PureBlogging

Hey, did anyone see the brilliant documentary film Helvetica? Yeah, neither did I. But it’s a great idea: An hour and a half about a font! One can only hope there are plenty of sequels (Helvetica II: The Helveticking) and copycats (Comic Sans Ascendant — The Dark Tide Cometh: A Film by Uwe Boll) so the market fills up with great options for those of us who like learning about kerning.*

Sometimes geeks can be such geeks, can’t they?

Font is, of course, a fairly important concern for those of us who write for a living. But it’s only one item on a list of things that we should always be checking up on. The little things on your blog have an aggregate effect on how your readers perceive you, so it’s important to revisit them every once in a while.

Font. Legibility, of course, is the most important consideration when choosing a font; you don’t want your readers missing out on your brilliant ripostes because they can’t penetrate whatever weird gothic calligraphy you’re using. But there’s more to the choice than that. This great post on Inspiration Bit documents the best-loved fonts in web design. And the comments on this Problogger post gave me a good crash course in typography.

A good font can help you stand out from the crowd, but the choices are rather limited, so be careful. The best font is often the most “invisible,” which is why ostentatious fonts like Comic Sans and Papyrus are so reviled.

Verbs. Verbs are very likely the most important and versatile parts of speech. There’s almost no effect you can accomplish with adjectives and adverbs that you can’t accomplish with verbs. Many resume coaches instruct their students to invest their writing efforts in the verbs they choose, and they’re right. The proper verb can mean everything, so go through some of your old posts and look at what you’ve used — does your verb choice match the tone you want your blog to achieve?

Bob Harris provides a great example of this by contrasting the buttons on Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s Web sites.

Privacy. OK, OK, so privacy isn’t such a small thing. But readers like to know these things matter to their content providers, and no intelligent person should assume any website has his or her best interests in mind, no matter how great the site is. Creating a privacy policy is a great idea even if you feel you don’t need one — it’ll let your readers know you’re an ethical blogger, and that you’re not selling their information to spammers. Of course, if you are selling their information to spammers, you are a very, very bad person.

Josh over at The Comics Curmudgeon recently created a thorough, user-friendly privacy policy written in plain English. Looks like a good template to me.

So there you have it. It’s the little things like these that can have profound effects on your relationship with your readers in the long run. What are some of the little things you find yourself fretting about?

*Forgive the snark. I’m told by at least one reliable source that this is a great film.

I love Firefox. I have done since I first started using it, way back when the only version available was 0.2. One of the things I love most about it is the hundreds of add-ons you can use to customise it to suit your needs. Today, I’d like to share five of the extensions I find most useful when I blog.

British English Dictionary

Ok, so it’s not the most exciting extension, but it’s something I use every day. The default language in Firefox is US English, but it’s got a number of dictionaries in other languages. One of these is UK English. Now, I bet you’re wondering why it would matter what language your browser uses. The truth is that it never used to. However, the more time I spend on the net, the more I need to fill in forms and check that they are spelled correctly.

Still not excited? How about this? The Wordpress compose window in the admin panel is a web form. That means that the inline spell checker checks my spelling on that form. It’s an easy way to spell check my posts. For me it works two ways. Sometimes I use the spell checker to check that I have used British spelling; at other times I use it to check that I haven’t.

IE Tab

In spite of my love of Firefox, there are some blogs and sites that just don’t display well in it. If people persist in using IE, then there are times when I need to use it - or do I? Not any more, thanks to IE Tab. This nifty little extension allows you to open a new tab that uses the IE rendering engine right within Firefox. You can look at an IE enabled site without having to leave your (ok, my) favourite browser. You can right click on any link and choose to open it in an IE Tab. I sometimes use it to check how my blog themes look in different browsers. Occasionally, this has sent me back to the drawing board to choose a new theme.

FoxClocks

FoxClocks is not so much a blogging tool, as an everything tool. In a wired world, many of us are blogging and writing for people around the world. I currently write for people in the UK, US and Canada, and work with people who are based in Australia. That means that it soon gets difficult to keep track of all the time zones. FoxClocks is the answer. You can track an almost unlimited number of countries and time zones by using a simple interface. Then all you do is hover over the icon in your statusbar to see what time it is in several countries.

Twitterbar

This is a good one. Twitterbar lets you post to Twitter from your browser address bar. All you do is type your Tweet, hit the plus sign and it’s posted. This is great when I find a blog post that I want to tell others about. A word to the wise, though. Don’t press that plus sign till you’re really ready. I’ve ended up sending Tweets from my WP Admin panel before - not cool!

SU Toolbar

If you want to stumble blogs posts that you have found, ask others to stumble yours or simply browse the web to see what’s happening, then you can’t do without the StumbleUpon toolbar. I love the fact that I can limit my stumbles to a particular category or communicate with friends right from the toolbar.

I use many other Firefox add-ons . One more good blogging tool is Scribefire, which I’ve recently replaced with Windows Live Writer. Which Firefox extensions do you find most useful for blogging?

One of the easiest ways to break into blogging is to start publishing your work on a site that pays you only in revenue. This allows you to develop an online portfolio of your work which can then be used to gain pay-per-post blog jobs in the future. Blogging for these types of sites generally requires little-to-no experience, is easy to begin doing and lets you test out your voice as a blogger. It also allows you to start gaining exposure for your work without requiring quite as much self-promotion as your own blog would require. Finally, blogging for revenue through these types of platforms lets you start earning ad money for your work without requiring you to know much about inserting ads into your site.

So where do you go to sign up and start blogging for revenue? Here are a few of the sites that are popular among bloggers:

• HubPages. This is the blogging network with which I am most familiar and one which I strongly recommend to others. You can read a whole essay on why that is here but the basic reason is that it’s user-friendly, results in a decent amount of ad money and has a strong community on the site. It’s simple to start earning money on HubPages through Google AdSense as well as through both Amazon Affiliates and eBay Affiliates. Money is paid out monthly through those programs and I’ve never had a problem getting automatically paid for my work.
• eHow. There are some bloggers who love working for this site and the main reason seems to be that they can establish themselves as an expert in a particular topic. eHow has a very specific format to follow for your writing so it’s not a particularly creative outlet and all of the articles you publish here are going to be “how to” articles. The ad revenue is minimal unless you actively promote your own work on the site. However, they do pay out steadily and money is earned in an ongoing system so you can always promote old work to get new income. People who want to get work in a particular area of writing, such as mobile phone reviews, can write a series of related “how to” articles on this site to establish their expertise in the field and will be able to earn some ad revenue at the same time.
• Triond. I am not too familiar with this relatively new site but it seems to be set up in the same manner as HubPages. The people I know who have used this site as a platform seem to be relatively happy with it although I don’t have a lot of details on the way that it works. A cursory glance reveals that it seems to be highly user-friendly with a great interface and therefore has a lot of potential for new bloggers. I plan to check this out in more detail in the coming months.
• Squidoo. There is a major factor on this site that is different from other sites which is that you can donate your earnings on the site to charity. This is great because it encourages people to support your work, may be used as a tax write-off and is just a good thing to do with your extra money. People who want to write about a specific social cause will find this to be the best outlet. It has more publishing requirements (such as article length) than some of the other sites but it’s not hard to meet those requirements.
• Gather. This program seems complicated to me although I know people who have used this site successfully as a way to earn money. It’s easy to publish articles on this site but it seems that you need to be highly, highly active on the site itself in order to earn money through their Gather CashProgram. Like with Squidoo, you can donate your money to charity instead of keeping it for yourself. The writing requirements are minimal compared with Squidoo but the earnings may be less as well. It seems to be best suited to people who really enjoy social networking and who will want to spend a lot of time on Gather doing not just article writing but also engaging in networking.
• Helium. The main benefit to Helium is that they have a marketplace where people who are seeking specific articles can offer to pay you for your work. By writing general articles for Helium, you establish credibility and a portfolio of work on the site. This makes you a better candidate for these paying article jobs. Additionally, you do earn some revenue for the work that you publish on the site.

There are a few things that should be noted when it comes to blogging for any of these platforms. To earn money on them, you need to publish a large amount of content and it needs to really be quality content. As you start to get more experience as a blogger, you may find that you would rather not give a portion of your revenue to these types of platforms when you could be keeping it all for yourself through your own blog. However, there is a community on each of these sites which can be greatly helpful in getting you started earning money as a blogger.

Question of the Day: What pros and cons have you experienced in using any of these sites?

Related links: HubPages, A Better Squidoo?, Helium.com: Is It Worth It?, Write and Get Paid: A Look at 4 Writing Opportunities, and Make Money Writing for eHow

It is a continuing struggle to not only get your blog noticed by Google, but to stay in the rankings once you’ve made it there. I wrote last week about what Google likes, so now it’s time to talk a little about how to take advantage of that knowledge.

We know that Google likes quality links going back to your site. The challenge is to get enough of those links to make a difference without it costing you a fortune, or costing you every waking moment trying to build links. There are two areas you can concentrate on that have the potential to pay nice dividends without a major investment in time. Best of all, it is free.

Directories

First, it you haven’t submitted your blog to all of the directories, schedule some time to do that. In theory, the directories will find your site eventually, but you can speed that process along if you let them know that you exist, and where they can find you. There is a nice tool called Directory Submitter that really automates the process.

Sidenote: Take advantage of tools that will automate the task of submitting your site to search engines, directories, bookmarking sites, etc. Not only will it save you hours of your time, but it greatly reduces the number of mistakes you can make along the way. After 25 or so submissions you can begin to get sloppy. Gmail and easily becomegamil , and all of your work on that submission will be wasted. When you automate you need to take the time to get it correct the first time, and it will be correct every other time.

Directory Submitter is not a bulk submission tool. You will still go to each directory and individually submit your site. Some sites require different information that you will be able to enter, usually by cutting and pasting from a side bar that contains your information. The directories tend to like individual submissions much more than automatic submissions. The more they like you, the faster you will be listed.

The free version comes with about hundreds of directories that you can submit to. You just double-click any directories you want to submit to, and the software directs you to the submission page, and fills in your information. You select the appropriate category and click the submit button. Directory Submitter keeps track of when you last submitted to each directory. That makes it very easy to submit your site when you have the time to do it, and you don’t feel like you have to do it all at once.

The down side of this strategy is that it takes a while before you see results. While most directories offer to list your site for free, it can take up to 4 months before they get around to reviewing you site for inclusion. Most will do it faster than that, but don’t expect instant results. Remember though, the longer you wait to get started, the longer it will take for your links to appear.

Social Bookmarking

For faster results you should seriously consider posting your content to the social bookmarking sites. Sites like Digg, Twitter, and Technorati are easy to use, and best of all, Google likes them. There are a ton of these sites out there, so this is a good way to build a lot of links back to your blog.

There are a couple of site that help automate this process for you. Sites like SocialPoster and SocialMarker do a good job of auto-filling information into the submit pages of the sites in their databases, so all you have to do is select the category you want to be listed under, paste your keywords, and submit. I have been using SocialPoster, and I have been seeing very quick results. I submitted a blog post in the afternoon and by that evening I had 2 listings in the top 10 for my chosen keyword phrase.

I know there has been a lot of questions about posting your own material to these sites, but if you don’t do it, who will? The thing is, these sites want to be relevant, and that won’t happen if it becomes a place for bloggers to spam their own content. The trick is to share the love. A general rule of thumb is to submit 3 other pieces for every one of your own. Some of that could be form another one of your blogs, but all of your submissions should not come from the same domain.

Make it a habit to submit your favorite sites. When you are at the social bookmark sites, vote for a few articles that you see. Take part in the community. The more you are involved, the more the sites will like you and pay attention to what you submit. Take advantage of the Love Karma - the more you give, the more you get.

The key is to get as many quality links a you can, especially from sites that Google has ranked higher than yours. The more links you build, the more relevant Google thinks you are. It’s another step in the process of climbing the Google ladder one rung at a time.

Whether you’re looking to improve your blogging skills, increase your blog’s readership or grow your list of RSS subscribers, social networking is the way to go! Yes, there are several other ways you can do all of the aforesaid things, but social networking can do wonders for your blog and allow you to learn new blogging techniques as well as meet fellow bloggers.

Following are a few of the ways you can begin social networking with fellow bloggers:

Respond to comments left by your blog readers

Many times blog readers are also bloggers. So when a blog reader leaves a comment on your blog, network with him or her by responding to the comment they left. You can respond by thanking them for dropping by your blog and leaving a comment, welcome them to your blog and invite them to come back or subscribe to your RSS feed, or if they ask a question, answer it for them. This allows you to get to know your blog readers and it makes them feel welcome. Who knows, by showing them you appreciate them and interacting with them through the comment area, they just may return several times or subscribe to your RSS feed to be kept up to date.

Join social networks and interact with fellow bloggers

By joining social networks you can share files, videos, advice and much more with fellow bloggers. In addition, you can communicate with and help your fellow bloggers. With over 200 social networking sites, you should have no problem finding a few to join so you can network with other bloggers. However, don’t overload yourself to the point where you can’t keep up with all the social network sites you joined, just sign up with a few social networks sites that you believe other bloggers are a part of. A few of the most popular are MySpace, Facebook and Bebo.

Participate in discussions on related forums

Sign up for forums related to the topic(s) you blog about. After you join, introduce yourself and participate by sharing advice, answering questions and communicating with other bloggers in the forums.

Attend conventions, expos and events for bloggers

A fun way to meet fellow bloggers and improve upon your blogging skills is to attend as many blogging conventions, expos and events as you can. At these places you’ll get to meet fellow bloggers face to face, and if you love sharing your knowledge, then consider volunteering your time to speak at some of those blogging conventions, expos and events as well.

Now it’s your turn to tell us how you network with your fellow bloggers. We also invite you to let us know how your ways of social networking with fellow bloggers has helped you to become the blogger you are today.

Dubya-bashing is a favorite pastime of many people around the world, not just Americans. King George is a great example of what not to do in many respects (like running the U.S.), but I think we can scale that down to blogging.

1. If you can’t admit when you’ve made a mistake, people will respect you less, not more. Blogging is supposed to be about openness, transparency, and honesty. If you’ve messed up, people will tell you. How you deal with that says a lot about what kind of person you really are.
2. Everything you say is on-record and can be used against you later. Every post you write and every comment you make is findable online and could come back to haunt you later. So think about what you’re saying. Say only that which you will be proud of forever.
3. Just because you can get away with cheating doesn’t mean you should. Bush cheats on everything, in just about every possible way. As a blogger, people will notice your shortcuts if you scrape others’ content or steal their designs. They will notice if you’re kicked off of Digg for creating multiple accounts to try and game it. They will not take kindly to automated comment spam. Just because you can do these things, doesn’t mean you should. The long-term benefits of winning by doing the right thing cannot be overemphasized.
4. If you feel the end justifies the means, and you use any means necessary to achieve your ends, you didn’t win anything at all, but you might lose your humanity. Going for the shortcut, the fast buck, cheating at search engine optimization and social media in order to “win” is not winning at all. It gives you the illusion of winning for a short while, but in the end, you lose. Trust and reputation are paramount on the web.
5. If you’re going to talk tech, get it right. It ain’t “the Google.” Do I really need to say anything about this one? Do not misunderstand or misuse your tech jargon, or you will be a laughingstock. Help others understand, and you become a valuable and trusted resource.