How do You Know When You’ve Finished a Post?

April 18, 2008

Today I’m posting a reader question as a discussion starter. It comes from Richard King: Hey Darren - I blog casually and largely for my own benefit but I read your blog because I occasionally flirt with the idea of “doing things properly” and I think you post some great advice. Recently I’ve come across a problem that I think you and your readers would have some valuable opinions on: how do you know when you’ve finished a post? Let me explain. Often, my draft posts are not much more than a few links to something I want to blog about. As I work, I continually add sentences, revise them, move them around, follow new trains of thought and throw other bits away. Gradually the post takes shape until eventually it’s in a fit state to be published. So far so good, but I can’t seem to stop myself spotting ways to improve the text even after it’s been published, pinged round to both my readers’ RSS feeds, and generally indexed by all and sundry. Read more

How to Deal with Negative Comments On Your Blog

April 18, 2008

Gala-Darling-9In this post Gala Darling from iCiNG tackles the question of how to handle negative emails on your blog.
“How do you deal with hateful comments? For my blog I keep all comments moderated so I get a chance to see what people say on my site. I’m glad I did this because I got a rather rude comment mainly saying I have poor grammar for an English major. Oh and that I’m ‘pretty down on the world’. I tracked the ip address and realized it’s someone from my area! How awkward.”
Negative comments are a funny thing. I’ve noticed that on iCiNG, typically the rude comments come from someone who’s never commented before. This tells you something about them — namely, that they never contribute anything positive & are really only interested in pointing out a flaw or perceived problem. With these people, I say, have no mercy! Delete their comment & if what they’ve said is really nasty, just ban them. You don’t need the strife! The way I see it, having a blog is like giving birth or doing a new piece of art every day. People don’t realise how much work goes into them — how much we love them, sweat & toil over them, & analyse everything about them. So when someone swings by & tries to take a shot at you, it’s kind of like them urinating all over your new-born, or slashing at your painting. It’s rude & vulgar, & not to be tolerated. They can say what they like, but not on your site. If they want to spew vitriol, they can do it somewhere else. I mean, would you invite someone like that into your house? To my mind, it’s exactly the same thing. Read more

Alexa Traffic Rankings Undergo Major Change

April 18, 2008

alexa-rankings Every blogger who checked their Alexa rankings today would be in for a surprise. Alexa has just completed making some major changes to their ranking algorithm, and possibly any other service that relies on their ranking would also be effected.
In recent months we’ve heard from our Alexa users that understanding Internet usage beyond Alexa Toolbar users was increasingly of interest. Ask and you shall receive! We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings system is much closer to what you asked for. We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.
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Alexa Announces ‘New’ Rankings

April 17, 2008

logowebSite.gifAlexa have announced it’s overhauled their ranking system. You can see their announcement here via TechCrunch. They have ditched their toolbar as the sole source of their rankings and are now pulling in data from other sources too. This means that the skew towards tech sites (as their readers are more likely to use the toolbar) has been addressed (or at least they’ve tried to address it). Those who check their rankings regularly will now see new rankings. For some there will be little change (for example ProBlogger hasn’t really changed much - which surprises me a little) where as others will see increases or decreases. For example my other blog Digital Photography School now shows up on Alexa with a very similar ranking to ProBlogger. Previously it was much much lower despite having higher daily traffic numbers. It’s still not perfect (DPS ranks at 16561 and ProBlogger 12917 despite DPS having more actual traffic) but it’s at least closer. Read more

Lack of Ideas? You’ve Got to Be Kidding!

April 17, 2008

This is a guest post by Alan Johnson, the author of The Online Business Handbook. One of the most common things bloggers complain about is their lack of ideas. You hear all about how excited they were during their first week as bloggers, only to realize that things stand quite a bit differently once they start losing momentum. Is that the case as far as you are concerned, are you using lack of ideas as an excuse? Well, guess what: there is no such thing! Show me one person who says that he or she doesn’t have great ideas and I’ll show you a misguided individual. Symptom, Not Disease Read more

27 Thoughts On Blogging For The Artist

April 16, 2008

Blogging-For-The-Artist Guest Post: Robert Bruce is one of the most widely read, linked and reviled poets working on the web today. Grab yourself a free poem every Monday morning, subscribe to Knife Gun Pen. 1. There’s never been a better time to be a working artist. Ever. 2. There’s never been a worse time to be a working artist (if you’re not truly dedicated to your craft). Read more

Killer Domains: My First eBook is Available Now

April 16, 2008

killerdomainsbook1.jpg All right, I always wanted to feel like Steve Jobs unveiling some cool product, that is why I used such a title… Anyway, my first ebook is getting launched today. It is titled “Killer Domains: Tools & Techniques to Find the Perfect Domain Name.” If you tried to find some good domain names lately you know how disappointing the experience can be. It feels like all the marketable domains are already gone. And the problem is that the success of your website starts with the domain name. Read more

Killer Domains: a Resource for Finding the Perfect Domain Name for Your Blog

April 16, 2008

Killer-domainsI am really excited today because Daniel Scocco, regular contributer to ProBlogger and a wonderful blogger in his own right, has today launched his first ebook. It’s called Killer Domains. Daniel sent me a copy of it a few days back and I think it’ll prove to be a very useful resource for quite a few bloggers who want to learn how to select the perfect domain name for their new blog. The chapters/areas that Daniel covers include: Read more

Chitika Add Interactive Premium Listing Ads Into the Mix

April 16, 2008

Here’s a piece of news that slipped through without me noticing while I was traveling last month - Chitika have announce a program to serve ‘graphic ads’ in your Chitika ad units when they feel that a CPM would earn you more than a CPC ad. The announced it back in March here and here:
“This new graphic ads service has one goal: maximize your revenue. The Chitika ad on your page will display a relevant and targeted banner/graphic ad on your page only when it makes sense - when it will earn you more revenue. Graphic ads will pay per impression (CPM) and will be shown only when they can earn you more revenue than a CPC-based ad. Our ad targeting system will intelligently find and display relevant graphic (CPM) ads for your pages when appropriate.”
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The Choice of Associating Your Name with Your Blog

April 15, 2008

Do you associate your name with your blog?

One of the choices that face bloggers when starting out is one around their own name and whether they will use it on their blog (and to what extent). There’s a range of options open to bloggers:
  • Blog under your personal name and promote it prominently on your blog (this is what I’ve done here on ProBlogger)
  • Blog under your personal name but don’t really promote yourself (this is what I’ve done on DPS - my name is on the about page but not much more)
  • Blog under an alias and promote that name (Skellie does this on Skelliewag)
  • Blog without any name on your blog at all - letting the content speak for itself
I’m sure there are other options - but these would be the most common. Read more