14 posts tagged “blogging tips”

Bloggers Are Not Webmasters and Webmasters Are Not Bloggers

Jul 22, 2007
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This comes under the “I wish I’d wrote that” heading. LGR Webmaster Blog featured “Bloggers Are Not Webmasters”, a simple look at the difference between a webmaster and a blogger, which goes to show that there is a lot to managing both a website and blog.

In general, it is a good look at the issues of bloggers not being designers, not to say that some aren’t but most do stick with designed WordPress Themes and really don’t know how to do much more than tweak a little here and there. Bloggers understand the basics of networking, but few really understand the complexities of web development and marketing.

This is followed up by Webmasters are not Bloggers, a balanced perspective on how bloggers are bloggers, understanding fully what we do, and needing to know that there are some things we can’t or don’t do that webmasters do.

Webmasters do a lot of things, in fact webmasters are jacks of all trades, programmers, designers, customer service representatives, they are not bloggers. Who can blame them really, they are so busy dealing with all the other stuff they simply don’t have time to sit and write content for a weblog. When webmasters do sit down and write content for a blog, it is often in the form of a tutorial on their favourite script, html or css.

I applaud all of you bloggers out there. To consistently be able to write good content for a blog takes a lot of hard work, time and creativity.

This is a sweeping generalization, but also a reminder that as bloggers, we have a responsibility to our blogs that outweighs just feeding our readers. There is a lot to consider when choosing a blog design, structure, marketing, identity, and maintenance. A good webmaster, web designer, web consultant or adviser can help you set up the maintenance program and design you need to keep your blog in tip top, excellent shape.

If you work with webmasters on our blogs, like multi-blogger blogs, stop once in a while to say thanks for keeping the blog up and running. And if you are a webmaster but not a blogger, say thank you to a blogger once in a while for keeping the content flowing and the readers returning.

The Agony of Link Hunting

Jul 20, 2007
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Finding links to blog posts to write about is easy. But finding links from blog posts I remember and want to link to, but can’t seem to find, is exceptionally frustrating. Have you suffered from the Agony of Link Hunting?

Searching Without a Search Form

I’m working on an article and I want to reference how WordPress.com’s list of the top blogs and top posts on WordPress.com aren’t in sequential order by traffic numbers. Andy Skelton came up with a brilliant bit of code that changed how the posts were rated, pulling posts from different percentiles rather than sequential order. This allows blogs that wouldn’t normally make it into the top 10 list to pop in from time to time, adding a sense of fairness in the competition to be “at the top” of a list which features some of the hottest blogs on the web.

I know it was published on the WordPress.com Blog, so I head there first. Did you know there is no search form on the WordPress.com blog? ARGHH!

Unwittingly, they have decided to not include a search form, one of the most criminal web acts any website can do to themselves, in my humble opinion.
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SEO Pros and Woes

Jul 19, 2007
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Search Engine Optimization for Your Blog: Three Easy Techniques, and also Drawbacks to SEO from Tom Johnson on I’d Rather Be Writing takes a good pros and cons look at SEO. I have to admit, I liked the cons better than the pros.

How can there be any drawbacks to search engine optimization? I never considered this, and it is a bit odd admitting it. But I feel a complete loss of anonymity as well as an unfounded power. I also have a greater responsibility to be accurate. When you Google Tom Johnson, I’m on the first page. Uhm, now instead of telling people my email and phone, I can tell them just to google me.

A crazy Haitian guy from Miami called me repeatedly last week affirming he knew me and wanted support for his studies…

I covered this in my Blog Herald article, Learning From Blithering Idiot Blog Readers, the price you pay for being “the expert” and getting calls at all hours of the night because readers think you are that expert, whether or not you are.

SEO is the technique of preparing your blog to be search engine friendly, easily searched and indexed by the search engine web crawlers. SEO has become a major industry with the promises of riches and fame. Without a doubt, SEO techniques should be a natural function, and most blogs, especially WordPress Themes, come fairly optimized for search engines, but there is a consequence to the fame part that comes from a well SEO-tricked out blog.

I Love Your List! I’m Going To Copy It!

Jul 18, 2007
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I’ve seen a lot of bloggers fall in love with another blogger’s list and then reproduce most or the entire thing on their blog. STOP IT!

The intention behind copying and pasting such lists on another blog is usually done out of support and caring. They want to help the original blogger spread their helpful list around. They also want to store this list on their blog for their own reference, and hopefully help their readers by supplying the list. It’s usually done without the intension of causing harm, but it is harmful.

Do not copy and paste another blogger’s list because it is a violation of their copyright. If you don’t have permission, you have violated their copyright and the DMCA laws. This could result in a request from the author to remove the content, and/or more penalties against your blog.

Do not copy and paste another blogger’s list because a link is usually sufficient. And your blog readers will love you for the recommendation, coming back for more recommendations like this.

Do not copy and paste another blogger’s list because it creates trackbacks to all links in the list, which confuses readers and bloggers, who may mistake your post as the source of the list and not the original author. This hurts the original author and loses them the attention and acclaim they deserve for the hard work in putting together the list in the first place. You certainly didn’t put any effort into your copy and paste, did you? Let credit go to the deserving.

Do not copy and paste another blogger’s list because the trackback links it creates could generate a negative response to your blog from other bloggers who know you are copying the original content and violating the original author’s copyright. This doesn’t help your online reputation much.

Do not copy and paste another blogger’s list because Google checks other blogs as well as your own for duplicate content and you’ve just duplicated someone’s content. Your blog could be penalized in page ranking as a potential splog and scraper.

Do not copy and paste another blogger’s list because because your readers aren’t stupid. They know you’ve copied this, making it appear as your own when it’s not, whether the intention to give credit back is clear or not. Show respect to other bloggers, and in turn, your readers will respect you. No one likes a cheat.

Do not copy and paste another blogger’s list because it’s not a compliment. It’s not a nice thing to do. It doesn’t help the blogger. And it doesn’t help your readers to know that you are copying other people’s content and using it instead of recommending it.

Be careful with what you copy from other blogs and resources. You maybe restricted by many copyright web standards and policies which state, like my copyright policy, that fair use is restricted to 10% of the post content, or approximately 400 words. Some bloggers have stated that this means you can use the lessor of the two amounts, or the maximum of the two numbers without permission. Either way, copying the whole thing can bring a wrath of trouble you don’t need.

Blog fair and you will be rewarded by other bloggers and your readers.

Suffering From a Lost Blogging Mouse

Jul 17, 2007
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If you think that your mouse doesn’t matter when searching the web and blogging, think again.

I have bragged about my Internet savvy mouse in my series, Web Browser Guide for Bloggers, in Web Browser Guide: Button, Keyboard, and Mouse Shortcuts, and now I’m trying to function without my mouse and I’m going crazy.

I’ve been traveling a lot recently, switching between cars, houses, hotels, two trailers, and a motor home, and I’ve lost my mouse.

Actually, I have my mouse. It’s the Bluetooth USB device that’s missing.

Logitech Revolution Mouse for web-savvy browsers and bloggers I use the Logitech Revolution series mouse, a wireless, rechargeable unit with powerful finger and thumb buttons and a multi-speed scrolling wheel and button. It moves like silk under my hand and in an instant I can control what I click, when I click, and how I select. I’m in love.

It has a small rechargeable base and connects to my laptop via the Bluetooth USB device. I lost it, found it, and then put it somewhere safe, and now I can’t find that safe place as I’ve shifted from location to location.

I can’t get the darn thing to work with my two other Bluetooth adapters yet, so it must be a proprietary connection. ARGH!

But that’s not the point. I will turn up, sooner or later. The point is how dependent I am upon a good browsing and blogging mouse.

I’m using a small portable laptop mouse from Targus, which I bought for use on airplanes since I have to turn off all wireless devices in flight on US airlines (not on some international flights, though). It connects via wire to a USB connection so I have to learn to struggle with a string off my mouse again.

While optical, it isn’t very sensitive. I will click my Write Post editor and instead of setting the cursor in place, it will select a whole word, two words, or parts of words, or the whole damn sentence. If I’m not fast enough to catch it, I will start typing, deleting the selecting words instead of inserting my text in between them. ARGH!

I’ll click a link to copy it and then move to paste it into my post to find that the selection jumped and instead of the link, I’ll paste in some words from the post I want to link to. I have to remove those and then go back and do it again.

Without a back and forward thumb button, I’m constantly swinging my arm around as I move to the back and forward buttons on the browser. The scroll wheel is a ball and it scrolls one line at a time, making speed scrolling impossible. I then have to hunt for the narrow scroll bars on the browser to move up and down a web page. ARGH!

I use the scroll wheel button (center button) to open links in new tabs as I read through referring articles. The scroll ball is so flaky, it moves as I click and who knows what I’m opening or clicking on when I use it. I’ve opened up some weird stuff, or thought the click had worked to find out later that it didn’t. ARGH!

My fingers hurt and are cramped from the tiny size. My wrist and elbow hurt from the added work and exertion. And it takes 5 times longer to do anything that it would if I had my damn mouse.

Have you become dependent upon your mouse? Or do you even have a web savvy power mouse to help you blog? If you don’t, you don’t know what joy you are missing!

Having the right tool for the right job is critical to doing the job well. And if you are blogging without a good web-friendly mouse, you might not be doing your job as well and efficiently as you think.

Updated: I found the little sucker, the small USB Bluetooth thing. I swear I’m going to clip a mouse trap to it. But at least I’m back to my power mouse browsing after two weeks of agony.

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Site Search Tags: blogging tips, blog writing, blog writing tips, writing tips, blog mouse, logitech mouse, wireless mouse, lost mouse, logitech revolution, web-savvy mouse, internet-savvy mouse, internet mouse, web mouse, blogging tools, blog tools, how to blog
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Explaining My Weekly Digest Post

Jul 15, 2007
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I was recently asked to explain my Weekly Digest post I release every Friday and what the benefits are of this weekly post.

While I rarely publish more than one post a day on my blog, I also guest blog and blog regularly for other blogs, along with offering programs and talks here and there around the world on blogging and related subjects. People have been asking me for a calendar or way to easily keep track of what I’m doing without being inundated with too much information. The weekly digest is a way to streamline and condense all that information into one blog post.

In general, a weekly digest of your blog activities is not for everyone. It is great for someone with a busy public schedule, teaching workshops, classes, or public speaking. It is also good for people with more than one blog who want their readers to stay up to date on all their blogs’ activities and posts. It is also a good way of summarizing a very busy blog posting schedule, allowing readers to see one blog post with everything you’ve published this week instead of seeing everything you published throughout the week.

It’s also a good marketing tool for promoting your blog, its contents, and yourself and your activities. Once a week, people see a one post summary of what’s going on so they can keep up with you on a regular basis instead of hit and miss on your blog.

A weekly digest also does one more thing. It helps identify the blogger behind the blog. Your weekly digest can be a simple list of what you’ve blogged about over the past week, and it can also let people know the stories behind the blog posts and the reactions to those published posts, as well as a little more about you.

If you are working on building a blog identity, this is a great way to bringing all your blog’s activities together in one place to showcase who you are and what you blog about.
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Chris Garrett on Blog Branding

Jul 13, 2007
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Chris Garrett on New Media is offering a wonderful series that goes into detail about blog branding. The posts so far include:

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Site Search Tags: blog branding, blog brand, blog identity, chris garrett, chrisg, blog as a business, business blog, blog fame, blog popularity, blog building
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Blog Branding: Bringing Touchy-feely Relationships to Blogs

Jul 12, 2007
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“Deep Jive Interests’ Tony Hung tackles “Branding Matters a Lot for Search Engines Unless You Are Happy With 1%, an interesting perspective on the issue of blog branding, identity, and PageRank.

Branding plays a *big* role in a great many things, and search engines are no exception.

Specifically, something marketing folk like to call “top of mind awareness”, or “top of mind recall”, but also how people think about, re-arrange and re-order their perceptions of things. And in this case, its search engines.

The summary is that they took identical search engine results and ascribed the results to four different search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN Live Search, and some in-house search engine. When asked which results were the best, its absolutely no surprise that people favoured the ones labeled “Google” and “Yahoo” even though the search results were identical.

The study he references, from Pennsylvania State University, might be worth investigating more, but either way, there is no doubt that search engine algorithms are improving greatly and perception matters as well as the math.

Branding Is About Recognition and Feelings

With another perspective on the same subject, Chris Garrett offers “Better Blog Branding: Your Successful Brand”, summing up branding with two characteristics: recognition and feelings:

Recognition can be achieved simply enough. Repeated interactions with consistency. Just like Pavlov’s experiments with his hounds, there needs to be a positive pay-off with those repeated exposures.

We are back to customer experience and evoking positive feelings again. Oh-no, the touchy-feely stuff!

Think about it though, we do feel different about certain brands. Some brands just make us feel good.

Applying these to a blog will be the hottest topics in blogging over the next year. You just wait!

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Site Search Tags: blogging tips, blog brand, blog branding, blog identity, blog promotion, blog marketing, blog advertising
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Breaking the Brick Wall on Your Content Theft Search

Jul 11, 2007
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A Content Theft Tale by Jonathan Bailey on the Blog Herald is a brilliant read for those concerned about content theft.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Over here at the Blog Herald, my latest post about the twenty best free anti-plagiarism tools was going over very well. With hundreds of views and half a dozen trackbacks, it was rapidly gaining traction among its readers.

However, one of the trackbacks was not what it seemed. Elsewhere on the Web, a Brazilian blog had not merely linked to the original post, but rather, had copied the entire thing.

…As the case went on, it became an interesting microcosm for plagiarism and content theft issues on the Web involving different ideologies about copyright, international laws and a surprise hosting discovery that, theoretically, should bring the incident to an abrupt ending.

While this is a common occurrence in my blogging and writing world, and I’m spending more time every week combating content theft, I am frequently running into a brick wall in my research to shut down a splog and copyright theft.

Typically, a kind email or comment does the job if the blog honestly didn’t understand copyrights and Fair Use. It takes a moment and I use a prewritten form letter I can quickly copy and paste into a comment or email.

However, as Jonathan found out, the discovery that a blog is hosted on an international web host which doesn’t have the equivalent of the DMCA or copyright enforcement makes stopping the reluctant content thieves much harder.

What Jonathan discovered, after a little more research, was the following:

But before going down that path, I decided to give researching the host a second try, this time using my favorite networking tools site Domain Tools. What I discovered is that Clubeweb, at least in regards to this site, was not the host but merely a reseller. The server actually resided in the United States, under the watch of a company called Softlayer. Since the server is on American soil, American laws apply. As such, we were now free to file a DMCA takedown notice.

YEAH! Brick wall broken down!

I use Domain Tools and DNS Stuff to track down contact information and now I can pay closer attention to host resellers, tracking down the real host rather than the reseller. This may lead to a more copyright friendly web host that will work with you to help you stop the content thief.

Tips for Writing WordPress Tips

Jul 11, 2007
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For those who want to share WordPress tips on their blog, or with me to recommend to my readers and WordPress fans, I’ve written Tips For Writing Good WordPress Tips on the Blog Herald that will help.

I outline the specific criteria that goes through my head as I evaluate which posts on WordPress tips, techniques, advice, and how tos to recommend here and on the Blog Herald WordPress Wednesday News.

If you have written a WordPress tip you would like me to share, contact me directly via email not through my contact page or a blog post. That way I will respond nicely instead of telling the world your post doesn’t past my muster test.

Or I might like to say some really nice things to you privately.

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Site Search Tags: blogging tips, wordpress tips, writing wordpress tips, writing tips, how to write tips, how to write wordpress tips, wordpress help, blog herald
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Bloggers Are Not Webmasters and Webmasters Are Not Bloggers

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I Love Your List! I’m Going To Copy It!

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Suffering From a Lost Blogging Mouse

Explaining My Weekly Digest Post

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Blog Branding: Bringing Touchy-feely Relationships to Blogs

Branding Is About Recognition and Feelings

Breaking the Brick Wall on Your Content Theft Search

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