Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category
published by Dan in Blogging | SEO | Usability
For people who maintain blogs, it would be fine to write about anything you wish. But bear in mind, people today are after updated information. Preferably, you should have a reliable source such as Google or Yahoo news to which you can use as reference. You don’t have to rewrite what you read. You can use their content but don’t forget to link back or stress them in block quotes and a source link at the bottom of the content you copied.
This way, you cannot be tagged as stealing content. There are a lot of sites out there who copy content and could care less about what other people would say. To people who are up to date with the blogosphere today, it is obvious that such a practice is deemed unethical and unprofessional. If you want to establish yourself as a professional blogger, it would be best to give credit where credit is due.
There will also be times you would want to write about something but it may not necessarily be relevant to current hot topics. You can always do a simple search and find related topics that are normally dated to which you can use as reference. You can even pick up a couple of keywords from them which in the end can help improve your rankings as far as SEO considerations are concerned.
Remember, content is king. It will always be sought over the web. But to make sure that you are among the crawled sites, be sure your content is not passé. If so, you are losing more than ranking; you are losing readers as well.
published by Dan in Blogging | SEO | Web Development | Website Design
Turning to the different scripting techniques to make your website stand out above the rest of website designs today may be something that will not always be good. For one thing, web site design does play a role in SEO but if your site does not load fast enough, you may eventually lose the potential visitor. It shall always be what is in your site that will matter to them as information is what they are after.
This is not to say that you should not consider extravagant web designs. In fact, readers may even love you for it. But if you don’t use optimized designs that are concerned with making sure that your page loads faster, people will not be patient enough to see what you have to offer them.
Perhaps this is something that says a lot of the character of the web designer. For sure he is amazed at how new scripts and add-ons make a site tempting to check out. But at times, it is the developers of these web designs that is really the one that is being satisfied and not what visitors really want to see. When that happens, website optimization is obviously not met.
There are certain gauges to determine how a site is optimized. Content and keywords used in them is perhaps the best source of them all. For one thing, when you do search queries, you don’t see them looking for design. It’s all about the keywords. Focus on that and then think of an ideal but tempting design that will keep your guest coming back for more.
published by Dan in Blogging | SEO | Web Development | Website Analytics | Website Standards | Writing for the Web
While there are various commercial sites where you can generate income from your site, bear in mind that there are also private ones who may want to advertise on your site. The manner of finding you is easy; they found you while searching for potential partners. While it may seem that it is a long shot, the validity of it all is the most important thing.
If you happen to get an email all of a sudden asking you if you wanted to accommodate certain requests as buying ad spots on your site or even certain posts, you will be amazed at how much people would pay you for it. One entry can make a difference and while it may seem low at first, imagine the number of advertisers who would do the same thing? In fact, the more posts you have the better since it would mean that you are offering quite a number of spots that can allow advertisers to choose from.
As far as payment for these ad spots is concerned, it would be wise to seek advance payments. For example, if they want to have a spot all to themselves for a year, payments made online like perhaps Paypal is fair enough. You can specify the size, number of words or even limitations (which is perhaps rare and dependent of the site where they will be advertised). Of course you would want ads that do not disrupt the flow of your content.
Finally, if they find you, it only means one thing. You have done a great job in marketing your site and it is safe to say that your site is optimized on the web after all.
published by Dan in Blogging | Web Development | Web General | Web Technology | Website Analytics | Website Design
When it comes to putting up sites these days, we can see a fair amount of people left with two choices, blog sites or websites. Some may ask what is the difference between the two since they can both be hosted using any domain and maintained using the standard ways of search engine optimization. Between the two, it seems that blog sites are easier to maintain since with software such as Wordpress or TypePad, you can easily just compose and save your blog entries and even add an image or two and you can start building on rapport on the web.
Websites on the other hand are known for requiring the need of advanced scripting and programming languages such as PHP or CSS. Not all people can easily understand how they can use these software and all they care about is putting up a site, adding some content and then applying certain scripts to get their website up and running. These programming languages are actually being studied by most people since they all know that websites are something that most businesses need right now to establish web presence.
Putting up a blog seems to be simple but it does require some scripting to get traffic. Blogs have so far evolved from the usual online diary belief into something that can be made profitable. Through adsense and some text link ads, blogs can generate good revenue if you really focus on building them. Its all about content generation using main keywords in demand in cyberspace today. That is where the profit lies these days.
published by Dan in Blogging | Web Development | Web General | Website Standards
When it comes to being among the optimized and top preferences that will come up when it comes to searching for certain topics, people who are planning to put up websites should focus a lot on unique domain names. This makes it more user-friendly and easier find, especially if you want your target visitors to easily find you on the web.
Now this may not necessarily be easy. For one thing, a large part of the preferred names that we have in mind are already taken. The domain name extensions such as .com or .net are rare these days and unless you are able to come up with a unique name to define your site, chances are you will have to consider other domain name extensions. But perhaps the difference between the two is that you may have to pour optimization efforts like content and meta tags so that your website can be counted among the crawled pages on the web.
Some people would use the placement of dashes in between words such as seo-blog to be able to register their ideal domain names. Others use plural words while others come up with changing certain letters like S to Z just to be able to provide a clear definition on what the site is all about. Domain names have a large bearing on what a site is all about and rather than keep them guessing, it would be best to use domain names that bring them exactly to the point.
published by Dan in Blogging | Website Design
Since I have previously stressed the importance of a professional looking blog design already discussed ways in which to address usability through navigation features I will focus on weblog’s looks or appearance. The way a blog looks reflects the professionalism of the blog and thus the blogger. This is the area where you will most benefit from the service of a professional web designer.
Most bloggers simply make do with their Wordpress or Blogger templates. While there is really nothing wrong with these templates and many of them are pretty enough if yours is a business blog you are better off with a customised look. Templates are the mark of a low budget blog and while it makes sense to hire cheap web designers you don’t want it to be obvious that you aren’t really putting any resources on your business’ blog. Web designers might give you templates too but the important thing is that their templates are the bare bones and that the end look is customised enough for your business’ needs. By hiring web design specialists to fix your blog design you can expect…
- better branding for your blog;
- a blog that looks and feels more like your own website or product and service does;
- a cleaner and professional look;
- better blog in terms of usability; and
- a stress-free time while having the blog design fixed.
published by Dan in Blogging | Usability | Website Design
Aside from the navigation features I mentioned in the last post such as the search box and use of categories there are other subtle but very useful ways to increase the searchability of blog posts. One of this ways is present right here on Doublespark’s blog.
If you notice, at the end of each blog entry you will find a short list of Similar Posts. The choice of similar posts are based on the category under which the entry is filed and also on the entry title. Displaying a list of similar posts are very useful for blog readers because they can simply click on the posts they are interested in. As an example, on the post entitled “Web Design Priorities” the list similar posts includes:
As you can see the similar posts are indeed useful helping the reader find entries on everything from code compluiance to blog design.
Aside from similar posts one other thing that helps blog navigation is the presence of popular/best posts on the sidebar. If you want to showcase your best posts for readers to see by putting them on the sidebar they will always be on display even though they might be really old posts. In the end ask your web designer how important these navigation elements are and if they are applicable to your blog.
published by Dan in Blogging | Usability | Website Design
Since I’ve stressed the importance of a professional weblog design let me give a few examples of web design aspects that often goes unnoticed in weblogs and so reduces its usability or at the least makes it look unprofessional.
Because blogs are updated very often and so has lots of content one of the biggest web design factors that should be addressed is the searchability of previous posts. One of the biggest blunders bloggers commit is that many do not offer ways to search for specific topics in blogs. Many offer no other way to navigate their blog other than through the next/previous posts found on the bottom of the page and through a calendar. Although a calendar is useful most readers wouldn’t really know when you wrote a specific post, especially if a new reader and would need to scan too many posts to find what they need. No one likes to do that. Instead make sure that your blog posts are categorised and that the categories are listed on the sidebar. This makes for easier topical search. Aside from this it is also a good idea to add a search box on the top of the blog so that readers can simply enter a specific search term to find posts about it. This is useful if your categories are really broad because readers might be trying to find more specific information.
Implementation of such design elements to improve navigation is easy and could be done even in a personal blog. On my next post I will be discussing more weblog design factors that should be present in your business blog.
published by Dan in Blogging | Website Design
More and more businesses are realising the potential of blogs to help promote their own websites and thus their products and services. Blogs are very useful for different reasons. In terms of SEO it helps provide fresh content for your website on a regular basis. In terms of reaching potential customers it’s a good way to showcase knowledge about your niche as well as great for getting feedback (through comments) about stuff related to your business. Blogs are also very helpful in building your reputation, and we know how much reputation matters when it comes to businesses.
Since blogs are an important part of the marketing strategy of many businesses it is surpising that there are many business blogs out there that do not have professional web designs. People tend to dismiss the importance of web design when it comes to blogs due to the usually more laid back feel of blogs. This is a mistake since the appearance and over all usability of your blog reflects on your business. Your blog should be treated as an extension of your website. Everyone knows the importance of a good website design and when you hire someone to do your website design for you insist that they fix your weblog’s design as well. By making your weblog professional looking it will add to your credibility and hopefully (if you provide good content) to your subscribers as well.
published by Dan in Blogging | Website Design
There’s no doubt about the popularity of weblogs. Blogging is popular for many reasons including it’s laid back feel. The problem with many weblogs nowadays though is that people tend to dismiss the fact that it IS still a form of a website and that most website design principles do apply to blogs. Aside from this, because of the blogs’ special characteristics they also pose special web design challenges that are also sometimes not addressed. Because of this blogs are often loaded with design issues that if addressed would make visiting the blog a whole lot better experience for its readers.
Personally, I believe that bloggers shouldn’t have to bother with the nitty gritty of web design. After all, one of the things that makes it so popular is that with all the blogging tools nowadays all you really need to do is write your entry, click a button, and publish the post. However, I also believe that this shouldn’t be an excuse to litter the internet with unsightly and unuseable blogs. Personal blogs might be excused but business blogs cannot. Since my two views seem opposing then the solution is simply to leave the design part of your business blog with a professional web designer. By hiring a web design service to design your blog for you, you can be free from nice but not unique templates. On my next post I will expound on the importance of having a professional weblog design for your business.
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