How do you blog, Blogger?

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BLOGS OF FOCUS

• MCNERI'S WEBLOG

"How do you blog" would be a good way to greet a blogger visiting another blog. It would be an in-road into the visitor's mind and blogging practices. My guess is that there are as many blogging styles as there are bloggers and that variety is what makes blogging so much fun because humans love variety.

There are several styles of blogging and I will discuss a few today.

1. Blogging on the fly!
This I believe is about the oldest style. It originated from the good old early days when pioneer bloggers simply created web logs of their lives. Most were of their daily activities and programming breakthroughs. The blogger then did not think anyone was indeed really reading the blog. As we expect only us to read our diary, so was the expectation. This has been carried forward and in today's blogosphere, we see rants and raves. This is more common in the personal blogs. A few bloggers from time to time do this also and I have done it in many of my posts. It helps one put a personal touch to the blog, even though it may be a niche that one is blogging in.

2. Blogging as the Press.
As blogging has developed, so has readership widened and many blogs boast of readerships that eclipse my neighborhood newspaper's numbers. Major examples include Google's blogs for its gmail, and google itself and online resources like Lifehacker, Techcrunch (802K RSS subscribers. I hope they have a 401K), The Huffington Post and Mashable. These blogs/websites have editorial teams and the output is really something else. The corporate blogs seem to be a somewhat unofficial source of official information. Press releases serve their role, but also, releasing the information in a sub-formal way via blogs seems to be the way to reach more customers. The challenge faced by the everyday blogger is to measure up to such standards. Well, I wish you luck.

3. Blogging to the top in your niche.
This by far is both the easiest and the most popular. The blogger simply tries to be the best in that little niche that he/she blogs in. Usually the style is a mash-up of the first two styles. Guest bloggers post interesting articles, professionally written and edited a thousand times. Blog owner recruits readers from as many social circles as possible including link exchanges, Digg, Stumbleupon, Blogcatalog and Mcneri's! The Blogger also occasionally produces timeless articles that would measure up to the big fish and have a chance at front page on Digg. It is easy to be in this category because you simply are just trying to get ahead and non-committal to any particular style. You are a Maverick Blogger. Soon you become A-listed and as your readership grows, you have to choose a conventional style, otherwise you will fall back to oblivion where you came from.

I will advice that bloggers keep an eye on thier style and know when to start conforming to a particular style. Know when you need more professional copywriters, when you need to go on that writing course, and when you need to re-define your niche or start another blog.

What is your blogging style, How do you blog?

Sploggers: Spamming a Felony?

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Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Is spamming not a felony? A serious crime? When an internet user decides to spam, or worse still splog thereby deceiving internet users and infringing on copyright, it should be seen as a Felony. If you spam, it is a form of cybercrime since it is unsolicited intrusion of one's privacy/personal web space, and qualifies by virtue of the fact that a computer is being used as a tool in criminal activity, infringing on copyright.

Hello splogging spammer, I do not know which planet you come from, but at least you live here. Stop spamming. I think the laws should be tightened and enforced much more. Spammers should be brought to book. They not only scrape the web for other people's work, they also use it to make money for themselves through online adverting. I understand Google has done alot to curb them but they are still rampant. According to Mashable last month, Wordpress has up to 33% of its blogs, spam blogs. That is an obscene number.

For those new to the blogosphere, or old members learning new skills, make sure you do not spam. hard work pays off on the internet. If you play by the rules, you can not go wrong, or rather you would almost never go wrong.

Akismet, a wordpress anti-spam plugin has done a great deal to stop spam comments before they get published. Also Lorelle VanFossen, recently in a post on BlogHerald discussed how Google, Technorati and herself were responding to the spamming sploggers. Newer anti-spam software will be robots. they will spider the splogs, and destroy the contents down to the root directory. Then they will send the information into a database including the IP addresses, sign-on information, host account on server and location. If possible, the perpertrators should also be identified. Just dreaming? Well if was a programmer that would be my next project. Since I am not, I hope some of you out there will take up the challenge and get this problem out of the way.

Once again, if you want your blog to be a top-rated blog in your lifetime, do not spam and do not splog.

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Betting on my winning Blogs

Unique Blog Contest: Register and win in April

People often ask me what it takes to know a winning blog. Well, for one you have to be observant. In the last few weeks, I have come across a few blogs that are on the upward trajectory, definitely.
The first one is MattNutts.com. This is an amazingly creative blog by a guy called Matt. he is unassuming, intelligent and goes for the kill. he has created several widgets that make the life of a blogger simple. The icing on the cake is that he is an author. In this book which he has on his blog, he gives you a complete guideline on how to use and help on BlogCatalog, a social networking microblogging platform. That is where I met Matt. I know he will be in the A-list soon enough because he is being of enormous help to bloggers, new and old.



The second blog that has impressed me recently is : Health Nut Wanna Be's Blog. This is a married stay-at-home mum-blogger who has been changing the lives of her readers with wonderful resources for healthy eating and living. She writes engagingly and has intrigued me with her blogs even though she claims no medical knowledge. One visit to her blog will get you addicted. She preaches eating healthy and when you look at her portrait on her profile page, you will understand why. that blog and blogger are definitely blogs of progress. Let us watch that space. See her recent post here.



The third Blog I would want to talk about is milliondollablogs.com. The blog master got my attention....somehow. Visit his two sites, Potpolitics dot com and milliondollarblogs and see how. Anyway he is a great guy living in San Antonio at the moment. I think his style is trendy yet aggressive and he will get through the roof very soon. Watch him and his friends, I for one.

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Part 3: the best kept secrets of blog traffic building

Blogs are the future of mankind
At the beginning of this 3-part series, I promised to show you why blogs are the future of mankind. Blogs started off organically and have grown into an integral part of online life. Many webmasters are already finding new ways of delivering the blog experience. Chris Brogan, a social media guru blogged about audio versions of a blog and being able to listen to your blog. If you visit Cnet News, you will find links to interesting articles about the history of blogs.

Blogs have altered the way news is reported, adding a personal component to it since the original news ideal of a faceless newspaper or news media reporter. Now the 'I' component has become sort of okay with news and that tells you a lot about what is going on.

Social media has come in and further enhanced the blog atmosphere. Humans are a social group and thus naturally, we will do social things like meet, discuss, gossip, make money, chaet, pray, flirt, seek, and the list goes on. Portals like Digg and Technorati as well as Twitter and the numerous other social media sites have revolutionized blogging further. These social circles are beginning to monetize even more. Micro-blogging is a newer trend and other sites like MyBloglog and BlogCatalog are on the front page for many new blogs and bloggers too.

To predict that things will change is an understatement. As mankind gradually realizes the fact that most of what we blog will outlive us, our natural instincts for will be to dig in deeper and blog more. Bloggers are writing their biography....as it happens. Even more intriguing is the fact that when you look at your blog 7 years from now, you will know what you were interested in seven years ago on a particular day. That is why I know blogs are going somewhere.

Revolutionized search
Looking at the Google success story, one can only imagine where we are going. The original proposal of Google Founders Larry page and Sergey Brin is entitled 'The Anatomy of a Large-Scaled Hypertextual Search Engine'.It eventually has become not only the most successful company on earth, but also the largest force to reckon with in online advertising, search, and web applications.

For anyone that underestimates blogs, what I have to say is, see you in 20 years' time. Then we will all have personal online IDs that will not be prone to the web insecurities of today. The internet today will be referred to as 'analog', while the web in that future will be the real digital web.

Your blog will be your identity.
As we speak, turn on your television and you will see that everybody that is somebody newsworthy has a blog. The movers and shakers of the world are not off-mark. Thus while you blog and monetize and do all sorts of things online, we must bear that in mind and get reputable online.....for the future. People may use social media...which are a spin-off of blogs to harm you. If you have your own voice, at least you can strike back.

In 2005, tagging was referred to as the future of blogging: it is here now. Blogs will get easier to use and more people will have blogs. Spamming may never go away, but it will soon be classified as 'cyber-crime'. These secrets are revealed in good faith. Many top bloggers already know about this, but they are being tight-lipped so that they can be ahead in the game. Share this information with your readers and they will reward you. Stay tuned here as we dig deeper into money-making strategies for your blog. You can recieve updates by email, or via our 'RSS VIRUS'

The best kept secrets about blog traffic building

In this 3 post series, I will outline certain principles that should guide you if you want to build a blog from the scratch. I will also explain why many blogs fall by the wayside and why blogs are the future of mankind.

In the begining:

I started my wordpress blog and approximately 30 days later, we recieved our 1500th unique visitor. By some standards, that is mediocre, while with others that is very impressive. Personally I am impressed. I am sure some readers are guessing that this is my umpteenth blog, no no no. My first blog.

Start

If you want to build blog traffic from the scratch, you have to start. Go to wordpress dot com and get a free blog. It is easier than getting an email address. Other alternatives include blogger, typepad and a zillion others out there. There are differences between the various platforms and wordpress dot com seems to be very advanced and user-friendly, especially with their continuous upgrades. The down side is that you are limited in terms of flexibility and if you hope to make money from blogging with advertisements, then this is not the free platform for you. Blogger dot com allows free users to insert adverts, so go there if you are keen on that.

Looking for content

Many advisers and bloggers will always tell you: "create your own niche", "be an expert in your niche" etc etc etc. While that is a valid fact, how many experts will there be? If I like techy stuff, how will I keep up with Techcrunch, Gizmodo and Lifehacker? There are editorial teams blogging about everything and anything on the web. I decided to blog so I have to start with what I have. Simply, you have to blog about the things that interest you online. With time, it will take shape and you will morph your blogging technique into what you really are best at. For some other topics, it may be a struggle. Do not stop. Let your target be at least 200 words, 500 would be better.

Many bloggers want to read as many blogs as possible within a short time and who has time for a 3000 word essay. Go straight to the "money". If you have a picture or a video, include it to give your blog some color. Even after writing, review your essay and correct any typos identified. If you run out of ideas, find out what the top blogs are blogging about and spin a variant of that. Let your personality reflect in what you write. I do not think one can get it wrong, being one's self.

Looking for readers

The best blog posts are just ones and zeros on some remote computer in a room being cooled by giant cooling systems in some high-rise building, somewhere out there. If theses numbers are not accessed by the blogger, they do not become blogs and are never read. Just like the customer, the most important person in the blog equation is the reader. Go and get them.

I looked for them in several ways for my Mcneri Wordpress Blog. I first sought to use the best background colors I could find:white. The most successful websites have white or almost white backgrounds, so I waded through wordpress themes until I got to journalist theme and stopped.

I activated my Feedburner for RSS. There is also an email subscription box available. I joined BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog. I submitted my posts to Digg. I signed up with Technorati. I also included my link in a couple of forums that I belong to. I also submitted my posts to Google submit url the moment I finished posting it.

Starting the buzz

Your blog has to give something to the blogosphere, if you are expecting anything in return....naturally. I have initiated a complimentary service where I will highlight one website per week as site of the week. We have recieved a few entries and soon our first site will be show-cased. The how to become a world class section is also a new addition that guides readers on aspects of their career.

The traffic has not been fantastic, but has steadily increased. I did not spend any money on adverts, backlinks or link exchanges. I have attempted exchanges, but it has not yielded much and I am not keen anyway.

I have also commented on several blogs and some pay me a visit in return, while others do not even allow a link back to my poor little blog. We learn everyday. I have also tried to respond to any comments on my blog. Not too many for now so I have managed well. I guess, anyone with more than 200 comments in a day will have a real difficulty responding. However if you are small fry like me, make sure you respond to the visitors, promptly.

Monetizing the blog

This is an important aspect of blogging and I believe that since Google and Microsoft are making money, everyone that contributes to the web should. How do I do that? Juggling a full time and a half job leaves me very little time after family to blog, so I am taking it easy. Now I have started this blog on blogger. We have Google Adsense and Amazon Associates ads there. I may even be able to add Text Link Ads. I will then be positioned to monetize my blog. that is why there are very few links out of this blog post.

To be continued