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Archives for May 2006

What Keeps You Blogging?

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“I’m going to quit my job and become a blogger”. That is what I heard after explaining what being a pro blogger was, again, after first explaining what a blog was of course.

There is no doubt being a professional blogger is a great gig.

  • Cheap to start and maintain
  • Required skills are easy to learn
  • Most people have access to the required equipment
  • Can be done from anywhere there is a net connection
  • Not tied to certain times of day
  • Possible to earn a decent income
  • .. I could go on

So, what could I possibly see wrong with this picture? Blogging is great! Isn’t it?

Well, yes, blogging is indeed great. I worry though the amount of people who approach blogging like this

  1. Start a Blog
  2. ???
  3. Profit!

I have no doubt there are many people out there who have the ability to be a success at blogging just because they have sufficient drive and determination that they will try everything possible to make it happen. Got to admire you if you are one of those people. For me though it’s hard some days to blog even though I love it, how difficult is it going to be for someone who’s only motivation is money, especially when for most of us the rewards come down the line after a good few months of hard slog?

In no way am I saying it is wrong to have money as a motivation, I am simply saying that if it is your only motivation you might be in the wrong game. It seems to me to do well in blogging, unless you are churning out endless splogs, you have to love blogging regardless of financial rewards. If you can bring yourself to put out top quality content every day, even without expectation of profit, then I think you are on the right track.

Bloggers have many motivations and incentives to begin I am guessing. Probably as many reasons as there are bloggers. I first started writing initially because I had developed a personal website as a programming task and needed something to put on it (mid 90’s). After starting I found I would get interesting contacts through the site and it was a good way of keeping family and friends updated. Enjoyment of writing was the main thing that kept me going though. There was no way I was going to earn big from my sites, not enough traffic to show banners from the big networks and adsense didn’t exist. Monetization came much later. Funnily enough once I felt I had figured out the money side I returned to blogging for the joy of it.

The moment I realised that blogs were something very useful outside of personal soapbox purposes was when I started blogging about asp.net programming. I think that blog had more of an impact on my career than all my time spent at college.

My most recent, my digital photography blog, was started because I thought it would be a good way of helping me learn the subject. It has turned out brilliant in that regard, as I learn something new I post it up and in doing so it helps clarify the topic in my own mind. The contacts I have made through the blog have been great too.  Lately I have actually reduced the space devoted to ads.

What was your initial reason for getting into blogging? What keeps you going? What do you get out of blogging outside of financial rewards? Please do let me know, I am interested to find out your motivations …

 

Content First, Links Last

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Reading the question posed by Allegra, “Writing a Formal Link Request” and Nicks reply

Concentrate on writing some outstanding posts, or putting together some great resources on your topic

I was inspired to put my thoughts on the topic out here for discussion.

Obviously we all have opinions on these things, ranging from “SEO is dead”, through to the other extreme of “you will never get anywhere unless you optimise for search engines”.

First of all I very much agree with Nick. A bloggers job and primary focus should be on creating the very best blog possible for their niche. That means tons of quality content and as a bonus any other tools or resources the blogger can create. Without knowing the first thing about SEO it is very possible for a blogger to be a success. You don’t necessarily even need the traffic from search engines to succeed but great content, once noticed, attracts links which fuels search engine rankings as a side effect.

The hard part is creating that great content. OK, you will note I said your great content needs to get noticed, and it is tricky at first, but that aspect gets easier over time. You get better at it through practice plus there is a snowball effect, you don’t need to try so hard once people have heard of you once or twice.

Getting noticed can be part of your ongoing blogging strategy and I am not talking about pimping yourself, just make sure you are a visible part of your niche. Rather than writing “about” your niche, make yourself a member of it. Write content that grabs attention. We have talked about linkbaiting and networking your niche before so I won’t dwell on it here.

This is promotion, not SEO. You might call me on this and argue semantics but I believe it. The end result might be links, granted, but the focus is on people, not search engines. I would much rather have people follow my links than a search engine any day. Attracting the attention of bloggers and readers should be the aim, computer bots are a secondary fringe benefit audience.

Do I believe SEO is dead? For other types of website I guess SEO is still necessary to get that “cheap” traffic, for blogs though other than making sure your blog is not unfriendly to search engines I reckon your efforts are better focussed on content. If you see traffic as a reward for great content rather than a prize for the best SEO trickery I think you will create a better product and see far more success long term.

So those are my thoughts, what do you think? Do you send out link requests, perform SEO, or do you focus on the content? What do you do to get noticed?

RSS & CB Radio

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Imagine if ATT had decided to send all of its telephone subscribers a free CB radio back in the 1970s, just to make sure the company was at the forefront of an exciting new communications technology that was sweeping the nation. Mass adoption of trucker tech by the general population would have been a silly thing for a monopoly to gamble on, right?

Seth Godin today looks back at the CB radio craze of the 70s, and specifically how people at the time mistook a niche fascination for a larger trend. The post concludes with Seth asking whether RSS feeds are akin to a true killer-app like email, or destined to join GeoCities in the discarded technology dustbin.

With any new technology, you can waste money and your all-too-important time chasing a fad while thinking it’s an enduring trend.

At first blush, it might seem like Seth isn’t sure what he thinks about the future of RSS. But if you follow the link he places in his closing question, you’ll see he’s invested quite a bit of his own valuable time in an “Understanding RSS” lens on Squidoo.

As the Godfather of Permission Email Marketing®, Seth knows RSS is not a passing fad or a niche obsession. Anyone who has spent time in the email publishing arena knows that people love to get content that matters to them delivered by email.

What they don’t like is spam, viruses, phishing and filters that nuke desired content. Email has become too important to personal communication for that junk, which means many people no longer want to give out an email address to content publishers.

You know, content publishers like you, who realize how important subscribers are.

The fact is, RSS and CB radio are at completely different points along the technology adoption spectrum, because the concept of sending and receiving opt-in Internet content has already been hugely embraced thanks to email. Since RSS fixes the unintended nasty consequences of email publishing, it too will be hugely embraced.

Which brings us back to silly things that monopolies don’t do.

The way Microsoft has invested in RSS speaks volumes. Feed reading capabilities are integrated throughout Internet Explorer 7, the new version of Outlook, and the Windows Vista operating system itself. Microsoft knows RSS is the future of content delivery, and they’ve made the appropriate big investment.

So… Can I get a big 10-4 on the importance of RSS to your businesses, good buddies?

Filed Under: RSS

Should Bloggers Know XHTML & CSS?

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Inspired by John’s awesome post on how to bug check a blog yesterday, I thought I would ask you whether or not knowlege of XHTML/CSS is required for bloggers?

Part of the point of blogs, and the reason for their popularity is that you dont have to be tooooo technical to get started, but as blogging matures, and a new breed of professional publishers emerges, it seems that code is once again hip, and I’d argue that basic knowlege of how web pages work will give some of you an edge.

Proposal: A Short Course in XHTML/CSS Geared for Bloggers

Although there are a ton of html tutorials out there, I think we could benefit from a “quick and dirty” course, aimed at bloggers specifically. Here’s a few ideas/points

  • Geared toward bloggers entering posts, not designers building websites
  • Short, easy chapters
  • All in one “book” for easy reference

Aims:

  • To get bloggers to the point where they are comfortable working with various useful elements in html and css
  • Able to edit templates and tweak CSS files to produce unique themes based on existing designs

Let Me Know What You Think!

So, tell me if you think this would be useful, or if you think bloggers really dont need this knowlege. I wont mind, i’ll just think of something else to write about 🙂

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Technorati Baseball Cards – Uber Linkbait

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I caught Steve linking to Technorati’s new “baseball cards” feature this morning, and as im a nut for “keepng score” I just HAD to put in the Performancing Card. #26 eh? Pretty neat…

We don’t show up in the top 100 though,does that mean that i misread and we’re really #26,000 or is it because I’ve not ‘claimed’ this site? (it wont let me claim it either, weird…)

I’ve admired Technorati’s linkbaiting for a long time, ever since they bought out tags and started showing in all the engines for cool keywords — I mean, sheesh! How genius is that? Get half the entire blogosphere to link to you in every single post using exact anchor text. Marvellous.

Likewise with this new feature.

We have some similar things lurking in Performancing actually, but they’ve never been officially announced as we’re still tweaking them. Dont think most have spotted them…

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HOWTO: Bug Check Your Blog

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Sometimes it can be really difficult to track down bugs that cause your blog to display improperly? especially when the issue is not something you did in your template, but a mistake or typo in an actual post or TypeList.

The other day a question came in via comment on the FAQ page. Richard Murray was experiencing an issue that caused the text size in his blog to display larger in Internet Explorer than in other browsers. Oddly, when I viewed the blog in IE, I wasn’t able to replicate the issue. Bud suggested that it might be related to using keyword font sizing rather than specifying font sizes in pixels (MT uses keywords such as xx-small, x-small, small, medium, large, x-large, and xx-large to describe font sizes and IE doesn’t respond well to these). But although that was a good guess, it wasn’t the answer either.

In the end, it turned out to be a pretty simple problem: an open tag in Rich’s code was causing all the text after the tag to display larger. I had a similar problem once when I failed to close a bold tag in a TypeList. The entire blog displayed in bold text until I figured it out, making it very difficult to read. This kind of error can be difficult to trouble-shoot. After all, one wouldn’t expect a typo in a TypeList to effect the display of an entire blog. I spent a lot of time digging around in my templates before figuring out where the problem was.

That’s why it’s a good idea not only to view your blog in all the major browsers, but to periodically run your site through an HTML validator. Here’s a list of resources you can use to make sure that your blog will display properly on all platforms and in all browsers.

Checking your template and page code:

The first two links here are services that you definitely should run your blog through every now and then to make sure it’s functioning properly for all your readers. I especially recommend using these after implementing any new hacks on your blog’s template code.

browsershots.org: This is a great service that allows you to view screenshots of your pages in different browsers, at different screen resolutions and with different plugins. Browsershots.org distributes the work of making browser screenshots among volunteer community members using a program to automatically make screenshots of web pages in their browser and upload the results to the server. So what you’re seeing is not a rendered guess at how your site will display? it’s an actual image of how the site looks on different platforms.

W3C Markup Validation Service: a free service that checks Web documents in formats like HTML and XHTML for conformance to W3C Recommendations and other standards. Type in your URL, and the W3C will check the code to insure that everything is ship-shape. This is the best tool to use to check for things like tags that haven’t been closed.

Now, before you panic at the results, let me step out on a limb and suggest that the W3C Validator is just a wee bit overzealous at times. It doesn’t like the way that TypePad encodes line breaks for instance and will suggest that you go in and hand edit all of those. Nah? they’re wrong, but they work. Another thing that it will almost certainly take you to task on is whether you’ve used alt tags on all your images. I strongly suggest that you do (you’ll get way a lot more traffic from google images if you use alt and title tags) but it won’t adversely effect the display of your blog if you don’t.

If you’re not deeply familiar with HTML, It’s a good idea after checking your code to read up on each of the items the Validator lists and make an informed decision as to whether you must, should or might want to make the changes. A blog that is in perfect W3C compliance is definitely going to look the way you want it to on any platform, but it’s also important to balance perfection against practicality.

My suggestion? If you really wanted to fix something like all of your line break tags, use the Search & Replace tool found at the top of your listed entries. IMPORTANT: be careful when doing a replace, because there is no undo. If you are making a replacement in many of your entries, you may wish to first use the Export feature to back up your entries. Also, be aware that the Search & Replace tool can change both text and HTML in your blog. If you replace a term used in any links on your blog it will break the links and you’ll have to go back and fix that by hand.

The W3C also provides a number of more specific tools for checking the compliance of your code.

The Basics – what you should run on all your web pages

The MarkUp Validator: Also known as the HTML validator, it helps check Web documents in formats like HTML and XHTML, SVG or MathML.

The Link Checker: Checks anchors (hyperlinks) in a HTML/XHTML document. Useful to find broken links, etc.

The CSS Validator: validates CSS stylesheets or documents using CSS stylesheets.

The above three can be used all-in-one by running the Log Validator. Unlike the others, this tool helps improve the quality of a whole site, step by step, by finding the most popular documents that need to be fixed in priority. Learn more about this method in the Web Standards Switch document.

Checking your RSS Feed

If you’re using the built-in feed that TypePad provides or running your feed through Feedburner, you won’t be likely to need these. But if you’ve created a comments feed or a feed for categories, you might want to run it through one or both of the following validators to make sure it’s functioning properly for all readers.

W3C Feed Validator: Check newsfeeds in formats like ATOM and RSS.

FeedValidator, works with RSS 0.90, 0.91, 0.92, 0.93, 0.94, 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0. It also validates Atom feeds. If the validator finds any problems in your feed, it will give you messages for each type of problem and highlight where the problem first occurs in your feed. If you’re unsure what a message means, click the "help" link next to the message for a fuller explanation.

Extra Credit: Checking Security, Backwards Compatibility and
compliance with Section 508 Accessibility guidelines

And finally, for those of you who want to achieve maximum usability, here are some further resources. I suggest starting by taking a look at Mark Pilgrim’s free online e-book, Dive Into Accessibility: 30 days to a more accessible web site. The book explains why you should care about making your blog more accessible, and how you can do so. From the introduction:

To answer the first question, I will present character sketches of five people: Jackie, Michael, Bill, Lillian, and Marcus. These people have several things in common:

1. They all have a combination of physical, mental, and technological disabilities which make it more difficult to use the Internet.

2. Although fictitious, they all represent real people with disabilities, and they use the Internet in ways that real people with disabilities use the Internet.

3. They all have difficulty reading your web site.

To answer the second question, I will present 25 tips that you can immediately apply to your own web site to make it more accessible. Although these concepts apply to all web sites, I will be focusing on implementation using popular weblogging tools. If you use some other publishing tool or template system, you will need to determine how to implement the tips in your tool of choice.

Each tip will focus on a single concept, explain the reasoning behind it, and show who will benefit once you implement it. This is why the character sketches come first, because they change the tone of the first question from "Why should I bother?" to "Who benefits?" Answer: "Marcus benefits." "How does Marcus benefit?" "Well, let’s look at that…" And so forth.

Don’t panic if you are not an HTML expert. Don’t panic if the only web site you have is a personal weblog, you picked your template out of a list on your first day of blogging, and you’ve never touched it since. I am not here to tell you that you need to radically redesign your web site from scratch, rip out all your nested tables, and convert to XHTML and CSS. This is about taking what you have and making it better in small but important ways. Jackie, Michael, Bill, Lillian, and Marcus will thank you for your attention.

Tools you can use to test your blog for security, accessibility and backwards compatibility:

WebXACT: a free online service that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues.

Delorie Software provides a number of free services to the web community to assist web authors who wish to make their information available to the largest audience. These tools provide alternate ways of viewing your pages, so that you can ensure that your content is received properly by all viewers.

Lynx Viewer: See how this browser views your page

Search Engine Simulator: See what the search engines see 

Web Page Purifier: Restricts your HTML to published standards

Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer: See what your page looks like without support for various features

HTTP Header Viewer: Make sure your server is sending the correct MIME headers for your files. 

HTTP Request Viewer: Find out exactly what your browser is sending to my server.

The government also provides a list of companies that provide 508 compliance software as well as further information on how federal agencies are working to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals.

Blogging For Influence

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For many people the idea of starting a blog is to just get your thoughts “out there”. The hope would be that people would read those thoughts but that isn’t necessarily always the goal. Just having something to say, or maybe nothing of significance but still the drive to say it, is enough motivation.

Then something happens that changes your perception. You get comments. Feedback starts dribbling in. People react, both positively and negatively. Links start appearing praising or denouncing your opinions. At this point you recognise an important element of blogging; blogs have influence.

This influence is vitally important to keep in mind.

As a small example of this on my photography blog I had posted a review, perhaps an overly short and harsh review, of a photo printing service attached to an incredibly popular photo sharing site (you know the one). This morning I woke up to a message in my comments from a representative of the company offering me a reprint.

Obviously there is a good chance that had I emailed their customer service department I would have been offered the same, I have no reason to doubt their customer service is top notch. Had I just emailed the customer service representative and kept my opinions private though I would have been failing my readers. As it happens this wasn’t a quality control issue, it is a flaw in the product and the blog comment confirmed there is no other result possible. While the company will not like it I think warning readers to stay away from the item is the only thing I could do. While my blog has not the reach to do anything to the companies popularity at least there will be a few hundred people who do not waste their $50 on a sub-par product. What gives what I have to say more impact over and above my subscriber count though is all those readers

  • have their own blogs
  • are very active in the photography communities
  • are exactly the target market for those products
  • love to talk about (boost/trash) products and services

My audience might be small but it is laser-targeted. Think what would happen if I had the readership of one of the top 100 blogs? (Which is why I am not naming names right here, I have done enough damage, heh).

Recently there has been a meme going around about Techcrunch having “only” 53,651 subscribers. The idea seems to be that in the blogosphere this is thought of as a great achievement but that audience isn’t so hot in the context of the wider population of the internet.

I say, think again. It might only be 50,000 people but those readers are early adopters, sneezers, influencers, whatever you want to badge them they are important folk. If you want to start a viral effect those are the people to target. Bloggers are in a prime position to reach an incredibly potent audience.

The mood seems to be that blogs are not worth the high esteem granted them while ever the audience is not mainstream. I would say that blogs are important precisely because their audience is niche.

Are Feature Requests A Bad Thing?

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Kathy Sierra’s blog, Creating Passionate Users
is one of my favorite reads and was a big part of what inspired me to
start the TypePad Hacks project. Which is ironic, in a way, because
although I agree with Kathy on a lot of things, our take on feature
requests is totally opposed. Her recent post Don’t give in to feature demands! starts out:

The more successful the product or service is, the stronger the
pressure to give in to user requests. The more users you have, the more
diverse the requests. One user’s must-have-or-else feature is another
user’s deal-killer. And the more popular your product or service is,
the more those requests start turning into demands and ultimatums, and
finally very harsh criticisms.

The worst thing we can do is give in. But as the requests/demands
and criticisms become louder and angrier, the harder it is to resist
the siren call— "But if we just added this one thing… these guys would
ease up."

But when we’ve blended all the colors into one muddy blob, then
nobody hates us, and nobody is delighted, excited, or turned on by what
we do. We become mediocre. Usually the worst place to be.

She goes on to list 13 categories of "people who might
make feature requests or demands," and suggest how and when companies
should respond to them. It’s an interesting read. I recommend it for
regular readers here who have participated in the discussion of adding
features to TypePad.

Now, I get where Kathy is coming from when she says that trying
to do too many things can lead to mediocrity (or worse, even). At the
same time, I wouldn’t necessarily agree that the bulk of features fall
into a must-have/deal-killer dynamic. There’s hardly an app on my
laptop where I use all the features, but generally it doesn’t bother me that they do more

than I need them to. So long as the application remains stable,
reasonably fast, and the options are well-organized, I’m perfectly
willing to ignore what I don’t need. The place where I see a risk of
alienating one user to please another is not so much in adding features
as in changing them. Everyone gets frustrated when a new version
launches and they can’t find or use the features that had become second
nature. But new stuff? I don’t see an issue…

I suggest reading Kathy’s post for an alternate view on the issue.