July 14, 2008MONDAY 080714
Drew Canavero, trainer at CrossFit Reno, "plays" with a medicine ball during a 2-mile WOD. (Chest pass/run/side shuttle/run/side shuttle/run/backwards throw/repeat.) CF Reno has some interesting words on their blog: specifically, check out Zach Davis's entries entitled "Hello There" and "Aggression." Stuart at CrossFit Old Town shows us that persistance counts when it comes to getting your first muscle-up: video Read today's five more tips for Building a Better CrossFit Blog . . . Place your contact info where it's easy to find (ex: sidebar or "Contact Us" or "About Us" page) and hotlink your e-mail address. Make it easy for people to get a hold of you. Also, think about linking your e-mail through your site. For example, instead of being Jen888@hotmail.com, use Jen@crossfitbananas.com. One is a lot easier to remember than the other, isn't it? Encourage people to post in Comments and really begin a dialogue. The best way to do this? It's not by saying "Post to Comments" but, rather, by provoking a response through the use of an interesting subject and then responding when they post in Comments. People are searching for connection. Give it to them. Be fair, even if things get hot. And think of how you would feel if it was you.The blogger can be funny, tough, and smart - but it pays to be kind too. People will remember how you made them feel. Photo size: be careful. Big looks great but sometimes loads slow. Choose wisely. If the flavor/tone of the photo will not be conveyed in a thumbnail, then run it in a larger size. Use a stat tracker: Sitemeter, Google Analytics, or another widget. The numbers will tell you what people liked and didn't like -- and if they told their friends. Your blog "tone" says a lot: color choice, word choice, photo choice, and video choice. Too busy? So is everybody. We all get the same number of hours in the day, and we all make time for the things that are important to us. It's not that you don't have time to blog; it's that blogging is not important to you. But a well-designed, well-maintained website is important to your members and to your future members. You have no idea how many potential members you have lost due to a bad-looking website. And you'll never know. Because they simply won't call you. So, don't take that chance. Carve out 15 minutes of your day for blogging. Frequently updated photos and videos will make your members happier and they'll tell two friends and so on and so on . . . (Okay, that was 7 tips. We lied.) Posted by Lisbeth at July 14, 2008 12:05 AMComments
CrossFit Reno, I love the med-ball games! Soooo much fun! Jerry, great video! Great MU by Stuart! Comment #1 - Posted by: Jen at July 14, 2008 1:54 AMGreat tips Lisbeth ... keep them coming. Comment #2 - Posted by: Mike - CrossFit PEI at July 14, 2008 3:03 AMJerry....cool video of some one in my age range doing a M.U.! Lisbeth...great material. Your website IS your best salesperson! Comment #3 - Posted by: Matt Hunt at July 14, 2008 3:49 AMAwesome muscle up! Very inspiring!! Thanks for all of the blogging tips! Greatly appreciated! Comment #4 - Posted by: Leigh Ann-CF Ames at July 14, 2008 9:06 AMI would love to check those articles but apparently I need to login first :o( to view this resource Some decent ideas about maintaining a web log. As someone who does web dev on the side, and from general knowledge about spam and how to beat it, I'd disagree and particularly discourage the hot-linking of email addresses for two reasons. The first being that spambots/webcrawlers/spiders comb the internet and follow links on webpages looking to cache anything in the form of mail@domain.tld. Second, a hot-linked email address will more often than not attempt to start your computer's default mail application, which in many cases has not been configured and could cause some temporary frustration of the user. In a day where so many use web based email, linking your email address doesn't help if it just needs to be copy/pasted anyway. As an alternative, a convention which is becoming popular is to display one's email as email [at] domain [dot] xxx. This eliminates the webspiders from archiving your information, and makes a copy and paste fairly easy with only a minor substitution of a . and @ symbol. Good job Lis. I've tried posting a more detailed discussion that echos Aaron's spam concerns but it's lost in moderation. What he's saying is true, but there are some decent workarounds that let you preserve the "hotlink" format. Google "hivelogic enkoder" to find a great (free) tool for obfuscating email addresses in a way that visitors find easy to use but that spambots won't "see" as an email address. Cheers, Alex Comment #7 - Posted by: Alex at July 16, 2008 9:52 PMExcellent comments, Aaron and Alex! I definitely appreciate the tips. My concern is just that we make it as easy as possible for the potential member to contact us. But you both have some great ways to make that happen as well as preserve your website security. Nice. Thanks! Comment #8 - Posted by: Lisbeth at July 16, 2008 10:55 PMThanks for the link to CrossFit Reno. Zach: I loved the information on your site about discovering who your client is. We are having a Bring-A-Friend BBQ and WOD free of charge to our clients. I hope that you don't mind that I referenced a portion of your "Those Who Will" on our blog. I gave you credit. It shows our current clients that we are looking for them to bring more of them. Thank you. Comment #9 - Posted by: Dana Lynch - CrossFit BGI at July 17, 2008 7:33 AMPost a comment |
