If you're a webmaster/Internet marketer, chances are you have saved or bookmarked multiple 'how-to' lists about search engine optimization, copywriting, blogging, and web design. Well, throw all that information out the window and relax in the knowledge that you can be effortlessly knowledgeable on all those subjects (without the stored lists), somewhat like a prodigy.
Did you know that storing 'tips' in a file for reference is becoming as obsolete as the T-Model Ford? Let me relate to you how things have evolved in this area...
Disclosure: The viewpoint described here is based on my experience over the last four years, and I do indeed follow the recommendation I have made at the end.
Over those four years I've been writing articles, blogging and designing web sites. Naturally I've needed to know the best way to do all these things.
As I'm sure you are aware, all the how-to information on the above subjects is available copiously on the Internet from a variety of expert authors. So what did I do? Just like you, I bookmarked the information or pasted it into a disk file for reference (more recently, I was pasting into online files). Now let's leave that aside for the moment.
Wanting to stay abreast of the concerned topics, I also subscribed to expert blog feeds on each of them. Now here's the kicker: I found that every so often, each expert throws an up-to-date how-to list at you!
As a result of this interesting phenomenon, I have taken a silent oath never to save or bookmark key information on these subjects. At the same time I constantly refine my list of roughly 50 feeds to ensure that I am always seeing the freshest, most accurate and best-informed how-to lists.
For not-so-common subjects where there are no expert feeds, yes, I still bookmark, but that does not detract from the essence of my commentary here.
Here's a sampling of the blogs I subscribe to, by category:
1. SEO
*Matt Cutts, http://www.mattcutts.com/blog
*Brad Fallon, http://www.bradfallon.com/
*Aaron Wall, http://www.seobook.com/
*SEOmoz (Rand Fishkin), http://www.seomoz.org/blog
*Graywolf (Michael Gray), http://www.wolf-howl.com/
*Shoemoney (Jeremy Schoemaker), http://www.shoemoney.com/
2. Copywriting
*Copyblogger (Brian Clark), http://www.copyblogger.com/
3. Blogging
*ProBlogger (Darren Rowse), http://www.problogger.net/
*Daily Blog Tips, http://www.dailyblogtips.com/
4. Web Design
*Lockergnome (Chris Prillo), http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/web
*Inside Google Sitemaps, http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/
*Pearsonified (Chris Pearson), http://www.pearsonified.com/
When All Is Said And Done
Try it yourself. Rely only on feeds to keep abreast of techniques. Stop worrying about saving information in case you need it. I bet you'll have the same experience as I did!
About the Author
Lucky Balaraman directs The Magnum Group, an Indian company specializing in web design at http://web-design.themagnumgroup.net/
