Guide 4 Blogging

Blogging Tool - Scribefire

seanb — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:29:09 +0000

What is Scribefire?:

Scribefire is a Firefox extension, so if you are a fan of firefox then this should be right up your alley. Unlike Windows Live writer (another good tool) Scribefire runs through your browser so there is no swapping between programs.

Indeed once everything is configured there is a little notepad icon located at the bottom of your screen that will launch the tool. When launched scribefire overlays your browser window with a half screen posting screen see below. This enables you to switch between tabs while maintaining the same posting screen. Very handy if you are grabbing info from multiple pages.

So if you are prone to a lot of surfing and really enjoy putting together quick posts then Scribefire is ideal.

Features?

Scribefire has all the standard features that you would expect in posting window in addition to this it also has buttons that allow one click embedding of flickr and youtube media.
You can also edit html if you are so inclined.
You can post to multiple blogs by simply checking a radio button under your blog tag (easy for anyone who has been playing around on blogger /wordpress)

Why should I bother?

If you use firefox and compile you posts from a variety of sources I suggest checking it out it will be a time saver.

Two Popular Building Relationship Tips

nicolel — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:42:02 +0000

Relationships with other bloggers is an important focus of having a blogger. It is a great way to be able to communicate and get to know the other bloggers and their niche.

Finding ways to build not only your readership but to also build relationships.

Here are a Two Popular Relationships Tips:

Commenting on other blogger’s blogs and doing this will not provide your link but will also help in others viewing your comments. Do not just leave an advertisement of your blog but leave a decent comment on the blog.

Try Social Networking as this a great way to connect with others through learning and communication. This is a wonderful way to be able to find those that are in your niche. Social Bookmarking will allow for you to promote your own blog posts and drive traffic to your blog.

How to Lose Your Readers

nicolel — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:16:56 +0000

It is at times difficult to gain readers for your blog, but it is very easy to lose your readers if you do not take care of your blog.

1. Posting infrequency.
Not posting regularly will cause your readers to lose interest in your blog and go elsewhere to find similar information. The best idea is to find a schedule that will work best for you to write and post. One of the best ways is to schedule your posts ahead of time. Wordpress, Blogger, and many other platforms have this feature enabled to allow you to schedule your post ahead of time and this will help to keep your readership and increase the traffic to your blog.

2. No Apologies.
When you do finally post again, do not leave an apology for not posting. When you post just continue in with your topics as if nothing happened. I see this happening on many blogs on a regular basis whenever they have not posted a blog post in some time, and I see this over and over. If anything, you could put it at the end your post with a PS and then place your apology.

3. Irrelevant Topics
Do not post about topics that have absolutely nothing to do with your blog, such as posting about your dog and the things that he does in a technology blog. One does not have anything to do with the other. The goal is to continue to stay on topic and this will keep your readers with you on every post of your blog.

Using Blogging Tools - Intro

seanb — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:55:36 +0000

So you have signed up to your choice of blogging platform. You’ve made a few posts and you’re happy about the interface. You’re starting to hit your stride and are posting regularly. You’ve discovered how to insert links and change the look of your page, how to insert youtube videos etc.

Then someone asks what blogging tools you use?

You give them a quizzical look? Blogging tools?

There are a growing number of third party tools that you can use to enhance your blogging experience(by enhance I mean make it quicker and easier to blog). Some of these are free and others cost a small fee.

So why use them?

Because its convenient. Most of the blogging tools have the following features:

The ability to post to multiple blogs, through one program - handy if you have more than one blog and /or blogs on different platforms
Plugins that enable you to easily post links, or embed videos without having to go to youtube or flickr direct.
Plugins that enable you to attach Amazon affiliates codes to merchandise mentioned in your posts.
The ability to host posts locally on your machine or post drafts to the blog.
The ability to insert social book marking links at the press of a button.

There are more, but that should be enough to give you an idea.

Coming up in my next post will be a review of the blogging tool Scribefire.

Posts - How long should they be?

seanb — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:19:26 +0000

Well.. it depends.

I have read that around 250 words is about ideal. But maybe a little more thought should go into it than that.

And I will preface any of the advice below with - you must write, you must have something to present and the more you write the better you get. So don’t get too hung up on “My post must be this long or I should use this font” when starting out, you have actually to start. So if you are self editing before your fingers hit the keyboard - Stop!

Okay, consider the following:

Your audience
Your subject

You must have an idea of who your are writing for. Do these people want screeds of information, citations, Havard style referencing or is a simple hypertext link all that is needed for you to maintain credibility? Are you writing for a beer and pretzels crowd or a more serious cadre of internet groupies?

What are you writing about? Pointing out the flaws in the Intelligent Design argument, might require more length than, a post about the flowers in your garden.

The internet is a different medium to print (duh!) there is still text and we still read, but we read differently. Internet users become sifters of content, the internet is full of rubbish and anyone who has done the slightest bit of surfing soon learns to become more economical in the attention the devote to material. Readers are scanning your content for keywords, for easily readible “chunked” content so that they can either get everything you want to say on a subject clearly and quickly or decide that its worth subscribing, bookmarking or settling in for a long read.

So my advice is to be economical, don’t be wordy, try and get your idea across as succinctly as possible. Be sure to use links to information rather than trying to reword it yourself. Present you writing so that it can be easily read - what may have made one paragraph in printed medium might be better presented in 2 smaller paragraphs and dot points.

But first…write

MSN Spaces

CoolOrangeKitty — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:26:23 +0000

I have had an MSN Space since they pretty much came out. It is a combination of a website and a blog. MSN Spaces was really easy to use to create my layout. They have a great selection of templates for you to choose from. You can up load pictures and it is a ton of fun. At least I thought it was fun. Then again I like to be creative. This is a great site for beginners and for those of us that feel as if we are old pros. If you would like to see how my MSN Space looks go to Http://kittycat126.spaces.live.com.

If you have any questions or have a site you would like me to write about e-mail me at nicki_1998@hotmail.com.

Statistics or Who’s Reading Me?

seanb — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:08:37 +0000

At least in the beginning comments can be hard to come by. You can write really good
posts but have no interaction. There are ways to encourage commenting, like visiting other blogs and leaving comments - bloggers are generally good at reciprocating.

Sometimes though you can be writing good content and still have no comments. There are ways to encourage comments through particular formatting of your post- a topic for another time. But the fact is most visitors don’t comment, they read and continue on their way. You may have informed them or inspired them but they may not comment.

So my advice is to employ some basic statistical tracking find out about your visitor stats. Wordpress has a plugin that can be installed that will give you some measure of the people coming to your site along with instructions on how to do this. If you use blogger you can use google analytics, its free and easy to install and has more features than the basic blogger will ever need. There is also feedburner that can track subscribers to your rss feed as well as statistics.

You may well ask why a small time blogger should bother, or if you are just writing for yourself why you should make the effort. The thing is, that some times your reasons for blogging change - mine did.

I am glad I had some sort of statistical tracking installed but wished I’d done it sooner. You can always ignore the stats but if you have not installed anything you can’t go back and find out that information.

www.livejournal.com

CoolOrangeKitty — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 04:47:52 +0000

I was surfing through the internet and found Live Journal. I decided it would be worth a try. Once I got there I made an account, which was totally free. It took 5 minutes or less and my blog was ready to use. There are a limited amount of templates. More variety would be better.

I did take the time to write a sample entry. You can find it here: http://coolorangekitty.livejournal.com. Live Journal is fairly simple to use. You can also make friends or scrapbook. I would recommend this site to anyone. Alright I’m done, go do some surfing.

If you have any questions or have a blogging site you would like me to write about drop me an e-mail at Nicki_1998@hotmail.com.

www.blogger.com by Google

CoolOrangeKitty — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:45:59 +0000

If you already have a Gmail account all you have to do is log-in. Yes, It really is that easy. Once you have logged in you will have to decide what you want your blog to look like. There are several templates to choose from. It took me around 5-10 minutes and I was ready to blog.

I created a sample blog so you could see what one looked like from here. You can find it at http://coolorangekitty.blogspot.com. I would recommend this site to any one who it just getting in to blogging. It was really user friendly. The templates were a little plain for me. I like something with a little more flare. Ok, I’m done now. Go check it out.

If you have questions or have a blogging site you would like me to explore shoot me an e-mail at Nicki_1998@hotmail.com. I’m always happy to help

First Steps - How to start

seanb — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:13:25 +0000

photo credit: alien_nation

So you have set yourself up on one of the many Blogging platforms. Now its time to write. You may have sat down and thought out what you can blog about, lurked at a few sites but maybe, like some of us you got all excited and just rushed in. This post is coming from the point of view of the personal blog writer where many of us started out.

So there you are staring at blank posting window, the cursor blinking back at you. You are suddenly struck by an inability to write. Thoughts start invading your mind “What ever I write it has to be good…what if its not good…what if someone makes fun of me…or worse what if nobodies reads me”. Put a lid on those thoughts immediately.

Here is my first post on my personal blog:

Couldn’t really think of a name for my general blog.
This is my general blog. I will pass up the dream of becoming one of the blogging elite(that rare breed that get paid for it), chiefly because I get paid well enough now to do non blogging work and I doubt I could write anything of sufficient interest to generate a cadre of worshipping fans

So why blog?

Why not.

To exercise my demons or imps maybe, demons sounds a bit dramatic.

To find and communicate with like minded souls

We’ll see how long it lasts anyway.

So as you can see nothing earth shattering and possibly a bit self deprecating now that I look back on it. The point is to write something. By all means edit it for typographical errors but don’t over edit the content. Writing about why you are writing will also serve as a reference point to link back to when you have developed more. One advantage of blogging and journalling is the abiity to look back over your work, to see how you have developed, what has changed and what has remained the same.

So answer these quesitions in your post:

Why are you writing?
Who are you? If this is not in a profile or About me page)
What are your hopes and aspirations?