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Creating a Shared Content Box Across All of Your WordPress Blogs

James Junior — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:40:36 +0000

More than five years ago, I was bit by the Autoblog bug. I don’t build them anymore, but I still build WordPress blogs in large numbers. One of my pet peeves when I was working with 100+ different blogs was that if I wanted to interlink them, or have the exact same links on the sidebar of each blog, I would have to add these links manually to each and every blog every time I built a new blog. For example, if I have 98 blogs, and I want every one of them to have a link to blog #99 that I just created, I would have to add that link to all 98 blogs manually. That is very time-consuming, so I knew there had to be a better way.

Of course, PHP can do just about anything if you know how to tell it to. I thought it would be awesome if I could have a shared links box on the sidebar of each WordPress blog, and have a form online that I could enter in the name and URL to each new blog as I built them, and then have PHP add that link to all 98 blogs instantly. Thankfully, I was able to set this up exactly how I needed it. This is what I am going to show you today, and you can use it however you see fit. One thing I want to remind you of is that even though I am using the shared content box for links, it technically can be used for anything, your imagination is the limit. Let’s get started.

Requirements

WordPress Blog(s)
Hosting with PHP and MySQL Database (this is a common setup, so your host should have it)
PHPMyAdmin Access

Step 1

Download the Samsarin PHP Widget to your WP blog; install and activate it. This plugin lets you create a widget that can execute any PHP code right in the widget. This is crucial for you because it allows you to connect to your PHP database and display the content right there on your blog.

Step 2

Open up your PHPMyAdmin dashboard, and create a new database called links_database. You do this by clicking on the “databases” tab from the PHPMyAdmin home page, then you can specify the name of the database you want to create. If you don’t have enough admin rights to create a database from PHPMyAdmin, then you have to create it from within your hosting panel (CPanel, etc.).

Step 3

Once you have the database created, you need to execute the following SQL code to create the table that will house the links. Do this by clicking on the SQL tab up top and pasting in and running the following SQL code:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `links` ( `site_name` varchar(50) NOT NULL, `url` varchar(100) NOT NULL ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

That SQL code will create a table named links inside the links_database database. Notice that it has two columns/fields: site_name is the anchor text, and url is the URL of the site that the anchor text will point to.

Step 4

Next we are going to create a PHP file named connect.php which will contain the login and password for the specific database that we want to hook up to in our other scripts. Go ahead and create connect.php with your text editor and insert the following code into it (be sure to change the username and password to your own):

# Type="MYSQL" # HTTP="true" $hostname_links = "localhost"; $database_links = "links_database"; $username_links = "DB_USERNAME"; $password_links = "DB_PASSWORD"; $conn = mysql_pconnect($hostname_links, $username_links, $password_links) or trigger_error(mysql_error(),E_USER_ERROR); ?>

Step 5

Now we create another simple PHP script called update.php, which will actually update the database every time we create and add a new link. Fill the update.php with the following code:

$site_name = $_POST['site_name']; $url = $_POST['url']; mysql_select_db("links_database", $jim); $query = "INSERT INTO links (site_name,url ) VALUES ('$_POST[site_name]','$_POST[url]')"; if (!mysql_query($query,$conn)) { die('Error: ' . mysql_error()); } echo "1 record added"; ?>

Step 6

Next we are going to create another PHP script called enterblog.php which will serve as the online web form that you will go to every time you want to add a new link to the list. Create enterblog.php with the following code in it:

Enter New Blog


















Enter name of new site:







Enter the url of the site:

Step 7

We now will create another PHP script called displayurls.php which will be the script we call from the widget in WordPress. This script simply pulls all of the rows from the links table in the links_database. Put the following code inside displayurls.php:

// Connects to your Database mysql_connect("localhost", "DB_USERNAME", "DB_PASSWORD") or die(mysql_error()); mysql_select_db("links_database") or die(mysql_error()); $data = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM links") or die(mysql_error()); $rt=mysql_query($data); while($nt=mysql_fetch_array($data)){ Print "

";

echo "

";

echo "

";

Print "

echo $nt['url'];
echo "\">";
echo $nt['site_name'];
echo "";
echo "

";

}

?>

Step 8

Okay almost done! Upload all of the PHP files we created here to the root directory of your site. Then change the file permissions on them to 755. Once you are done with that, it is time to bring up the web form and enter in a few links to the database. To do that, just type in the URL to your enterblog.php script, which should be something like http://www.yourblog.com/enterblog.php and you will see a two field web form. Enter in a few sites and URL’s, and hit enter after you type each one. It should tell you that 1 row was added if it went through successfully. Once that is done we can move on to the final step.

Step 9

Go into your WordPress admin and click on the Widgets option under the Appearance menu. In the widget selections you should see a widget titled something like “Samsarin PHP 1″, make sure you drag that widget somewhere onto your visible sidebar. When the widget pops up, enter in the title of the widget which might be something like “Links” and then in the body field type in the following PHP code:

Then hit Save. If you should run into an issue where you cannot see the links, try typing in your Absolute Server Path inside the above PHP include code (so instead of “displayurls.php” you might put something like “/var/www/displayurls.php” but the exact path is different for everyone’s server). You can get the absolute server path from your hosting company. When you bring up your blog, you should see the links box on any site you put that widget on. If you have this widget installed on every blog on your server, you can add a link to them all instantly just by entering the link info once into the web form and hitting enter! Pretty cool huh?!

Just a side note, I am not a PHP programmer. I know enough to modify some things and write simple scripts, but if you are a PHP guru and you see something that can be improved in these scripts, or see something wrong, feel free to voice your opinion in the comments and I will listen to all of your ideas. Good Luck!

How to Build a Popular Finance Blog

James Dunaway — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:13:00 +0000

Building a finance blog is easy. Building a popular finance blog is a lot harder. The Internet is full of them, big and small, and while it is simpler than ever to create one, it is getting harder to be noticed in the sea of sites available – especially in a niche where many will turn first to official financial sources like the Wall Street Journal or MSNBC.

But difficult doesn’t translate into impossible, by any means. You don’t have to worry about competing in the beginning. Instead, what you have to be focused on is knowing how to generate a high traffic site by taking baby steps toward that end. That can be done in several key ways that are less complicated than you might think.

Accept That It Can Take a While

Time is the key ingredient to any blog’s success. You can’t just expect to put up a couple of posts and have everyone flock to see them. There is content to build, and there are connections to make, reblogs to receive andmarketing tactics to try. Even just leaving it there while you continue to add more content will work, but again, it all takes time.

Realistically, it will be a year or so until you start seeing real traffic, much less revenue from AdSense. The point of change will begin after a couple of months, where you notice more spam comments. This is actually a good sign, and soon you will see genuine visitors reading.

Communicate With Others in the Niche

Other blogs and forums are a truly indispensable resource when it comes to generating interest in your own site. The first thing you should do is start commenting regularly, both on well known and lesser known blogs. But make sure they are good comments related to the post, offering a perspective or comment worth reading – nothing spammy or copy/paste.

Before long you might be able to exchange guest posts with a few of them, which can give you a whole new pool for traffic. Not only will you get your name and content on their blog, but you will draw their readers onto your own by having another writer there providing occasional posts.

Forums will help you to build up a relationship with other members, and give you a platform for finding new readers.

Reduce Setbacks

You want to have a blog that is on a reliable host, through a paid domain and with a backup in case things go wrong. The best thing you can do is find a good, well known place to put your blog, put it on automatic payment and backup regularly.

If you want to make some of this easier, including reducing the risk of the site going down and getting fast backups, install WordPress. It was designed to take a lot of the hassle out.

Post Regularly and With Fresh Content

You don’t have to post every day, or even every weekday. But you should set at least three times a week to do regular, well written and thorough posts. If you can find the time, try to post smaller things in between to give you a good boost through the week. Having fresh content is the fastest way to get noticed.

If you don’t have the time to really write yourself, hire others to manage the blog for you. Freelancers are a dime a dozen, and most have very fair prices.

Post Some News, but Not All News

News posts are a great way to alert users to changes in the market, and possibly get onto Google News. This will really increase your traffic. But even mainstream media sites don’t post news all the time, so you have to find the correct balance between what is too much and what isn’t enough.

I would suggest setting aside two days a week for news posts, even more than one. If you want to do it more regularly, feel free. But make sure you also do regular blog posts that aren’t time sensitive or unlikely to lose popularity.

Remember that AdSense Funds Build

Don’t, for the love of all things holy, click on your own AdSense ads. Also, don’t ask others to click on them for you. This is a breach in the terms and conditions, and will earn you a lifelong ban from Google’s AdSense program. All for a very small amount of cash.

Believe it or not, AdSense works, but only over time. Within a year or so you should start seeing a check. But you have to wait, or you won’t end up with anything to show for it.

Conclusion

Running a successful financial blog is far from impossible. But it takes a little bit of time and work to get it going. Be patient, post regular and high quality content and network with other bloggers. You will notice things getting better and better by the month.

Sonia Tracy works as the content editor for PsPrint‘s blog and website. When she’s not working, she’s usually making nerdy “Star Wars” references or mastering her downward-facing dog pose in a yoga class.

Image credit: 1, 2, 3, 4.

5 Article Ideas That Can Always Be Made Original

Amanda DiSilvestro — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:46:35 +0000

A big part of blogging is informing the public, but a bigger part of blogging is showing your originality. Whether it is your own blog or a blog where youâ€™d like to guest post, your articles are helping to build your personal brand. If you know anything about branding, you know that standing out with something unique is important. When dealing with your personal brand and the way people view you as an individual (as opposed to a company), it feels so much more important to be unique with different article ideas. Unfortunately, the millions of blogs make this goal seem unattainable.

Writers block is common even for the most creative people in the blogging community. It seems as though every article idea is already out there for people to read. However, this is not something that should discourage you from writing. The truth is this: Youâ€™re blog will be unique simply because you are writing it. That right there makes it different. In other words, you can take a generic article idea and make it your own using different language and even different information.

Consider a few ideas for a blog post when writers block hits:

How to Find Article Ideas When Writers Block Hits

1. Tell an anecdote or explain a past experience.

This is something that works well for a personal blog, but usually not if youâ€™re planning to guest post on a different site. Even if your personal blog has always been about giving advice and sharing information, readers will enjoy a personal story. If you prefer, make it related to your niche and explain what you learned from the experience. This works well every once and a while, and if you have a loyal reader base they will likely enjoy hearing a little bit about the writer. It works especially great on a Friday when no one is really in the mood for serious advice.

2.Â Â Â Hold an interview with someone in the industry.

There is nothing easier than writing while using someone elseâ€™s words. Consider reaching out to someone in your niche who has advice to give readers and then hold an interview. This could be the CEO of a company in the city, a blogger who was recognized on a â€œten best bloggersâ€ list or someone you know who has made great strides in their industry. Reaching out to bloggers is your best chance for a response, but you might be surprised who else would be willing to answer a few of your questions.

3.Â Â Â Write a book, movie, or blog review.

Although two blogs may both have a â€œreviewâ€ article, no two articles will be alike. That makes this one of the best ways to keep your blog fresh even when the ideas arenâ€™t quite coming to you. Consider doing a review on a book, movie, or even blogs. If you have ten favorite business blogs you like to read, write a review! Your readers will appreciate the new type of material, and you will have created a good relationship with the blogs you put on your list. However, remember not to make your choices too similar to your blogâ€”you donâ€™t want to point out the competition!

4.Â Â Â If you have a lot of readers, create a contest.

Creating a contest can often be a lot of work, but it requires little creative thinking on your part. Consider holding the contest for the most creative article or the funniest blog post. Choose two or three and post them on the site. This will be fun for all readers and give you a break from writing (but not a break from reading!). The prize could be exposure for the winner through a featured blog post, a free book, or even a small cash prize. Make sure to treat the contest like a business proposal if you plan to give out a cash prize. People will take this more seriously, so you will have to have all questions answered in your contest description.

5. Create a survey or a poll for all of your readers.

These types of articles are typically not articles. All you need to do is write a quick introductory paragraph, and then ask your readers to vote. This type of interaction is usually fun for readers, and it will help you get the answers to your questions. You may even get idea for future articles based on the results of the survey or poll.

Not only will this create different types of articles help give you a break from writing traditional content, but it will give readers a break from reading traditional content. Although this may be a little bit different than what you usually post on your blog, it will be another way to show your creativity. Even though these ideas are generic, the actual content couldnâ€™t be more unique.

Photo Credit: clker.com, optify.net, mfcreviews.com, futurefiction.com, elenajforbes.com

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to content creation. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including document software to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business directory, Business.com.

Massive ColorLabs Themes Giveaway. Win 23 Premium WordPress Themes [2 Part Giveaway]

James Johnson — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:00:11 +0000

The team at ColorLabs designs some of the nicest looking and most user friendly premium WordPress themes on the market and we are happy to announce that they are giving away 4 of their “All for One” packages to lucky BloggingPro readers.

The company’s All for One package normally retails for $69 and provides buyers with 23 premium WordPress themes that range from news and magazine templates to real estate and tech blog templates and everything in between.

Along with beautifully looking WordPress templates users are also treated to designs that display perfectly on iOS and Android based Smartphones and tablets, eliminating the need for separate applications for users who are not yet ready to invest time and money into the creation and maintenance of those mobile applications.

Among the ColorLab packages offerings is one of my favorite news/magazine WordPress themes known as Arthemia Premium, a template that provides bold colors, an excellent featured content area and easy setup that makes starting your own online magazine a snap.

Here’s a small preview of the Arthemia theme:

To win this awesome prize package follow the steps below by December 16th at 11:59pm (Central time):

1. Follow the company’s Â Twitter account @ColorLabs

2. Like their Facebook pageÂ http://facebook.com/colorlabs/

3. Comment on this page with your Twitter name after you have completed steps one and two.

Please Note: The codes we provide to the winner will need to be used betweenÂ December, 17 2011 until December, 31 2011.

Be sure to stay tuned for next Monday’s give away were you can win a $419 blogging package for just $4.19. That’s a 99% discount!!!

BlogSearchEngine: Win A Platinum Listing Package

James Johnson — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:26:28 +0000

BlogSearchEngine.com is a PR 6 blog directory that was founded in June 2003, the property allows website owners the chance to have their blog listed with a fully reviewed description and back link to the website of their choice. It’s a great place to promote your blog.

The site features dozens of categories which means your website will always be placed in the most relevant section such as “blog tools and hacks,” “gardening and plants,” “financial blogs” and everything in between.

Currently the site has expanded to offer four types of listing packages from a standardÂ Blog Search Engine Review and Listing for $14.99 all the way to a Platinum Package which includes a full listing with blog review and the following additional high PR listings:

Bloggy Award Review (PR5)

Link onÂ http://xfep.com/uber-blogs/Â for 3 Months

Featured link on Eatonweb blog portal (PR6)

‘Featured Blog’ display banner for 15 days (BlogSearchEngine.com)

HOW TO WIN THIS PACKAGE!!!

1. Tweet about this contest and include a link back to the following URL:Â http://bit.ly/rqPTDL

2. Copy and paste the full tweet you sent into the comments section on this page.

The contest goes until end of day 11/11/11 and the winner will be announced no later then 11/14/2011.

CONGRATULATIONS TO @Angievinez. You are this contests winner. I will contact you through Twitter.

The Content Youâ€™ll Find on Every Successful Site

James Dunaway — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:04:06 +0000

A website or blog needs to have a content strategy that would cover the bases and help it succeed. You have heard that content is king, but remember that throughout history, we all have seen bad kings alongside great ones.

What kind of content should you have on your site to make sure you succeed? Â Here are four:

1. Â Exclusive research. Â This could be industry-specific white papers, research studies, or simple survey results. Â Take a look at your business, your industry or your niche, what do you think would interest your customers and your target market. Â For example, if you are a mobile retailer, you may want to create a survey of features that people would generally want in a Smartphone, or perhaps whether teenagers in your area would prefer an Android device or an iPhone. Â This content that you create for yourself is based on an objective, impartial and scientific study. Â Not only will it lend credibility for you and your business, but it will also give you content that would be tremendously useful for your stakeholders.

2. Personal thoughts, rants, raves and reviews. Â The whole point of putting content online is not to sell your products, but to engage your customers. Â Selling your products and services is an offshoot of this engagement. Â So whether it is on your business blog, website or Facebook page, you should be aiming to engage your customers through discussions and conversations.

Note that people do not connect with brands. Â They connect with other people. Â This is why you should take time to provide content that has a human voice to it: your voice.

Do not be afraid to put up personal thoughts on things you like or do not like. Â This is what your customers would want to see, and this is how connections are created, fostered and developed.Â Be careful not to go overboard though. Â Politics, sex and religion are still taboo, unless your brand is connected with it (i.e., you sell adult toys). Â Also, try to be discerning in what you share. Â Stick to business, instead of complaining about the lousy service at a restaurant when you sell computers.

Pepper your blog post with “I think,” “I believe,” “I like.”

3. Other people’s content. Â You simply cannot write about anything and everything. Â If you come across relevant, useful and informative articles from others, then do share them with your people. Â You can rewrite them and attribute them to the original source, or you can simply post a link to the original article and just add in your thoughts. Â This would give your customers the impression that you are definitive and comprehensive and the go-to site for anything that is related to your niche, business or industry.

Thus, you are providing your target market a service by being the single and reliable source for relevant news and information. Â This helps them by reducing the time and effort they spend to search, research and educate themselves.

Not only that, it will be much easier to gain their trust because you are not just selling your products, but really trying to educate them.

4. Content that lasts a long time. Â You have heard that Google and other search engines like fresh content. Â That is true, and that is why you should always have a steady stream of new content available on your site. Â But you should also have evergreen content. Evergreen content are those articles, blog posts and Web pages that have a long shelf life. Its main purpose is to target certain keywords and drive traffic to your site through search engines. Â Evergreen content, therefore, is keyword-rich and written for the long haul. Â For instance, tips, how-tos, guides and tutorials make for great evergreen content. Â So do encyclopedic material and historical entries.

A caveat, however, is that most people think that it is not necessary to update evergreen content. Â This is a very dangerous thinking. Make sure that you keep evergreen content relevant and up-to-date. Â For example, if you have a comprehensive guide of European backpacking sites, and one of those sites on the list closed down, you should update it and take off the information regarding that site.

SEO Inc. provides search engine marketing services and understands that by focusing on creating good content, SEO, and social media, you pave the road for your customers to come to you.Â Come visit Search Engine Optimization, Inc. on Facebook

Staying Strong in Your Moment of Blogging Weakness

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:55:48 +0000

There’s no secret that times are tough right now. Money is tight, jobs are scarce and that’s true across all professions, including bloggers.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an amateur blogger doing it mostly for fun, a part time blogger doing the work as a secondary income or a professional blogger who does this to pay the rent/mortgage, the online economy, though it’s getting better, is still tough.

This can put even the best blogger under a lot of pressure, especially with bills coming due and obligations to meet. Sadly, a lot of people online have realized this and begun to take advantage of it, tempting bloggers with everything from ultra-low paying writing gigs to unscrupulous offers.

When faced with bills and an overwhelming feeling of failure, many bloggers are tempted by these tricks and find themselves pulled into a world that can be difficult to get out of, even when better offers are available.

If you’re faced with a blogging crisis, it’s important to stay strong and keep fighting, after all, your integrity as a blogger and a writer is the most valuable thing you have and, once you sell it, you can never get it back.

Some of the Snakes in The Grass

When it comes to ways that a blogger can sell out their integrity, there are many out there.

Consider just a few of the temptations a blogger might have to face, especially if they find themselves desperate for money, audience or recognition:

Unfair Writing Deals: There are plenty of places that will pay you very low amounts of money for writing articles. While some might find them a useful place to get started or test the waters, once you’re more established and able to command a higher rate, going back to this can be suicide. However, the temptation is there if you need some quick cash or to fill a few extra hours in the day.
Unscrupulous Deals: Some companies and sites will offer unscrupulous deals such as paid linking, undisclosed paid reviews and unethical partnerships. These deals can be tempting as they are potentially lucrative but they can destroy a blogger’s credibility as an unbiased source. Even worse, it is trading on the trust your site has built up for quick cash and the trust can almost never be earned back.
Bad Buyout Offers: It’s not uncommon for bloggers, when they’re done with a site, to cash out and sell their domain. However, some offers are better than others. Not only do some offers pay better, but some people will buy a site to continue it almost as is, keeping the audience and building on it, and others will destroy tear it down and simply use the trust built from the domain for their own ends, leaving the audience out to dry. Leaving a site gracefully is key to starting up the next successfully and selling out too low just devalues all of your hard work.

While there are many other temptations to be found, these are by far the most common and some of the most dangerous.

When faced with these situations, and ones like it, it’s important to be strong and press on. However, that can be tough to do when faced with a stack of bills and a limited income.

With that in mind, here are a few tips to stay strong and not give in to the pressure that can sometimes be overwhelming.

Staying Strong and Moving Forward

The key to getting through the dark times is to understand the value of your hard work and that, while giving in might be a temporary fix, it creates much bigger problems down the road.

However, from a more practical standpoint, there are a few things you can do to prepare for these moments and, more importantly deal with them when they come.

Know Your Value: Know roughly how much your time and work is worth. This is done by doing an honest evaluation of your skills, your reputation and comparing it to the market. Never take a job that is too far beneath that. It’s much better to have fewer higher-paying jobs that you can do well than too many low-paying ones. Also, do the same for your site in case you get offers on it.
Focus on Finding New Business: Always be active in making contacts and seeking out new business. Even if your dance card is full, be working on a short list of people you can call if something changes. Preparedness helps make these moments a lot less difficult.
Have Alternate Streams of Income Lined Up: No matter what profession you’re in, having alternate streams of income available is crucial should anything change. This goes beyond good savings and good financial planning, but having a means of never truly being cut off. This can, and likely should, include a mix of Internet-based and “real world” income streams.
Learn the Law: Understand the laws that surround your finances. In many cases, if you find yourself in a bad spot financially, it may be better to either work with those you owe money to or consider filing bankruptcy than it is to constantly scrounge up cash to keep up. This can mean some pride-swallowing, but a lot less so than doing something unethical or that might be more harmful long term.
Learn to Say No: Sadly, a lot of people fall into these situations not because they are truly desperate but because they don’t know how to say “No”. Either their too flattered, too easily coerced or just simply too nice. Knowing when and how to say no is critical to avoiding compromising situations.

All in all, most of the solution, unfortunately, is solid preparation. That means when things are going well is the best time to be thinking about what happens when things go wrong.

Simply put, if you wait until the situation is already desperate, it may be too late to find a good solution that keeps both your life and your ethics intact.

Bottom Line

It’s important to remember that your blogging and freelance writing integrity doesn’t have a price. There’s no way that you can effectively sell it as any short term gain would have to outweigh all of the potential value, both monetarily and personally, that it would have for the rest of your life.

If you keep that in mind, it should be much harder for the shady corners of the Web to tempt you and to make you want to sell out.

In a strange way, maintaining high ethics is less about having an unapproachable moral character and more about understanding what it’s real value is.

That way, even if you are tempted, you won’t be broken.

How Using Opinion Polls Can Help Increase the Readership and Quality Of Your Blog

James Dunaway — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:00:16 +0000

Allowing people to contribute to your blog is a great way for you to establish that you are serious about what they think. There are a lot of different ways that you can allow people to contribute to your blog, and one of the best ways would be by using opinion polls.

A lot of people would never even consider this option because they feel it has no value. I am going to prove that notion wrong in this article by talking about exactly how opinion polls can be used to help increase the readership of your blog, along with the quality of your content.

How Do Opinion Polls Help?

Many times when people create content they create it with the goal of teaching the reader something or to have their blog rank well. When you go to a website you are looking to be either educated or entertained by the content that is there. If the content does that then you like it and you are satisfied by it, but I am sure you have had times where you wished you could tell the website owner directly about some suggestions you might have.

Opinion polls on your blog allows for you to let readers tell YOU on how helpful your website really is along with your content. When you are able to study the information you collect from the polls you create inquiring about the helpfulness of your content you will be able to create content that is better and more enjoyable to read.

Find Out What THEY WANT Using Opinion Polls

Opinion polls can also be used to find out what users are looking for when they visit your site. Even though it might seem evident to you at first, sometimes your readers leave your site earlier then you might like because you are not giving them what they want. If you provided them with more of what they want and less of what they donâ€™t want then you will be able to hold them on your blog much longer.

You can setup opinion polls that will ask readers directly what they want from your blog and are they getting it. If you find they are not then you can make the necessary changes.

Find Out A Readerâ€™s DISLIKES With The Help Of Opinion Polls

Another way you can increase the traffic to your blog is by not doing things that are going to offend or scare off the people who arrive there. We all want to create content that is going to get attention and be spread to other people. But if you create content that offends people or if you create content that is controversial, then this may hurt your readership.

Before you even think about posting such content on your blog you can put up an opinion poll asking people if they would be interested in reading such content in an indirect fashion. By doing this you will learn what subjects will offend them enough to stop reading before you go through with a piece of content.

It Makes Them Feel A Part Of Your Blogâ€¦

Seeing as how these days so many people are on the Internet, they do not want to feel like they are there for nothing. People want to be able to do something besides just read what you have written. Everyone wants to feel included so that they feel like a contributor; by posting an opinion poll on your blog for various topics you will make them feel like a contributor and this is something they will appreciate.

You will need to make sure you change-up the subject of the opinion polls you create for your blog though once you have collected enough information to satisfy whatever you were trying to learn.

Opinion Polls Can Help Them Learn Something

Opinion polls on your blog have more than just the ability to educate you; they have the ability to educate your audience as well. There is a lot they will be able to learn from visiting your blog and reading opinion polls you might have up now and ones you have had up in the past. You will want to find a way to display these polls so that they do not take up too much space on your blog.

A good idea would be for you to have a separate page where you will list the results of polls you have run in the past while at the same time having your current poll displayed on the home page of your blog. You can also decide to put up a poll on a piece of juicy content you just posted for whatever purpose you might want.

Winding Up â†‘

Opinion polls are meant for people to contribute in a way where they will be able to make your content and blog better. These are easy to set up and once you do you will be able to learn so much about your blog and what you can do to make it better.

Not only will the readership increase, but you will have an easier time getting your content ranked in the major search engines as a result.

Are you making great use of opinion polls on your blog? Do you think the data gathered by having opinion polls on your blog helps in ANYWAY? Are opinion polls just for news blogs/websites? What you have to say on thisâ€¦? See the comment form below? YOU ARE SMART! Then why not use it to comment on this postâ€¦

Guest Bio: Sushant Risodkar is a young blogger and marketer from India. Download his e-book if you want to make money online like he does…You can also visit his blog at SmartBloggerz where you will get tips on how to be successful online as a blogger and marketer.

Blogging Pitfalls: How to Deal with Press Agents

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:56:47 +0000

If you build a blog with any reasonable size or status, youâ€™re going to draw the attention of companies and their their public relations managers.

Blogging and social media, for the lack of a better word, has become the new wave in PR and are seen as an inexpensive and organic way to reach a very targeted audience very quickly.

However, as a blogger with readers who trust you and value your opinion, not to mention laws that put obligations on how you disclose relationships, you canâ€™t afford to get too close to these agents. On the other hand, they can be very helpful and certainly arenâ€™t people that you want to turn away or lash out at either.

Dealing with PR agents and other press contacts at companies is a tricky balancing act. One that requires you to extend one hand in friendship while using the other to keep them a safe distance away.

The Pitfall

If you create a blog where you routinely review products, cover news stories or otherwise talk about companies, products and services other than yourself, youâ€™re going to find that, once you gain some traction, press agents are going to be taking at least some interest in your writing (even if you don’t know it yet).

While this might seem to be a bit odd at first, a company taking an interest in your site, it makes a great deal of sense as, even if your audience is small, itâ€™s likely reaching directly to their customer base and can also have a direct impact on how their products and services are viewed in Google.

However, there is good and there is bad that comes with working with PR agents. On the upside, they can inform you of news and announcements before you learn about it from other channels. They can also help you obtain review copies or samples when, otherwise, you would not have been able to buy or borrow one.

But for all of the good PR agents can do for a blog, they are widely seen as a corrupting influence and, in many cases they can be. As the recent Duke Nukem Forever example shows, PR agents sometimes attempt to use their position to punish sites and publications that print negative things about them.

This type of behavior, in turn, causes readers to distrust information that comes from PR agents and to especially distrust sites that rely too heavily on them.

In the end, itâ€™s something of a catch-22. If you lean too heavily on PR agents, you risk your reputation and at least the appearance of an independent voice. Push them too far away, youâ€™ll find yourself last in line for many stories and will miss opportunities both you and your readers would have found useful.

This makes dealing with PR agents an important, if somewhat tricky, part of running your blog. On that front, hereâ€™s a few tips to help you along.

How to Avoid It

Avoiding this problem is simple in theory but difficult to do in reality. As a blogger, you want and need the access press agents offer but you have to avoid the stigma and the influence that they sometimes bring with them.

With that in mind, here are a few things you should be doing when it comes to PR agents.

Reach Out to Them: If you feel as if you might benefit from getting in touch with a PR agent at a company and they havenâ€™t reached out to you, get in touch with them first. Some firms donâ€™t actively seek out bloggers to talk to but will add your name to the list if you contact them. Also, this gives you more control over the dialog, which can help later.
Be Polite: Always be polite when dealing with PR agents, even if you arenâ€™t interested in the least. Rudeness gains nothing and a company you have no interest in today may be of great importance to you in a year.
Be Aware of Their Agenda: Always keep in mind that PR agents arenâ€™t there to help you, but to work for their companies or clients. Your interests are not first in their mind, even though sometimes you can work together to your mutual benefit.
Do Your Own Research/Review/Judging: Though PR agents and other company reps can provide valuable leads, you need to do your own work. Donâ€™t trust research provided by a PR firm without independent verification. Likewise, do your own review and make your own judgements. No matter what, never pull content straight from a press release and present it as your own thoughts. If you wish to quote a press release, treat it like any other source.
Focus on Your Readers: Always remember who you are writing for your readers. Donâ€™t get caught up in the relationship with the PR agent so much so that you ignore your readers. That rarely curries any strong favors and can sink your site quickly.

All in all, itâ€™s pretty simple stuff to do but itâ€™s often difficult in the moment. After all, itâ€™s easy to talk about these things when youâ€™re writing for a blog, but itâ€™s much harder when youâ€™re not on the phone with someone offering to give you a big scoop.

Thatâ€™s why you always have to remember these things and never, ever lose sight of them.

Bottom Line

If you are aware of the risks and rewards of dealing heavily with PR agents, you will most likely be fine. Though itâ€™s easy to get carried away, especially considering how charming many PR agents can be, you have to give yourself some distance and maintain your freedom to speak your mind at all times.

Sadly, this may mean making a few sacrifices in terms of getting stories, but the sacrifices you make there would be eclipsed by what you surrender by not keeping your distance.

Itâ€™s simply the smart thing to do, especially if youâ€™re thinking of the long term of your site.

15 Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog

James Dunaway — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:00:44 +0000

Whatâ€™s the number 1 challenge facing bloggers? The answer: getting more traffic.

You hear a plethora of SEOâ€™s and Internet Marketers claim that content is king. This is true to an extent, but the fact is a lot of people are more than capable of writing great content, but is great content alone enough?

Will people find your blog just because itâ€™s well written? Some will undoubtedly, but great content alone wonâ€™t result in large numbers of traffic.
Here are the top tips on generating more traffic to your blog.

Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories

Sites like Technorati and other blog directories allow you to submit your blog to be included in their directory. These sites index your blog posts, and appear when people make relevant searches. These directories rank blogs similar to how a search engine ranks â€“ so the better your blog in terms of links, how frequently itâ€™s updated, and the social media engagement around it may determine where your blog appears.

Submit your blog to General and Niche Specific Blog Aggregators

Submitting your blog to the various aggregators is a quick and easy way to generate traffic. Sites like AllTop.com are great examples â€“ they display your blogs RSS feed in the right category, and if you have a well written title that catches peopleâ€™s attentionâ€“ youâ€™ll get traffic.

Niche Forum Participation

Many bloggers treat this as a dated method â€“ but itâ€™s still highly effective â€“ no matter what niche youâ€™re in chances are thereâ€™s a forum about it. So if youâ€™re in online marketing â€“ then youâ€™ve no doubt heard of the Warrior Forum.
Itâ€™s also important that you donâ€™t go about trying to drive traffic to your blog in the wrong way â€“ i.e. spamming everywhere and anywhere.

It makes more sense to focus on helping people and contributing valuable information to topics â€“ rather than â€œHey, thanks for this!â€

Write Guest Posts

Without a shadow of a doubt, guest blogging is the most effective and powerful technique as a traffic driver for your blog. Guest posts provide great exposure for your blog â€“ especially if you distribute them in the right places. E.g. if you work in IT, getting something on Tech Crunch is extremely powerful.

Perhaps this equation isnâ€™t exact â€“ but the more guest posts you write = the more traffic you get. So out of all the techniques discussed, this is one you should spend most of your time on. Donâ€™t take that as to mean you can churn out low quality content though â€“ the majority of sites that are worth posting on wonâ€™t consider badly written pieces that quite obviously havenâ€™t had time spent on them.

Itâ€™s also essential to remember not all blogs are equal â€“ keep your best content for the big players in your niche. So if youâ€™ve written a great peace about the Top 5 online tools to help keep yourself organised, then donâ€™t submit it to e-zine articles â€“ find a blog that will make better use of it!

Accept Guest Posts

Now to many people this sounds counter intuitive â€“ posting other peoples content on your blog to bring traffic to your own blog? Think again.

Now obviously you have to be selective â€“ donâ€™t post every post that you receive. But the right post could seriously boost your traffic â€“ especially if it comes from a respected voice. And whatâ€™s to say they wonâ€™t let you guest post on their blog the next month as a trade off? Or blog about their own guest post to show how much of an industry voice they are. Think creatively because the possibilities with this one are endless.
A great resource to help with guest posting is – MyBlogGuest.com

Run Competitions

Running competitions is a great way to generate a spike in traffic and help generate some brand awareness. Theyâ€™re also a great way to build Facebook likes and twitter followers.
Letâ€™s be honest not all niches can produce information readily and freely â€“ especially if youâ€™re in ecommerce selling products that arenâ€™t easy to create great content around. So competitions can be the perfect solution.
Itâ€™s also very important to realise that not all contestants will be successful â€“ you should ensure your contests have a clear goal and an attractive prize. So think relevant, and think what people would like â€“ if youâ€™re in technology give away a cool gadget!

Make sure your blog is Optimised for Search Engines

Even with all the guest posts in the world â€“ itâ€™s unlikely that they will ever bring in more traffic than the search engines will.

Search engine traffic is also the best kind â€“ especially if youâ€™re selling a product or a service, because people who land on your site got there because they have a specific question that needs answering. They arrived with a level of intent. So the chances of converting them into subscribers and paying customers are greatly increased.

Now â€“ talking about how to SEO your blog effectively would be an entirely different blog post as quite frankly it deserves its very own topic. So we wonâ€™t go into it. Thereâ€™s plenty of posts around BloggingPro.com such as the 6 essential tools to help you rank.

Use Social Bookmarking Sites

A lot of bloggers believe that sites like Stumbleupon, Digg etc arenâ€™t worth bothering with as they donâ€™t provide long term subscribers. However â€“ these bookmarking sites give your posts the opportunity to go viral in a matter of hours. That coupled with the fact that these sites are well respected in the eyes of Google means that they can also boost your rankings – meaning more traffic from the search engines. So with that in mind, ruling these out as a waste of time isnâ€™t a good idea.

Interview People with an Industry Voice

This is great tactic and playing to peoples egos is a great traffic driver. People love to be praised and appreciated. One way to accomplish this is by interviewing key industry figures within your niche.

Once you have interviewed them you should then encourage them to spread the word about your post. Some of them will share your blog post on twitter, some will share it on Facebook and some of them will even go to the extent of blogging about it or emailing out to their subscribers list just for that ego trip.

Increase the Frequency You Post Blogs

The emphasis around blog posts has always been focus on the quality and nothing else. And whilst quality is without doubt important, you should also focus on delivering it more often.

You may write amazing posts, but if you only update your blog twice a year â€“ itâ€™s going to get relegated to the bottom of the pile pretty quickly.

Donâ€™t take this as an excuse to start churning out rubbish content though â€“ remember that social media is constantly growing and nobody is going to share content that isnâ€™t share worthy in the first place.

The lesson: keep the quality of your content high and blog more often!

A little thing called an Email Signature

I know youâ€™re thinking that surely this is such a dated technique that it no longer works. But youâ€™d be wrong.

If youâ€™re a blogger â€“ youâ€™re no doubt emailing people on a regular basis â€“ do all these people know about your blog? Ok so not everyone will click it â€“ but even say only 10% of people do these numbers soon add up. And really â€“ it takes 5 minutes to setup an email signature. Do it!

Social Networking

To many, this maybe a no brainer â€“ but thereâ€™s still people out there not leveraging these exceptionally useful tools.

To bring traffic â€“ you have to hang out where your users do â€“ so if youâ€™re an internet marketer then twitter is probably where youâ€™ll find them. If youâ€™re into computer games then itâ€™s probably Facebook. Communicate with others, share your own articles and share other peoples and you’re pretty much on the road to social network success.

Optimize Your Site for Smart Phone Devices

The number of people browsing websites via mobile devices is constantly on the up. And itâ€™s rising at an alarming rate! Technology has meant viewing websites in this kind of way is now easier than ever.
If your website is incompatible and doesnâ€™t render correctly then youâ€™re losing potential traffic!

Optimize Your Images for Search Engines

This is another technique that falls under the radar of most bloggers. The fact is, that if you give your images the right filenames, titles, and alt attributes – then they can bring traffic to your blog.

Optimize Your Website for Faster Loading

Some people of the SEO community believe page load time can affect rankings â€“ there’s actually little proof, however regardless whether it does or not you should still ensure that your website loads quickly.

Internet users donâ€™t have the time or the patience to wait for slow loading websites â€“ theyâ€™ll leave your site and find what they were after elsewhere.

There are Firefox tools such as Firebug and various web based tools that can inform you of where pages are getting slowed down â€“ be it large images, unclean code or lots of javascript then these can help pinpoint it.

If you put these tips into practice, you and your blog should be generating oodles of traffic in no time!

Guest Bio: Jonathan Moss is a keen advocate of blogging to help businesses, he also helps create content for a Yorkshire IT Support Company – Integral IT. Who blog regularly around their industry with tips, hints, news and updates in fields such as cloud computing, online applications and Microsoft Technology.

Wanna Connect at BlogWorld in NYC Next Week?

Andrew G. Rosen — Fri, 20 May 2011 13:11:15 +0000

BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2011 is finally coming to New York next week (May 24 – 26) and for the first time in many years, I’ve been able to clear my schedule to attend.Â There are many things I want to accomplish during the 3-day expo, but priority #1 is meeting YOU!

Just look for the guy with a QR code tattooed on his forehead.

If you are planning to attend BlogWorld NY and would like to meet face-to-face, I’d welcome the opportunity. Whether you want to learn about guest blogging for dozens of high-profile blogs or talk through ways we can support each other in this rapidly-shifting new media world, let’s chat!

There will be more than 100 speakers at the event.Â But the person I want to hear talk is YOU.Â Send me a message via Twitter @Jobacle

Blogging Pitfalls: 7 Ways Your Blog May Impose On Your Visitors

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:17:18 +0000

Imagine, for a moment, that you were invited over to a friends house to watch a movie or catch up on their news. However, instead of giving you what you went for, they bombarded you with advertisements you didn’t want, practically shoving them in your voice and begging you to read them.

Then, when you get past the ads, they start annoying you with irritating sounds and distracting movement, anything to get your attention away from whatever it is you visited for. Then, when you finally turn to leave, your friend does everything they can to prevent you from going. This includes locking doors, rearranging the furniture and everything short of handcuffing you to a wall.

This person, almost certainly, would not be your friend much longer and it is even more unlikely you’d ever go back to their house. At the very least you’d consider this a bad experience and, at worst, it would feel like a form of kidnapping.

However, as extreme as this example sounds, it’s exactly how many websites treat their visitors. Sadly, many webmasters don’t see their visitors as guests in their virtual home, but rather, like sheep meant to be shorn and exploited as much as possible.

But while we can all recount the terrible experiences that we’ve had with sites that have tried to trap and bombard us, there are other, more subtle ways a webmaster can impose on a visitor and they can be just as deadly to earning trust.

Unfortunately, many webmasters fail to realize that they are doing it and some are left wondering as to why so few of their visitors ever come back.

The Pitfall

When a visitor comes to your site, they have a series of preconceived notions about what they will find there and how they will access it. These notions come from a variety of sources ranging from the name of your site, the queries they searched for to find it and experiences they’ve had on other sites across the Web.

Any time that you deviate from those expectations or desires, you’re imposing, at least slightly, on your visitor. These impositions range from a small, out of the way ad that is barely noticeable, to major annoyances like background music or popup ads.

Most visitors will tolerate a decent amount of imposition. Most sites have extraneous design elements, for example, and visitors might even attribute some imposition to improving variety on the Web. After all, if one knew exactly what to expect at every site they went to, the Web would be a boring place.

However, there comes a point where the site is actively getting in the way of the visitor. It’s often times a gray area, such as the point where ads become a distraction from the content and other times it’s pretty clear cut, such as pop up ads prohibiting the visitor from leaving.

But there are smaller impositions as well, these include things such as having to register or pass a CAPTCHA to leave a comment, scripts that accidentally block user’s normal surfing practices or plugins that the user either doesn’t have or has disabled by default.

These impositions, no matter how seemingly minor discourage people from interacting with, staying long on or coming back to your site. The more you impose on your visitor, the less likely they are to return and the harder it will be to build a loyal audience.

That makes it critical to give your visitors what they want as soon as possible, but that is often no simple task, especially when we’re looking at our sites through rose-colored glasses.

How to Avoid it

Avoiding this pitfall, more than anything, requires thinking about your visitors in a different light. You can’t simply look at them as readers of your content but, instead, look at them as guests in your virtual home.

Rather than thinking solely about what might attract more visitors, pay some though to what your visitors want when they arrive and what you can best to do to provide it.

In short, ask yourself the very simple question, “If I were a visitor to my site, what would I want and what obstacles are there to getting it?”

Bloggers often unwittingly put up these obstacles, usually in the pursuit of other noble goals. While there are too many possible hurdles to count, here are seven of the more common ones that bloggers seems to fall into regularly.

Excessive Advertising: As mentioned above, one of the most common impositions is excessive advertising, especially ads that create popups or popunders. Most visitors tolerate reasonable advertising well, but when they distract from the content the ads become a problem.
Forced Registration: If your visitor wants to leave a comment or get updates from your site, forcing them to register for an account is another hurdle you can put in front of them. While this can be a good way to limit spam, most visitors don’t want to register for another site, especially if they just want to comment once. You can mitigate this some of this by integrating your site with Facebook, Twitter and other services your visitors already use.
Inconsistent Design: If your site design is unfamiliar or unusual compared to other sites, especially in terms of where your links are, you may be forcing your visitors to re-learn how to use your site, making it more difficult for them to get to what they need.
Slow Loading Times: If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, you may want to take steps to speed it up. Slow sites are a hassle for visitors and cause many of them to turn away.
Manipulative Scripts: No right click scripts don’t do much to prevent image theft but frustrate those who use their right click to navigate around the Web. Likewise, scripts that manipulate the copy and paste functionality, such as Tynt, can frustrate those trying to search for additional information about a story.
Missing Features: Is your site missing an “About” page? What about a contact page? Do you have clear way to view the archives? If you are missing features on your site that your users expect, you are forcing them to work around your limitations. This can also include things such as Twitter buttons and Facebook “Like” icons.
Multiple Pages: Though breaking a post across multiple pages may increase the page views you get, most visitors hate it unless there is some good reason to break it up. Every click that isn’t necessary is an imposition you can easily avoid.

All in all, these are just some of the ways that a site can impose on its visitors, usually without realizing it. However, when one is confronted with these problems while surfing the Web, they usually recognize the imposition immediately and loathe it.

It’s just that many aren’t able to see their site in the light they see others’.

Bottom Line

Being objective about one’s site is almost impossible. Your site is, in many ways, your child. It’s a fruit of your labor and, regardless of how much/little traffic it gets or how great it actually is, it is a part of you.

That makes it hard to be honest with ourselves about the ways our sites might be imposing on our visitors. Even when an imposition might send us into a rage elsewhere, we might look at it as a necessary evil or a great feature on our site.

However, without an objective view, our site’s can’t grow and improve. So, it may be wise to solicit opinions from others and learn what they see as the limitations of your site are. If you do that, you may get a new perspective and get some ideas you can build upon to take your site to the next level.

Web-Based Blog Publishing With Squarespace

James Dunaway — Fri, 13 May 2011 10:36:59 +0000

I’ve been a Squarespace fan since 2007. Â And before you jump on me and start singing the praises of that other Web-based blog platform, all I’m asking for is a chance. Â I want to show you how I built a successful blog with Squarespace, and that sometimes, paying a few dollars is worth the convenience.

What got me started was the no-risk trial that allowed me to set up a blog without shelling out a single penny – not even a credit card number. Â It’s a great business strategy, because after tweaking your blog to look the way you’d like, why bother going elsewhere? Well done, Squarespace! But all kidding aside, any company that allows you take a product for a full test drive without any commitment, clearly believes in its goods.

What sets Squarespace apart is that it’s so simple, that even your grandmother can start that crocheting website she’s always talking about! Â And if you feel so inclined, you can dive into the CSS and customize as many elements as you like. Â That’s the beauty of Squarespace, it’s the perfect solution for people at all tech levels.

As much as I love technology, like many Web writers, I fashion myself a blogger first. Â Rather than worrying about MySql databases and installation processes (as simple as they might be), I’d rather be working on my next blog post. Â And there’s a whole lot of people shelling out several bucks a month for the Squarespace platform, so I know I’m not alone.

Founded in 2004, the company has come a long way since founder Anthony Casalena launched the idea from a college dorm. Â With HQ located in downtown Manhattan, Squarespace was #416 on the Inc 500 in 2010. Now that’s impressive growth!

What’s also impressive is SquareSpace’s customer service. Â Available from
9am – 5pm ET, you can expect an answer, sometimes, within minutes. Â And I have a log going back to 2007 to prove it. Â Despite the fact that Squarespace has an in-depth help section, I have often written them with idiotic questions – and they always respond with helpful answers, at times, going above and beyond. Â They also have a 24/7 tech team who respond to emergencies.

$12 a month gives you everything a blogger could want; $36 a month gives you enough tools to run an entire business. Â The great part is, you can toggle between service plans anytime you like.

From adding a favicon to injecting code snippets into the body of your site, Squarespace allows you to make basic changes and updates, often with a single click.

If you already have a blog on another platform, you can use the custom importer to bring your blog into Squarespace.

Give the free trial a try – you have nothing to lose! Squarespace will be rolling out a new version in the coming months, the sixth iteration of the product. From what we’ve seen, this great tool is going to get even better.

Blogging Pitfalls: Being Blocked, Banned, Filtered or Booted for Your Content

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:36:57 +0000

If you don’t run a sex blog, don’t feature nudity on your site or generally don’t have anything that might be seen as offensive or risque, you might think the issue of adult content or content blocking doesn’t apply to you. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Simply put, the Web is a big place and the content that’s on it doesn’t get passed through any centralized ratings board like the MPAA or the ESRB (both of which have problems of their own). However, countless companies, groups, countries and even individuals have made attempts at trying to make sure that content is appropriate for whoever is visiting it and, unfortunately, they often make mistakes or, in worst case scenarios, abuse the process to silence speech they don’t like.

The issues of adult content, content rating, site filtering and so forth are ones that every blogger needs to be aware of and at least mindful of simply because the rules are so subjective and it is far too easy for innocent sites to get caught in the crossfire of a war against certain types of content.

The Pitfall

The biggest problem when talking about “adult”, “restricted” or “banned” content is that the terms themselves are inherently ambiguous. Though, in the U.S. we tend to put this in the context of pornography, even that can be almost impossible to define, leading to a famous quip from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

If the Supreme Court can’t clearly define what is obscene or pornographic, what hope does a Web filtering company or, even worse, your host?

Of course, the problem gets even worse when you realize that the standards of what is and is not acceptable vary wildly from country to country and culture to culture. For example, sites are routinely banned in China merely for being critical of the government or supporting policies counter to the country’s. Likewise, Thailand notoriously blocks sites that are critical of the country’s king.

To make matters still worse, the bans often have a great deal of collateral damage. For example, all of WordPress.com was banned in Brazil in 2008 due to a sex video that was embedded on at least one blog.

Of course, it isn’t just filters and national bans one has to worry about. Many hosts have a strict policy against hosting “adult content” or “obscene material” and, considering how subjective the rules can be, many sites are booted from their homes for violating these rules when they thought they were doing nothing wrong.

In short, every blog is being held to a variety of subjective and confusing standards as to their content and violating these standards could get you banned in various countries, filtered by prominent site blocking tools or, in some cases, kicked off your existing hosting provider.

This is an issue that every blogger has to think about and, unfortunately, it’s an issue that is only getting worse. However, if you want to make sure every visitor who wants to read your site can, you have to take steps now to ensure that this doesn’t become a problem and that your site doesn’t needlessly get caught up in the crossfire.

How to Avoid it

Unfortunately, there is no way to completely avoid this issue and only so much you can do to mitigate it. For example, my site, which deals with copyright and plagiarism issues on the Web, was put on several filters and blocklists simply for writing an article about how the porn industry was dealing with piracy.

That being said, most of the blocks were lifted but it illustrates the point nicely, that even having words that can be mistaken for being restricted content can create at least a temporary problem.

Without severely curtailing your speech, there’s not much you can do to ensure that you don’t get unjustly filtered, blocked or booted. Still, there are a few steps that every blogger can and should consider taking to make sure that their site isn’t unjustly caught up in the crossfire.

Choose a Host That Allows Adult Content: Even if you don’t plan on posting anything that could be considered pornographic or adult, make sure that your host allows it. The mere fact that your host is making judgments as to what is and is not acceptable content beyond what the law says it has to should give you cause to worry.
Avoid Free Blogging Services: Services like Blogspot and WordPress.com, as great as they are, are often targeted together because they are on the same domain. As such, if one blogger on a service becomes a target, likely all of them are blocked or filtered.
Rate Yourself: There are a variety of rating services such as Safe Surf that let webmasters publicize, through metadata, what their content is. Many services look at this before making decisions based on the content. This might be useful if don’t have any pornographic content, but might use terms that could be confused for it.
Choose Terms Carefully: Remember that what you say is often more important than how you say it, especially when dealing with automated filters. Excessively coarse language may get you filtered out and mean that others can’t access your site.
Watch Your Comments: Remember that your comments matter too, so have a good comment policy on your site and remove those that violate it.

Unfortunately, none of these methods will completely prevent your site from being filtered, blocked or banned, but it might reduce the number of sources that do it.

Of course, if you run a site that does feature adult content, you can expect to be filtered legitimately. For better or worse, it’s a hazard of running a site that features such material, child filters, workplace firewalls and other monitoring services will do what they can to block you.

On that front, there probably isn’t much that you can do at all.

Bottom Line

To be clear, website filtering, especially voluntarily filtering by families and within companies, are not necessarily evil, but they are highly imperfect.

Unfortunately, that imperfection can catch you and that, in turn, can restrict access to your site from people who may want to visit it. Get mistaken for pornography, for example, and visitors who try to come buy while at work will be blocked if their company runs filtering software.

Your best bet is to do what you can to avoid being mistakenly identified as some kind of unwanted content. Unfortunately, that is nearly impossible to do, especially with how broad of a net many of these filters, firewalls and other tools cast.

The best thing you can do is be mindful of the risks and do what you can to mitigate them. It’s not much and, most likely, if you reach any level of popularity you will be filtered by someone somewhere, but you can certainly limit the problem.

That, in the end, is better than nothing.

Blogging Pitfalls: How To Avoid an International Incident

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:52:58 +0000

It can be easy to forget that the Web is a truly international phenomenon and that people visit and view our sites from every continent and from all over the world.

While this is a truly amazing thing as it means that our message and our information can, quite literally, spread all across the globe in the blink of an eye, not everyone comes to your site with the same mindset and background. In fact, every person who approaches your site brings with them their cultural, personal, political and even religious background.

This means that, even if we completely ignore or overcome the language barriers that exist on the Web, no two people read the same piece of content the same way. Everything we read is colored by our background and the same holds true for each of the other 6 billion people on the planet.

This can create a very serious problem. What might be simply hilarious to you and your friends could be brazingly offensive to someone in another country. While this might be fine if you’re trying to be somewhat offensive with your humor, it can be disastrous if you’re trying to get information across or win people over to your viewpoint.

This alone makes cultural differences and important problem to be aware of and a pitfall that is critical to avoid.

The Pitfall

These types of problems usually happen very innocently, starting either with a simple joke or a choice of words that is simply offensive to someone else, another group or even a large portion of the population.

Even if you didn’t intend for something to be offensive, if someone else takes something you’ve written, a picture you’ve posted or something you’ve uploaded personally, it can lead to huge problems. Flame wars often ensue over such incidents and, in extreme cases, people protest online or even go to (virtual) war over perceived infractions.

These are, at the very least, unwelcome distractions when you’re trying to write and convey a message. Placating or otherwise dealing with angry people not only takes time away from what you want to be doing, but it also means your message, as good as it might have been, went unheard and completely missed its mark, making the previous effort a waste.

However, this pitfall doesn’t always manifest itself in the form of angry mobs or even upset users. Rather, it more commonly appears as readers who don’t “get” what you’re trying to say. This leads them to silently miss the point of your posts or, at the very least, get bogged down in elements of your posts that they can’t understand.

So even if you don’t have a virtual mob at your door, you could still be finding yourself running afoul of cultural differences and turning off your readers to your message. The problem is, you might never know about this, that is, unless you stop to think about what could do it.

How to Avoid it

There is an old saying among journalists and journalism professors that goes like this:

The key to good writing is not to write so that you can be understood, but to write so that you can not be misunderstood.

On the Internet though, this is incredibly difficult. With so many people reading content from such a variety of backgrounds, there is virtually no way to guarantee that everyone who sees your site gets the same, or even a similar, message.

That being said though, there are some things that you need to watch out for, obvious stumbling blocks that can cause your message to get lost or, even worse, anger your visitors that you’re trying reach out to.

Cultural References: When using cultural references either for humor purposes or for making a comparison, example, etc. it’s important to ask if everyone, or reasonably close to everyone, will understand it. For example, if you say a site is “Like a Walmart”, would all of your audience understand that? What if you said, “Like a Costco?” or “Like a Macy’s?”
Humor: What’s seen as funny in one culture might fall flat or be offensive to someone else. For example, self depreciating humor tends to go well in some circles, but is seen as a sign of weakness elsewhere. Likewise, jokes about religion are acceptable in some cultures, but definitely not in others. Use humor with caution.
Label Choice: Though it can be nearly impossible to choose a completely non-offensive word in some situations, especially to describe a race, religion, cultural group, etc., it’s important not to choose words that might be seen as intentionally offensive. Even if you can’t be perfect, it’s better to not to make things worse.
Jargon: Jargon might not seem like it could be extremely offensive, but mess up certain science fiction jargon and you might see otherwise. However, even when it isn’t offensive, it’s confusing to those who don’t understand it, making it important to not use jargon that you audience isn’t certain to know.
Political Implications: Finally, it is important to note that you can often indicate your political stance on an issue just by how you define it. For example, whether you refer to it as “Single Payer Healthcare” or “Socialized Medicine” might be a good indication in the U.S. on how you feel about the topic. These terms can sidetrack a good discussion and important message into a political debate you didn’t want.

All in all, there’s no real magic to avoiding cultural, political, religious and other pitfalls. It mostly involves being aware of the potential dangers and reading your content through the filters other people might apply to it.

If you can do that, you will most likely avoid the worst of the potential issues in this area.

Bottom Line

In the end, it’s important to remember that, no matter how hard you try to be sensitive to these issues, you will never succeed completely and, in many cases, it probably isn’t very important.

Sometimes writing something well requires writing something that someone might misinterpret. It requires taking some risks. One of the reason modern cinema is often viewed as being so dull is because it has to be written for international audiences, meaning it has to appeal to the lowest common cultural elements. This greatly limits what one can do with the medium.

Still, there’s no point in upsetting or losing people needlessly. If you can avoid making culture-related blunders, it is best to do so. Not only will you spend less time keeping angry mobs at bay, but you’ll be able to keep more of your audience and that, in turn, will help you grow your blog.

That alone makes this an issue worth consider, but perhaps not one worth obsessing over.

Blogging Pitfalls: Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:29:00 +0000

Over the course of this column, I’ve talked a great deal about the various pitfalls bloggers may encounter over the course of running their sites. This has included everything from hosting disasters to libel lawsuits and more. Blogging can be a scary place and I’ve done more than almost anyone to point out the reasons to be afraid and worried.

However, Franklin D. Roosevelt perhaps said it best when, during his first inaugural address in 1932, he told a suffering nation, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. He was right.

Fear is a paralyzing force. It causes us to freeze or seek safety, it pushes us to avoid risks, shirk the spotlight and to take the much safer path. For a blogger, this can be a death blow. Blogging can be a risky activity but fear of those risks can often be greater than the risk itself. Fear prevents you from blogging, it prevents you from creating your best content and, most importantly, it prevents you from truly growing your site.

Learning to address and deal with fear, whether fear of success, fear of failure or something else entirely, is crucial for every blogger. Unfortunately though, this is one of those pitfalls that isn’t easily avoided, especially if you have a very fear-prone personality.

The Pitfall

Blogging at all is an act of courage. By blogging you are taking yourself, your writing and your views and putting in front of the whole of the world. As your blog grows, it may be come a bigger part of your life and a bigger part of your income, as such, it becomes more and more crucial that your blog continue on the path it is on.

The problem is that fear leads you to do whatever is “safe”. Whether it’s writing the same kind of posts over and over, whether it is not changing to a new and genuinely improved layout or even if it is not blogging at all, fear pushes you to keep the status quo and maintain it all costs.

The problem with the status quo is that it leads stagnation. When one doesn’t take risks, they don’t improve and, when one doesn’t actively work at getting better, they eventually stop doing what they are doing as well. In short, one deteriorates very quickly when they try to do the same thing over and over again.

If you aren’t reaching out, trying new things and exploring new options, your blog is dying (or not being born if you aren’t a blogger yet). If you want to be a successful blogger, you can’t let yourself be afraid to experiment, to make mistakes and explore new horizons.

However, overcoming that fear can be difficult. The Internet is, quite literally, the must public “place” ever invented. Nearly every person in the world can see what you do, including your successes and your failures and no rational person isn’t going to pause and think about the implications of that before posting.

The difference between successful bloggers and those who wallow in fear is that those who do great things not only move past this fear, but find ways to put it to good use. After all, it is a rational response, to very real dangers. The goal is to not let it cripple you and your site from doing great things.

How to Avoid it

Part of the problem many bloggers have with fear is that they don’t even realize they are afraid. They feel uncomfortable doing X or Y and don’t really know why. They worry their audience won’t like it or that it won’t be as good as their previous works but some don’t recognize it as the fear that it is.

Being afraid is natural. Trying new things, especially on an established site, is a risk and it should be seen as such. If you’re not afraid, you’re not looking at all of the possibilities and not seeing the dangers.

But being afraid doesn’t mean you stop. it’s an opportunity to take a look at what it is that’s holding you back, a chance to analyze the risks and mitigate against them.

So the best thing you can do when you find yourself wanting to do something but afraid, is to take the opportunity to really analyze the fear. Ask yourself “What are you afraid of?”, “What is the worst that can reasonably happen?” and “How can you mitigate against those dangers?”

Then, when it’s all said and done, you need to ask yourself if, with the dangers as small as you can make them, is the risk worth the potential reward? If the answer is yes, go forward. If it isn’t, don’t, but don’t waste any further time mulling the idea, at least not until the situation changes.

If, after doing this, you find it difficult to approach your fears rationally, you may need to rethink your blogging. With that in mind though, here are a few additional tips that can help you overcome your fears if you are having trouble putting things into perspective.

Have a Sense of Humor: Don’t take yourself too seriously. Keeping a sense of humor about yourself and your site, as serious as they may be, is crucial for taking chances with it. Mistakes are much easier when you can laugh them off and even easier when you can share the laugh with your audience.
Learn How to Recover from Failure: Very few mistakes can’t be recovered from, learning how to recover from mistakes is a crucial skill for any blogger as we are all human. Having confidence in your ability to do that makes you more comfortable risking failure.
Be Honest About Your Blunders: Finally, if you make a mistake, be honest about it. Everyone is human and no reasonable person is going to expect complete perfection. If you’re honest about your mistakes, you not only seem more human, but you don’t have to worry about tarnishing your perfect record.

In the end, it all comes down to being comfortable with being human. Being human means failing from time to time, it means taking a few wrong turns and, more importantly, it means being in a constant state of growth and learning.

Even veteran bloggers don’t get everything right on the first try. The wise ones just don’t let that knowledge stop them from moving forward.

Bottom Line

It might seem odd for a guy who writes an entire column dedicated to blogging dangers and blogging pitfalls to tell others to not be afraid. However, I don’t think we shouldn’t be afraid, I just think we shouldn’t let our fear stop us from trying and doing great new things.

We need to be aware of the dangers that come with blogging so that we can mitigate against them and not unwittingly walk into traps. However, we can’t let those dangers, or the fears of them, stop us from blogging and doing the best work possible.

In short, what I want others to take away from my posts is not that blogging is scary and filled with risk, but that those risks can be mitigated against and shouldn’t stop you from creating great blogs.

How to Get Comments on Your Blog Posts

James Dunaway — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:00:09 +0000

Are any of your blog posts receiving any comments yet? If you are now writing your 57^th blog post and you have yet to receive comments from your readers, you may have a big problem. Consider the following tips to help your blog posts gain or attract comments from readers.

Know and find your audience
Before knowing who actually leaves comments on your blog, find your niche, target audience, or target market first. This is the first door you should open when expecting comments. When you connect with blogs and people with the same passion as yours, the possibility of getting comments is higher.

Write with conviction and commitment
Thereâ€™s a big difference between the posts of a passionate and a dull writer. There is no point in reading and commenting on a boring blog post. Put your heart into your writing and readers will be attracted to your posts.

Update your blog every day and reply to their comments
Update on a regular basis. Coming up with blog posts is like writing an article for a magazine. No one wants to read about same old topics every day. You donâ€™t have to write a new post every single day; just show them that you exist by replying to comments and participating in threads. The more you answer their queries, the more they are encouraged to comment on your posts.

Write like a novelist
I am not saying that you have to use characters and seamless plots to spice up your blog posts. Write with continuity and let the readers know that you really are writing the post. You can mention some ideas from your previous posts by linking to the posts. Quote from old blog entries. This may encourage readers to religiously follow your blogâ€™s post updates. By doing this, you can expect tons of comments from readers asking and pleading for your next blog post.

Enable your blogâ€™s â€˜Commentsâ€™ section
And last but not the least, activate your blogâ€™s â€˜Commentsâ€™ feature. Deactivating this feature would, obviously, prevent blog readers from posting comments on your entries.

Guest Bio: Warner is interested in the Net and Computers. I find SEO a facinating puzzle so of course work for an SEO Reseller, Endless Rise.

Blogging Pitfalls: Why You Should Disclose Your Freebies

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:38:49 +0000

As a blogger, for the vast majority of your readers, you are just a virtual presence, someone that they know solely through their words, videos and other media. It’s the nature of the Web that, unless you do a lot of touring and conferences, for most you’ll just be a name/face on the computer screen.

But while that’s just a part of being on the Web, it is something of a limitation we all face as well. People, for the most part, don’t form emotional bonds with people that they don’t talk to and don’t see in person. This is part of why many seem to care so little what happens to others they meet over the Web but, on the flip side, it means that people are very slow to trust others online.

But, as a blogger, trust is essential. If people don’t trust you, your site and your information, they aren’t going to become recurring visitors, they aren’t going to participate in your site and they won’t link to you or otherwise spread the word about what you are doing.

Without trust, your blog is almost nothing. But while earning trust online requires tons of hard work, dedication and consistency in producing high-quality content, losing it is simply a matter of making one fatal mistake.

One of the easiest ways to lose earned trust is to fail to properly disclose any freebies, gifts or relationships that may have influenced your opinion. Once people believe your views to have been tainted, it is almost impossible for you to regain that trust.

However, this is a pitfall that goes beyond the trust of your readers and, thanks to recent guidelines, also becomes a legal issue. Failing to disclose conflicts, especially repeatedly, could land you in hot water in the U.S. and do far more than ruin the hard work you’ve put into your blog.

The Pitfall

Back in October of 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced an update to its guidelines for endorsements targeted at bloggers and celebrity endorsements online. The goal, according to the FTC, was to update existing endorsement guidelines for the Internet age.

However, the revised guidelines were still very controversial. Among other things, the guidelines asked that bloggers disclose if they received a free sample of a product for the purpose of review, had any established relationship with the company involved or were paid money for the review.

That being said, the FTC did say it wasn’t planning on suing bloggers for not disclosing a single freebie or relationship. Instead, they were going to target bloggers who were repeatedly engaging in deceptive behavior and would consider this as part of their case.

Still, the FTC and the controversy surrounding the revised guidelines raised a great deal of awareness about disclosures and started, or at least ratcheted up, a dialog about the roles of disclosures in blogging. Though few were happy about the FTC’s involvement, most agreed that disclosure, at least where there is a reasonable expectation that the review or article is unbiased.

And that, in turn, is the bigger issues that bloggers face. Readers expect to be informed of conflicts and, when they aren’t, they lose hard-earned trust in their bloggers. A simple error in disclosure, even if the conflict didn’t have any effect on the article it was in, can erase years of hard work building trust. With trust being such an important and scarce commodity online, it can be a devastating blow for a site.

Considering that it is such a simple pitfall to avoid, it’s one well worth being aware of and taking steps to prevent.

How to Avoid It

Most bloggers, realistically, don’t have to worry about this particular pitfall. If you don’t review a lot of products and stick mostly to news, events in your life and so forth, you probably won’t find yourself in a situation where you have to disclose anything.

Even if you do write the occasional review, so long as you purchase the product yourself and give an honest opinion of it, there won’t be much issue there either. The problem only arises with bloggers who receive freebies to review, have worked with companies that they are reviewing or, worst of all, are doing undisclosed paid reviews.

Still, given how serious these issues are and how even the perception of bias can hurt the trust you’ve built up, there’s a need to take extra steps to avoid any potential problems.

Create a Disclosure Policy: If you write a lot of reviews or are thinking about getting started, it’s probably a good idea to write a disclosure policy. If you want, you can generate one online and simply add it to your site as a page.
Disclose All Possible Conflicts Clearly: When choosing what to disclose and what not to disclose, it’s best to disclose too much than too little. For example, if you worked for a company at one point years ago, it may be best to disclose that even if the job you had has no relation to what you are reviewing.
Don’t Hold On to Review Items: Generally, if you accept freebies for review, it’s considered best practice to not keep products or copies once you’ve completed the review. Electronics and other expensive items are usually returned the company that provided it while books can be donated the library. This might not be an issue if you do reviews rarely and only for inexpensive items, but you don’t want to be seen as someone who stocks their home with tons of free review items.
Don’t Participate in Shady Programs: Paid review programs, much like paid tweet programs, are generally frowned upon by bloggers. Not only do you have to disclose such relationships, but the mere fact you work with them hurts your reputation. It’s not worth the money to be a part of something widely seen as shady and underhanded.

All in all, it comes down to being honest with yourself and your readers. If you can do that, you’ll probably be fine, both legally and ethically.

Bottom Line

Though it might seem awkward to disclose your potential conflicts and as if you’re making it so that others will trust your opinions less, remember this: Failing to disclose a conflict, if discovered, kills trust between you and your readers, proper disclosure, however, builds it.

If you disclose a conflict and then go on to give an honest, unbiased review, your readers will see that and respect it. If you don’t disclose the conflict, no matter how unbiased your review is, if the conflict is later found out, it destroys not just the trust they have in you, but the faith in your opinion on that article.

In these matters, it is not enough to simply be right, one has to show they are right. The best way to do that is to disclose conflicts every time they come up, even if they don’t really affect you.

If you do that, the FTC won’t bother you and your readers will respect you that much more.

Blogging Pitfalls: How to Avoid Being Dropped By Google

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:45:17 +0000

If you take a look at your traffic stats, you’ll likely find that a very large percentage, if not a vast majority, of your new traffic comes from Google.

While this can be a great thing as search traffic is some of the best that you can get in terms of targeting, it is also highly risky. The reason is that it makes all of us subject to the whims of Google, a company that our sites have no direct relationship with and is prone to being fickle with both its algorithms and its index.

Imagine, for a moment, if half of that traffic went away suddenly or, even worse, if it disappeared altogether. This is the reality many sites have faced, and it has proved disastrous for many sites, including established ones that suddenly find the lion’s share of their daily traffic to be gone.

Perhaps worst of all though is that it is a pitfall that can not be completely avoided. Considering that Google makes “over 400″ changes per year, it’s almost impossible to be sure your site won’t get eaten in one of them.

Still, there is plenty that you can and should do and most of them are actually quite simple.

The Pitfall

Though Google is far and away the most popular search engines, it became as such not by catering to webmasters, but by returning the best results and the best search experience possible. As a result of this, Google is constantly tweaking both its algorithms and its index to ensure that the sites it feels are the best rise to the top of the results.

But while this tweaking may be what helps keep Google on top of the search engine wars, it does create a great deal of unreliability for webmasters who are essentially trying to build a search engine presence on shifting sands.

Google can, without recourse, drop sites from its index, severely degrade their ranking or refuse to index many of their pages.

The results from any of these hits can be catastrophic to one’s traffic, either cutting off or severely restricting the flow of targeted new visitors. For a site’s traffic, this has roughly the same as cutting off a human being from their air supply.

So how can one avoid it? There isn’t much of a way to. But there are things you can do to reduce the possibility of a Google “spank” and mitigate any damage it may cause.

How to Avoid It

The problem is that, since we are at the whims of Google as to where it ranks us or if it indexes us at all, there’s not much we can do and most of what we can do comes down to simply doing what Google wants and hoping it doesn’t change with the next update.

Still, there are several pieces of good advice one can give, even if it has been said many times before. Those steps include:

Join Google Webmaster Tools: If you’re serious about how well you do in Google, joining Google Webmaster Tools is a requirement. Not only will you have a variety of features to help you track and understand how Google is indexing your site, but you will get notification of problems that can hurt your ranking.
Get a Good Host: Downtime and sluggish site performance can be deadly for your site in Google. Though site performance by itself is only a minor factor, if too many users click back to the results quickly after visiting your site, Google will likely assume your site is of low quality and either drop it or lower its ranking.
Avoid Duplicate Content: Google doesn’t like duplicate content and moves duplicates to the supplementary index – if it doesn’t just discard them as spam. Don’t post your work in multiple places on the Web, ensure that others who do use your work link back to the original and make sure you aren’t creating duplicate content within your site. In some cases, you may also have to deal with content theft and plagiarism of your work, to avoid these issues.
Focus on Security: If your site is hacked, especially if it is used to distribute malicious code, you may find your site booted out of Google on security grounds. The same goes for hacked sites that display spam links or adult content on a non-adult site. Use strong passwords and keep your software current to avoid this from happening.
Look for Other Traffic Sources: Don’t just rely on Google for your traffic, also spend energy on link building, social media and other traffic sources. This can both soften the blow of a negative Google shift and, if done well, actually encourages Google to rank you higher, making it a win-win.

Still, the best thing that you can do for your site is produce good, high-quality content that people enjoy, link to and want to see higher up in the search results. Even if you do have a slip up with Google, as long as you have strong content and aren’t doing anything too spammy, you can likely recover given enough time and energy.

If you don’t have that, then you probably didn’t belong high up in the results to begin with, making the loss of ranking less of a tragedy and more of a rebalancing of authority.

Bottom Line

The sad, simple truth is this: We, as bloggers, are largely living at the whim of Google. What Google gives, it can take away and without any warning or repercussions.

The most we can do is try to create the best sites we can and stay within Google’s guidelines when promoting it. Considering that Google’s goal is to create the best search results possible, having sites that belong at the top of the results is the only way to remotely ensure that they appear there or will some day.

While it’s nerve-wracking living in the shadow of Google, wondering when and if the search giant will turn off the flow of new traffic, it’s the nature of the Web right now and all that we can do.

The good news is that very few sites get booted from Google unfairly and those that do usually find their way back in, either through appeal or through a later correction.

Still, one has to be aware of the dangers of having so much for their new traffic coming from one source and do what they can both to mitigate against the potential for disaster and try to ensure that it never happens at all.

How To Deal with the Salutation in an E-mail to a Prospective Client

Cassie Emelia — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 07:35:39 +0000

Why You should Err on the Side of Being Too Formal when Making Contact

Dear Jodee,

When I’m responding to freelance writing job ads, I don’t always have a contact name for the client. How do I handle the salutation?

E-mail is a little different from sending a letter by regular mail. People tend to be a little less formal when communicating in this manner. While that may be acceptable when you are sending a note to a friend or a family member, you will want to be more formal when you are communicating with a potential client.

Blogging Pitfalls: How to Avoid Blogging Overload

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:09:42 +0000

Nearly every blogger has had this experience. You fall ill, go on vacation or otherwise miss a day or two of posting and then come back to a serious mess. With so much to catch up on, only 24 hours in the day and a workload that could crush any mortal, many either just give up or cut corners.

The problem is that, as bloggers, we tend to expect too much of ourselves, we anticipate being able to run at 100% all of the time and, when we can’t for whatever reason, we put ourselves in a position where we have to do more than is physically possible to get caught back up.

This leads to a case of blogging overload, trying to do too much with too little time and too little resources. It’s one of the most avoidable crises in a blogger’s experience but one of the more deadly. After all, when one finds themselves in a situation where they have to do more than is physically possible, they have to make sacrifices that will negatively impact their writing in one way or another.

And these are sacrifices no blogger should ever have to make.

The Pitfall

There’s a natural tendency for all bloggers, once things begin to take off, to want to more and more for their sites. This becomes even stronger when bloggers begin to take on guest blogging or even recurring writing spots at other sites as they start to add more and more to their weekly writing load, perhaps more than they realize.

The problem is that, while we all know about how long it takes to write a blog post of X number of words, there are two things that are easy to overlook:

Not All Posts Are Created Equal: You might be able to knock out a 1,000 word post in an hour, but what if it requires research or doesn’t come together on the first draft? An hour-long post can easily become a three-hour monster, something that happens semi-regularly to even the best blogger.
Life Gets in the Way: What happens if you become sick and can’t write for a few days? What if you have a family emergency and are unable to blog for a while? There are no easy answer to these questions, especially if you have booked up your schedule as far as it can go.

When one does find themselves pushed past the blogging breaking point, something has to give. There are three viable solutions at that point:

Skip Posts: This may not be possible, especially if one is on a rigid schedule with other blogs, but many bloggers simply have to skip posts and fall out of schedule.
Cut Corners: Many bloggers just spend less time on each post, usually sacrificing on editing and revision work, resulting in lower-quality writing, weaker ideas and generally worse posts.
Personal Sacrifices: Finally, bloggers can cut other areas out of their lives to make up for their missed blogging time including sleeping less, spending less time with family and so forth. These sacrifices can cut deep, especially over any long period of time, but may be a way to relieve some of the pressure from the overload.

Of course, one can use any combination of these three solutions, but the result is almost always the same, poorer quality writing, missed posts and/or missed opportunities in life.

In short, nothing good can come of blogging overload as it forces a blogger to make painful choices, all of which have dire consequences. This is the kind of stress that makes many bloggers quit, making this one of the most important, and fortunately easiest, pitfalls to avoid.

How to Avoid It

Avoiding this pitfall requires, more than anything, honesty and planning. Knowing what one is capable for a week or two and knowing what one is capable of over the long haul is two very different things.

The first thing that you have to do is understand as much as you can about your blogging process as you can. How much do you research? How much time is needed for editing and how many posts? And how much time per week can you realistically dedicate to blogging without sacrificing other elements of your life?

Once that’s done, it comes time to create a realistic plan to prevent yourself from walking into this trap.

Calculate How Many Posts You Can Write Per Week: Using the information above, figure out how many posts you can do, theoretically, in a week.
Set Your Schedule at 50% of That: For your first month, plan on doing half that many posts. See how it works out in reality as opposed to theory.
Make Adjustments: If you find that you have a lot of free time left with such a light schedule, add new posts a few at a time but don’t exceed about 80% of your estimated load. If you reach that, and still have a lot of time, you may need to repeat the first step and recalculate how much you can take on in a week.

The goal is to never completely max out your workload. If you’re doing it right, you should always have at least some “free” time in your writing schedule. However, this isn’t to be confused with downtime or idle time. Rather, this is time that can be used to either write future articles and get ahead, thus providing a buffer against any problems in the future, brainstorming or doing research for future articles.

Any of these activities will help ensure that you don’t run aground later and find yourself playing catch up. However, if you do for some reason, the fact that you only use a percentage of your schedule should give you a chance to get caught back up without making too many sacrifices in your work or life, letting you return to normal more quickly.

In short, by building buffers into your schedule and working into the future during your downtime, you can greatly mitigate any problems that you might have and, more importantly, prevent them from happening in the first place.

Bottom Line

The big problem with blogging overload is that it has a tendency to creep up on us. We often find ourselves in schedules that, while maintainable most weeks, only become overloaded after life creeps in.

It’s important to remember that, even if blogging is your business, that life trumps blogging and that things like illness, family and time off will get in the way.

If, despite your best efforts, you do find yourself in a situation where you can’t possibly keep your schedule and finish all of the writing before you, the best thing I’ve found to do is to simply skip the posts you need. It may mean apologizing to blogs you write for or skipping a week on your site, but doing that and coming back fresh and with a clean slate is much easier and better in the long run than cutting corners or losing sleep.

In short, as important as it is to make your deadlines, it’s better to miss one, with notification, than it is to do poor work. But, if it does become a recurring problem, you may need to scale back your schedule on a more permanent basis, either by dropping sites or doing fewer posts per week.

That may be painful to do, but if it becomes necessary, it is almost a matter of survival.

Blogging Pitfalls: How Make Better New Year’s Resolutions

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:35:05 +0000

As we near the end of the year, it is a time for reflection and a time to look a head. As the time comes to turn over the calendar, its inevitable that we think about the year that has passed and what we would like for the one to come.

While this reflection can be great, it should be a part of an ongoing process, not just a once-per-year analysis. Those who wait a whole year to evaluate what/who their blogging is for. what they want to achieve and how well they are doing, are essentially driving with their eyes closed.

But much more dangerous than New Year’s reflection is New Year’s resolutions. Though we would all like to do better in the new year, many people set hard goals for themselves that are both unrealistic and unnecessary. Failing those goals, which is often inevitable, can be more damaging and discouraging than if one simply didn’t make them at all.

That being said, New Year’s can be a great time to plan for your blog’s future and to set some goals, but one has to do it well and do it with an eye on realism, not with the weightiness and need for revolution that many assign the holiday.

Remember, it’s just a new date on the calendar, not the end of the world.

The Pitfall

The problem with New Year’s resolutions isn’t that people make them or that they fail to keep them sometimes, it’s the importance and weight many assign them. As great of an opportunity as New Year’s is as a time for reflection, it is not the only time nor even the best, the best time always being the present.

Still, when the calendar rolls over, many get caught up in the fever of making the next year better than the last and they assign themselves goals and make promises that they think will achieve that. The problem is that, many times, those objectives are not realistic and the resolutions get broken. As it becomes clear that the new year won’t be everything they wanted it to be, many get discouraged, even if their changes are making things better.

In short, impractical and unneeded New Year’s resolutions only serve to discourage people more and that’s as true for blogging as it is any other area of life. If, for example, someone makes a resolution to post five times per week, every week, they might struggle to maintain it but, if they slip and fall out of schedule, it can be much more worse than simply posting four or three times a week and keeping it consistent.

But what is often even worse is the way many react when a resolution is broken. Either A) Treating it as if it was never important at all, even if it was doing good or B) Overreacting and getting discouraged about the very idea.

Either way, this prompts people to simply give up and walk away, throwing out the good with the bad, and that, in turn, causes them to either fail to make any progress or, even worse, surrender completely.

How to Avoid It

This doesn’t mean that you should completely avoid making New Year’s resolutions or using this time of year to do some evaluation. Not only does it carry some weight but it’s also a natural time to do so as it’s easy to look back from the beginning to the end of a single year.

However, it is important to set goals and resolutions that are realistic, useful and practical. That’s not as easy to do as it might seem and, more than anything, that’s why it’s so difficult for many people to stick to their resolutions.

With that in mind, here are a few tips to make blogging (and possibly other) New Year’s resolutions that you will likely stick with.

Make “Soft” Resolutions If Possible: Making hard resolutions may set an easy barometer success but it often places a false test on whether the resolution is working. Rather than saying you’re going to do one “long form” post per week, try setting a goal to do “on average one per week” or “About one per week”.
Give Yourself Breathing Room: If you do want to set a firm goal, such as posting X number of times per week, give yourself some breathing room with the resolution. If you think you can do five posts, set the resolution for three or four. This makes success much more realistic while giving you most of the benefit.
Reward, Not Punish, Yourself: Rather than beating yourself up when you slip, reward yourself when you succeed. This helps prevent discouragement that results from a slip and encourages you to continue forward
Base Resolutions on Goals: Keeping a resolution is usually directly tied to the benefits you see from it. Rather than adopting resolutions blindly, take a look at your actual goals and pick resolutions that will help you meet them.
Focus More on Continued Evaluation: Instead of setting goals on the first and then trying to ride them the next 365 days, instead, evaluate your needs regularly and see if they still make sense. You might find goals made in January don’t make sense in March.

In short, if you’re smart about how you make your resolutions and the goals that you set, the new year can be a valuable opportunity to evaluate and grow. However, if you aren’t, your resolutions can easily set you off track, discourage you and generally create more problems than they solve.

Bottom Line

Though it may seem that the way to keep New Year’s resolutions from hurting your efforts is to either not make them or to not take them seriously, nothing is farther from the truth. The turning of the calendar is a great time to do some reflection and evaluation should be a constant part of your blogging process, including at New Years.

That being said, it’s important that you do such evaluation and goal setting the right way and do it in a manner that doesn’t discourage needlessly, place undue burdens or simply send you down the wrong path.

Using this chance wisely can make you a much better blogger and help you grow your site but using it the wrong way can discourage you and cause you to both miss an opportunity and, in some cases, just give up outright.

Blogging Pitfalls: The Holiday Funk

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:42:04 +0000

It’s December 22nd, just three days away from Christmas and a little over a week away from New Years. For most Western bloggers, this is one of the slowest times of the years.

Schools are closed, businesses are winding down, employees are heading off to vacation and people are spending time doing things other than surfing the Web and reading blogs. Unless your site is somehow targeted at the holidays, such as a store or a holiday-themed blog, traffic has likely already taken a dip and will continue to be lower through the New Year.

This can be a tough time for bloggers. Not only can the lower traffic be depressing and discouraging, but bloggers too are taking time away from their sites to be with their families and focus more on offline activities.

This can make it tough for bloggers to find their footing and return later when traffic begins to pick up and things return to normal. That, in turn, means that the holidays are a time of year when many bloggers step away from their sites for a few weeks, with every intention to return, only to leave it behind completely.

The holiday funk can be brutal for bloggers. But learning how to beat it can help make you a better blogger and turn 2011 into an even better year.

The Pitfall

There are many reasons why the holidays are a difficult time for bloggers, most of which apply to just about anyone trying to survive the holidays, but here are five of the more important ones to consider:

Traffic Dip: As mentioned above, traffic tends to taper off during the holidays and even avid, loyal readers stop coming by and commenting. Bloggers who aren’t prepared for this might be surprised, especially by how early it can start and how long it can last.
Getting Off Schedule: Most people take at least a few days away during the holidays and, if you’re on a good schedule, which you should be, it can be difficult to get back on board later.
Additional Stress: If you continue to work on your blog during the holidays, you’ll likely find it more difficult and more stressful to do so. The additional time spent on other holiday-related activities, as valuable as it is, makes it more difficult to keep working on your site.
The Season of Giving and Getting: If you have a popular blog, you may find that it is also a season where others make higher demands of you, wanting, donations, attention for their causes or their needs and almost anything else. This can lead to additional headache when you can’t or aren’t willing to help.
Spam Attack: Finally, spammers are usually more active during this time of year. Though the spam wave will likely be subsiding soon, bloggers are reporting a higher than average spam volume during this time of year as the purveyors of junk try to take advantage of the holiday buying season as well. This is when they also break out their new techniques, making the spam comments more likely to get through.

In short, just like how the holidays are a stressful time for almost anyone balancing work, family and friends, it is an equally stressful one for anyone running a site.

Even if you feel that it’s the most wonderful time of the year, there’s little doubt that it’s a hectic one and that it can take a toll on a blog.

How to Avoid It

There really is no magic solution for avoiding the holiday funk. No matter how you feel about the holidays themselves, they are going to affect your site, the same as they are going to affect your life. The best thing you can do is know it’s coming, be prepared for it and deal with it the best you can while trying to enjoy the time of year.

That being said, there are a few suggestions that may help a little bit:

Create a Holiday Schedule: Plan your time away from the site the best you can. Make a schedule and try to stick with it. If you know when you’re going and when you’re coming back, it’s much easier to jump back in.
Take Advantage of the Downtime: If you want to work on your site some but traffic doesn’t justify posting new content, consider pre-writing material for later or doing other work, such as updating your theme or moving to a new host.
Remember to Enjoy the Holidays: Don’t let your site be what stops you from spending time with your loved ones or doing the things you enjoy. It’s better to walk away completely for a while and return refreshed than it is to stress through everything and resent your site in the new year.

All in all though, if you are aware of the effect the holidays have on most websites, especially blogs, which are often read more casually, you can probably avoid the worst of the issues and be ready to go in the New Year as things begin to return to normal.

Bottom Line

This is one time of year where, for most of us, our sites shouldn’t be a major focus. Though it can be frustrating, especially if your site is part of your income, but the truth is that it’s a recurring problem and one that every blogger, large and small, needs to understand and be aware of.

The best thing we can do is take the opportunity to do other work on our sites, plan for what we want to do after the new year and, most importantly, enjoy the quiet time.

With the the 24-hour, 7-day cycle of the Web, it’s very rare to get any kind of break or slow down so maybe rather than feeling the holiday funk, we should look at it as a chance to get things in order, recharge our batteries and come back stronger than ever when things are done.

It might seem to be a tough strategy when you’re dealing with the holiday stress and looking at your lower numbers, but embracing it makes life a lot easier in the long run.

Blogging Pitfalls: Why You Need Your Own Domain

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:27:10 +0000

Many bloggers, when they first start out, are unsure if they are going to continue blogging over the long term and either don’t want to spend the time or invest the money into securing a domain name of their own.

It’s an understandable decision considering that WordPress.com and Blog*Spot, along with a slew of other services, make it trivial to set up an account at their sites and get blogging within just a few minutes.

But while getting started on one of these sites might be a great way to get up and going, there is a hidden danger in it. Relying on someone else’s URL carries with it not only a lot of baggage, but a lot of risk.

If you’re serious about your blog and it is something that you want to take beyond a short term whim, even if it is just a “slightly more serious” hobby, securing a domain of your own is a rite of passage you need to undertake. Failure to do so will not only hold your site back, but may cause your site, along with all of your work, to simply disappear.

The Pitfall

The problem with not having your own domain is that you are, quite literally, at the mercy of whoever is hosting your site. Though you always depend on your host for many things, a relationship that can easily go sour, not having a domain that you control linked to your site makes it virtually impossible to move.

For example, what happens if you are using a WordPress.com site and you become dissatisfied with the service for some reason or, as unlikely as it is, Automattic closes the service in a rush? Bookmarks and links will break. Visitors who are used to finding you at yourname.wordpress.com will find an error page waiting on them when they try to visit.

It doesn’t matter if you have kept good backups of your site or notify as many people as you can of the move, since you lost the URL, your site is going to suffer a major setback in terms of traffic and recognition. In many regards, you have to start over.

However, using another site’s domain comes with other issues as well including:

SEO Issues: Though Google sees subdomains as a separate site, you can still find yourself hampered by the sins of others on the domain, especially if there is a bad spam outbreak. Most major blogging sites don’t have this issue but it is still worth being aware of.
Preconceived Notions: Rightly or wrongly, people stereotype blogs by the sites that they are on. These stereotypes are based largely on personal experiences but you don’t want your site colored by what others have done on your domain. For example, if someone primarily associates Blog*Spot with personal blogs, opening a corporate blog there first means changing those notions.
Lack of Professionalism: Finally, and possibly most importantly, people just don’t take blogs without their own domains as seriously as those that have one. Most people recognize that it is trivial to set up a site on the Web and that getting a .com is a small, inexpensive step to show that you are more serious about your site.

This is why a domain is a necessary step for anyone who wants to take their blog more seriously than just an experiment. Once you know that blogging is going to be a part of your life, no matter how small, a domain is something that should follow quickly.

How to Avoid It

The obvious answer is “Buy a domain”, something you can do at literally any registrar on the planet and usually for under $10. However, it isn’t that simple.

The reason is because many think that getting a domain also means getting hosting, moving the site and setting up all over again. Fortunately, that isn’t the case.

Every major blogging provider offers a means to add a domain to your existing account. All you have to do is know how to set it up.

WordPress.com: Automattic offers a simple Domain Mapping feature that costs $17 per year for both the domain and the mapping to the account. If you already own the domain, the cost is only $12.
Blog*Spot: Google has a simple and free means of mapping a domain to your existing Blog*Spot account, all you need to do is edit the domains DNS settings and add the domain to your account.
Tumblr: Tumblr is the easiest of all as you can add a custom domain to your account there by simply editing the A Name of your domain in its DNS properties.
Posterous: Almost the same as Tumblr, Posterous lets you add a custom domain by altering the A Name record of your domain. However, extra steps may be needed to enable Facebook commenting on your site.
Other Sites: If your blogging site doesn’t offer a direct way to add a domain, you may be able to enable domain forwarding and point the domain to your site via your registrar. Though it will lack most of the benefits of a mapped domain, it is better than nothing.

All in all, the process doesn’t cost much, less than $20 in all cases, and other than the 24 hours one has to wait for the DNS settings to propagate across the Web, it only takes a few minutes of time.

Best of all, you get to keep your old account, your old links will still work and you don’t have to do anything on your part other than start sharing the new new domain as your URL.

Bottom Line

Getting a domain for your site not only adds a level of respectability and seriousness to your site, it is also an insurance policy. When you have a domain that’s under your control, you can point it anywhere you want, making it possible, with good backups, to move your site to a new server in very short order.

Without control over your URL, you are at the mercy of the owners of the domain you are using. If they decide to close up or stop providing a good product, you could be stranded.

Your best bet is to take control over your URL and the easiest way to do that is to simply buy a domain and use it. Considering how easy it is, how low the costs are and that you don’t even have to sacrifice your current setup, there’s literally no reason not to.

Get a New Blog Logo From Logo Mojo

Andrew G. Rosen — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:01:27 +0000

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Logo Mojo. All opinions are 100% mine.

As design programs like PhotoShop have dropped in price and left the cardboard box for robust Web-based versions, everyone seems to fashion themselves a designer. Need proof? Look no further than your favorite blog. For the record, resizing an image or creating a banner ad does NOT make you a designer.

When it comes to representing your brand, and YOU are your brand, bloggers need art help from the professionals.

Enter Logo Mojo.

Since 1992 Logo Mojo has designed over 45,000 logos. That means you’ve likely already seen their work!

Logo packages start at $195, and unlike hiring random groups from eLance or oDesk, every design is conducted in-house — nothing is outsourced! Yet because of the volume and quality of work these guys do, you will pay “outsource” prices.

What I like about Logo Mojo is their established Web presence. This is important because their website clearly illustrates what each package includes, how the process works, and what the final deliverables are. You can chat for customer service and even see a picture of their HQ.

Every logo package comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means you get unlimited logo changes until you are totally and positively happy.

Already have a logo? Fear not! A special “revamp” package can help breathe new life into an already existing logo. Well-established brands like Apple and Pepsi are always evolving their logo and you should too.

From business cards to calendars, let the gang at Logo Mojo make your blog look like it’s hit the big time – after all, image on the Web is a big part of achieving success.

Logo Mojo does great work, but we dig the most about these guys is their transparency. As a customer, nothing is left to guess. The entire logo design process is broken down step by step. And you own all the logo design rights!

Logo Mojo Even if your blog is up to snuff, Logo Mojo can also help with your social media presence. From Twitter and Facebook profile images to background wallpapers, these guys can get your look consistent and enable you to put your best foot forward in the online space.