomercials to Super Bowl commercials to blogs.

Which isn’t to say that all logical fallacies are bad. Grampa sent us the dog house commercial last week. Dick thought it was hilarious, and I think he learned a lot from watching it.

Why are some ads so grating, and others, every bit as commercial and fake and obvious, turn out to be just plain entertaining? Are you willing to forgive a multitude of logical fallacies as long as something is also funny and clever? And at what age do you start pointing out the logical fallacies to your children?

Jane

I should probably save all these tips for upcoming Works-for-Me Wednesday posts, but since Shannon could not be bothered to acknowledge my seven million shout-outs to her the other day (forget what I said about the Golden Rule, okay?), I just might start boycotting the carnival, which will really show her!

I mean, since she only has six million other participants and probably gets to multiply her gross revenue column on BlogHerAds by 60% instead of the lousy 50% I take home get to watch accumulate like sands in an hourglass. Speaking of which, let the BlogHerAd income ignorance come to an end. In the seven weeks that I’ve been running ads on my site, I’ve made 36 dollars.

Which is half a day’s pass to Disneyworld, or one meal at Disneyworld or a princess dress on clearance at Disneyworld, or 9/100dredths of a plane ticket to Disneyworld. And you should note that I wouldn’t need one of each of these things but five, only not of the princess dress. Dick would rather have a Mr. Incredibles costume.

Top Five Four Tips for a Less Klutzy/More Together Life

1. When making Cook&Serve chocolate pudding in your first year of college, and resolving to study while you eat, and to thoughtfully clean up the kitchen and store the leftover pudding in the fridge (because back then you cared about portion control) before you study, LET THE PUDDING COOL BEFORE CLOSING THE TUPPERWARE CONTAINER. Otherwise it could explode all over the kitchen and burn your neck, and you have to go to class with a bag of frozen peas clutched to your esophagus. And people will think you are just trying to get attention and are not really IN PAIN.

2. When speedwalking on the treadmill at the YMCA, and talking to your best friend whom you have not seen in 24 HOURS, and she gets off the treadmill and starts to walk out of the room, DO NOT maintain eye contact with her. Otherwise, your legs might follow your eyes and you fall off the treadmill, which is harder than it looks. It might even look like you are trying to get back on the treadmill, but really you are just trying to GET OFF THE DANG THING but it WON’T LET YOU GO. And then you will get lots of attention from employees who don’t want you to sue.

3. When going to Bear Lake to be the head cook of a Boy Scout Camp and you are almost nineteen-years old and have finished your first year in college and obtained your Open Your Own Restaurant Food Handler’s Permit and have clipped every recipe out of Family Fun magazine for the past ten years, and 569 Boy Scouts are relying on you to keep them from starving, and you have a cookbook and access to Allrecipes.com, do not call your older sister to ask her how to make Baked Potatoes, or she might think you were dropped on the head more than that one time she knows about.

4. When getting the kids ready for bed and your husband is busy “folding laundry,” and the older hooligans are still in the tub, but you got the little one out because she was screaming, but then you forgot about her and started blogging again, DO NOT forget to buy lots of carpet cleaner that morning. Otherwise, theoretically speaking, it might be really hard to clean up the trail of poop from the main cache to the dinner table where she climbed on a chair to graze on leftovers from dinner.

There was one other one, but it was just sad, rather than highly educational. Please share your own best klutz-tips. As you can tell, I need all the help I can get!

****Updated to say****

5. Because it has been pointed out to me (by someone I USED to think of as a friend, see #2), y’all FrumpFighters should kick me out of your carnival because I never actually talk about beautification of the physical body. But I did have one that mentioned makeup, so I’ll put it back in: (Thank me later for this amazingly original tip):

When buying lipstick and reminding your fellow Fight the Frumper that you cannot just write about your favorite lipstick as you have no idea what brand you have ever bought, as you always just buy whatever is on sale at the grocery store (as long as it mentions some form of chocolate in the color or “mocha”), do not leave it in the car where it will melt even if there is still ice on the windshield. Stick with melting crayons and fruit snacks and dumdums and old milk in sippy cups and actual chocolate.

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Go Fight the Frump with real experts at Fussy’s.

You can tell a lot about a person and their blog based on which aspect of blogging: Art (Writing or Photography or Quilling), Business (making money or expanding an IRL enterprise); or Technology (coding or design or web development), inspires their posts. A great blog will usually be artistically rich, income-generating, and technologically sophisticated, though there are many exceptions, and a great blog for me may simply be one that minimizes my angst.

Whatever your goal(s) for your blog, it’s good to explore the other aspects, if only so that if and when your interests or goals change, your blog will be set up to shift/expand more smoothly.

Art of the Blog

The most important thing is not how great your writing is. If fantastic writing were the only requirement for blogging greatness, I’d be on the beach with my new iMac right now. Instead, it’s important to have a hook. Skimpy clothes, great assets, loose morals. NO! Hook! You might be the rancher’s wife or the depressive ex-Mormon or the Southern “Can I get an Amen?” or the Alaskan Family Fun. Hook is closely related to voice: are you Sarcastic, Hip, Queenly, Fussy?

Provide a Service

Second most important is providing a service. That might be plain old entertainment, but honey, you better be dang entertaining if you’re not also offering tips, recipes, advice on baby naming, live blogging of American Idol, or wrong opinions to rail against. Even Dooce, who has never posted a recipe (that I can see) updates her Daily Photo, Chuck and Style sections about four times a week, encouraging people to spend more disposable income on funky knickknacks.

Rocks in My Dryer had a recent post that I cannot find right now. (Note: Get thee a search box on thy blog) about posts. Short is good. Frequent paragraph breaks is good. Focusing each post on one topic is good. Again, lots of exceptions, but overall good advice.

Business of the Blog

Two things here: traffic and subscribers. To give you a basis for comparison, The Pioneer Woman gets about 5.9 million pageviews a month; the lowliest Federated Media parenting author gets 30,000. Page views are generally 2-4 times higher than unique visitors and are what advertisers mostly track, though they might also want to know your subscriber numbers, as that indicates loyalty and signals quality, ongoing content. Sign up for Google Analytics to see how close you are to becoming famous being able to make 5 dollars a month from advertising.

Traffic unrelated to subscribers is determined by your Google (or other search engine) page rank, which is determined by your SEO (search engine optimization), of which incoming links are the most important aspect. For a great primer on SEO for mom bloggers in particular, check out WebMarketCentral. Incoming links are like gold. As one person said, you can shout that your name is Jane @ What About Mom as loudly and often as you like, but Google only cares when others start shouting that you are Jane @ What About Mom.

One non-intuitive thing I’ve learned from my friend Laura is that, when it comes to pay-per-click advertising (where you only get paid if a visitor actually clicks on the ad, like with Google Adsense), you make money when someone comes to your site and DOESN’T FIND what they are looking for, but clicks away on a promising-looking ad.

So which should you focus on? Traffic or subscribers? Both, of course. Ideally they’ll feed each other, though often a post that appeals to your regular readers won’t hook in new ones or random Google searchers and vice versa. Again, it’s a matter of what your priorities are and what kind (if any) ads you run.

Building Traffic

Once you’ve nailed SEO, it’s about getting subscribers to be traffickers too. Get your subscribers to click over to the actual site by hosting a carnival, writing great content they have to comment on, hosting giveaways, contests, or polls; posting something special that can only be seen on the blog, and compiling helpful lists for readers to check back regularly too, esp. if you have a cute button for it.

You can also try the social news aggregators like Digg, Kirtsy, etc. Go to Share This to get an easy plugin for all the main sites. Ideally your readers will submit your stories, but, hey, there’s no law against tooting your own horn. I submitted my own Dooce post (I know, uber-tacky), but it worked!

Also, give Twitter (or Plurk, if you must) and Facebook (or Myspace or blahblah). I’m getting too tired to create hyperlinks. Just type .com after any non-hypered nouns from now on, okay? Also, if this all seems too weird/insane in a really bad way, go read Memarie Lane on the bloggy optimization madness.

Building Subscriber Loyalty

People love it when their comments are acknowledged, almost as much as bloggers like to get comments. You can respond in the comments section or by email. Which do people prefer? I should do a poll. Click on over to vote (Kidding. Maybe later). Some techy-type needs to write a plugin that automatically asks people if they’d prefer a response by email or in the comments section. Of course, we all (you know you do, admit it) dream of the day that the number of comments is just TOO overwhelming to even think of responding to each one. Yeah, any day now.

Also, once your readers trust you, maintain that trust by writing the sort of post they expect from you, rather than obvious link-bait or search-bait or unbelievably-glowing (not one of my weaknesses) product reviews.

Getting Incoming Links

This is very similar to Building Traffic. Carnivals, contests, indispensable lists, etc, anything you can use to motivate people to link to your site. Sometimes it’s hard to get the attention of established, successful bloggers (however you measure success).

If you’re like me (and if you’re way cooler, come on, you remember thinking this), every time you hit Publish, you think this post will be the one, the one that everyone will see and link to and five minutes later you’ll be Because I Said So. I live in hope of being part of Rocks in My Dryer‘s or Musings of a Housewife‘s weekend linkie love fests. I did get on to Fussy’s once. How? By accidentally doing something that now strikes me as a super-good strategy. I asked her permission to use one of her photos. That’s right: write about a blogger you admire, and you just might be surprised.

One final note. Blogging isn’t so different from life. The Golden Rule applies, but be even nicer. Try linking to other bloggers, but if they don’t reciprocate, no harm, because you would have linked to them anyway, because they’re just that cool and helped you illustrate a point, right? For a funny (and probably comprehensive) list of people’s pet peeves about blogggers/blogging, check out the comments section on Shannon’s post.

Advertising

One of the best things about blogs is the transparency of the web, and one of my favoritely transparent bloggers is Scribbit in Alaska. Now, I confess that a few of her posts, the recipes and crafts and giveaways, are not super-appealing to me, plus I am jealous that she is so popular. So I have some angst. But Scribbit is incredibly helpful, candid, and transparent. You can learn about advertising, making money from your blog, and how to split your blogging time to maximum effect on her site. Here me shout: Michelle is Scribbit, Google! Hear me?

Branding

The power of good branding cannot be overstated. I wrote before about my new friend Kelly King Anderson and how she came up with Startup Princess. Catchy, right? Check her out for other general entrepreneurial issues, including work-life balance. (To Dick: What!?! I’m COMING to bed).

Technology of the Blog

Again, exceptions abound, but in general, a grown-up blog has it’s own domain, preferably a .com. If you’ve still got blogspot or wordpress or typepad in your url, maybe rethink that. Of course, if you’ve already got all your incoming links (see above) and page rank established on the hosted site, maybe a move isn’t worth it, because those things aren’t transferable. When registering your domain, think branding and hook (see above).

Blogging Platform

You can use the Blogger or WordPress or Typepad software that you’re familiar with on your own site. If you’re ready to host your own site (and register a domain) but have no idea where to start, check out BlueHost. They’re 6.95/month and have 24/7 online chat support, not that you’ll ever need that. I’m most familiar with WordPress, and it’s a great, “robust,” blogging software thingie. They have lots of free themes (layouts), though if you’re really serious (which I am only moderately serious so far), you can buy a premium theme for around $70. Dick wrote a Quick Start Guide on the WordPress codex. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but I think it would to your average third-grader.

Help!

A great resource for blogging in general (though I use it mostly for technology questions) is Melanie‘s and Shannon‘s BloggingBasics101. They’ve got a great Google-based search tool, so type in anything. Go ahead. I bet, if it has to do with blogging, they’ve got something, or know who does, on it.

Down with Photoshop!

The only other tool (besides WordPress) that I use regularly is Snagit. Snagit is like Photoshop, only easier and without that layers crap. You can write on photos, take screenshots, uh, do other cool things. I am not a designer/artiste (surprise!), but I like how handy SnagIt is. They don’t even pay me to say that . . . YET. Hey, SnagIt, love me as much as I love you, okay?

The Wrap-Up

I hope this is not too basic, not too advanced (not much fear of that, eh?). I know I’m exhausted, so even if this list isn’t exactly complete, it’s done (unless you help!). I’d love to hear what you think about the art, business, and technology of blogging. Do you think comments or emails are better as replies? Is Typepad nicer than WordPress? Why do you blog? How much money do you make? I remember when we taught conversational English in Japan and one thing we worked on was appropriate questions to ask of strangers. I never quite mastered that.

If you have any questions for me, please ask, and I’ll get Dick to research and answer right away.

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Oh, and this is what works-for-me. That Shannon! What she doesn’t know about making me a trafficker!

Well-meaning friends and strangers have asked me why I blog. And I confess that sometimes I ask myself that very question. Also:

What on earth am I hoping to accomplish here? Or maybe that was what I wondered when I used licorice-bribery to get Susan on the potty this afternoon.

Various Reasons People have Suggested for Why a Female Mammal With Offspring Would Blog

Do I plan to become a real writer someday? (Do you plan to become more attractive someday?)

Do I just want to chronicle my family life? (Do you think scrapbooking would cure that?)

Do I hope to make money someday? (Do you want to hear about how much mother-work is worth?)

Do I think blogging will cure cancer in the near future? (Do you really think Ivana Trump’s fourth husband married her for love?)

So Why Blog?

Some days I think I will stop blogging, or stop viewing my blog as a letter to world. It can be very discouraging if you are not The Pioneer Woman getting 10,528 comments on your ode to John Denver and Zune (which didn’t discourage me from entering her Zune contest!). Or I can get discouraged because I don’t think I’ll ever write something as simply moving as Conversion Diary’s last post (via Rocks in My Dryer).

But every time I get especially down at the fact I have not brokered world peace yet, I get an email or a comment from a friend, family member, or stranger, and whatever sweet thing they say makes it all worthwhile. I think that this would happen even if I weren’t blogging — I think God expects us to minister to each other by encouraging and complimenting, but as writing becomes more and more something I want to be, nice things said about what I’ve written mean a lot.

Beyond Writing

Content comes first on a blog, but then you can consider design and marketing. I’d rather not discuss design, what with my complete lack of talent and patience with art and computers. Marketing is interesting, though, and not just because advertisers sell everything from cigarettes to hockey sticks with the same lie that both will make you more attractive to the opposite sex. If they’d only promise to make you more attractive, sympathetic, and obey-able to your children, I’d start smoking — herbal cigarettes, at least.

It doesn’t take an FBLA alumna to realize that the marketing of your blog and the marketing that businesses hope to do on your blog are pretty significant. I think the BlogHer Adnetwork is pretty cool because they combine these two things: When I place BlogHer ads on my site, my post headlines get placed on other blogs. I don’t know what that means in terms of readership or money yet, because I’ve lost my BlogHer password. Probably a big check is in the mail.

Your Input Needed

Next week I’ll be participating in a panel at the Blogging for Business Conference in Salt Lake City. I tried to demur, but thanks to the generosity, gullibility, and/or desperation of the conference organizer, I will be on a panel with Laura Moncur to discuss “Pitching to Bloggers: What Works, What Doesn’t, and What Will Get You in Trouble.” The other speakers include such luminaries as Brian Critchfield, Charlie Craine, Christopher Barger, Cydni Tetro, Dave Bascom, Jake McKee, Jason Brown, Rand Bateman, and Tom Pick. I have no idea who any of these people are, nor indeed how brightly their lumen shines.

Basically, I am so flattered to have been asked to participate that I have turned in my picture and bio on time not yet begun to figure out how to make what I have done for the past ten years sound remotely business-ish. I do, luckily, have some experience with being pitched to by companies that sell everything from fabric wallpaper to parenting magazines. Most recently I was asked to review a new LDS movie. Dick has been wanting to see it, so I said, “sure,” although the last Mormon movie I tried to watch was a serious contender for the Worst Movie Ever title.

I do have definite ideas on how businesses should pitch to bloggers, and almost every pitch that I’ve received could have been more effective if the PR person were more familiar with blogging. The overall impression I get is that PR people don’t know whether to approach bloggers as 1) journalists interested in press releases, 2) businesses selling ad space, or 3) human lab rats.

If you have any thoughts on this, I hope you’ll share them with me. I’d ask for wardrobe and hair help, but it’s probably too late for that. It’s probably also too late to lose that 20 pounds.

Your Take on Bloggy Pitches

What mistakes do companies make when they pitch to you?

What would/do you like to see in a pitch?

What motivates you to review/recommend a product or run ads (free review products, money, free products for giveaways, money, etc)?

What’s the worst pitch you’ve ever received?

Thanks!

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