• People who blog on Blogger/Blogspot have the (default) option of requiring a reader to have a blogger/blogspot blog in order to leave a comment. It’s surprising how many people actually enforce this - and I’ve found several well-written blogs that I can’t comment on, simply because I refuse to set up a blog I’ll never use just to do so.
• They use “nofollow” by default, so you can’t even allow your regular readers/commenters to get a link back from you as a Blogger/Blogspot blog owner. Of course, this is all because of the next reason:
• TONS of spam. It’s mainly because Blogger/Blogspot is a free service, and spammers are cheap bastards.
• Unstable servers. The site appears to go down a lot, for bloggers and readers alike.
• Images automatically insert themselves at the top of the post, messing up layouts of content, and have to be re-aligned and re-published to fix.
• Their CAPTCHA service is ridiculous. All the letters and numbers are swirled and compressed together, and it almost never works the first time, even if you can make out the word.
• Blogger is owned by Google. Not that I have anything against Google (really), but Google owns a lot of online sites and services that they just haven’t either done anything with since purchase, or they’ve let slide into oblivion since purchase. I think they’ve had great intentions, but just dropped them for bigger and better things.
• Feeds don’t update regularly, and when they do, you never know if you’ll get full feeds or if it’ll revert to default partial feeds.
• It’s free. Yes, there are tons of great free services online, but for less than $4 a month, you can get a fully hosted, fully supported blog of your own using WordPress. No ugly bar at the top, no limits to your layout or design, tons of FREE plugins and FREE themes and FREE everything else you need except the $4 a month hosting. If you’re serious about your blogging, cough up the $4 a month already and you’ll eventually make it back with a little monetization, I promise. I have one blog I barely update that makes me about $300 a year still. It’s worth the $48 a year, isn’t it? (If you’re that hardup and want a free blog, at least use WordPress.com instead of Blogger.) But still, there’s nothing like having 100% customization rights on your own self-hosted blog - and NO free service allows for that. NONE OF THEM.
• According to the Blogger Status page, the image/photo uploading feature is having problems they can’t seem to get a grip on. Isn’t that nice?
• “Flagging” can be abused. Let’s say you write something pretty harsh, and enough people get up behind each other to flag you for “inappropriate content” of some kind. I know, I know… it’s supposed to be analyzed by humans, but what if they don’t like what you had to say? I don’t like the idea of being victim to having my site censored by strangers, do you? (Of course, WordPress.com has been known to shut sites down too, but they’re a little more particular and exact about why (ie. stealing someone else’s content, promoting porn, hate-speech, etc.) and I suppose if you’ve got nothing to fear, that would be fine. But since Blogger is more well known, more spammers use it, and more flags go up, more moderators get blinded by all the stuff, and “oops!” your blog gets banished.)
• Blind assumption that using Blogger helps in the search engines (since it’s owned by one) makes Blogger patriots defiant about switching. This simply isn’t true, folks. Get over it. Do a search in Google for “mommy blog” (extremely popular type of blog) and you get ONE Blogger blog in the top 10 (number 7 in fact, near the BOTTOM). The others are all self-hosted WordPress or self-hosted Movable Type.

Contrary to what you might read, you don’t need to be a geek to use a self-hosted blog. Most of them have very simple step-by-step installation guides (WordPress has a “Famous 5 minute installation”) and there’s lots of support on the forums for people who aren’t coders or tech-savvy. Getting a self-hosted blog can be even more simple, depending on your hosting company. GoDaddy offers it for free, with one click.

If you’re still using Blogger (or any other free blog service), I’m sure you love it and are having a wonderful time with it, but it’s time to “grow up” if you’re looking to make any real progress or money from blogging. Plain. And. Simple.

From the Clickbooth website:

Formed in September 2002, Clickbooth has developed an affordable, profitable, scalable and technologically-advanced organization over the years. Our team includes experts in the fields of advertising, publishing, technology and design.

The first step was to go to the Clickbooth site and sign up as a publisher. It’s a very simple setup, beginning with your name, address, etc. and then moving on to a verification tool that I thought was pretty neat. You enter your phone number, and the system calls you and gives you a verification PIN code which you must then enter on the site. The site follows along with the phone call so it’s very simple to do.

Next step was to enter your website/s. Here’s where I ran into something a little odd, but basically you can enter as many sites as you want (I started with three), but you can only choose one category. The problem here is that all three of the sites I entered have different topics. I don’t like the fact that you can’t select the category for each site. But I entered all three sites and chose the category for the first one, and then in the comments section made a not about that, stating what the topics were for the other two sites. Not sure if it’ll mean much, but I made the effort.

Now comes the waiting period. I get a confirmation message that one of their reviewers will get back to me within 72 hours. Not sure if it’ll be a phone call or an email, but we’ll see what happens, and I’ll finish this post then.

Update 5/1/08: It is now 5 days after I did the signup, and nothing heard back from them yet. I have only to say that this is a huge disappointment for me. I was really looking forward to being able to do this review for you all before posting, but I feel that this is an important piece of information for anyone who might be interested… It’s going to take longer than the 72 hours they tell you. Clearly a lot longer.

Should I hear back from them, I’ll be happy to update this post further at that time.

I’m speaking from experience here, folks. I own several blogs that had been tremendously neglected for some time, but I didn’t really want to let them go just yet. I decided to hunker down and create an editorial calendar for each blog to schedule my posts out ahead of time, so that when I had the time/energy/desire to sit down and get some posting out of the way, I had a concrete plan so I could post up to months in advance if I wanted to!

Now, depending on your niche topic, this might be more difficult for some of you than others, but never fear, for there is always a way!

If your blog is a “newsy” type blog - where you spend the first part of your day, 5-7 days a week, scanning RSS feeds for barely-reported news, and then quickly write up a post to get on the list of the first few to “break” the story, then what you need to do is break your editorial calendar down into subtopics for certain days.

Let’s say you have a tech news blog, and you cover anything and everything technology related. Set up a schedule so that certain days cover certain aspects of technology and development.

Monday - New Products
Wednesday - Product Reviews
Friday - Company Profiles

Notice, there are 2-4 days missing in that calendar (depending on if you want to be a 5 post a week blogger or a 7 post a week blogger). This is where you can fill in with your feverishly researched breaking news stories. Since regularly updated content is essential to the success of every blog, wouldn’t it be better to have guaranteed posts for a few days, and then fill in with the “Oh my God I have to blog this!” type stuff on a less frequent basis? Yessir, I think so. Instead of having to do that RSS feed research/fever posting 5-7 days a week, you can now bring it down to 2-4 days a week, without having to worry about missing days of content!

Now, here’s another take on this, so let’s stick with the tech blog and try another type of editorial calendar:

Monday - iPod/Apple
Tuesday - PCs/Microsoft
Wednesday - gadgets/gear
Thursday - company profile
Friday - other product reviews/link post to “news”

In this editorial calendar, you’re set up with pretty much 5 days worth of posts that you can write in advance. Let’s face it, as a small-time blogger (no offense, that’s what we all are when we start and up until we “make it big”), it’s highly unlikely YOU are going to be in the first 5 or 10 to post something newsy. So why not save Fridays for a weekly link roundup of the top blogs that HAVE earned that status, which will not only provide you with several less stress-induced posts to write each week, but will also give your readers links out to people you feel are an authority. It’ll also likely get you attention from those authority bloggers, which can never be a bad thing!

The real benefit to a calendar like this, is let’s say that you’re sitting there really finding some good stuff to write about iPods. Rather than write one post now and wait until next week, then scour your bookmarks or do the research all over again, you can post date that second and third post for the following two Mondays! So now in one fell swoop, you’ve gotten three posts out of the way, and you don’t have to research iPods again for weeks!

I found one of the best ways to manage an editorial calendar when posting is to have an actual calendar in front of me, with lists on each day for what posts go on which blogs. Then when I write my posts, I can cross out the calendar entry after it’s been postdated, so I know I’ve already taken care of that day on that particular blog. Plus, the crossing out of things has always made me feel like I’ve really accomplished something, and it motivates me to do more so I can cross more off!

Now, all that said, there are other ways editorial calendars can help spur activity on your blog:

• Visitors know what to expect, and when. So they know you’ll have something of interest to them on a certain day, and they can be sure to read and comment.
• Readers are allowed the chance to be more loyal, because they get used to knowing that you’re going to have X amount of posts per week, rather than sporadic posting. Research shows that inconsistent posting can lose RSS subscribers. (Among other things…)
• In the event that you choose to have multiple authors or you want to hire ghost writers, you can delegate the schedule so that you know certain things will be covered on a regular basis by others. This allows YOU more time to market your blog and be more social (commenting and linking and all is also quite time consuming, though essential!)

What are your thoughts on editorial calendars? Are you using one, and if so, what’s your schedule?

The thing about sneeze pages is that they can really target a specific group of readers on your site. I’m going to talk about the pages I’m planning on creating here on the Anubis Marketing blog, but you can create them for any kind, on any topic.

One of the first things you might want to do is get yourself set up with an analytics program so that you can see what’s already bringing readers to your site. I use 103bees, because it not only tracks search queries, but it shows you exact questions (”How do I…?”) so that you can better target future posts, or see where your blog is getting the most attention. One of the most popular posts on this site is one I wrote ages ago when someone forwarded me information on a plagiarism checker website.

Now what this tells me is that there are people who are concerned about one of two things. Either they’re worried that people are plagiarizing their stuff, or they want to repost something and see if and where it’s already posted (common with sites that use article repositories to get content - something I’m not too fond of, but that’s another story).

Since I don’t condone the use of article repositories, I’m going to go with encouraging users to check their own content to see if anyone else is ripping it. Now, I have to think about what kind of bloggers would be concerned with that. It’s likely NOT big corporations, because many of those either don’t care, or aren’t aware of it as a potential issue. It’s probably going to be smaller businesses where there is only one or two proprietors, and they’re writing their hearts out to help customers (past and future) and to display their authority on the subject at hand.

So what else would those kinds of bloggers be interested in?

Maybe they’d want to know about ways to protect their copyright.

In that case, I’ll write a post about tools online that can help you protect your copyright, and maybe another post about the confusing laws when it comes to the internet. Ignorance is not innocence, and I’m telling you that people WILL rip your content when you have a blog. Wouldn’t you want to know what you can do about it?

So there are already 2-3 posts for my sneeze page. Notice, I don’t have a title for it yet, because I want to make sure I’m on the right train with things first.

Now I’ll keep running with this process, coming up with ideas on what might be of major interest to these small business bloggers. How about a post on ways to get more readers? Or one about what your job as a blogger means, as opposed to your “regular job” in your small business? I can keep going on this, but I don’t want THIS to turn into a sneeze page! I’ll be creating some of these soon, so you’ll find more examples there. *wink*

So you’ve got a good bunch of ideas for a themed sneeze page. Now you’ve got to come up with a title that’s going to attract that targeted audience. You don’t want to be overly creative here, because people looking for information are looking for it NOW. Get creative with post titles, but point people to your sneeze page with direct language.

“Important Tips for Small Business Bloggers”
“Are You a Small Business Blogger?”
“Small Business Blog Resources”

All of these titles will work, and you need to maintain the natural tone of language in your blog, so you can avoid looking like what you’ve compiled is out of place.

Now, there are many different kinds of sneeze pages, but this is one type. The point with this kind is to build it up and THEN come up with a title. Sometimes when you’re writing a post, it’s the opposite, but in this case, you need to collect the info, possibly write MORE on the topic, and then create the compiled list of resources. If you’re writing something like Darren’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, you’ll want to announce the project and then proceed with the posts, updating the sneeze page as you go.

Owning a blog can put your site out there to be “bombed and pillaged” if you’re not on top of things, and one of the ways to keep that from happening is to provide a clear, concise comment policy.

I’ve personally been in situations where I’ve seen people getting ripped apart in arguments under a blog post, and it kills me that the site owner would sit back and let it happen. However, that’s part of their comment policy - they don’t delete anything unless it’s clearly classified as “spam”. Usually that’s when a simple bot comes along and blasts your last 100 posts with a URL or some kind of mile-long list of links to sex sites or the like.

Other people refuse to tolerate the negative bashing and simply delete the posts like that with no exception. Some will only do this if it’s bashing another commenter, while others will do it if it’s bashing them.

What about “signatures”? When someone leaves a comment and then puts their name and a link to their site in it at the bottom, that’s a signature. I’ve seen people comment with a 3-line answer and then put a 5-line signature at the bottom, phone numbers and all!

Personally, when it comes to spam, it’s handled by my sites’ spam filters. Some slips through, and I have to moderate it, but for the most part, it’s already caught and I don’t have to deal with it.

When it comes to blatant attacks and bashing, of my readers or other commenters, it’s gone. Deleted. Outta there. You want to argue with me and something I said? Present a valid, calm argument and it could benefit everyone involved. Start name calling and such, and depending on the blog (as I have several), you could find yourself outed (nothing’s ever truly anonymous) and/or given a good lashing right back. On this site, I’d likely simply delete it, but on some of the others I have, I’ll make a mockery of the “criminal”.

As far as signatures go, I don’t have a huge problem with them if you’ve left a reasonably valid comment (rather than “Thanks for the info”) that adds something to the discussion, and if they’re not like the 5-liner signatures I mentioned above. The reason being that when you leave a comment on a blog, you almost always have the opportunity to put your site’s URL in so that the name you use links to the site. There’s no need for a second link in the comment, you know? In the event that happens, I’ll simply delete the signature and approve the comment. If it’s one of those “thanks” kinds of comments, I’ll let it go through if there’s no signature, otherwise it gets deleted. You can’t add something of value to the thread, you don’t deserve even the default link.

What’s your blog’s comment policy? Do you have it posted somewhere, or do you just play by ear?

Here’s an excerpt from the book’s site about what’s included:

Unlike other books that are big on potential and theory, ProBlogger provides results based on the authors own experience of what really works through practical, tried and tested advice. Inside readers will learn:

* How Bloggers Make Money
* Direct Income Earning vs. Indirect Income Earning methods
* Why Niches are Important
* 20 Ingredients for a successful blog post
* Optimizing advertising
* Which advertising platforms work best
* Expert analysis of Technocrati’s Top Blogs - why they work

Pretty nifty, eh? Oh, and you can save 5% ($8.50) by pre-ordering ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income at Amazon.

Oh, and if you’re HERE because you read the post over at Brad’s, thank you for stopping by!

The reason for doing these “free” reviews is to help illustrate to my readers and potential clients what my design style and opinions are about various random websites on the internet. It’s not meant to belittle any other designers, but rather explain what I’d have done differently and why.

These are by no means going to be done in complete detail, as would be done with full website evaluations that we charge for. I’m not going to get into fixing code (though I’ll likely announce if it’s done incorrectly) or giving suggestions for SEO or marketing. This is just an objective, unsolicited design/functionality review. I’ll likely just do a search for some random topic and pick the first “ugly” website I can find, and go on a roll from there.

That said, let’s get started. Our first search was for the term “gift baskets”. Looking on page 10, I found Baskets of Faith, a Christian gift basket store.

A quick peek at the site and source code (HTML) tells me that this site is likely an OSCommerce store, and it’s definitely hosted by NetworkSolutions and is built with some kind of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. The initial problems I see with this is that the site’s almost entirely done in javascript and poorly written code. I’ve taken a sample:

That, my folks, is poorly written code. Let me explain:

There are (way way way too many) instances of “font” tags that shouldn’t be in there - all colors, styles, and fonts should be managed by CSS classes, once, in the CSS file.

There is one website link that’s been split in half and linked to twice. “Ameri” and “casChristian.com”. The worst part is that the font tags all had to be repeated twice too. They’ve also styled and colored their spaces, which is just fanTAStic, isn’t it? In fact, I just colored in all the individual spaces in this sentence, and they’re all bright fuschia! Don’t you LOVE them!? Okay, so I didn’t do that, because I don’t want to waste page load time with stupid extra code like that, but I had you fooled for a second, didn’t I? Onward…

While looking at the code, let’s take a peek at that color of the font they’re using on a light grey background “#808080″.
It’s 50% grey, which in a block, looks something like this:

Not horrible in a block of color on a white background, right? Let’s take a look at it in some text, as taken from a clip on the site:

If I was the kind of person who thought that everyone in the world who did stuff like this was trying to game the search engines, I’d say that these people were trying to game the search engines. They don’t REALLY care if you click on any of those massive amounts of links in their footer… they want Google to see them. But they don’t want to get in trouble for hiding links, so they made them a different shade of grey. What little Stinky McStinkersons they are!

That said, they appear to have many many Christian themed online shops. Something else I think might be a bad idea. Not for any other reason than they’re likely built on the same account, hosted on same or similar servers, built the same way, and are technically fighting against each other for important keywords that they want to be found for.

They’ve likely done this sort of footer linking to all their sites FROM all their sites, and well as you might figure, Google hates that kind of thing too.

On to the rest of the design…

Sidebar links are not only different colors, but different sizes (often too small), full of too many keywords (which is equivalent to spamming the search engines), and are misaligned.

In fact, the whole site is out of alignment. Some stuff is justified, some left-aligned, some centered… it’s an alignment mess that my mechanic would charge me $65/hour to fix if my car were that screwed up. Some of the text even goes over designed-in boundary lines.

They’re also linking out to all their other stores here, trying to be “tricky” about it by embedding those links inside long lists of other links to different categories in their store.

Bottom line here? OSCommerce stores can be great, but they’re not too well designed. WYSIWYG editors are a clean coder’s nightmare. Designing in varying shades of all one color (in this case, grey, white, black) is absolutely boring and will definitely lead to “blindness”, meaning that people will get so tired of having to squint and search long, keyword filled lists for what they want that they’re leave.

This site needs to be cleaned up code-wise and color/design wise, organized, restructured, and marketed properly (as do all their other sites) in order to get them higher than page 10 in Google’s SERPs for “gift baskets”.

What are your thoughts on that site?

Anyway, WordPress has a new version, with some really great new features. My friend Aaron Brazell always writes up some great stuff when this happens, and this time’s no different: 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.5. He covers all the changes and visual improvements in the new version, as well as the new features like 1-click plugin updating and improved widgets.

The new admin interface (dashboard):

Pretty nifty, huh?

All in all, this version’s been on the board for about 6 months, and is considered a major release. There are lots of changes and “upgrades” and is something we can’t wait to implement on our client sites. However, that being said, we never do the upgrades until we’ve had a chance to play with it ourselves, so it’s going to take a little time to get all the upgrades completed. If you’re one of our clients, you’ll receive an advance notice email with a scheduled date and time of your site’s upgrade.

Thoughts.Com is a totally free blog community where users can not only write blog posts on any topic they choose, but find themselves instantly attached to a whole bunch of readers. Bloggers can post photos, videos, podcasts, rate other members’ posts, and once a year, Thoughts.Com gives away a vacation to 5 of their bloggers!

Another pretty cool feature of this blog community that I haven’t seen much in others is their forums. Pretty much every topic under the sun is covered in there, making this a real community venture outside the realm of normal blog commenting. Unlike other free blog communities, the forums aren’t strictly limited to site issues or questions. It’s a community forum, where you can find others with similar interests and have a chat.

The format is pretty simple, and it’s easy to find other blogs based on a simple tag cloud. Comments and ratings seem welcomed by pretty much all bloggers, and the ability to either blog anonymously or put it all out there is pretty nifty too.

Again, if you’re really serious about blogging and trying to make some money with your blog, this isn’t the route I’d recommend. But for something fun, and a pretty large (despite it’s new-ness) community, it could be a cool thing to check out.