There are all kinds of blog posts - here are a few:

• The list post
• The crowd sourcing post (hint: this is one of those)
• The video post
• The audio post
• The information post
• The "how to" post
• The linkbait post
• The interview post

OK, I'm bored now, but you get the picture, so here's my question:

What type of post consistently brings you good traffic?

I'm not even going to start you off this week - I'll add my answer later on in comments.

One other thing, while you're here. Are you a member of the Mike's Life community yet? If not, you should join us now.

I could tell you that I'm going to be giving something amazing away to the whole community in May, but instead I'll tell you that people email me all the time to say that my newsletter is a really good read. So come on board and try it out for a few weeks, I'm confident you'll enjoy it, and if you don't, you can unsubscribe in two shakes of a cat's tail.  read more »

I don't know if you caught Nathan's post about How to JV your way to success - if not you should check it out.

In it, he joked that I am Robin to his Batman - of course we all know that in reality I would be Batman, don't we?

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On Saturday, I did some ocean swim training with a guy who is getting ready for the Ironman triathlon next month. He's much younger and a hundred times fitter than me, but he dislikes the swim phase of the event the most. It's not just the swimming either - he (and this is quite common) doesn't really like swimming in the ocean because of "what's down there."

My last words to him as we entered the water were:

"Remember, you can't win the event on the swim phase, but you can lose it."

And we got our heads down and started out.  read more »

You may remember I featured a video by Portico Quartet a few months ago, and this prompted another reader to send me some information about London based instrumental group Sankorfa.

The band is made up of graduates from the Guildhall School of Music, and they have played everywhere from The Royal Albert Hall to The Camden Jazz Cafe.

Their EP releases tomorrow, and you can find out more about them here: http://www.sankorfa.com/

Enjoy the video.  read more »

For almost a year, I've been trying to decide between an iPhone and a new Blackberry, and I finally chose the BB this week. In the end it made sense for two key reasons. Firstly as a Blackberry user for five years, there is no learning curve for me, and secondly the build quality of Blackberries is simply awesome. My current Curve is two years old (I've NEVER had a phone for that long) and everything still works, despite abuse you would not believe.

With that decision made, it's time for the big one boys and girls.

I need to get a new desktop computer.

  Versus   

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Do you remember my post about Dave the salesman, and about how he focused on his core principles to be successful?

I've done some work with him recently, and with several other businesses, and we've been setting them up to use Twitter as a prospecting tool.

Dave had always used telephone books as his main source of prospecting, and it's worked for years for him. He basically works his way through a list of companies (he sells photocopiers) and contacts them to find out what type of machine they use now, how they get on with it, and who the decision maker is. It's a numbers game. Every now and then he gets lucky and finds someone who is on the point of looking for a new machine, but most of the time he's simply adding the information to his database, and then following up at regular intervals hoping to catch them at "the right time."

Twitter search has added a whole new dimension for him - he can now catch people at the point they need his help, simply by setting up a Twitter search! I just put the word "photocopier" into Twitter to give you an example, and here's what I got:

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I had a really interesting conversation with a friend of mine recently. He's a self employed locksmith, and like many friends, he was fascinated to know more about how I make a living online.

We were talking about some of the products I sell, and at one point I said to him (only slightly tongue in cheek) "You really ought to set up a blog for your business, and you should start by buying my Beginner's Guide to Blogging."

His reply was "Bloody hell Mike, I'm not going to spend $47 learning how to set up a blog!"  read more »

Interviews of other bloggers can provide some great content for your site, as well as attract some of their audience to check you out and perhaps choose to become a regular reader. This post aims to give you some tips about how to get the best from the interview style post.

Timing

Most up and coming bloggers will accept interviews - after all they are getting good brand exposure and a link to their site from it! For more established successful bloggers, if you pitch them for an interview when they are launching a product, you're more likely to meet with some success.  read more »

One of my eternal frustrations as someone who works to help new and learning bloggers is that so many people fail to take action. They read advice, they ask for and thank you for the advice, and then they do...nothing. They don't even do the opposite, which would have some merit.

Image: Maggie Smith / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I've veered from getting stressed about it to getting angry about it to just not worrying about it.  read more »

One of the things I enjoy about working with my business partner Nathan is that he often comes up with show stopping phrases. And in a post in the Beyond Blogging Project forums, he hit us with this one:

Don't get caught in the trap of thinking you're just one great article away from fame.

Image: Chris Sharp / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And I see bloggers, indeed I've been one, who are busy writing great content every day on their blogs.....and getting nowhere slowly.

I once read that "If you write great content, people will come." Well sorry, but that's bullshit. At least it is nowadays. There are simply too many blogs, with equally good content, competing for those readers.  read more »