by Brian Chappell on May 4, 2009
Creating captivating blog posts that get seen by thousands of people really isn’t as complicated as its made out to be. Granted, the execution of successful content distribution is an art in and of itself, however, the factors that cause content to spread many times can be boiled down to a few things. Many times, the real nuts and bolts of the blogpost can be total garbage, and with the help of a few tactile modifications the content can go viral.
Consistent Image Sizing
Consistent image sizing is critical, many times posts that have 25+ images laid out and sized consistently can go viral, just because the fact there are so many consistently sized images, no matter what the content of the images are.





Tutorial Posts With Clear Imagery and Explanation
Tutorial posts are another great way to convey information on a blog. Rather then explain how to do something with just text, breaking up the flow of the document with concrete call to actions and examples via imagery can help a lot. Many times I find tutorials that are completely inaccurate or represent false or dated information, but because the post is laid out so well, it gets shared around.


The OMG Photo
The OMG photo as I have coined is that awesome hero shot you find on some blogposts. I see this time and time again, where a unbelievably funny or creative hero shot causes a blogpost to go viral, no matter what the actual article said.



Lengthy Infographic Content
One of my favorite ways to convey information is through an infographic. Although time consuming to create, they tend to go viral.


Consistent Giant List Round Ups
This really is where quality gets washed away sometimes. Want to create a hit on your blog? Simply round up 146 sources that discuss a niche topic, write up brief descriptions about each and lay it out in a consistent, readable manner. I see several specific sites that make a killing doing this all the time, and guess what, typically the sites listed are not that great and sometimes are lucky to be on topic.


If you notice one of the biggest factors people will overlook in executing content distribution is consistency. Messy, outdated, false, regurgitated content gets shared all the time. Consistent, easy to read layouts is king, content is queen.
The snapshots I sourced in this article are examples of consistency + great content which will yield the greatest chance for success.
by Brian Chappell on February 4, 2009
If you didn’t like Scary SEO then you definitely will not like IM Springbreak. IM Springbreak is going to be held at the same place in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on April 2-4. This is not going to be an exciting event and here are 7 reasons why you don’t want to attend.
1. You will realize that Dave Snyder is actually not a human and is a bear. 
2. You own 456,000,000$ worth of domain names. You don’t need to try in life anymore – it is effectively game over. Therefore attending the conference and learning a ton is not priority.
3. You have to listen to me speak about things that don’t get regurgitated in the blogosphere.
4. You get nervous when getting ridiculously unique, great answers about your current internet marketing initiatives, from A list experts that would never give you the light of day at a large impersonal conference.
5. You are allergic to fun.
6. Because you think the bacon explosion on your computer screen will taste better by licking the screen than in person eating it from the creator himself, TheMadHat.
7. You enjoy spending 2,455$ to attend large conferences, and frankly having to spend 500$ to see
Chris Winfield – Kenny Hyder – Greg Finn – Brent Csutoras – Reg Saddler – Todd Mailcoat – Neal Rodriguez – Li Evans – Jeff Quipp – Brian Chappell – Carolyn Shelby – Wil Reynolds – Rhea Drysdale – Steve Plunkett – Rae Hoffman – Michael Streko – Aaron Chronister – Frank Watson – Brandy Eddings – David Szetela – Chris Hart – Pamela Lund and Tony Adam irritates you.
With that said I definitely do not want to see the following people at the event. Whatever you do guys – do not show up!
Martin Bowling
Scott Hendison
Joanna Lord
Taylor Pratt
Ben Cook aka Skittzo
Pat Sexton
Dave Rohrer
Scott Clark
Kid Disco
Dan Zarella
Kate Morris
Lisa Barone
Eric Lander
Rick Galan
Wiep
Nick Andron
Dan Perry
DJ Litten
If this post thoroughly confused you then read this.
by Brian Chappell on January 19, 2009
Dapper.net is one of my favorite services for turning content into a form or stream that I can better utilize. It gives you the ability to turn content into the following sources:
xml rss html google gadget netvibes module image loop google maps icalendar json csv email xsl yaml
Below you will see a demo video I made in which I grab images off of a page, and only images, and turned it into HTML that I can then embed wherever I want. Have you used Dapper for any projects?
by Brian Chappell on January 16, 2009
Here are the results from the survey:

Interesting that I am not alone in trying to balance so much. Like I eluded in the other post – the key to all this is balancing your life, staying focused and diversifying your time.
by Brian Chappell on January 14, 2009

One great way to pad yourself in todays economy is to diversify your streams of income. A few things off the top of my head that folks are doing right now to do just that…
Content Creation SEO implementation Affiliate Marketing / Personal one off side projects 9-5 agency/in house jobs Consulting Coding
Everett over at Sphinn brings up a good point. I think I should have clarified that the domains are side projects – don’t count the multitude of domains you look after at the 9-5 SEO agency job.
I thought this would be an interesting survey to find out how well diversified most folks really are.
The difficult element in all of this is to find the right work/life balance. Focus is paramount and it is easy to get washed away in distractions.