Blogosphere News / May 31st
Enjoy this week’s selection of blogging news from across the blogosphere.
b5media to use PicApp as source for images
On May 30th, the leading blog network b5media, has teamed up with PicScout – developer of PicApp.com – to ensure accurate, appropriate image use on blogs.
From the press release:
“Members of leading blog network [will be] using new PicApp image platform for sourcing, illustrating and enhancing photos, artwork.”
Press release excerpt
“PicApp offers our bloggers tremendous selection in terms of the range and types of content they provide.”
Jeremy Wright, b5media chief executive officer
Six Apart launched free TypePad Antispam service
The new TypePad Antispam is a free, open source application, already built in the TypePad blogging platform and also available as a plugin for Movable Type 3 & 4 and WordPress 2.5. TypaPad Antispam is also 100% Akismet compatible. Since it’s only in BETA stage, bloggers are encouraged to use it and provide feedback.
“Whenever you report unwanted comments, the TypePad AntiSpam engine learns from you, so that it can make even smarter and more effective decisions about spam in the future.”
TypePad Antispam
“Last week we switched to TypePad AntiSpam as a test… After a week I’m pleased to say that as good as Akismet is, the TypePad product has performed as good or better for us.”
Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
Blogsessive’s May contest ends tonight
Tonight at 24:00 EST, this month’s contest will be closed. You still have a chance to win one of the 2 .Com domain names of your choice, pre-registered for 3 years. Read the rules and join.
BlogCatalog Gets a Facelift
BlogCatalog have updated their website’s design. The new look is fresh, it’s the BC blue, branded, with a much better homepage structure and an interesting feature that seams to attract more and more users – the social search. The social search allows you to look for certain things in the social activity of all BlogCatalog members.
On the inside pages, the redesign was mostly limited to the header, so that the users will not have a hard time accommodating, but don’t worry, it matches perfectly.
Here’s the new home page of BlogCatalog:
And while you’re on BC, you can drop by on my profile.
Domain Names for Bloggers (7)
Time for another Domain Names for Bloggers post. This time, I decided to give a shot to some very interesting .net domains. Of course, the .com domains are present too on the list along with a nice “guest star”. Most of the selected domain names are somehow related to life and living tips bloggers. Check them out below:
.Com Domains
- ProperAid.com
- HappilyWedded.com
- WifeMother.com
- MotheringTips.com
- FulltimeWife.com
.Net Domains
- CookingAid.net
- LivingTips.net
- Lifetiming.net
- TheCorporateBlog.net
- BloggingINC.net
- BusinessWife.net
Guest Starring
WPDashBoard.com
For further help, please read the How to Register a Domain Name for Your Blog article on Blogsessive.
Also, if you find this post helpful and you register any of the domains above, please leave a comment with the registered domains, so that I can erase them from the list, and it would be nice to know that one of my readers registered them.
A Blog Reader’s Nightmare
How many times did you come across a blog post that seamed to deliver the right information, but the post itself was just too hard to follow? Countless times, I bet.
And so, what seamed like the perfect solution for your searches, easily turns into a nightmare.
Quality content is NOT enough
Writing a good article is obviously not enough to make people read it. There are many things that can be done to attract readers and back links to it. In the past, I wrote a few blog writing tips on how to make your blog post more readable and the proper structure of a blog post. Now, it’s time to take a look at some of the things that you should not do when writing a post.
The traps of WYSIWYG editors
For most people, the WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) built in the blogging platform is a great tool, one that easily allows us to style our content in just about any way we want, but this “power” is tricky. Here are a few things you need to take in consideration whenever publishing a new article:
Click here to read the full blog post!
A Week With FriendFeed
“Twitter is stressing out a bit now.” Does that sound familiar? I’m sure it does. With all the buzz around Twitter’s tech problems, people started looking around for a service to fill in during downtime. And this is where FriendFeed comes in to play.
Some have used it for a while, others – like me – have only recently joined. After a week of being a FriendFeed member, I thought about sharing my experience with it with goods and bads.
What’s FriendFeed about
Just in case that the service’s name doesn’t ring a bell, FriendFeed is all about sharing your social activity with the world in a minimalist – and recently mobile friendly – environment.
With the recent addition of rooms to the service, people can form groups around their interests, hobbies or website. From my point of view, this is the greatest thing until now with FriendFeed.
People are able to share stories in these rooms and to comment upon them. Also, the interesting thing is that you could run a debate starting with a question and most of the times, get enough answers. So, FriendFeed adds a lot to the conversation. Rooms are moderated by their creator (administrator) and can easily be setup as private if you wish to restrict the public access.
Click here to read the full blog post!
10 Characteristics of a Successful Blogger
Although being a successful blogger is not an easy task, it’s not one that should frighten you. Before asking yourself if you can be one, take a moment to think about what you do and how you do it, and see how many characteristics you can tick off from the following list.
1. A successful blogger knows what he wants
He always has a target and a strategy. He likes to be organized and has solutions for “unexpected situations“.
2. A successful blogger knows what he’s doing
He is well informed and likes to read a lot about many things, not only about niche related stuff. He has a good background and solid experience in his field.
3. A successful blogger knows how to do it
He knows that “quality is not an act, it’s a habit” (Aristotle). He takes time writing and rewriting if necessary, until he achieves the best result. Also, he knows that being consistent is his strength.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Blogsessive Joins BuySellAds Network
As you have seen, there hasn’t been much advertising on Blogsessive since I’ve launched the blog. That’s mainly because I haven’t found the right network to manage the ads served.
Today, following Kevin Muldoon’s recommendation, I’ve decided to give BuySellAds a spin and since it’s in beta stage (members are being approved based on certain criteria), I’ll also be able to share my experience with you.
Account creation and marketplace
Since I have a thing for design, I have to say that their site looks great and it’s very easy to navigate.
Creating an account is pretty simple and it should not be a problem for anyone. Upon creating an account, you will receive an activation email, and from this point you can start adding websites or buying advertising space.
Each website details page in the marketplace will show information on Alexa, Compete and Technorati Ranks, del.icio.us bookmarks, pagerank and Yahoo! inbound links to help buyer decide.
If you want to sell advertising space, adding a website is very easy. You’ll have to fill in a 2-step form with your website’s information: URL, description, tags, advertising zone name, banner size and price, number of banners and automatic/manual banner approval.
After submitting this information, you will be provided with a small script to install on your blog.
After that, everything gets on auto-pilot and all you have to do is take care of your blog’s content, in order to attract more traffic, and therefore, more advertisers.
You get 75%
The good part is that BuySellAds, only keeps 25% out of the sold banner’s price, unlike many other services of this type.
I’ll share more about my experience on BuySellAds in time, but until then, if you’re interested in buying advertising space on Blogsessive, check out the profile.
Happy Fifth WordPress!
Today is WordPress’ birthday. Today, WordPress turns five.
Five years of being there for us, bloggers.
Five years of delivering a free, high quality way to allow us to express ourselves online.
Five years of being a tool based on which many people across the world have gone from zero to hero.
This is your fifth anniversary WordPress!
Thank you and Happy Birthday!
Blog SEO Tips – SEO Friendly Titles (H1, H2, H3)
Another quiet Sunday in the blogosphere, as usual. This morning I thought about writing another link share post or a WordPress theme recommendation, but later I’ve decided to break the pattern (since it’s all so quiet) and make Sundays the host of a blog SEO tips series. In this first post I’m going to talk about the importance of using SEO friendly titles (H1, H2, H3) and the right way to do so.
Usual Coding Patterns in WordPress Themes
If you’re even a bit familiar with the WordPress themes, by now you’ve probably took a look at your theme’s files. Blog pages are rendered through an association of a few PHP files with standard names (index.php, archive.php, single.php) with different templates of the theme, based on the content type.
The index.php file usually stands for your home page, also being capable of replacing any other template that hasn’t been already defined. So, if you don’t have a template for search results (search.php), the index file will take over and render your search results page.
Each of these templates includes smaller pieces of code to build up the final result. The most used are header.php, sidebar.php and footer.php.
For now, we’ll limit our attention to the following files in your theme’s folder:
- header.php
- index.php
- single.php
- page.php (not every theme has it)
- archive.php, search.php (not every theme has them)
Optimizing the Header File
Having your primary keyword present at the top of you page it’s very important.
Considering the fact that most themes come with text based logos instead of graphics, we’ll be looking for the <h1> tag in the header.php file.
Click here to read the full blog post!
What Does It Take to Make Blogging a Mass Phenomenon?
Two days ago I wrote a post on a Romanian blog in which I stated that we cannot talk about a blogging phenomenon without having more than five or six truly successful niche blogs. We cannot talk about a real blogosphere made out of tweet-like posts and YouTube embeds.
The post gathered quite a few comments, positive and negative also (which I was sure I’ll get). And now, I would love to read you opinion on my previous statement. I guess this could be applied to each country where blogging is still in its initial stage.
So, tell me: What does it take to make blogging a mass phenomenon, in your opinion?
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