PureBlogging

Just so you guys know, I will probably not be posting so much on this blog in the foreseeable future. As I’ve said in previous posts, I’ve been extremely busy, and I have other projects that require more of my attention.  That’s not to say that I’m gone for good, but my co-worker Chad will be taking over most of the posting here.

I hope you all welcome his writing as much as you’ve welcomed mine. I have enjoyed conversing with the PureBlogging.com community, and if there were more hours in the day, I would continue to do so, but i’m sure you understand.

Chad will continue to talk about blogging though, so don’t go anywhere.

I’ll see you around. By the way, you will still be able to read a great deal of my work at WebProNews.com and SmallBusinessNewz.com. I often talk about blogging and blog industry news at these sites as well (not to mention the other writers on these sites).

Popularity: 5% [?]

I apologize for the infrequent posts here lately. It’s been a combination of being incredibly busy and me being sick. I’ve been battling some kind virus or something for about a week now, but I think I’m finally starting to get closer to recovery.

What I should’ve done perhaps is had a few extra posts in the bag to put up on just these occasions. I do not always practice what I preach obviously, but perhaps next time (if I ever have enough time to do so) I will have a few ready.

What do you do to keep your blog updated when you are unable to write? After all, frequency is generally in the best interest of a blog, because when posts become infrequent, it can lead to a loss of readership. Depending on how long you go without posting, readers may just stop coming back, assuming that your blog will not have been updated.

This is not as much of an issue for people who read your RSS feeds, because they will get your posts when you post them, but many, many people are still not using feed readers, so that is not a good enough concept to fall back on.

Besides, with those who do use feed readers, you still run the risk of them unsubscribing due to a lack of updates. People are going to be cleaning up their readers and getting organized from time to time.

So I ask again, what do you do?

Besides having some posts ready to go, you can get guests to blog for you, you can post short link lists, like the ones I often do on Thursdays. This is far less time-consuming (provided you have some sources to draw from) than writing an entire post.

You could also update an older post with some newer, relevant information, which can be much quicker than staring from scratch. You probably don’t want to do this very often because it can take away from the freshness of you blog, but in a pinch, I don’t see why it can’t be done. Besides, depending on how old the post is, there’s a good chance that current readers have not been around long enough to have read it in the past, and those who have read it may have forgotten it and appreciate the reminder.

How do you make up for lost time on your blog?

Popularity: 5% [?]

Barry Schwartz (aka RustyBrick) posted an interesting rant about someone taking smack about Search Engine Roundtable’s live blogging of conferences.  He has even gone so far as to provide a poll looking to learn what others think.

Read his post to get the whole story. Do you think live blogging is a legitimate medium?

Personally, I think it is a useful way to cover events.  And I think readers who are unable to attend said events appreciate the coverage (for the most part).

Popularity: 6% [?]

Extraordinarily busy today, so please forgive me if I leave out the descriptions.

Any Strange Blogging Habits?

Blogging Jobs: How Much Should You Charge to Blog?

How to Manage a Multi-Author WordPress Blog

50 Tips to Gain RSS Subscribers

What About the Readers’ Perspective?

Enjoy!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Here we go again. The blogosphere is dead. Nicholas Carr at RoughType.com writes:

Almost all of the popular blogs today are commercial ventures with teams of writers, aggressive ad-sales operations, bloated sites, and strategies of self-linking. Some are good, some are boring, but to argue that they’re part of a “blogosphere” that is distinguishable from the “mainstream media” seems more and more like an act of nostalgia, if not self-delusion.

And the fate of blogs conversation goes on.

Jason Miller at WebProNews has come good commentary on it.

Popularity: 5% [?]

For several days, I’ve been trying to spend a little time getting more organized to increase the efficiency of my work. What I have mostly been doing is reorganizing my Google Reader account.

As a writer/blogger, I have plenty of sources to draw from, and I subscribe to a ton of RSS feeds. I also write for a variety of different blogs/sites, and they’re not all in the exact same niche (plus I have other interests and subscriptions that don’t have much to do with my writing at all). I have been working for a while with pretty much a jumbled mess of all of these things. Don’t get me wrong. I had it organized to a certain extent. I had my work stuff separate from my non-work stuff, although as I take on new writing projects, the line on some of that begins to blur a bit.

But I have been breaking down my organizational structure as far as I can take it. For example, I have a folder dedicated to only blogging-related sources, that I will draw from for this blog in the future. This way, when I know it’s time to write something for PureBlogging.com, I can easily peruse this folder and find a topic that I wish to discuss (if I’m having writers block) or a reference that I can cite. I follow a similar pattern for my other writing projects.

I have also been going around seeking out new sources of information. The more sources the better as far as I’m concerned. The more information coming in, the more informed I am likely to be, which can only enhance my writing.

This is all probably common sense to a lot of you, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but it can be a bit time consuming. That’s just the thing. I think sometimes we get caught up in our work (and non-work lives for that matter) and don’t take the time to get organized, which in the long run will likely save you a lot of time and increase your productivity.

I’ve been doing it a little at a time, from day to day as to not take too big a chunk out of my day. When it’s all said and done, my Reader is going to be a well-oiled machine and my writing quantity and quality should increase as a product of that.

Popularity: 9% [?]