Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

I have been finding a lot of news stations using bloggers to speak up about situations. It is not just in blogging online, by in-person interviews too. In fact, their names is usually displayed with the title ‘Blogger’ too!

I am not against this, but I found it quite an eye-opener in how news is changing to allow bloggers to be credible sources. Of course, bloggers can contain a wealth of knowledge, but will we see some title say ‘Twitterer’ or ‘Facebook user’ for a person’s title. As fantastical as it sounded, I am laughing about the idea that they may include Blogging101 as a Journalism course.

I love blogging and social media. It is a great way to share the information to a larger audience that I have not gotten to share before when just a blogger. I am just concerned on how far the media will take blogging in conjunction to sharing the news. Will our news one day read in l33t speak, and our newspapers be extinct? I hope not. Not everyone has a computer or even access to the Internet. In fact, for some it is a pretty scary concept.

Hopefully if news becomes greener, we might have the quality news online that we had before, even it is comes from a blogger.

I thought I would post a quick blog about a few places you can get some backlinks to your site. Some may cost, but others are free.

BlogExplosion
AboutUs
Blogs By Women (costs a small fee to list)
Read A Blog
Bloggapedia
Blogged
Top Blogs
Fuel My Blog
DipClip
Blogarama
Finding Blog
Freebie Directory (if you offer freebies like graphics or programs or other stuff)
Technorati
Twitter (If you post your blog posts, you have a link back to your blog.)
Freebie List (like the Freebie Directory… if you have freebies that you offer on your site, you can list your site there)
ChrisBrogan.com (Has a place you can put your site. Read the requirements first.)
Blog Catalog

Hope this list will help you on your way in developing the backlinks you need to get your site out there and seen.

When you visit some websites, are you put off right away by the site owner? Have you spoken out, but it ended up badly? Well, this article covers etiquette in speaking out with other site owners.

First off, if you have a website or are a member of a community, you are exposing yourself to others when you participate. However, writing can be easily misunderstood. Because you are not talking to another person face-to-face and you are interpreting the words how you have learned, there WILL be a breakdown in communication.

Before responding, here are some things to consider:

1. What do you understand from what you read?
2. What things do you not understand?
3. Have you been to the site before?
4. What is your current mood?
5. What is your perception of the site owner only based on their blog post?

These are just some of the factors in considering, but do affect how you decide to respond. If you are having a bad day, some posts by other bloggers could set you off. It is better to just leave the post be and come back when you are feeling better.

As for comprehension, it is not that you have something wrong, it is that the words written versus how you perceived it did not match up to what the blog owner intended. In this case, if you are not sure, then just ask questions. Hopefully the blog owner will respond back kindly.

If you have been to the site before or are basing your judgment on a singular blog post, you are not even being fair to the site owner. In fact, it will more than likely make you look bad, so read up about the owner. Again, if there are any questions, ask the owner if they are not abrasive. Just in case, people who are confident and ambitious are not always egotistical and abrasive. A lot of those people pride themselves on helping others. Usually the misconceptions stir from people use to naysaying and are eager to jump on the ‘rant boat’ when the opportunity arises.

The key is to read without trying to be presumptuous first. Break down the blog when you read it and do expect to run into things that you may not agree with. Your job as the visit that comments is not to change the site owner’s mind, but to present a logical side and ‘agree to disagree,’ especially if the site is not gears toward topics that involve conflict.

Most site owners enjoy responses from their visitors and will try to involve you in conversation, so have fun and remember to be open-minded when reading and responding.

With the popularity of some websites, their biggest thing has been to bring in guest authors or build a team of bloggers. However, in working with a group, even outside the blog world, you as the main owner of the website run into the following types of people:

1. The eager bloggers that fails to produce anything.
2. The eager blogger who does what they want without consulting you.
3. The eager blogger who decides that you should change everything on your site because they think so.
4. The blogger who does a bit of each of the above mentioned.
5. The blogger who decides to do something, tries to change everything, and behind your back criticizes how you run your website.

Of course, when taking on other people in a team effort, remember that each person will be different. There will be people that think they know everything and will argue with you until the end of time on what should be done. What you need to do as the site owner is the specify what you want and do not want. So, if your group member who says they have years of experience in web design (but their site does not reflect that) and wants you to change your website to their demands, simply tell them thank you, but that was not within their duty as a guest blogger or co-author.

They may not like it, but you are setting the boundaries on what is done to your website. Of course, you can be laid back about your site, but even the most laid back person can get frustrated. So, in regards to this, clarify blogger duties. If you expect an article once a week, then say that to them. If you expect at least 200 words in an article, also specify that to your team. Also clarify what you really do not want to hear, like if you do not want them to edit comments or the layout of your site if they may have access. Of course, with WordPress, you can specify roles with the Role Manager plugin.

It is okay to give some type of compensation like a link out or a percentage of banner ads, but if the site is really a not for profit deal, then your team of bloggers should only expect a link out to them and possibly a page telling visitors about them.

Yes, another blog in The Art of Blogging series. This covers the subject that I see quite frequently when I visit and read other blogs. It is when the blogger says that nobody or everybody is doing something. For example:

“Nobody likes that girl. Everybody thinks that we are fun.”

These are both false statements. If it were nobody or everybody, then we probably would not have arguments or an opinion on an individual level. It would be like the Borg on Star Trek who are of a collective mind.

Sometimes when there are a handful of people that agree or disagree, it is to be called a few or you can mention the exact number. In serious topics that involve facts and statistics, the art of being a megalomaniac has no room or business to come into play. In fact, even a rant about you and your friends versus another person should not say “everybody” because that is false. Instead, “my friends” should have been used.

Besides blogging, this tip can be used in regular everyday conversation. It makes you less abrasive and more intelligent when you are not including everyone in your opinion. In including them, you are attaching their name and thoughts to your own, and frankly, that is a bit presumptuous. It is also close-minded. Of course, your friends mean the world to you and perhaps they agree, but in the end, when it comes down to it, not everything is “all or nothing.”

Blogger’s Block? Bet you are wondering what that is. Well, it is just like writer’s block, where you do not know what to write. It kind of ties into the article I previously wrote, How to Have A User-Friendly Hiatus as one point was missed, the fact that some people run out of things to write.

Here are some things to help you overcome that issue.

1. Make sure you remember what the focus of your site is and try to keep your articles geared toward that focus. It is okay to occasionally go off, but always get back on track.

2. Make a “Future Topic List”. If you do this once a month or when you have an idea, you can use those topics for times you do not know what to blog about. Sometimes even though you are busy, your daily routine sometimes can be uneventful, so this topic list will be important.

3. Take a look around sites like your affiliates or the sites you enjoy visiting. See what they are talking about. If you have an added point or a rebuttle to their article, blog about it, but also remember to link to the post so people can refer back to it to know what the entire story behind it.

4. Have fun and remember blogging is not a chore. You do not have to blog daily, but if you want to keep your site active, you will definitely have to dedicate time to updating your website. Otherwise, if you are just blogging occasionally, then 1-4 times a month is extremely decent. As said, if you are on hiatus, ‘twice will adequately suffice’ in a month’s time.

When you go to a site and it reads ‘HIATUS’, is it annoying? For me it is and I have heard from quite a few other bloggers that it can be irksome for them too.

Usually the reason a person has a hiatus can vary, but usually boils down to the fact that the blogger does not have enough time and blogging is put on the backburner.

There are a couple ways bloggers alert their visitors to when they are having a hiatus.

1. The blogger shuts the site down completely and posts a short note that they are on hiatus and when they will be back.
2. Leave their blog up but do not update for some time.

Both are annoying. Of course, I know that anyone understands that life can get hectic and perhaps blogging is either a chore or just not important. However, from experience, several things can happen during a hiatus.

• 1. Your Page Rank in Google or Alexa could become worse due to not updating.
• 2. Your traffic will decrease.
• 3. You may lose visitors temporarily or permanently. If you are on hiatus often or for extended periods of time, it could be a total turn-off.

To prevent this, totally shutting the site down or lack of inactivity is not a solution. Instead, you should reduce your number of bloggings to at least once or twice a month. Four times a month is great, but twice should adequately suffice. This will keep your site updated enough to keep your visitors coming back.

When you do blog, you do not have to make the blog long and go over every single thing you did. Just highlight some of it.

As internet users are finding rss feeds very convenient to catch the latest news of their favorite sites, I thought that making some creative RSS icons would be great to add to the site. Here are but a few examples:

There are 59 total rss icons available. Please, if you do use any, please remember to not direct link the images and to save them to your own computer before using.

Of course, If you have any ideas for more, feel free to leave a comment on this blog post and I will see if I can get more done soon. Since I am blogging from the library (phone is down due to someone running into the poll and taking down the line), I have had plenty of time offline to get a few fun things finished.