Hit the publish button! In Episode #19 of the WP Elevation podcast I had a hoot of a time talking with Bill Belew (and his young daughter who made a guest appearance) about the importance of hitting the publish button. Bill is a problogger who achieves 600,000 page views a day, has had 100K in one hour, makes his living through blogging, has said that hunger is more important than passion, speaks Japanese as well as English, teaches everything he knows at the Inbound Marketing University and has given presentations on a cruise ship through the Caribbean. I saw Bill speak at Pressnomics last year and knew that I just had to get him on the podcast. Today we going to talk about how important it is to keep hitting the publish button.
I'm giving away a copy of Bill's book Marketing with Social Media. Watch the interview for details on how to enter.
Some of the show highlights include Bill helping his buddy reposition his plumbing business as a home remodelling business (he still fixes toilets); Bill’s method for fuelling up on a particular topic (have several tabs open in your browser and save 30 headlines as draft posts in WordPress); Bill’s formula for blogging (quality, quantity, consistency and longevity) and his toll for CRM (his project manager Kevin) and his solution for project management (which is to yell at Kevin).
I love this quote: “Hunger trumps passion.”
I seriously had so much fun interviewing Bill – even though he blew a fuse in the middle of the Elevation round (literally!) and I loved it when his 5 year old daughter came in to say “Hi” and join in the interview. You can check out his daughters website at miamei.com and learn about growing up and parenting bi-cultural Chinese-American children in Silicon Valley.
You can reach out and thank Bill on email.
Bill suggested I interview his son Benjamin. Benjamin, keep your eyes on your inbox.
Hint: to enter the competition, leave a comment below and tell us the number one thing you’ve learned in this interview and how it’s going to impact your business.
34 Responses
Great interview, Troy.
The number one thing I have learned from this interview is to keep pounding on that publish button!
To make a concerted effort to create more content to give my prospective clients more information about me to find.
And in turn, to teach my clients to do the same thing for their business! To create on-topic content and the customers will come!
By the way, “Do or do not, there is no try” was said by the one and only Yoda! 🙂
Great interview, Troy.
The number one thing I have learned from this interview is to keep pounding on that publish button!
To make a concerted effort to create more content to give my prospective clients more information about me to find.
And in turn, to teach my clients to do the same thing for their business! To create on-topic content and the customers will come!
By the way, “Do or do not, there is no try” was said by the one and only Yoda! 🙂
Hit the Publish button ! love that. I design and develop websites, never realized blogging could be done, I am not a writer, but Bill inspired me today. Thanks for the video.
“Hit the Publish Button” – No seriously, my take away is “age is no barrier” I’m mature in years too and I keep thing who wants to listen to us ‘OLDIES’ well along with Bill I love writing and reading too and I just loved the enthusiasm dripping from my screen during that interview and it has now persuaded me to go ahead – get online and finally “hit the Publish Button!”
That was freakin’ awesome sauce
I learned from Bill to hit the PUBLISH BUTTON with abandon, write about relevant topics x 1000 (get a friend named Kevin and yell at him), help others with my knowledge and the mission is more important than passion. And lots of stuff thrown in like writing good tags and reading a lot to fill me up so I can regurgitate it later. So get a mission, write, PUBLISH, rinse and repeat ad infinitum, Now I sound like Bill!.
I was gonna say that too Marc. Troy? Yoda, Empire Strikes Back, get that X-Wing out of the swamp! 🙂
Amazing talk. All day I’ve been running into this theme of JUST DOING IT, when reading some blogs today, one of them on “How not to give a F%#K”. The revelation I got today was I have been hiding behind knowledge to protect myself from failing or looking like a fool. So, I do nothing in the end.
The item I liked the most from Mr. Belew was pointing out that some people will spend most of their time learning the other 215 irrelevant options instead of excelling at the 10 that are important to move forward, because they have to know it all. I have struggled with growing into the self-confidence demanded of me to “elevate”. Knowledge has given me confidence but I’ve traded “practice time” for more “study time”, if that makes sense. I don’t know if I’m qualified to have a voice when all I know is, “I just gotta speak”.
The practical application for me is to create (or dump). I’ve filled myself up way too much and have gotten fat. Thanks for the encouraging words in this podcast.
Hit the Publish button! If you write lots of quality content, customers will find you.
Content is and always has been “KING”. Hit the publish button and keep creating content. Thanks for verifying what many of us have known. Thanks for the enlightening podcast!
“Hit the publish button” and not to care about making people happy.
I have a bunch of draft posts just sitting there “waiting” – I realised that I am waiting on the moment when the article is so perfect that it will make others happy. I need to care less about the opinions of others and simply hit “PUBLISH”
great interview Troy.
Well I learned from Bill to hit the ‘Publish’ button, and I wrote about twenty article headings during the interview.
But most importantly for me, I learned this is not necessarily a ‘young man’s game’, and feel a lot better about my grey ‘highlights’. And I’ll re-join the gym tomorrow…
Thanks guys, great interview.
What a card! I enjoyed this guy. I’ve noticed that as I age, I’ve begun giving unsolicited advice to everyone I meet (just like my grandma did!), so why not parlay that tendency into some great blog posts? I’m going to just hit that publish button!
How refreshing. I need me a Kevin. Great, entertaining interview.
What? Reduce the prices? That’s the price…
Dude!
Loved it so much I bought the book, might buy the training too … and I just love Bill’s whole attitude and hope to emulate his work ethic… and my best take away was…. When Bill was talking about people worrying about knowing everything to do with SEO, and I believe he said he did ten and hit the publish button … while those others were still worrying about SEO … and he did also mention he knew all of the others …. But to me that meant it doesn’t have to be perfect, just do it as best you can and do the main things … and hit the publish and move on to the next one. As I say, loved it so much I have bought the book already 🙂
I didn’t actually expect that I would watch the entire interview, but I did and still want more. I also downloaded the mp3 to listen again in the field when I can. THe no 1 thing I got was that you stop putting stuff out sometimes and put stuff back in 😉 When you are not in the mood to write then read. This is so simple that I never saw it.
Marc,
I was born before Yoda came to life on the Big Screen. He asked if he could quote but forgot in the intensity of the battle.
Too many people just try and end up cluttering up the space.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Randy,
I was late to the reading party. But eventually found the joy and pleasure in it not to mention the tons of fodder I can get from replenishing my reserves.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
FX,
I spoke to a group of photographers yesterday. They, too, said they had about 10 things they needed no matter what, a camera, a model … and so on. And another 200 they could do with or without.
I am thinking it sounds like SEO to me.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Cath,
He’s not for sale. But then if you offered to pay by the pound, I might reconsider.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Tracey,
You know you are getting someplace with your publishing prowess when people either start agreeing with you or tell you to shut up already.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Iain,
I tell people that is not something new that is going to make the biggest difference. It is something old – persistence, diligence, endurance ..
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Iain,
Seriously you and the guy above you have the same name? And I have never heard of it before and I read it twice in two lines?!
Put yourself out there and let others tell you to get back in your hole. Nobody will ever tell you to come out.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Chris,
If content is king, then who’s the queen?
The answer is, “who cares?” Content is King and that’s all that matter.s
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Norma,
It is cheaper and easier for people to find you than it is for you to find them. Make it easier for them to find you by giving them something worth coming to.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Jonathan,
After Yoda stole my try quote, Nike stole my Just Do It one … NOT!
We all say we want feedback. But that’s not true. Most of us just want people to say good things to us.
Say your piece. Hit the publish button. Feedback will come in the form of visits … or NOT. Then you’ll know what your piece is worth.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Ruth,
Indeed you do sound like me. But thank goodness you are better looking.
I can tell anybody how to reach any goal in traffic.
Do you want 10,000 visits (any number can go in here.) Keep hitting the publish button until 10,000 (same number) show up.
If you have hit the publish button a 1,000 times and haven’t reached your goal, the problem is you haven’t hit the publish button enough or just don’t have enough good things to say.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Seamus,
Can I have some ribs with that sauce?
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Mark,
Where are you hitting that publish button? Us old guys know that nothing good can come quickly. It takes as long for something to appear as it does for it to disappear.
Stay with it long enough and the young ‘uns will have moved on to something else.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Andrew,
Do you know how most people decide when their web site is ‘done?’ When they run out of money. Then they come to me and ask how to get people to come see their site.
Web developers would do well to team up with content marketers.
Beautiful and functional sites plus relevant traffic. That’s the ticket.
Thanks for listening.
Bill Belew
Real class Bill, you’ve replied to everyone with a personal message … real class and again showing us all how it should be done… real engagement 🙂
Thanks Bill for taking the time to reply. Iain is the Scottish gaelic spelling of ‘Ian’. Same pronunciation.
All the very best!
Hi Bill, Yes. My name is the Scottish spelling. I suspect that the guy Iain Cameron is also Scottish.
ian is regular spelling
iain is Scottish spelling – some people write “Hi Lain” which is completely wrong
Another spellingis “Ean” which is spoken exactly as it looks
Love your post above and look forward to reading more in time.
Thanks for dropping me a note.
All the best
Iain
The first letter for the uninitiated looks somewhat like a capital L or capital I depending on the font the reader is using.
If you ever get the West Coast of the US, be sure to drop me a note.
Bill