Blogging to a Higher State of Humanity
I love blogging. I really do. And what’s not to love about it, whatever the reasons behind it. No matter if people pick up blogging as a way to share their opinions with the world, get a side buck or simply keep a public or private journal, the end result is just the same. Those that invest time and passion in their blogging activities, those that stick to it through better or worse, I believe that those are becoming better human beings, reaching a higher state of humanity through blogging.
We have learned to love human contact once again
Remember the days without computers and internet? Remember the days when kids were getting together, playing in the streets, constantly looking for adventures in the urban jungle? Remember how everyone from child to teenager and adult was looking to group up, find new friends? That was the time before mIRC, IMs, Counter Strike, World of Warcraft, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. With time, we grew close to fewer friends. We learned to keep the close ones closer and draw a clear separation line between friends and casual contacts.
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Are you a Matured Blogger? Here Is How You Can Tell
Not a single blogger exists that was not at some point an immature blogger. Even the current A-List bloggers started off being immature – the fiercest lion in the jungle was once a cub chasing butterflies.
It is part of the process, before you can become a mature blogger you need to go through the immature stage. You cannot skip this step. You cannot go straight to mature. Blogging is a learn as you go endeavor. At the beginning everything is new and you make mistakes.
You cannot avoid it, but you can be aware of it. First step is to admit you have a problem and only then can you start to heal.
During the two years that I have been blogging I have slowly moved towards maturity. Here are some changes that occur when you become a mature blogger.
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Top 5 Most Annoying Blogging Clichés
The niche of blogging tips is a crowded one and no wonder it’s that way. Blogging is so “the new black”. It gives you freedom, the perspective of making a few (or more) bucks and why not, for some might be just a way to vent. So, what better way to reach a constantly growing and renewing audience than by providing tips on how they should blog. The problem is that sometimes bloggers in this niche forget to be original and get stuck in the same circle of clichés.
Let me take you through my personal top 5 list of the most annoying blogging clichés.
5. Content is king
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that reads this almost daily on some blog or Twitter. It gives me the feeling that people keep on discovering the wheel over and over again. We all know that content is king, but there’s so much more beyond that. How many or the articles you read on this topic go further into exploring the ways to give your content the deserved spotlight? My take is that without due promotion, aesthetics and a good network, your content is nothing but a king without a kingdom!
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Typominima WordPress Theme: Typography meets Minimal
So thrilled to announce yet a new quality freebie here on Blogsessive. Meet Typominima, a free typography based, gorgeous, minimal WordPress theme fit for the writer inside you.
If you’re looking for a free theme to help you put the content in spotlight, without worrying about it being suffocated by advertising space and unnecessary design blign, than Typominima is the perfect free WordPress theme for you.
The purpose of this theme is to enable writers and publisher to express themselves online in a clean and beautiful environment. You can check out the theme features and also a series of posts containing sample styling for the most common elements you’ll need on your blog before you download Typominima.
Typominima Preview & Download
Head over to the Typominima DEMO site to view it in action and learn more about its features.
And of course, you can download it for free here: Download Typominima (v1.0)
Note: Please do not link directly to the file if you wish to promote this theme. Link to this post instead. Thank you!
One milestone down, one million page views!
After more than 2 years since launch day, 2 years with ups and downs, higher or lower publishing frequency, Blogsessive proudly reaches a new milestone: 1 million page views.
I don’t know if for others this is impressive or not, but I am thrilled and happy to be part of the nice community that formed around this blog and its blogsessed brand. I’m thrilled to be here and provide you folks with quality information and resources and I’m thrilled to let you know that such an event calls for a celebration.
And how better for a blogger to celebrate such a milestone than by giving back to the community for all he himself has received. Not more than a few days back I’ve released the Twitter Tweet button WordPress plugin and now it’s time for a new free WordPress release.
Introducing Typominima
Typominima is a free typography based, gorgeous, minimal WordPress theme. Head over to the Typominima release announcement post for more information, download link and let the writers in you express themselves in a beautiful environment!
Blog SEO Tips: Are keywords that important?
A few days ago I received a comment on one of Blogsessive’s older posts on SEO & keywords. That comment got me a little worried about the fact that due to people spreading incomplete information, or just putting out statements like “Google doesn’t care about keywords”, some of you might think that having a keyword strategy is pointless. This is what reader David Housman asked:
I thought that search engines had stopped factoring keywords into relevancy?
The source of this belief is probably a post published on the Google Webmaster Central Blog back in September 2009 in which Matt Cutts refers strictly to Google not making use of the keywords META tag in order to calculate a search result’s relevancy to the search query.
In other words, you could type 300 keywords of your liking there. Google will just skip them entirely and rather decide if the result is relevant only based on the content itself. This doesn’t mean that the Google bot will ignore your keywords. It means that it will consider only those keywords present on page, in the content. That’s why it is extremely important to write your blog post from both the perspective of a human reader and a search engine bot.
I’m not going to get any deeper into the topic of writing SEO friendly content. Just remember that it’s a must if you want to rank high for certain keywords and phrases. For more information please read some of the articles I have published here in the past:
Twitter button WordPress plugin
Since Twitter is yet to offer an alternative to those less savvy with code implementation, I’ve decided to offer you a WordPress plugin to help you include the official Twitter Tweet button in your blog posts. Download the plugin and from this point on, it’s all as easy as 1-2-3.
Current plugin version: 1.1
Supported WordPress versions: Most recent. Pre-3.0 versions not yet tested.
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5 ways to set your unique blogging voice apart
Nothing helps set a blog and its author apart and give them the visibility they need more effectively than a unique blogging voice, one that’s easily recognizable in each post you publish. Both general and niche blogs need their style to help them stand out. It’s an easy way to gain loyal fans, authority and reputation.
How exactly can you find your blogging voice and make sure it is recognizable in everything you publish? Here are a few tips:
1. Identify your blogging voice
Each person has their preferences for certain phrases, expressions, ways of building phrases or of presenting arguments. This personal style needs to be inserted into your blog writing and maintained throughout each post. You need to experiment to first come to understand which is your blogging voice, otherwise you’ll just stumble around blindly, picking up influences from who ever you might think is hot and popular at a certain point. It has to be your inner voice, not a fabricated one, as its being genuine will make it easier to maintain. It will be something that comes naturally when you write, not a forced tactic meant at setting you apart that you might overlook when getting into a topic you’re passionate about.
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Social Media’s new creed: Power from the people
The social component is thought by many to be the true spirit of what we obsessively hear called as the Web 2.0. Not the round font logos, nor pink or blue gradients.
The need for more human interaction and developing an online identity has lead to the apparition of thousands of social networks and social media platforms out of which only a few managed to get the blessing of the masses. What set them apart from the rest? What made them turn from social experiments to successful businesses? The user, their biggest asset.
Power to the people
During development stages and also while growing in popularity, these social media platforms understood the need to focus on what users wanted or needed:
- The means to connect with people who they shared interests with;
- The means to discover content based on their own interests;
- The means to become an important part of a community.
Driven by such needs, some members of these social networks turned into what we call power users. They were the most prolific users of each platform, gathering masses of other users around them, sharing the most content and most times acting like evangelists for the services they used.
The idea of one day becoming one themselves, of wielding the power that such users have, attracted more and more people to these social networks, giving them the boost required to reach mainstream and go beyond, turning them into the multi-million dollar businesses we know them to be today: Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter.
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6 new WordPress plugins to take out for a spin
Every once in a while I like to scan the plugins directory on WordPress.org and see what beautiful & useful pieces of code the community comes up with. Here’s a selection of 6 of the latest WordPress plugin releases that caught my attention during the last “scan”.
1. Simple Fields
Plugin description: Simple Fields for WordPress lets you add groups of fields to your edit post page. Simple Fields turns WordPress into an even more powerful Content Management System (CMS).
Required WP version: 3.0+
Compatible up to: 3.0.1
Downlod & more info: Simple Fields
2. Simple Mail Address Encoder
Plugin description: Automatically encodes every e-mail address on posts, pages and sidebar widgets to prevent spam. Simply decodes any previously encoded e-mail address by just clicking the mail link.
Required WP version: 2.7+
Compatible up to: 3.0.1
Downlod & more info: Simple Mail Address Encoder
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