Life Lessons – Niche Marketing is like French Bread

Hi Guys, Mark here! Building niche sites is a lot like French Bread. For years, the fantastic, traditional artisan made baguette was deteriorating due to being mass produced. The wonderful symbol of the french diet, with it profound craftsmanship was dying. There were even billboards around Paris saying EAT BREAD OR THERE WON’T BE ANY, meaning support your local bakery or it will go belly up. So guess what. THEY WERE ABLE TO MASS … Read More

Life Lessons – You Need a Friend to Give You Perspective.

Hi Guys, Mark here! I remember seeing “Silence of the Lambs” when Hannibal Lecter says to Jodi Foster “Read Marcus Aurelius, First rule — Simplicity! Ask of all things, what is it in itself? What is it’s nature?” I’ve had to do that lots of times in this business, and just yesterday I had a major problem with some sites I was working on. I could not see the problem, and called a friend … Read More

Wisdom – I Regret Missing an Opportunity to Stay Silent

The title of this post was a bit of wisdom I got from my wise friend, Jack. “The Italians say: I regret missing an opportunity to remain silent.” This dovetailed nicely with another bit of wisdom from a colleague: “You cannot be hurt by what you do not say” Put them together, and it’s a powerful combination. I wish I had just shut up sometimes. I’m better at that now. …

Life Lessons – The Aggravation Cost Story

When I first got to New York, I had never really worked anywhere aside from college part time jobs. My wife at the time had gotten a job, and I was going with her to New York. Frightening to say the least, but I was going to do it. I was the country boy that wasn’t going to go to New York, or maybe anywhere for that matter (maybe Baltimore) because I didn’t like … Read More

Blogging – Web Hospitality

Welcome! Do you know, what that word implies to me? WELCOME! It means, come in, be comfortable, find nourishment and company here. Find warmth, Hospitality and companionship. Be at home here. Why am I saying this? Because what  separates the good from the bad on the internet is CARE. “Web Hospitality” I’m not sure if that is an already coined word, but if not it’s copyrighted to me, Mark Singley 2010. I only found … Read More

Wisdom – Don’t Fight the Phase

I’ve got a term I internally coined and don’t really share, until now. “Don’t fight the Phase” All things in life are phasic. Everything you go through, is a phase. Best not to fight it. Like a wave, better to try and ride it. Learn its boundaries, don’t make it bigger (or smaller) than it is, and ride it until it’s over. Let it transform you. By all means, find the peace and positiveness … Read More

Life Lessons – Occam’s Razor-Why it Matters

What is Occam’s Razor? Wikipedia has it as …The principle is popularly interpreted as “the simplest explanation is usually the correct one”… Occam’s Razor is attributed to the 14th-century English logician, theologian and Franciscan friar William of Ockham who wrote “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” PUT SIMPLY: If you are tired, you probably need Sleep If you are hungry, you probably need to eat If the car is puttering to a stop, … Read More

WordPress – What is a WordPress Plugin?

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WordPress by itself is pretty wonderful, but you might want more bells and whistles. That’s where WordPress Plugins come in to play. It took me a long time to realize that if I wanted something I should check out plugins. Because if I need it, somebody else does too. Do you want a pretty image gallery to show up on your pages? There are plugins for that. Do you want to add adsense so … Read More

Life Lessons – Patience

I read years ago: don’t overestimate what you can do in a day or a week, but don’t UNDERESTIMATE what you can do in a year, or 6 months. I wanted to share this with you to remind you that what we do in Web Marketing is long term build and not a short term win. Build pages each day, brick by brick. And then, in a year look back. And by all means … Read More

Tips – Never Underestimate the Baby Wipe

My Mother swore by baby wipes. She never left home without them. She always counseled us to have them, and NEVER to buy the brand name because the generic were just as good. Like the fact that she carried instant coffee in a zip lock bag in her purse (because she could not understand how people didn’t have coffee, even instant around their houses, so she cheerfully brought her own). She never left the … Read More

Wisdom – And Finally, Blogging

Blogging was meant to be a web log. Not a tweet, not a facebook post, but more of a “Dear Diary”. There to read, but not to be imposed on people like the tweet about being at Starbucks, then going to the bathroom, then getting your latte. I read a statistic that 90% of the tweets are generated by 10% of the users. Add Lindsey Lohan or whoever else to that, and you get … Read More

WordPress – What is WordPress Anyway?

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You know, I could not wrap my head around what wordpress was and why we should use if for several years. I got to this dashboard that you are in now, got totally befuddled, and ran back to Dreamweaver with all of it’s clunky and hair pulling out problems. WordPress is much easier, far far easier. If you are new to it you just need to understand a few things about how it works … Read More

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