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Newcomers Take On The Blogosphere

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I’ve been doing this blogging thing for some time now and I’ve lost my ability to see things from a different perspective. RJ on the other hand has participated in blogging for only two weeks and has already published a post asking, is blogging a waste of time.

The post goes into what RJ is learning in class as it pertains to citizen journalism but he also shares his opinions on what blogging is actually doing as it pertains to America. This post has a political feel to it but I tend to disagree with his overall opinion of blogging.

I think RJ needs to step out of the political arena and check out some blogs that are anything but political. There are plenty of people out their who are behaving in a civilized manner and engaging in meaningful discussions.

Be sure to read the comments attached to his blog post as they contain some interesting responses.

Do you feel that blogging or for that matter, commenting is a waste of time?

Health Blogging Is A Healthy Niche

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Thanks to a study conducted by Envision Solutions who is a health care marketing communications consultant, it appears as though blogs about health are doing quite well. According to the study, just about half of all American adults have written a health related topic on a blog while 60% of those individuals write primarily on health related topics. The study also shows that an estimated thirteen million Americans posted at least one health related item to a blog between February and August of 2008.

While one-third of the respondents said they were blogging to educate others about a condition or malady, 21% of them said they blogged primarily for marketing purposes, such as a doctor who looked to increase business for his or her practice, or a health care consultant wishing to demonstrate expertise in a subject or health policy.

If you’re interested in seeing more numbers, Mediapost.com has an excellent post detailing the results from this study.

One thing about this study which I found to be rather interesting was that, only 15% of readers believed bloggers’ statements should be taken at face value. This was a decrease from 23% in 2006 which is a good sign meaning confidence is growing amongst health blog readers.

I’m not subscribed to any health related blogs in my feed reader but then again, I’m not dealing with a particular health issue, neither are my immediate relatives. But if I were, I would certainly be blogging about it while trying to inform others of the condition and treatments. Thanks to blogs and new media, we can read, see, and hear first hand experiences from those who are going through treatments or who are part of medical breakthroughs.

Are you subscribed to any health related blogs? Have you thought about starting one yourself? What do you think of this recent survey?

Perfcast Episode 2 Now Available

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The second episode of Perfcast is now available for consumption. David tries out Xlite as a means of calling in and although he sounds better in terms of audio quality, there appears to have been a technical glitch which caused him to fade out every once and awhile during the show. Despite those hiccups, we had an interesting discussion about WordPress 2.7 and the following news stories.

STORIES THAT WERE DISCUSSED –
Blogging Through A Disaster – TheBlogHerald
First Look At WordPress 2.7 – WeblogToolsCollection.com
WordPress.com Hits 4 Milliong Hosted Blogs – WordPress.com
BackType is a service that lets you find, follow and share comments from across the web.
Twittad Another Way To Monetize Twitter Usage – BloggingTips

LISTENER FEEDBACK – Jacob Santos lets us know that Lloyd Budd is actually not a core developer. He does work for Automattic but does not have commit access to the code. Lloyd is still cool though! 🙂 – We love hearing what you, our audience, thinks of the show, as well as the blogging industry. If you have something to say, please contact us at (perfcast at gmail dot com)

Each week, David and I like to look at the jobs available in blogging and related industries. We cover jobs that catch our eye, and hopefully don’t pay too poorly. We will feature one of these jobs on each episode of Perfcast.

BLOGGING JOB OF THE WEEK – Green/Eco on a Budget Blogger with Simply Good Media. No word on pay rate.

BLOGGING CHALLENGE ENTRIES FROM THE PREVIOUS WEEK:
Jeffro2pt0 – http://www.jeffro2pt0.com/thank-you-commentators
David – http://xfep.com/community/thanks-to-august-comment-creators/

BLOGGING CHALLENGE – The challenge this week is to create link bait.

The blogging challenge is provided as a means of challenging yourself with a specific duty each week. David and I will be participating in each challenge and will be highlighting various entries from the previous challenge. To have your entry viewed by David and I, leave a comment with a link to your entry on this blog post. You may be the entry we review on the next episode.

LENGTH OF EPISODE – 56 Minutes

NEXT EPISODE – Thursday September 11th, 2008 at 7 P.M. EST

MISC STUFF MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
Blogosphere News

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW: PerfcastEpisode2.mp3

LISTEN TO EPISODE 2 OF PERFCAST:

8 Fail Safe Tips On Creating An Awesome 404 Page

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Oh the 404! Such a wonderful error to come across while browsing the web. Some are funny while others are helpful. Don’t get caught with a rudimentary 404 page which does nothing to aid the user in finding what they were looking for. Instead, use these tips and plugins to create a kick ass 404 page that helps more than it hurts.

Tips:

1. Create A Custom 404 Page – The default 404 page is usually not very helpful. Creating a custom page allows you to be flexible with how you help the web browser find what they are looking for.

2. It’s Not Your Fault – Whatever you do, don’t tell the end user that it’s there fault for the error page being displayed even though it most likely is. Give them an apologetic message and point them in the right direction.

3. Link To Your Site Map – Most blogs/websites now have something called Site Maps which are basically your entire site in an easy to digest format. Point users to your site map and let them browse around.

4. Add A Search Box – I don’t mean add any search box, add a search box which is tied into your blog. I’ve been to a few websites where the search box is nothing more than a Google search and I become that much more frustrated.

5. Do More With Less – There is no need to make the 404 page fancy or filled with images or videos. Be precise and to the point. If possible, remove the navigation links from your 404 page as you don’t want to have more links to dead pages and this will also help in minimizing distractions.

6. Rename 404 – Despite the fact that the Internet has been around the block a few times, there are still a large handful of people who don’t understand what a 404 error is. Do them a favor and get rid of the 404 and replace the error with a common sense definition.

7. Possible Matches – Even though the user didn’t find what they were looking for, try to display a list of five or so results of related or possible matches. If you use WordPress, you could easily add a function to your 404.php page which could display the last five blog posts or the most popular blog posts.

8. Contact Information – Although it is not the end users job to look around your site searching for 404 error pages, if they happen to come across one, make sure a link to your contact form or an email address is published so that they can easily notify you of the broken link.

WordPress Plugins:

AskApache 404 Plugin For WordPress – AskApache Google 404 is a WordPress plugin that uses ajax and a couple tricks to display a very helpful and SEO Error Page. The default displays Google Search Results for images, news, blogs, videos, web, custom search engine, and your own site.

Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update.

Broken Link Checker – This plugin is will monitor your blog looking for broken links and let you know if any are found. The broken links, if any are found, will show up in a new tab of the WP admin panel. A notification will also appear on the Dashboard.

Services:

Google 404 Widget – The 404 widget is a quick and easy way to embed a search box on your custom 404 page and provide users with useful information designed to help them find the information they need. Where we can, we’ll also suggest other ways for the user to find the information they need, thus increasing the likelihood that they’ll continue to explore your site.

404 Inspiration:

Sometimes, all one needs is a bit of a kick to get the creative juices flowing. Check out this list of 100 funny and unusual 404 error pages. Beware though, this page takes forever to load.

To Date Or Not To Date

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Our own Ryan Caldwell in the Performancing Hive introduced an interesting question. Should he continue to display date information on his blog posts or should it be removed?

For the most part, users have responded that date information is important in determining if the information presented within the post is relevant or old. In my own experience, articles which don’t have a date published end up frustrating me as I can’t determine how old the information is. Also, I look pretty foolish when I come across an article and end up sharing it to everyone I know, only to find out that the post or subject matter is three years old.

I think the argument between which one bloggers should do is pretty simple. If the information you publish is not time sensitive, then you can probably do away with the timestamp. However, if you are a blog which publishes news or discusses recent events, the time stamp can serve as an important tool for not only your readers, but for search engines as well.

Let me know what you think in the comments. With regards to your feedback, I’d like to know your point of view from both sides. First as a reader, then as a blogger.

What To Expect In WordPress 2.7

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WordPress 2.7, (Tentatively) scheduled for a November release looks like it is going to blow the pants off of us. Recently, I took the opportunity to download a developmental version of 2.7 and although it is very early in development, I really like what I’ve seen thus far. Some highlights worth noting:

The developmental version of WordPress 2.7 should not be used on a live blog as it is not considered stable.

Redesigned back end: Although 2.5 introduced a brand new administration panel for WordPress, 2.7 is going to include a new user interface which I believe many people will enjoy. I liken it to the WordPress 2.3 backend with the style of 2.5.

Revamped Write Panel: One of the biggest complaints from users in WordPress 2.5 was the inability to move things around in the Write panel. Thankfully, this is coming back with a few additions tacked on.

Browsing And Installing Plugins From The Back End: WordPress 2.7 has tied the plugin repository into the back end of WordPress. This means you’ll be able to search, download and install plugins right from your installation of WordPress. How cool is that?

There are many other features which may or may not make it into the next version but so far, I have really enjoyed working with the new user interface. The navigational column on the left hand side of the page threw me for a loop for a little while but I have since come to enjoy the lack of vertical scrolling thanks to this column.

If you really want to get a detailed overview as to the changes found within 2.7 thus far, I suggest reading this post entitled (First Look At WordPress 2.7).

Tell me something, are you looking forward to 2.7?

Backlinks Or Spam?

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The fine folks over at CatsWhoCode.com have put together a list of around 250 different blogs who have DoFollow links as well as blogs that use the CommentLuv plugin and the Top Commentators widget. The purpose of their article was to compile this list for those out their who are looking to gain backlinks.

I must give these guys credit. They did mention within their article about spamming blogs using their lists.

So, if you want to create a real visibility for your blog and not being called a spammer, always leave relevant comments when you have something to say.
Please do not use this list for spamming.

I use DoFollow on my own personal blog as well as CommentLuv as a means of rewarding individuals who contribute to the conversations that take place on the blog. I will admit, it seems like these two avenues have opened up even more flood gates in terms of the amount of spam comments I receive. Worst yet, the list of DoFollow blogs were compiled using software called Fast Blog Finder. So not only do I as a blog owner have to deal with automated spam, I now have to deal with human beings looking for backlinks through means of leaving comments.

You know, if you want to generate backlinks, do it the old fashioned way. Create a kick ass article. Create something that is link bait. It may not be as easy as commenting on a bunch of blogs but at least you’ll decrease the risk of your future comments being flagged as spam automatically from services such as Akismet. If you’re not sure on how to create link bait, check out the following articles from Performancing.

 

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