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Problogger's 'Better Blog' Project

April 10th 2009 09:48
Problogger logo

Problogger is considered the site for people wishing to make a business of blogging. The guy who built it did just that - quite unexpectedly, at first - and continues to make a success of his online business. There's a book, there are talks and conventions and there's free advice online in his blog.

Personally, I think Problogger's a pretty dull site. Don't get me wrong - it's a brilliant resource, a wonderful never-ending fountain of ideas and business acumen. I'm just not that into the whole business thing, so I find it gets tedious pretty quickly.

This month, though, they're running a 31-day "Better Blog" project. Every day, they send an email to subscribed bloggers with a task to perform on their blog. Not only that, but they explain why the change makes your blog better and the ideas behind the concept.

They're still taking sign-ups if you're interested. It is, of course, free.

You can subscribe here: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

The first four tasks can be found here, so you can catch up: One, Two, Three and Four.

Thanks to Simone for making me aware of it!

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Posted By: SpikeTheLobster - Category: Blogging
   


Blogging Basics 5: Getting Listed

April 5th 2009 19:14
Blogging

Once your blog is up and running, you're posting regularly and feel more comfortable in your new 'home', the next consideration is this: how to tell people where you are.

There are two types of listing that are important in the blogging world. First and foremost, as with any web site, it's vital to ensure your work is picked up by search engines. If you're blogging with the intention of earning money, this is doubly important as the vast majority of your visitors will come to you via a search, at least until you have tens of thousands of regular readers.

Now, if you're starting a new blog, it might take a while to get picked up by the engines. This is true even for those on their own domain. It'll take even longer to start earning a Page Rank on Google. However, there is a nice, easy way to submit your site to over 350 search engines - a free site I was lucky enough to discover some time ago over at www.official.my.

The other kind of listing for bloggers is in a blog directory. Sites like Orble, called 'blog networks' maintain their own lists of blogs, of course, but a blog directory is much bigger. The best known and most popular is still Technorati. It's pretty much essential to be listed there if you wish to be recognised in the blogging world. Technorati isn't the only blog directory, though. There's BlogCatalog, BlogHub, BloggingFusion, Alltop and dozens upon dozens of others.

Getting your blog listed in a directory is usually as simple as registering with the site (generally free) and 'claiming' it. A claim is necessary to prove that you are the blog's owner. This is done by posting a code or small banner on the site, which is verified by the directory and can often be removed afterwards.

Now that you're listed, you also need to remember to submit your RSS feed's URL to the directory and instruct their system to ping your blog regularly (if possible). "Pinging" is the process of sending out a signal to see what's there - just like sonar in a submarine, from which it takes its name. The site checks your blog's landing page or RSS feed (depending on how their ping works) and, if new content is detected, your entry will move your blog onto their 'new posts' list.

Some blogging software allows automation of pings, but not all do. You may need to ping manually to ensure that everything's kept up to date. If that's the case, there's a rather neat little service over at www.pingomatic.com that will send the required signal to tons of blog lists at the same time.

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Posted By: SpikeTheLobster - Category: Blogging
   


Blogging Basics 4: Posting Frequency

March 29th 2009 12:04
Blogging

Now that you have your blog subject and you've chosen where you're going to set up shop, the question of how frequently to post often springs to mind. Most bloggers start out enthusiastically posting several times a day, then slacken off, get bored or run out of ideas and quit: the best way to avoid this is to enforce a posting schedule on yourself.

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Posted By: SpikeTheLobster - Category: Blogging
   


Blogging Basics 3: Setting Up House

March 22nd 2009 23:07
Blogging

Now that you've understood what a blog is and you've chosen a subject, the final step in getting started is to choose where to blog. There are two significantly different options at this stage: setting up on your own or subscribing to a blogging service.

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Posted By: SpikeTheLobster - Category: Blogging
   


Blogging Basics 2: Choosing Your Subject

March 18th 2009 01:38
Blogging

The best advice anyone can give a new blogger when they ask what subject to choose for their blog is, thankfully, the one most people give: pick a subject about which you are knowledgeable, passionate and can write a lot.

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Blogging Basics 1: What Is A Blog?

March 13th 2009 14:15
Blogging
Blogging Basics

After a bit of thought, today sees the first post in another occasional series: this time with the subject of blogging. Surprising as it is to geeks like me, there's a lot of folks out there who are still unfamiliar with this wonderful medium. There's also a lot of folks who'd like to blog, but don't know how to start. That's where Blogging Basics will hopefully be useful.

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Posted By: SpikeTheLobster - Category: Blogging
   


Weblogging

March 10th 2009 22:42
Blogging

Over the past couple of months, Wordophilia has had a few really interesting discussions, some nice reviews and a few questions. Strangely, though, I get few requests. I've had a couple of notes asking for more in the vein of the Common Mistakes post and a couple asking for similar things with funky words to use.

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Blogging Basics

January 9th 2009 23:59
Blogging

The Blogging Basics series is designed to help people interested in starting their own blog. It begins with defining what a blog is, then takes the reader through the various steps of setting up, producing content and looking at difficult aspects such as traffic, revenue and popularity.

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