Blog News Watch

This video makes a good point on bloggers versus journalists. Blogs are whatever we want them to be. They can be our soul written on the web, or hard-fact evidence written to our pleasure. So, what is this guy to say that we can’t “journalize” when we write in our blogs?

As a avid blogger myself, I often find myself writing about something that happened in the news, or something that comes to my interest, by either the news or self discovery. Most of the time, its the news When I mean news, I mean television, because reading a newspaper, these days, is not much when you can look up anything in your public area faster on the web.

(That and its cheaper than paying how much ever you pay for the newspaper.)

The blogosphere, as the video states, is much more than that of journalism. It includes journalism, but it goes onto so much more than just than that. Its an exchange of writers ideas, concepts, and sometimes, a good way to start a journal.

As the guy in the video said, even news reporters look to blogs for ideas on what to report, and what not to report, even if at the end of the day, the news reporter’s boss says its actually not news.

But you see, there is the beauty of blogging. No one tells you what you can and cannot write about. Of course, if your blog is a tech blog, it would just be insane to write about why the mice in china can’t communicate with the mice in Aussie country.

Well, with this in mind, make sure that when you make your blog, it means something to you, even if it doesn’t mean so much to the public. Also, remember that if you get paid to blog, it is something that you should enjoy, not dread just because you want the money.

We all want money, its just not everything life is about So, go explore, make a blog

Well, I am no expert in this area, as you can see, I can never bring in any people to comment. Is it because I’m not giving them enough? or is it just because they’ve already read what I’m writing somewhere else? Or are they just very lazy?

Well, before you try to get your readers to comment on the site, you have to keep in mind this:

People are lazy.

Yes, they are, don’t you tell me I’m wrong. You see it everywhere, and you know that is enough proof. (One for example would be that people are making diet commercials [ yes you know you see them on tv too]. The fact that there are diet commercials means that there are people lazy enough to not walk a few places to get there things.)

Anyways, this means that your writing has to be unpredictably, and unfathomably, original. In addition to this, your writing for your blog must have something that will bring in your reader (and keep him guessing what the actual fact is) and leave a great conclusion that will make your reader want to come back to read more. (In other words, a substantial end-of-the-post Punchline)

Yes, sometimes pictures can help bring in your readers, but never will the pictures make your readers comment on your blog post. (Actually, I got one comment that said something along the lines that I was posting too many sexy lingere women pictures)

This was the time where I was getting to the point that attractive pictures will bring your reader in. And of course, it got readers to see the picture at first, and then read the article. BUT, you can not count on the pictures doing all the work for you, when you are writing a blog post and want a reader to comment on your blog and/or site.

And maybe, if you make the posts shorter than 500+ word count posts, it can also have a great effect. Begging for comments never helps, so leaving the begging for comments out of the posts

Hope you enjoyed the article today, and have a Great Day!

So, you may have heard that Google changed their whole deal on the issue of pagerank. Well, although I would like to blame them, especially for taking down my watchingfamilyguy.comblog down from a pagerank of 5 to a pagerank of 3. I was sad to see it happen.

But, I guess, in all honesty, you can’t really blame google for doing this. I mean, when there are so many new blogs emerging every day, of course there are going to have to be changes to the Google Pagerank system.

I wish I could pay google to make my pagerank a 10, but unfortunately, I dont think I have that kind of money, nor do I wish to pay google anymore money to google than they make per year.

Want some blogging links?

Although I strictly encourage you as a blogger to earn your readers through the web simply by attracting them to your posts, here is another way to “earn” your links.

I would really look down on somebody, though, if I saw them buying this product to increase their blog traffic or google Pagerank.

Actually, come to think of it, it would be insane to buy this only to increase your google Pagerank. Unless it is for a blog that you are trying to make money with via PayPerPost, its a complete waste of money.

What I say: Don’t worry, you will get your readers, just post your usual posts, and post them everyday. Now, this may not happen every day, but you should make an attempt to do so.

Besides, the more content you produce, the more google indexes that content, and the more of a change there is for a reader to come to your blog.

A long time ago, the previous author of this site wrote about 5 Ways to Avoid Blogger Blindness. Why would he tackle the subject of blogger’s burnout and blindness so early on, even before he started talking about the craft of writing for blogs and promoting them in-depth?

Less Burnout = Better Blogger

Your capability to maintain mental clarity and stability is directly related to your success as a blogger.
Is this true? I mean, do you have to be mentally clear and stable to post a good subject and write logicially enough so that the reader understands you?
It means great content more frequently rather than too much filler content followed by long periods of nothing.

It means more visitors because you write attractive content more often and promote it more steadily.

It means more money if you monetize your blog.

It means stability.

Getting a handle on why blogger burnout occurs and how to prevent it is essential, so I’m covering it now before I cover the process of blogging in a great deal of depth.

It all comes back to your decisions and your sense of passion for blogging. The more passion you are about blogging about the topics that you like, the more the readers will see it in the blog. Of course, it is nothing physically, but it can be seen between the lines.

Of course, your passion for blogging has to relate to how much time you are willing to spend not only to post on your blog, but also to promote it.

If you only post on your blog (without promotion) then you have to strive on the fact that people will randomly get to your blog via google. But heck, if you sign up with technorati, claim your blog via google analytics, and join forums that allow blog promotion, then you are not only promoting your blog, but you are also getting new ideas to post on.

This exchange will definitely show up when you write your posts, simply because of the fact that you are writing about what all other people are writing about and, also taking your own perspective on things.

So, just keep in mind that only posting is not the best way to blog on your blog.

Refs:

http://performancing.com/node/1340

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/07/64088

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/02/06/144501.php

So, now that you know that the guy who coined the Term “weblog” never made a cent out of it, yet should have been a billionaire, is not what he should’ve been. So, I guess this is just a idea to keep in mind that when you blog for money (whether it be passionately or not) expecting your blog to make more money than professional blogs such as Engadget, is a ridiculous thought, and you should eradicate it out of your mind as soon as possible.

The context of this video dates back a couple years when blogging was the “new” thing to do. (A little bit before myspace or facebook.) In 1997, blogs emerged, but everyday, there are people creating new blogs. I haven’t checked recently, but right now there are so many blogs that each blog is getting less of the pageviews that it should be getting.

As a writer, and blogger, it is easy to think ” Why didn’t blogging just stay as one of those underground things that no one liked to do, except for a few exceptions?” or maybe something like, ” If every body wasn’t making blogs all the time, people would take their time to look a the actual blogging company sites out there.”

Again, that is just the blogger inside me speaking. Mind you, he comes out very little often, so its been hard trying to get him to come out. Laugh.

Anyways, I’ll try to open up the little blogger inside me more, but as for now, look at the next post if you would like to see some porn, please check out the next post which will be posted in less than 2 hours.

I did a little experiment recently on another blog I am involved in.

This blog rarely uses graphics in its posts, but I have started including an image in each and every post, in part because it’s good practice and secondly because, while I started this practice on 451 Press blogs much earlier, I wanted to be able to quantify the effects of this small change.

I’m not at liberty to release all the statistics to you, but I can tell you for a fact that using images increases page views by a factor of four, at the minimum.

Sometimes it was a factor of four, and sometimes it skyrocketed to a twenty.

That’s up to twenty times the average number of page views just by throwing in an image or two.

This blog was not doing too well before and the average page views per post was almost ridiculously constant, so we can safely assume that these increases are almost solely thanks to the inclusion of images.

The Many Aspects of Successful Images

Not just any image thrown in anywhere in the article will work.

You need to consider a variety of factors to optimize the results that images help you secure.

The contents of the image

We’ve probably all heard the story of the blogger who used images of hot women in every post, regardless of relevancy. It worked. Hot women increased his traffic.

While I like to go for something a little more relevant (I have used the above tactic with success and relevancy), consider how attention-grabbing the contents of your image are. Even if it’s not a hot half-naked woman, something that is odd, intriguing or just interesting works better than something mundane.

The colors of the image

This one is a no-brainer: bright, interesting colors work better than dull and subdued colors. Black and white pictures can draw interest, but on the internet, they have a lot harder time of it.

Not only is it better when colors are bright and interesting, they should also be bold. Instead of that lighter red, choose that in-your-face blood red.

The placement of the image

You can and should use more than one image per post. Spread them out fairly evenly throughout the post, with the first one right at the top - either to the side of the first paragraph or above it, beneath the title.

The lower down in your post, the less effective your image will be.

The size of the image

You obviously have to work within the confines of your blog’s theme and the widths it allows, but the bigger you can get the image without detracting from the content, the better. It’s there to grab attention so having an image right at the top of the post that takes up the maximum width of the content area is fantastic. Small images don’t get noticed.

The number of images

As I briefly mentioned in placement, the more images you can put in a post the better. Balance is important, though, and you shouldn’t overcrowd your content.

One image to every three paragraphs is a good rule of thumb, but you can get away with less. I only use one image per post, right at the top, most of the time.

There you have it; the five factors that determine how successful your images are in increasing an article’s page views. I hope you learned something from this post, and please feel free to leave your questions and comments.

I think Google’s site ranking system is broken.

In fact, I think they broke it a very long time ago.

The Internet is meant to be inclusive, to level the playing field a bit in a competitive world, and to give newcomers a chance. Of course it’s still possible to build a new site up to popularity, but the world’s biggest search engine isn’t helping matters.

Since Google’s search is the average internet user’s portal to almost all the information they access, breaking Google means breaking the Internet.

Problem: Google’s most important ranking measurement is inbound links.

This means that in order to ever be seen in a Google search result that doesn’t contain your name or your blog’s name, you have to be popular. You know how in the real world people complain that governments and corporations keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor?

It’s the same with the holy ruling class of the interwebs, Almighty Google, who will give you priority only if you’re already a popular blog. Keep the popular sites popular, and the unknown sites unknown.

I know that it’s an easy way to determine good quality sites versus spam sites, but it’s the easy way out that takes the magic out of what the world thought the Internet was when the hordes began to adopt it.

How do you win today? The two most important things I believe you can do are:

1. Create value. If you don’t offer value to readers, you’re not going to become valuable.
2. Forge relationships. Enter the discussion. Don’t segregate yourself or stand on the sidelines. Use the full potential of the Internet to reach out to other bloggers and form networks of good writers giving the gift of good content.

Relationships are the key to success in an Internet where search and indexing have been broken.

It’s easy to let yourself go, isn’t it?

You find an awesome topic - one that really gets your heart pounding and your brain cells humming - and off you go on a tear. Twenty minutes later you pause at the keyboard, panting for breath, and hover the cursor over the “Publish” or “Post” button.

Yeah. Hang on there, Sparky.  Take a look at what you just wrote, and (as the man said) don’t be afraid to “murder your darlings.” Is your prose worthy of publication? Or have you just written the equivalent of a Dennis Miller rant in rough first draft form?

Don’t get me wrong - Miller’s rants can be funny. But they don’t transcribe to writing well, and they’re not easily read. Blogging serves a much different purpose, and you want to aim for a cogent, succinct, evocative style. (Don’t worry about “voice” - the “tone” of your writing, the unique aspects of the way you write that mark it as yours, as opposed to mine, or Deb Ng’s, or Robert Scoble’s. Voice will take care of itself, as long as you forget trying to sound like someone else.) This is not to say that you should aim for the dry explicative of technical writing - far from it. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Communicate, but don’t be afraid to be creative and use your skills as a writer to craft good prose.

But in order to do that, you’ve got to be willing to tear up that first draft rant - really take a hatchet to it. Nothing is sacred but your art - and your art is writing, make no mistake. The blog is merely the medium, and with all due apologies to McLuhan, the medium isn’t entirely the message.

Technorati Tags: blog writing style

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If you want your blog to perform at its peak, here’s the ultimate, bottom-line, unavoidable truth: you. must. niche. your. blog.

Now, I know I’m not the only blogger singing this anthem. And I’m not talking to the pleasure bloggers who are blogging for personal reasons - only for their own purposes, not to make money but to express themselves creatively. Obviously, a blog that serves as the chronicle of your life will by necessity (hopefully!) have many diverse topics.

But if you’re doing this for any other purpose - and that purpose is related to making money, in any way - you really need to narrow your approach. Not so narrowly that you run out of material in a month, but narrow enough to distinguish yourself - narrow enough to reach that small, “long tail” audience, and keep them coming back.

Chris Garrett has another riff on this meme and it’s worth a read. (Plus, Marillion rocks. Named my kid after a song of theirs.)

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It’s the new “KISS” - Keep It Short, Silly! In the face of growing competition for your audience/readers’ attention spans, you don’t want to hamstring your blog right out of the gate. Keep your posts short and succinct.

Here’s how:

• Narrow your focus. Don’t try to cram too much “subject” into one post.
• If you find yourself using too many tangents or transitions, this is a clue! Drop back and get the eagle’s perspective - how much are you really trying to say here?
• Try an outline. Sometimes, writing a draft in outline form can help you spot a post that’s too broad in focus.
• Consider a series. Maybe what you’ve got is really several related posts. Try fleshing each particular idea out a bit more fully and see where it takes you. Serial posts are a great way to generate return traffic.
• Use formatting. If your post necessarily has to make several points (this one’s a great example), turn to formatted lists - the unordered (bulleted) list and/or the ordered (numbered) list - to help retain interest without wearing out your reader.

Take the time to sculpt your posts, just like a sculptor would his or her clay, and you will be pleased with the results - not to mention the leftovers for future posts!

blogging, length of blog posts, blogging tips