I get emails from people who want to know if Start Something Today accepts guest posts. The simple answer is yes but we are very selective. These guidelines are just that – guidelines – if you have an idea then e mail me and we can discuss it.

As a general rule I will only publish one Guest Post a week. So the next question is – What kind of content do we accept?

The general principle is that it has to add value to our readers. Things that are related to doing business – we even let you occasionally promote your own business. It can be related to business ideas, creative ideas, blogging, Internet marketing in general, and it can also be derived from your own personal experiences. There is no minimum length for your post, but usually the guest posts have over 500 words.

Guidelines

• Your post must be original and must have never been published before on the Internet
• You agree to not publish the post anywhere else (i.e., in your own blog or as a guest post in other blogs)
• You can include up to two links in the byline, which will be displayed at the bottom of the post
• You can’t use SEOd anchor text for your links

How do I submit my guest post? We prefer to set you up as a contributor or possibly an editor but that all depends on your content.

If you have a post that meets the guidelines above, you can send it to me on the email paulatstart-something-today.com – if you click on the guest writer image that will take you to my e mail. Usually within 48 hours I will reply stating if we will accept the guest post or not. If I reject your post, you are obviously free to use it in your own blog or to propose it as a guest post to some other website.

One of the most poorly understood terms in use on the Internet today is the term avatar. Let me begin by explaining where the term came from originally. Apparently the term is derived from the Sanskrit word which is to do with Eastern religions which means ‘a representation of one’s self’ in other words a picture, an image or a representation of the person concerned. The modern derivation or application of the term avatar is almost exclusively connected with the use of computers, the Internet, Internet gaming and blogs in particular. Many services like MSN Messenger, Yahoo, AIM and Skype actually encourage you to have an image of yourself. They seem to work better if the image is of the person concerned. A picture of you has been shown to encourage confidence.

Probably the most common outworking of the avatar format is by using on of a number of free services that link a particular e-mail to a particular image and that image is stored on the Internet at one such service and probably the one most commonly used in the blogging community is a service called Gravatar (www.Gravatar.com) allows you to go and register an e-mail address and then upload a small picture related to the e-mail address. Then whenever you go and post a comment or write an entry on the blog then provided you use that e-mail address then that image that you’ve linked to the e-mail address will pop up in the post or comment. There are many examples of that all over the internet.

Now why is it important to use Gravatars when you’re working on the Internet? We all know the search engines love back links to your site  and search engines like Google view them as very important. So let’s say that you have a chosen area and niche area looking for example high performance sailing. If you go and search on the Internet for blogs containing the phrase high performance sailing. Once you find a good site you post a helpful comment and in doing so are asked to provide your e mail and are given the option of providing a web address.  Provided your comment is accepted by the owner of the blog then two things happened one is you get a back link to your site which is all cute importance of the just mentioned and secondly your image gets placed adjacent in the comments (if your image is good then people may well click on it. The more you place relevant comments on other peoples blogs the more likely your website is to gain that elusive goal – an elevated Google PR rank. There are no hard and fast rules regarding the number of back links that you need in order to step up from say a Google rank of 0 to 1 to 2, then 2 to 3 and so on but every back link that you have brings you closer to that elusive goal.

Wherever you see an invitation to post a comment on a blog where they require you to put an e mail address to validate the poster then there is a probability that the site is enabled to use Avatars/Gravatars. Each comment that you post acts as a valuable back link. It is for just this reason that spammers try to post comments by the hundred in blogs and on forums.

This weeks recommendation is in two parts:

1. go to www.gravatar.com and register – it is free. For each email address you want to use just have a small image – preferably different to upload.
2. then make a decision to visit one blog (search on Google for ones similar to your niche) and post a helpful comment. The box on “start something today” looks like this but you may only see a ‘Comments’ link on some sites.

I’m an avid follower of Seth Godin (founder of squidoo) and his simple wisdom often astounds me. His latest post on his blog is all about the simple truths that form the foundations of  full employment:

• Sales – if you can make sales you’ll be always employed
• Additive effort – if you can add value to what others do then you too are likely to be valued
• Initiation – if you start new things then the wise business owner will grab you with both hands and more  but sadly most people who are initiators are misunderstood by the masses.

So which one of these are you?

Full article

Whilst on holiday – a rare fine day in a wet summer – I came across something that I’ve know for years but had forgotten. How nice it is to receive a handwritten letter or postcard? When was the last time you made the effort to hand-write a letter? I used to write almost every day to my wife and children and some years I was away for 200 + days/year. Those letters are treasured and often re read and often bring about a smile or tears but the still produce a response.

Text messages and e mails and twitter don’t have the same effect. E mails bring me to tears sadly but all for the wrong reasons.

One company leading the swing back to letter writing is Papernation and the blog that goes with the site is always worth a peek.

As always these posts come with a challenge – who are we going to write to today or this week? Tell us what happened as a result. Go on encourage someone today!