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WordPress Jetpack: Turbo Boost your WordPress Blog

March 15, 2011 By 9 Comments
WordPress Jetpack

WordPress Jetpack logo

 

Introduction

WordPress have just released the extremely powerful JetPack plug-in. This feature will add quite a few useful utilities that were only available as a complete package to blogs on the company’s free blogging platform, WordPress.com.

I advise everyone using WordPress to install it for the WordPress.com Stats package alone which shows you in a simplified way the number of visitors you have, where they go and where they come from. There is also an enhanced spelling and grammar checker for the WordPress Add and Edit Post section as well as a number of other useful utilities.

The package is designed so that WordPress can add other utilities to the package. The features mentioned are all free, but it looks like there will be the possibility of adding premium enhancements in the future.

Overview of Jetpack

  • Gravatar Hovercards: Find out who’s commenting on your posts with enhanced information for Gravatars (includes full name, bio, other web profiles).
  • WordPress.com Stats: Keep on top of your traffic with powerful and simple to understand statistics for your site.
  • Twitter Widget: Keep your readers more up to date by syncing your tweets to your site via a simple widget.
  • Shortcodes: Quickly add movies, images, and more to your posts and pages with a single line of code.
  • Shortlinks: Automatically creates an easy to copy/paste mini-url for any post on your site.
  • LaTeX: Use the famous markup language to quickly create beautiful mathematical expressions and equations.
  • Sharedaddy: Your readers can easily share your posts via email or their favorite social networks.
  • After the Deadline: Your writing will improve thanks to this artificial intelligence based spell, style, and grammar checker.

 

Installation is easy

In you plugin menu click  Add Plugin search for jetpack and select WordPress jetpack.

Then follow the process.  For many this will mean joining WordPress.com, but the process is simple, but does require you to confirm your application by email.

Conclusion

Install the package today and you can then start checking you visitor statistics within half an hour.

Filed Under: Blogging

Blogging:Three terrific tantalising traffic techniques

March 2, 2011 By 2 Comments

Make the vistors to your blog welcome

Make your visitors feel welcome

Introduction

True Confession: the reason I’m writing this post is that I am realising that I have got it totally wrong on this blog. I had some good ideas for developing navigation on this blog, but I allowed myself to be diverted on another project. These problems will be sorted out over the next week or so. Please forgive me.

One of the problems of new bloggers, and in fact many experienced bloggers, is that they write their blog posts but do not think how to keep the visitor on their site. Their blogs are like visiting and IKEA store. You know there are lots of goodies there, but you’re not clear where they are, and I am sure I am not the only person who tries to retreat within five minutes of entering this large warehouse masquerading as a shop.

Your visitor

It is likely that your first-time visitor will have landed on your site from a search engine or a link from another website. They will probably check out and read the post they have arrived on. They will then look around and see is there anything else worth clicking on — and if there isn’t something obvious then it it is click ‘back button’ and goodbye — sadly another bounce statistic on your visitor log.

Give them a reason to click and most will. Encouraging your visitors to stay on your site is a very important technique. It means dramatically more of your site’s pages will be seen, (good for page views, good the authority of the blog and also good for search engine ratings), makes it more likely that your visitor will subscribe to your feed or your newsletter and if they are in the habit of clicking, well they just might click on an advertisement or affiliate link.

1) Make sure your navigation is great

I’ve seen it — quite a few blogs do not even do the basics. I’ve seen blogs without a search box or using the basic widget, ‘Recent Posts’ — shame on you if your blog doesn’t have these features.  You do not deserve to build up your traffic.

Do your categories help with navigation, (Confession two: my categories on this site need completely revising).  If not then change them.

2) Tag everything that moves

Tags are really useful they help the serious visitor drill down to what they are looking for on your site. Usually tags are found underneath a post with a clickable link. Your visitor can then click on that link and see a list of posts with the same tag.

One of the people and helping at the moment, Philip, has a motoring site.  He does not use tags. This winter in the UK has been remarkably cold and we have had much more snow and ice than normal.

He has written about five articles on winter tyres, which are unusual to use in this country as in most areas we only get one or two days of snow. However, these articles are mixed up among a great many other articles on this site. So visitors were landing on one of his winter tyre posts, but had no obvious link to his other articles. Therefore they read and left.

Had he had the tags then they would have happily read his other articles, which would have enhanced Philip’s authority on the subject and the links would have meant that search engines would have rated the articles much higher.

Philip is beginning to address this problem and also planning for next year to include advertisements for the suppliers of winter tyres.  He will also write in the late autumn series of articles, ‘Preparing for winter’, which will be a lead in to his articles on winter tyres. Hopefully next year this linking will build his site’s authority and bring in some income.

You should use tags in all of your posts. Try and remember to use the same tag to describe a particular activity. If I was tagging a post about writing I would always include the tag, ‘content writing’.

If I use a variety of different tags, say ‘writing’, ‘writing a post’, ‘web journalism’ or ‘new posts’ this is not going to be helpful to your visitor. So try and be consistent with your tagging.

For most blogs a tag cloud, a box in your sidebar displaying the tags used in your blog. The more popular a tag is the larger it will appear in the box. This is another useful way a visitor can explore your site.

3) — Tell your visitor where to go

There is an amazing reluctance of quite a few bloggers to point to their visitors to specific parts of their site or to ask the visitor to do something, like make any comment, sign up to a newsletter. Don’t be shy become the tourist guide to your blog.

In your sidebar use a text widget to highlight your most important posts. Explore the WordPress plug-ins and find one that will display the most popular post on your site.

As important you need to put links at the bottom of each post telling your visitor exactly where to go. On many of my posts I have a section titled, ‘My Links’, where I display links to useful programs on my blog. I also have a section called ‘Other Links’ for external  links.

Originally when I started writing this blog I combined internal and external links, but I plan now to separate them on this site.

Another thing you should do at the bottom of your posts is to direct your visitor to do something — in the blogging trade this is known as ‘Call to Action’. In most cases I use this to encourage my visitor to make a comment, however, I will be hinting that my visitor may want to sign up to the newsletter or ‘what does the visitor think about such and such a link post’.

Conclusion

Give your visitors as many opportunities as possible to stay on your site. Good navigation is essential making use of categories, links in the sidebar, tags, a tag cloud, a ‘My Links’ section at the bottom of every post and now again encourage your visitor to any specific post by a ‘Call to Action’.

My links

Blog Basics: How to install a WordPress widget

Beginning to Blog:  Three reasons to use widgets in your blog

Beginning to Blog: 12 ideas to promote your blog for free

Over to you

What do you think?  Are there any others ways of keeping visitors on your site? Which sites do you think have good navigation.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , ,

Three reasons to use tags in your blog

February 24, 2011 By 1 Comment

A knotty problem

Tagging connections in your blog

Three benefits of using tags

Tags, the keywords you can use to categorise the content of your blog post, are extremely useful for the blogger. They are usually displayed at the bottom of a post and when clicked will provide a list of blog posts with the same tag.

Your blog benefits from tags in the following ways:

  • it helps your visitors find their way around your blog
  • it helps search engines classify your content
  • it boosts your blog in Technorati

Difference between a category and a tag

Categories and tags are both very useful in organising your content.  It helps your visitor find their way around your blog.  They help search engines categorise and understand your content.

Logically you should break down the main subject areas of your niche into categories and then use the tags to highlight the sub-categories or topics.  This is also useful if a topic crosses more than one category.

I have decided to re-organise this blog.  I’m going to set up ten major categories – one for each of my seven stages of blogging, plus a category for each of business blogging, personal blogging and one for campaigning blogs.

My tags would then cover topics, such as writing content, web site promotion and specific posts on say a WordPress plugin, a review of a website, an introduction to a new theme or  productivity.

This gives the site a navigation grid allowing the visitor or search engine spider, (the clever software that indexes the internet), find your post through both the category or through the tags.

It helps your visitors find their way around your blog

I have a friend who has a motoring blog.  Every month he receives around 400 to 500 visitors the majority from search engines.  The visitor stays and reads the specific post, but few, very few visitors read more than one page.  That is they have bounced, gone away, and few will come back.

His posts are good, but the navigation on his site is poor.  One of the ways he could overcome this is to add tags on different makes of car, different gadgets and specific topics, such as winter tyres.

Like this blog we are going to re-organise his site.  There will be categories for car reviews, car news, under the bonnet, (for technical discussions) and specific ranges of gadgets, such as sat-navs.

He’ll then use tags to give more detail.  He’ll then have a set of tags for a car make, (say Ford), the specific model and the type – say hatchback.

As these changes to his site will make it far easier to someone find their way around the site, building up the number of page views and building up traffic.

It helps search engines classify your content

Somewhere within the great Google empire there is the magic machine – the computer, or probably the network of computers, that index a huge chunk of the internet.

But, and this is an important but, the computers are computers.  The only way that they can identify which is the best set of web pages to serve up to a particular user search is to see how those words are associated with other  words.

The search engine knows that certain words in a post are more important than others.  So headings, words in bold are significant.  Tags are also prized as humans have decided to catagorise the post with these terms.

The computers will then compare the tags from one site with the same tags from other sites.  So if a blog was writing about films and the tag – Brad Pitt was entered then the Google computer would trawl all the other taqgged Brad Pitts and would have links to his career, his films and the gossip about him.  This information would then help the computer to widen its classification of the post.

It boosts your blog in Technorati

Technorati is the leading blog directory.  Once your blog has five or six posts you should sign up to this service.  It will not only boost the number of visitors to your site, but because Technorati makes extensive use of tagging the visitors are usually looking for a specific topic. Most visitors I’ve had from Technorati have spent some time on the site, visiting an average of five pages.

Technorati uses tags, links, number of visitors and it’s spiders to rate blogs with an overall rating, ie their ranking compared to all the other blogs in the directory.  The site also ranks blogs in a wide variety of categories.  In addition you can search for specific keywords to display a list of all listed blog posts that may have that term.

I recommend all bloggers sign up for this service.  If you are writing a personal blog use the classification – Living. (See the statistics for Beginning to Blog – but bear in mind that the blog has only been running for two months).

Conclusion

Tags are very useful for guiding and retaining visitors on your blog.  The search engines use tags to classify and understand your content.  Both will boost your blog’s authority, which in turn builds your ranking and traffic.

Technorati also uses tags to rank your blog.  I recommend that all bloggers join Technorati and get their sites listed in the directory.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , ,

Writing a blog: A business like approach

February 17, 2011 By 1 Comment
Where's my money?

Well now I need to get down to business

Your business website is useful, probably essential, in today’s world.  It can provide potential clients and existing customers with contact details, descriptions of your products or services, maybe an online shop, support notes, specifications, technical notes and white papers.

Now the real problem is how do you attract visitors to your site?  And not just any old visitor – you need the type of visitor who is going to be interested in your product, wants to co-operate with your business, wants to supply your business or actually has cash and wants to buy from you.

You can, and should promote your business website through your business literature:  your business cards, advertising leaflets, letterheads and even invoices.  You should also put a link to your business site at the bottom of every email your business sends out.

If you’ve covered all of the above then you’re working well.  However, you still need to drive traffic to the website and then from the site to the business.  There are four ways to do this:

  • through public relations, probably through the print and trade press
  • through advertising, Google Adwords, being a useful way to start
  • and the third way through blogging
  • social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter

What is a blog

Originally a blog was an online diary that displayed entries, called posts, in a reverse chronological order, so that the last post written is displayed on the home page.  Today a post can combine text, images and other media, such as video.  The post can also contain links to other web pages both within the site and externally to any web page on the net.

Other common features of a present day blog are that usually visitors can make comments on an individual post, useful to start conversations with customers or as a way to provide support.  A second feature are that there are numerous add-ins, plugins, and screen layouts, themes, available to upgrade or modify the look of the blogging package.

WordPress, the leading, free blogging package has over a thousand plugins, most free of charge, and thousands of themes, again many are free, or reasonably low cost.

Writing a business blog

Like all business promotional materials you have to write in a style that suits your audience.  Most businesses will write in a sensible, easy to read to style.

Some businesses will have to break the rules.  My son, Tom, during his student days used to rent out a night club one night a week aimed at attracting students and young professionals.  His ironic style worked well. A local newspaper labelling him, ‘Mr Bad Taste’, and demanded the club be closed down, which really boosted the number of clubbers attending.

Topics to write

Most people using the internet are web savvy.  They don’t respond well to heavy selling.  In the words of my friend Dave you should:

create on a web site a happy atmosphere around a product, and then when the visitor is ready to buy, then give them a clear path to purchase.

Things to write on a business blog could be:

  • technical details of the product
  • happy, smiling customers using the product
  • support questions answered
  • benefits of using the product
  • unusual uses of the products
  • news of special deals or upgrades

by product I mean either a physical product or service.

Community and newletter

Two things that you should be aiming to do with your blog is:

  • to build a community around the website.  This can be through the blog’s comments section or a forum.  The latter is really useful for a support service.
  • to build up subscribers to the business’ newsletter.  Sent out regularly, usually monthly, or ever other month, a newsletter keeps your customers, and potential customers, up to date on the business’ developments.

A case study

Narrow the niche: I live in a fantastic neighbourhood to the west of London. A few years ago I was working with a local programming and web design business.

Their website, which was well designed, was targeting the whole internet.  They advertised the same skills as thousands and thousands of competing businesses.  Their website was thousands of places down in the search engine searches. So they got very little traffic to their site.

So over many coffees and a pleasant, sunny afternoon’s drink at the nearby White Swan Pub, on the bank of the Thames we developed a strategy.

We decided to re-focus the business.  They were quite experienced in working with databases and had had a couple of contracts with the local council, but most of their work was giving support to local businesses for both computing and web design.

It was decided to try and work with medium sized businesses.  Instead of offering just the usual web design service it was decided to focus on e-commerce and more complex, interactive systems.

They set up a simple blog and email newsletter supporting the more complex systems and provided a lot of case studies of businesses in and around west London.  Once set up they promoted the newsletter through the business press, local press and sending a press release to local business organisations.

Soon they were asked to give talks to business networking groups, which resulted in their getting both big contracts and quite a few simpler web design projects.  The newsletter and website provided a great way to keep in touch with their customers and  brought in a number of new clients.

About two years ago they were offered a big contract, as a sub-contractor, as part of a large health service contract.  This was so lucrative that they decided to focus solely on this project and closed the business. Two of the team are now living as contractors in Australia and another in the US.  The remaining two are now full time, highly paid contractors.

Lessons learnt

  • Try and find a narrow niche for your writing – for example a specific location or demonstrating your business’ specialist skills or your product’s unique selling point.
  • Use your blog/newsletter as  part of your conventional marketing – you have a good reason to send a press release to the business and trade press, business organisations and local press.  Update the blog every few months to keep the publicity coming.
  • You need a newsletter – to remind people about your business.

The downside of blogs

It requires fresh content on a regular basis. In general a business can update say every two or three weeks, but a blog that’s not been updated in six months looks very dated and will not impress potential customers.

Someone needs to handle the queries and emails.  One of the easiest ways to really hack off a potential customer is not to respond to their comments or emails.  Sadly too many businesses still neglect the email.

My wife responded to a car promotion.  She knew which car she wanted and this deal was very good.  The garage’s automated website promised us that they would phone us up within 24 hours to arrange a test drive. They didn’t and in fact never did.  They had no selling to do as we would have bought at the offer price.  They lost the sale to another garage offering exactly the same deal.

Blogs do need someone to keep an eye on them. Blog software needs updating.  Blogs occasionally get technical problems.  Someone needs to keep an eye on the hosting contract and making sure that the domain is renewed.

There also needs to be someone to help sort out the technical problems with content writing.  The format might go strange.  Images need reducing in size.

Over to you

Are you planning to use a blog in your business?  How are you promoting your business online?

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: ,

12 ideas to promote your UK site for free

February 16, 2011 By 3 Comments
Director in chair

Now that's what I call promotion

Question? I’ve recently launched my own company, I’ve had a website developed and I want to push as high up the search engines as possible, I’ve registered with as many online business directories as I can find, I’ve linked to it through Facebook, twitter and linked in. What else can I do to push its rating up and in turn generate more hits – for free?

Her business was in nursing and social care recruitment.

Off the top of my head can I suggest the following:

Yell First I would recommend paying the little extra to get your website on Yell. (I know it’s not free – but your business should be there).

BT tradespace – a it cumbersome but it gives you a quality lead.

Do a guest post. If there are relevant blogs in your niche then offer to do a guest post.

Free article directories -write something reasonable and you should get both backlinks and visitors. One trick with this is then do a search about three months and then six months on your name and the articles you’ve written.

Then track down the sites and if relevant offer to write a guest post for them.

Google’s Knol. Post your articles on Google’s Knol – I don’t know how it works but I get a steady stream of visitors from Knol – more than have read my actual articles on Knol.

Free PR sites. When you launch your website or make any changes send a press release to the free PR sites

Proper Business PR. Also build up an email list of the relevant national, business and local press and send them a PR release on any major change to your business.

Produce an ebook probably on how to get jobs in social care – give it away free as a pdf on your site. This gives you a reason then to email all your PR links.

Twitter. Make sure everything produced on your site ends up on Twitter. Ideally automated through a plugin.

Ever so often Tweet with a link to the useful pages.

Two other points

Internal linking. Try and get as much internet linking within you site. So one article links to another relevant article.

You might consider having a control page for different areas of your site, eg Social Care and Health jobs – effectively like mini- home pages.

This helps keeping visitors on your site and boosts the SEO

Link out
If you have a series of links – have some of them linking out to major sites. It shows your confidence and builds your authority and it helps with SEO and it helps search engines understand your site. eg if you point say to a general NHS site on nursing careers and also have some links to your site to applying for nursing jobs then Google will up your site on nursing careers.

Any other ideas?

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , , ,

Blogger: Branding yourself

February 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Man with cigar

Next for the brand make-over

Overview:

In my previous post, Branding the blogger, I demonstrated that the personality of the blogger is very important to the success of the blog.

This article describes how to build your personality, your brand, into your blog.

I feel sorry for royalty

I’ve just seen the excellent film, ‘The King’s Speech‘.  It shows the story of how George VI, (that’s 6th to you), overcame a serious stammer.  The poor guy who was destined to play only a minor role in royal circles suddenly gets thrust into the limelight as the major player, the King.

In the film the king develops techniques to overcome his stutter.  The most important techniques being to pause before difficult words.  This made him appear thoughtful and concerned, (which he probably was),  as he made an important radio broadcast, (there was no TV then), in the build up to the Second World War.

In those days royalty could control what appeared in the newspapers and by remained a little aloof and minimising public appearance he was a well respected leader.  The current ruler, Queen Elizabeth, has managed to remain aloof and is well respected though her husband, Prince Philip, is a potential media disaster.

Not today.  The press are not so obedient and with twenty four hour news and dozens of tabloids the royals have a lot less control over what appears in the press.  Prince Charles, (who will be crowned king when his mother dies), does not keep a low profile and as a result has lost a lot of respect, (see comments below the article.

Everything the royals that gets into the press affects the royal brand.  Charles interferes in a proposed housing development causes more people to call for the UK to be come a republic. His son and heir, William, carrying out a helicopter rescue or getting married help the brand forward.

However, I feel sorry for the royals.  They are born into a situation where they have to perform all the time: in front of servants, advisors, on official visits, having to attend ceremonies and really having a limited number of choices in life.  Their every action monitored, discussed by their supporters, such as my aunt Gladys and their opponents, republicans and those that think they cost too much.

What their lives are is effectively a branding exercise from the time they get up until the time they go to bed.  They do something good, like Charles’ work with his Prince of Wales Trust, supporting young people and helping young people start a business, he’ll receive some praise.  They do something wrong the Redtops, the UK’s tabloid press, will sensationalise for days and weeks.

When you step out onto the web you are a brand

I have blogged , written content, made comments on blogs, on newspaper sites and forums since around 2002.  Worryingly an amazing amount of that stuff is still around in various archives, (I need to review this stuff at some time).

My writing style has evolved since 2002, (I hope), and I’m not a bit more confident in my style and my grammar and spelling, (though not perfect), has improved.

But what you should bear in mind is that anything that can be linked back to you and your blog is positive in the sense that he can lead traffic back to you.  The downside is that link can affect the blog’s standing or interpretation by search engines and although you may be attracting traffic they may not be traffic you want.

How to brand yourself

You should be aware of your blog’s aims and niche.  Put yourself in the place of the typical reader of the blog.  What would they expect of the writer of the blog?

Detailed knowledge, experience, in on the latest gossip, has an interesting lifestyle, has a sense of humour, writes short,  concise blog posts, (like Seth Godin), long, personal posts, (like Steve Pavlina), or a regularly updated posts, (such as Daniel Scocco’s Daily Blog Tips).

Write as the persona

When I write posts for this blog I think of myself as sitting down with a mug of tea, (I’m English and this beverage is useful to me), discussing a problem on a one to one with a student, (I’ve escaped teaching computing and business at the UK equivalent of community college).

I see my audience as new to blogging, or bloggers who want to move up the ladder.  More important I see my audience who need their confidence boosting during that awkward stage of moving from a start-up blogger to building up traffic or possibly making money from their blog.

However, I have just bought the neglected website, Blogbasics.com, which I will start developing next month.  The site will cover exactly the same territory as this one, but with many short, brief tutorials.

This requires me to develop another part of my character the writer of basic, training materials. So my persona  will be the lecturer when teaching a group of 16-19 year old robust, (noisy and difficult to control), students.  I will be writing very straightforward, one topic a page tutorials.  These will then be offered to readers of this site as downloadable pdf files, probably in April.

Your brand

Most good bloggers allow some of their personality to come through.  On Darren Rowse’s well written Problogger he gives carefully considered aspects of business viewpoint and great examples of his techniques.

On Mars Dorian’s remarkable blog you get a lot of this Berliner’s energy as he cheerfully takes on the online world.  Every post gives you an insight into Mars’ remarkable personality.

Steve Palvina gives his thoughts on everything.  His two thousand, three thousand or five thousand word posts show his mostly well thought out ideas on many aspects of blogging and of business.  However, he also writes on everything in his life and some of his experiments, such as Polyphasic Sleep, seem a bit weird, as well as opening talking about his break up of his marriage, has angered some of his supporters.  (I do warn people to think carefully before committing to one product he recommends Site Build It).

These three examples show different levels of blog writer’s personality coming through.  So you should give part of your personality, but, make decisions on how much of your personal life you are going to allow the public to see. With a personal the point is, of course, to be personal.

As I’m older, and therefore do not do much that will embarrass me, or my family, I can be fairly open on what I reveal.  I’ll also be using the fact that for example this year I’ll be spending a lot of time on the road in my campervan – it’s a quirk that’ll help people remember me by.

Naming the brand

I’ve decided that as I have a couple of wider goals, such as writing, than just this blog I am going to use my forum persona as my blogging name, Paul Odtaa.  It’s distinctive and is different from my real name, Paul Mason, which is famous for a number of other writers plus being the name of the fattest man in the UK.

Quite a number of bloggers use their real name, particularly those using a blog to develop a business or to enhance their freelancing career.  Quite a few take the name, or a derivative of the name, as their online persona.  Both strategies are worth considering.

Commenting or forums

Quite a few bloggers use the name of the blog as the name when commenting on other blogs and in forum posts.  This is quite a good strategy for building awareness and if the name contains a key word then it will give a slight boost to the SEO rating.

I don’t as I believe in the long term boosting the name Paul Odtaa will be useful as I develop my writing career and other online products. Similarly those boosting their busiess name or freelance name should always use that in making comments.

Brand yourself to success

Always keep the image of yourself, as the writer, and the image of your blog in mind when online.  A foul mouthed rant at someone on a forum is not going to do you much good if you are developing a business blog.  That link will remain a long time and is difficult to erase.

It is better to post quality posts twice a week than rubbish every day.  It is usually better to be polite to visitors and to reply when you can to people that comment on your blog.

The real secret is to write as a persona, the ideal writer, of the blog.  You’ll find that as you sit down, power up, sip your coffee, (or in my case sip my cup of tea), the persona takes over and in half an hour, or an hour, that persona has written a great blog post.

Link

Beginning to Blog:  Branding the blogger

Daily Blog Tips: 10 ways to brand your blog

Life Hack: Branding you blog

Over the you

Well what do you think?

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , ,

Introduction to blogging

February 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Man singing

My blog's a success

Introduction

So you’ve heard the term “blog” and you want to know what blogs are all about. Well you’ve come to the right place. In this series of four articles we will take you from asking what a blog is to having all the knowledge you need to start a blog of your own so you can share your thoughts with hundreds or even thousands of readers.

What is a blog?

Let’s begin with some definitions. A bit dry, we realize, but this is a necessary evil. First we’ll define the word this whole site is based around – blog.

A blog is a frequently updated online personal journal or diary. It is a place to express yourself to the world. A place to share your thoughts and your passions. Really, it’s anything you want it to be. For our purposes we’ll say that a blog is your own Web site that you are going to update on an ongoing basis. Blog is a short form for the word weblog and the two words are used interchangeably.

Here are a couple of other definitions:

“…the first journalistic model that actually harnesses rather than merely exploits the true democratic nature of the web. It’s a new medium finally finding a unique voice.”–Andrew Sullivan

“[a] collection of posts…short, informal, sometimes controversial, and sometimes deeply personal…with the freshest information at the top.”–Meg Hourihan

Terminology

As so often happens in the English language, many derivates of the word blog have been created. One who participates in the activities of maintaining a blog is known as a blogger and the activity of keeping a blog is known as blogging. So we could say that the blogger blogs in his blog, but that might cause your English teacher to weep. We are going to use these terms with alarming frequency, so make sure you understand what they mean before you go on.

Blog (noun) – a journal or diary that is on the Internet – Andrew Sullivan has the most popular blog on the Internet.

Blogger (noun) – a person who keeps a blog – Bloggers are revolutionizing the way news is shared.

Blog (verb) – to write a blog – I am going to blog before breakfast this morning.

Blogging (verb) – the action of writing a blog – Blogging is my way of sharing my passions with the world.

Originally blogs were known primarily as places for people to write about their day-to-day activities. Their mundane, everyday tasks became fodder for journal entries. Somehow these writers gained a following and the hobby of blogging was born. Today people write about far more interesting topics. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Who blogs?

So who are these fearless people who would be willing to post about their lives in as public a forum as the Internet? They are people just like you. Once the haven of technical know-it-alls, blogging has suddenly caught-on as a legitimate hobby and has entered the mainstream. Every day millions of people, some of whom have no technical ability whatsoever, write on their blogs. To meet this demand some amazing tools have been created that will allow anyone, even people with very little knowledge of computers, to have their own blog. If you can find your way onto the Internet and follow some basic instructions you can have your own blog. It’s just that easy.

Why do people blog?

So you may be asking why anyone would want to have their own blog. We believe the answer lies in the fact that every human has a voice and wishes their voice to be heard. The Internet is a medium that is unparalleled in its reach. Never before have average people like you or me been able to reach a global audience with so little trouble. Bloggers have the opportunity of reaching hundreds or even thousands of people each and every day.

There are still many people who like to share the details of their days. They may post twenty or thirty times a day, detailing when they ate lunch and when they headed home from work. On the other hand there are bloggers who give almost no detail about their lives, but write instead about a hobby or interest of theirs. They may dedicate their blog to something they are passionate about.

Examples of blogs

Daily blog tips: A blog about blogging

Simple Mom: A blog for looking after a home

Kattsby: A nice personal blog

My Invisible Friends: Off the wall short stories in a blog format

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: ,

Branding the blogger

February 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Over eaten

A blogger in need of branding

Overview:

This is the first tutorial in the series, ‘Self Branding’ the others in the series will appear late February and March.  This tutorial, ‘Branding the blogger’, will help you understand that the personality of the blogger is as important as design and the actual content itself.

The aim of this series is to help you become aware of your current public image and then develop a number of techniques to build your image, both on a personal basis and on the Internet.

Introduction

Every business needs to be concerned with the image it presents to its customers, suppliers, the press and the world in general. Business stationery, advertising, websites and even the look of invoices sent out affect the image – the brand  - of the business.

In this current ‘wired’ world image is very important to you as an individual.  Your Internet profile and your business profile will affect how your career develops, how you get promoted, get a new job and is essential if you plan to work as a consultant, freelancer or start your own business.

As a blogger your personal image, or brand, is as important as the image, or brand, of your blog.  In other words you need to become aware of your own image and develop yourself as a brand, which you inject into your blog.

Your personal brand is a crucial part of your blog

Why does someone read your blog rather than an other?  There are numerous blogs covering the same subject area.  In most cases there are two reasons why a person follows or subscribes to one blog over the other.

The first is that they are obviously interested in the subject area.  They will look at a few blogs in the niche and will make their first decision on which to explore based on the look of the blog, how easy it is to find their way around and a superficial glance at the posts.

As the visitor reads one post from one blog, and another post from a second blog, they will find that they are drawn to one blog rather than the other. They will go back and back and then subscribe.

The reason is that they are drawn to the style of one blogger to another.  They like him and they like the way he writes.  They reader often puts a high value on the content writer’s personality.  The blog they are reading is a mixture of web design, layout, text and the writer’s personality and experience.

Personality is important to me

So the reason I read Daniel Scocco’s informative Daily Blog Tips is his combination of experience, his business approach and his occasional thoughtful insight on a particular problem or internet trend.

On the other hand whenever I need a boost I read Mars Dorian’s eccentric blog, which is so full of  positive, kick-ass, (to use one of Mar’s expressions), energy that it could power a large town.

I  subscribe to around twenty blogs, read quite a few more on a regular basis and allow my Twitter feed to find me interesting, random posts from other blogs.

Thinking through my decision on which blogs to subscribe and which blogs to read I realise that the main reason I am drawn to a particular blog is the personality of the blogger.

Next Article:  Blogger: Branding yourself

Have I convinced you?

Think about the blogs you read – see how the personality of the blogger is important.  How many times do you read the About page on a website.

What do you think?

Tell me of the blogs that you enjoy.

Filed Under: Blogging

Twitter: Only twits don’t tweet

February 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Lady shouting at phone

Not a Twitter user

Lady shouting at phone

Not a Twitter user

As you progress in your blogging career you will evolve from being just a content writer to becoming a web journalist.  One of the most revolutionary tools in your armoury is that lovely package Twitter, as it provides you with instant access to information and a unique way of communicating with important people.

I recently had to explain the use of Twitter to a group of small business people who were all very negative. I realise I had to demonstrate the benefits the system before they’d believe me.

I was lucky as in my demonstration I managed to find a useful potential supplier’s link for one businessman. During the coffee break he managed to phone up and get an appointment the next. After that they were all hooked.

The the benefits of  Twitter to a blogger are:

1) you can follow the action in your niche’is world:  PR announcements, new product releases and gossip spread like wildfire Twitter world.

2) you can do research – so query a topic, person or business and those tweeting about the subject will probably be useful. Many Tweets will provide useful links to websites.

3) you need to understand the use of the # symbol. For example protest in the UK against government cuts are labelled #ukuncut. To follow this lead I was provided with instant information on various protests.  I note that #ukuncut  was actually used to organise flash protests at a number of shops.

4) Two way Twitter conversations. I get the impression that this is often the fastest way to make contact with important people or organisations.

5) Businesses and organisations use Twitter to release information.  In fact it is now probably the leading way of releasing information. All releases will, of course, link back to a web page with detailed information and contact details.

6) Most bloggers tweet their posts. if you don’t you are losing traffic. You can use  Twitter to the inform what is happening in your niche.

7) Products like Tweetdeck –are there to help you monitor specific queries or groups of of Twitter users.

Over to you

How to use Twitter?

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , ,

Blog Writing: Taking issue with blogging

February 10, 2011 By 1 Comment
Japanese Wrestler

I'll take issue with anyone

There are five types of new blogger:

In political circles blogging is now very important as a few bloggers have a lot of influence leading politicians, on issues, on getting matters raised in national press and in organising large and small campaigns.  Bloggers can be very active on international, national and local issues.

Blogs are also very active in that they raise issues that are not published in newspapers. Leaks, rumours, the highlighting of shady practice and, unfortunately, smears are frequently announced on Twitter and then backed up by blogging posts. The blog is a useful tool on all sides of the political debate.

As an example the political blogger and rumour mill, Guido Fawkes, it’s one of the UK’s leading sources of dubious information about politicians. Resignations, scandals, leaked documents and opinion are often reported directly to this blog rather than directly to the newspapers. A whistle blower knows that sending information to this site is a more effective, and quicker, way of getting information out on something it directly to a newspaper, where it will have to be checked before publication.

The different roles of an issue blogger

There are a number of different and sometimes conflicting roles that a blogger, concerned with issues, must take. These include:

  • encouraging existing supporters
  • encouraging potential supporters to join the campaign
  • raising awareness in general public
  • providing information for the print media
  • making a political case
  • possibly trying to raise funds

Writing for different audiences

From the above list it is easy to see that writing for so many different audiences is going to be difficult. For example a campaign against nuclear energy as to explain the issues for the general public in simple terms. On the other hand the active supporters will probably know the difference between the different types of nuclear reactors and will properly know a lot of technical jargon.

Information for the journalists, on the other hand, must be structured in such a way that the individual journalist can easily write an article for their readers. Some journalists will just want the framework of the story while others will want to know how they can quickly contact someone for more details.

The evidence for a politician must make a case within the framework of politician is working. A sympathetic politician may have to argue the case within his own party before trying to raise the matter before Parliament.

Bloggers solve the problem

Most bloggers solve this problem by having different sections, (categories), on their blog. This is good as some people interested in their campaign may want to read the other sections of the blog before joining.

At the very least a campaign or issue blog should have a press section with good contact details. It goes without saying that journalists expect to be able to contact someone quickly.

A word of warning

Be aware, particularly if you live in the UK, that there is always a danger that you could be sued but defamation or libel. You should therefore think carefully before making a personal attack on a person or a business.

Some ways of protecting yourself are set up a company for the campaign. If the words are then written on behalf of the company and the company is sued then it would be easy to fold the  company. (I am not a lawyer therefore check this out we have an expert before acting on it).

If the issue is very sensitive then you should consider setting up abroad. (Again I do not have the legal knowledge to advise you safely). I know the American First Amendment protects freedom of speech and there are a lot of countries and services that do help protect those wanting to present information that invested interests want to keep quiet. See for example wikileaks.

Social media

As I talk today I am very aware of the situation in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt.  These spontaneous demonstrations in these countries have only been possible through the use of Twitter, Facebook and of course blogs.

Blogs have been important in the build up to these demonstrations. They, with Facebook, had built up the networks among mostly young people and have helped them become aware of the bad situation in their country and in helping people develop networks. Of course today mobile phones and Twitter are the main sources of information to the people involved.

Blogs are, however, an important backup to the Twitter messages giving new sources, such as Al Jazeera, the story in far greater depth.

For most campaigns I recommend a combination of Twitter, for instant communication; Facebook, for building a community; and the blog for supplying information in depth. Another service that should be considered is Linkedin, the professional networking site, as it is possible to find people with the skills to help you, people with influence to help you and people with money to you.

Developing an issue blog

one of the most important skills that someone running an issue blog needs is the ability to promote the site. Over the next few weeks I will be writing quite a few articles on site promotion and I hope that this will be useful to you.

Over to you

Tell me about your campaign. Do you have any hints, advice or suggestions for people writing a campaigning or issue blog.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , ,
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