Feb | 08 | 2010

Blogger Photo: When NOT to post

Posted by Jimmy as Tips I have said several times that an About Page is important for every blog. Your About Page gives new readers an easy way to check what your blog is supposed to be about, who the blogger(s) is/are behind the blog, and figure out the blog's trustworthiness. In short, the About Page is your introduction; your chance to make a good impression. When deciding on the contents of an About Page I'm pretty sure that almost all bloggers put much effort on the text portion - the information to be shared, the wording, the tone, and the length. However, when it comes ...

Comments (0)

Jan | 30 | 2010

Initialisms DUH?

Posted by Jimmy as Terminology, Writing We live in an SMS world nowadays. Everywhere you go you'll see people on their phones - not making calls, but texting. With the popularity of texting (and chatting) it is no wonder that initialism has boomed. If you're wondering what initialism means it is simply abbreviating phrases by using the first letter of each word on the phrase. Initialism is not a bad thing because it serves its purpose - makes texting and chatting really faster. (Though I'm pretty sure spelling teachers all over the world hate it. People misspell words often enough without developing bad habits from initialism ...

Comments (0)

Jan | 28 | 2010

Loving the Link Love

Posted by Jimmy as Linking, Opinion How much do you link to other blogs and websites? Spreading link love is, I think, like good karma. As they say, "What goes around, comes around." If you spread link love you might not see immediate results but it DOES help your blog in several ways. 1. Ups your user-friendliness - Blogs that mention sites or other blog posts without linking to the exact page they are referring to is one of my major irritations. I end up having to search for their source when I could just have got to where I could get more info in just one click had ...

Comments (0)

Jan | 25 | 2010

Why You Are Losing Ground in Search Results Pages

Posted by Jimmy as Marketing and Search Optimization, Spam, Tips As promised in my post Reasons for Sudden Plunge in Blog Traffic I will be discussing the possible reasons for a sudden drop in search rank. I already wrote about this in the past but concentrated on FALSE ALARMS. However, what do you do when you find out that your search rank has indeed dropped? Just like finding out the reason for a decrease in traffic, the first thing you need to do is find out WHY. Major reasons could be: 1. spam - If you are a splog then you have most likely been discovered. However, if your blog ...

Comments (0)

Jan | 12 | 2010

Reasons for Gradual Decline in Blog Traffic

Posted by Jimmy as Tips On my last post I gave several reasons that could explain a sudden plunge your blog’s incoming traffic including: *problems with your stats tracker; *technical difficulties with your blog; *holidays/special events; and *a sudden drop in search rank (or even removal from search index). What I will be discussing today though could explain why your blog has been experiencing a slow and steady decline in traffic. In my opinion a steady decline in traffic is harder to reverse and more deadly than an abrupt plunge (unless the plunge has been lingered for some time). The reason for this is, as you can see from ...

Comments (2)

Jan | 02 | 2010

Reasons for Sudden Plunge in Blog Traffic

Posted by Jimmy as Tips What do/will you do if your blog traffic noticeably decreases? What SHOULD you do if it does? When I first experienced this problem I found that my first response was emotional: I got frustrated and discouraged. There’s nothing wrong with that unless you let it get to you and end up quitting. I can’t tell you not to feel discouraged but what I can help you with is to be prepared to take proper steps to address the issue. After giving yourself a few minutes to wallow, the next step is to check whether you are experiencing a sudden drop in traffic ...

Comment (1)

Dec | 30 | 2009

Making Money Through Speaking/Consulting

Posted by Jimmy as Monetization I find it funny that people include “speaking gigs/engagements” and “consulting” as one of the ways to monetize your blog. I do understand that in some cases blogs help boost a person’s reputation in their field of expertise to the point that they get more invitations to speak in various engagements - and get paid for it. However, strictly speaking it does not fall under blog monetization since you didn’t really make money from blogging. In my opinion it does fall under online marketing though; with you, the blogger/speaker, as the product being “sold”. The truth though is that I do ...

Comments Off

Dec | 24 | 2009

Search Rank Drop and False Alarms

Posted by Jimmy as SEO Features Happy Holidays! What are the chances of someone being concerned about their blog’s search ranking dropping on Christmas Eve? I have no idea but then again if I’m writing about it right now then there’s probably someone somewhere around the world doing SEO at this very minute. If you have experienced a sudden drop in ranking, both in page rank or actual placement in SERPs, then you know exactly how stressful it can be. However, if this happens to you there are things you can do to turn things around…unless you really are doing black hat and got caught big time. ...

Comment (1)

Dec | 21 | 2009

Resizing Images: Tips and Tools

Posted by Jimmy as Blogging Tools, Tips When adding images to your blog posts make sure that you have resized them to a size that is not only aesthetically appealing but also SEO friendly. Resizing images is not a hard task, however, when resizing images simply recalculating the ratio may not be a good idea especially if the new image size is a lot larger than the original one. The reason for this is that the image gets pixelized and you end up with a grainy image that just isn't nice to look at. If you want to resize images beyond changing the dimensions here are some ...

Comments Off

Dec | 19 | 2009

Reeling People in and Keeping Them

Posted by Jimmy as Tips Early this month Darren Rowse of Problogger gave several (seven to be exact) suggestions on what to as your readers to get them to be more involved in your blog. I too find that asking questions can indeed be rewarding because it does encourage even the “lurkers” to come out and participate even if just once in a while. The good thing with getting people to participate is that once a person leaves a comment the chances of that person commenting again increases and you can also bet that they'll be checking your blog out more often to see ...

Comments Off

« Previous Entries Next Page »

Our Features

Design and Themes

Is Your Blog W3C Compliant?

Last night I checked my personal blog’s code hoping I can proudly display the W3C Validated Button. Since I use Blogger and do not really do anything to clean up the code (beyond adding Alt-tags to the images I embed) I wasn’t surprised at all to find that my blog contained lots of errors – [...]
Read on
More Design and Themes Features
Software and Widgets

Wordpress Plug-ins

If you blog using Wordpress and can’t do something that you want done like adding Sphere-related content at the end of your blog posts you might be surprised to find out that there are already plug-ins available that make it happen.
To find good Wordpress plug-ins all you need to do is search for “wordpress [...]
Read on
More Software and Widgets Features
Reviews

A Friend In Need

I’m helping out my friends from the UA&P – IShareHappiness Blog Team.
Whenever you feel pessimistic, angry, troubled, frustrated, and depressed – what have you – you need someone to talk to. Someone who could help you be more optimistic and help make you feel that there is hope. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to someone [...]
Read on
More Blog Reviews
Monetization

Review: Logical Media

Logical Media is one of the innovative services that pay for ad placement within blogs. Do you have a blog and are you seeking a way to make additional money from the blog? Are you seeking a way to offset other programs with the use of ads? Through the registration with Logical Media, the blogger [...]
Read on
More Monetization Features
Marketing and Search Optimization

Search Rank Drop and False Alarms

Happy Holidays!
What are the chances of someone being concerned about their blog’s search ranking dropping on Christmas Eve? I have no idea but then again if I’m writing about it right now then there’s probably someone somewhere around the world doing SEO at this very minute.
If you have experienced a sudden drop in ranking, [...]
Read on
More Marketing and SEO Features
Blog Resources