PureBlogging

It doesn’t matter whether your blog is on the Blogger network or if you’ve opted to get your own domain, you’ll need to spice it up. First things first, though, if your blog is Wordpress based, then have you chosen a theme?

Being that there are a ton of themes to choose from, you should give thought to what you’re looking for in a theme. How many sidebars? Do you need widgets? Does it play nice with Adsense? I generally prefer to read blogs that are very clean looking without a ton of color. Pick a color scheme that you’re comfortable with and go from there. (By a ton of color, I mean if the page is too loud, people will think it’s unprofessional.)

Concentrate on how much work you’re going to have to put into the theme, as well. Themes usually don’t come right out of the box looking just the way you want them, without any edits. A lot of the more popular themes are already being used by a ton of people. Take that into consideration. Of course you want yours to stand out.

Consider doing something nifty with the header image. A lot of things can be done with Fireworks and some free time.

One last thing of mention, of course, are plugins. You can check your Wordpress dashboard to find updates on plugins. These nifty little gadgets will do some pretty amazing things for your blog. And if you’re a PHP novice (like me), then you’ll find that adding these to your blog, is most painless. There are plugins for top commentators, spam-killers, videos, you name it. Have fun with what you can do with your blog, that’s what it’s there for: an outlet.

Let me ask you this: Are you having fun with your blog?

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My name is Roberta Ferguson and I’ll be putting my two cents in here and there regarding the very basics of blogging. Even though a lot of you already know about some of this stuff, some don’t. My normal haunt is music blogging at Earsucker, but what I’ve learned in my journey in blogging, I’ll be telling you here.

What’s the word? The word is your blog is whatever you make it. Meaning, whatever your topic of choice is what you blog about. You’re in control, so if the content is quality, readers will come. Whether it be music, making money, SEO, gossip, or whathaveyou.

If you intend to stick to one topic then tell your readers. If you don’t have many readers, see this post. Some people like to make several topics the point of their blog. This is a great idea and allows you enough space not to get bored with blogging.

Centralizing your blog to one topic does have it’s advantages, though. If your genre is blogging about blogging, then those who do just that, will often link to you, if you are experienced. I consider myself an expert in being a beginner, thus, I’m open to learning everything about everything. (You should see my rss feeds)

What I’m trying to communicate to you now is that if you are an expert on flowers, then blog about it. If you’ve had no experience installing car stereos, could you tell someone how to do it? I could tell you where the stereo should go, but as far as installation goes, I have no clue.

Blog about what you love and chances are, like-minded people will find you. It’s not as easy as linking to big named bloggers and hoping they’ll notice. I’ve went out of my way to find other music-related blogs and am currently trying to fill void in the music community. A lot of bloggers will not go out of their way to find you.

The moral of the story is, be interesting and the readers will be interested

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My name is Roberta Ferguson and I’ll be putting my two cents in here and there regarding the very basics of blogging. Even though a lot of you already know about some of this stuff, some don’t. My normal haunt is music blogging at Earsucker, but what I’ve learned in my journey in blogging, I’ll be telling you here.

As the author of multiple blogs I often times find it difficult to determine exactly which blog to publish a new article to. Especially as I continue to build content on certain blogs that are still within the “launch” phase of their lifecycle. More often than not, we follow our instinct and publish to that new project, hoping that this is the article that will bring an increase in traffic.

As you continue to build your blog portfolio this can become an increasing problem and one that can cost you dollars. Google’s AdSense has a wonderful tool to help make this decision easier: ad channels. If you aren’t using channels I highly encourage you to take some time out this weekend and establish channels for all of your ad units, across all of your blogs.

After you have established your ad channels you can now go look at what makes the most sense to your checkbook when an article’s home is in question. Out of my two blogs, my personal blog has a higher click-through rate and is therefore the prime target for some of the more questionable articles I write.

Of course, maintain your niche - and think of your readers as well. I definitely wouldn’t abandon Betaflow and post a review of the hottest new web 2.0 application on my personal blog just because I might a little more. But, in times when you just don’t know - ad channels can really help. I recently published an article title “Windows Software You Need,” which would have fit in easily over at Betaflow, but after a quick review of my ad channels it was clear where that article needed to be headed.

Not many of us are blogging to pay the bills, but that is no reason to intentionally hinder yourself. Use all of the tools available to you to determine what best suits your budget, your niche, and your readers.

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Michael Wales is currently a Senior Airman in the United States Air Force awaiting a June-July promotion to Staff Sergeant. Michael also writes a blog at http://www.betaflow.com/ about Web 2.0 companies and new media.

I’m going to start out with a very basic blogging series. A lot of websites or blogs are more geared to the more experienced blogger, but I wanted to give some tips for those of you out there that don’t know what to do to get started and what the next steps are.

First of all, you have to ask yourself: Why do you want to blog? For the readership, for the blog fame, or for the money. If you’ve answered money, ding ding ding! Stop right there and push yourself away from the keyboard. While many can attest to the fact that there is money to be made from blogging, what you see on their websites comes from a serious dedication to the hard work and experience that comes with blogging for a long time. What you’ll find from that particular example is that the blogger in question didn’t just come up with the idea yesterday.

Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your blog.

If there is something that you are truly passionate about and feel that your personality should be heard through a blog, then I’d highly recommend starting out at either wordpress or Blogger. Both are free and they will help you realize both what your passion for blogging is and whether or not you have the stamina to blog, blog, blog.

Write about something that you are very interested in and always voice your opinions and let your personality shine through. If you post enough, readers will come. The money part comes later.

The moral of the story is that blogging is neither for the weak or the disinterested.

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My name is Roberta Ferguson and I’ll be putting my two cents in here and there regarding the very basics of blogging. Even though a lot of you already know about some of this stuff, some don’t. My normal haunt is music blogging at Earsucker, but what I’ve learned in my journey in blogging, I’ll be telling you here.

It seems that the moment internet marketers discovered that My Space was a profitable business tool, social networks geared toward business began popping up. I’m not saying it’s a new thing, but lately there have been some great social networks opening that are designed for internet marketers. Though the networks vary in features, they are all based on the same general concept of other popular social networking sites. The two I’m discussing in this article - Apsense and Free IQ - are my favorites of the new IMSNs (Internet Marketing Social Networks) popping up all over the internet.

Apsense

This new IMSN is in pre-launch right now. You need an invite code to join (the link above includes one) for free. If you’re one of the first 2,500 members you will be given the chance to upgrade to a VIP membership for free for one year. The VIP membership costs $19.95 a month. That’s a $240 savings without spending a dime. I honestly can’t figure out what the benefits of the VIP membership are, but I’m guessing it has to do with an increased number of times your ads are shown and/or the number of groups you can create. The site says “click here” for membership comparisons, but there isn’t a link attached.

Aside from the standard social network sites features of messaging, adding friends and customizing your own page, you also have the option to blog on the site. On social networking sites, I tend to create one blog post linking to my main blog. It’s a good way to build some links and also you won’t spread yourself too thin trying to post on several different blogs daily. I think being a member of social networking sites is a great way to build your business, but it’s also very important not to overextend yourself. Be careful that you don’t get caught up and spend too much time on social networking sites. They can be fun and addictive so make sure you remember that you’re there for business.

Apsense has some interesting extras that make it unique. Apsense Express is an application you install on your desktop to serve ads. Desktop marketing tools (like Desktop Lightning) are becoming more popular as people become less wary of willingly installing advertising applications on their PCs. These programs aren’t adware or spyware, they are legitimate viral marketing applications that allow you to broadcast directly to your network. As more and more of these types of applications are created, more people will realize that this is not malicious software. It’s really just the next logical step for internet marketing; joining together traditional ad formats with the ability to deliver instantly and to a targeted audience.

For a site in pre-launch, Apsense is very promising. There are some features that aren’t very clearly explained, but I’ll give the creators the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s because the site is still in development. Overall, I’d recommend joining now so you can get in on the ground floor and watch this site really come to life.

continue reading this entry »

Keep Them Coming
Content of course is the driving force of any blog, you either have it or you don’t. No matter what your niche or non-niche is, it is your content that grabs a reader. But do you have side factors that are scaring readers away? With this post I am starting a series called “Keep Them Coming” that dives into this very subject.

Item 1: Do Not Display Skim Stats
If you want to be successful and “make money online” as most say, or just be successful at having many readers, you have to continue to gain new readership. So flat out you have to impress the heck out of a first time reader. Great stats are something that come with time on a blog with great content. Eventually, great content will bring you loyal readers and all of a sudden your Technorati Rank shoots down, your Google Page Rank shoots up, and your RSS Subscriber totals increment like crazy. But until that happens, do not display stats that will scare away new readers! All of these widgets and plugins are very attractive and easy to use, but unless you have stats worth bragging about, hold off and wait until you do.

Your Alternatives
You have to remove those stat items, but those links they come with are very important. I’m sure there are a magnitude of different stat plugins and widgets out there, but here are a few examples with the common ones I see. Instead of the feedburner widget showing less that 50 readers, have an eye catching rss image that links to your feed. Instead of one of the technorati plugins displaying your really high rank , just have a favorite me link. If your Alexa rating is really high, do not even display it at all. My suggested thresholds for displaying this info would be as follows: feedburner [50 or more]; technorati rank [50k or less]; alexa [100k or less]. Anything outside of these thresholds may give an inexperienced feeling to the blog and scare potential readers away.

Conclusion
A new reader came to your site byway of some kind of referral. Whether it just be a link, backlink, or reference on another blog or perhaps a google search result. The door has been opened, and your referred page has been delivered to them. If they like it, and I mean really like it, they still may never come back and be a repeat reader. The post they just read was amazing, but they looked at your widgets/plugins in your sidebar as well and noticed that the reporting numbers are very unfavorable. So in my mind that would say that even though this page or post was excellent, the normal content must not be any good since the stats are not very impressive. So I basically just read a diamond in the rough and there is no need to continue reading anything else. This is where you will see a 1 page visit entry and exit in your reporting logs.

This kind of view of things is used all the time! Ever notice that half filled tip jar at restaurants? Did you know that most places will not start with an empty tip jar. Somebody walking by a tip jar that is already half full, is most likely to sheepishly tip out some themselves, where if it was an empty tip jar, they may not of at all (*after all, nobody else did*).

Always try to look at your blog from an outsider’s perspective and see if there is anything that would make you not interested in it.

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My name is RJ “Bobs” Matthis. David has granted me the great opportunity of guest blogging on his site. I will be chiming in from time to time on many subjects but primarily focusing on an infinite series of “Blog Scare Factors” that can impair and/or delay your growth. My personal blog can be located at blog.ReformatThis.com.