From the category archives:

Blogging

WordPress.com finally updates to 2.5 — A review

April 4, 2008

A picture [of my cat] is worth a thousand words.

She\'s a jungle-catI’ve been waiting for WordPress.com to update the administration panel so that I can have galleries.  That is the main feature that I’ve been waiting for.  Now it’s here, I can finally upload pictures of my cat (and my wife :-) )  

This will also allow simpler embedding of video, audio, et al.  I’m glad it’s finally live.

EDIT: There seem to be a few kinks still with this feature — instead of having thumbnails, the site was loading the full images. This is obviously an issue. Until then, you get a thumbnail of my cat in the grass.  Read more&hellip

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Is Blogging Really Worth the Time?

April 3, 2008

One reason to blog is traffic! [Image of traffic light]

Today, a business associate asked me “I know about blogging, and it seems like a waste of time. Why is blogging worth the time?” I was able to reply with some very convincing arguments — and in a way, I reminded myself about the value of blogging.  Read more&hellip

  1. Blogging establishes you as an expert in your field
  2. Search engine traffic dramatically increases
  3. Blogging is basically free marketing for your business: the only cost is your time.
  4. Blogging forces you to write about your life and your business

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Tumblr is a great website if you find blogging intimidating

March 31, 2008

Tumblr is a way-cool pseudo-blogging application

I was reading an article on A List Apart the other day and found a link to a website called Tumblr. It makes blogging really easy by making it less intimidating.

You choose what type of content you’d like to post, and then you do it!It’s one of the most simple signup forms around, and encourages you to post right away. I just wanted to test it out, but now I’m hooked (check out the KWD Tumblr Page).

If you’re too nervous to blog, Tumble! 

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Abusing Google Trends – Unethical blogging

February 22, 2008

Google Trends Snapshot

I stumbled upon the website BlogFlux today and found myself reading a blog titled Jehzlau Concepts. I found one of the articles very interesting about how to increase rank on your blog even if you don’t post often. You should check out the article.

The article says that a great way to get traffic is by riding many small, short waves of web popularity by using the cool tool, Google Trends, that shows you what people are searching for NOW. Not 10 minutes ago, but what is hot right now. For instance, today Google Trends shows that J-Lo had twins, a teacher sent illicit pics to students, the Philadelphia airport has delays, and there’s a Star Trek collection tour.  Read more&hellip

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Posting consistently

January 30, 2008

Set up a blogging schedule that aligns to your slacking habits 

If you find yourself not posting to your blog and letting your website stagnate, set up a schedule that fits your cycle of procrastination. We all know how hard it can be to do anything consistently, but we manage when the results are immediate. 

  • Take out the garbage
  • Shaving/showering/washing dishes
  • Cleaning
  • Waking up!
Blogging is not as immediate.  Posts don’t always get comments, and there’s often no immediate gratification to blogging.  So how does one motivate themselves? I recommend this: in order to avoid “blog rot,” set a time aside on your calendar or during your day. 

When are you least productive? 

In order to find your blogging sweet spot, a great way is to do a little investigating. One way to tell when you are least productive is by answering this question: what time during the day do you read the most blogs? If you use Google for any services (Gmail, iGoogle, Finance, etc.) you have a Google Account.  With that account, you can enable a service called Google Reader. Google Reader lets you compile all of your favorite websites’ articles into one easy to use format. 

Least productive Fridays

My blog reading by hour of the dayMy reading by day of the weekBy looking at my Web History chart, it’s easy to see that:

  • I waste the most time from 10-11am, and 2pm.
  • I waste the most time on Tuesdays (by far!)

So, based on these statistics, I know that I should schedule a time for me to post on Tuesday around 11am each week.  Also, I should pencil in a daily posting time at 2pm to remind myself to post. Note: I started writing this post at 2:30 pm.  

 What about you?

How do you allocate time in your day to blog, and how effective is it? 

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