Archive for July, 2007
3 Components of A Successful Blog
Jul 27th
Some may argue that my post on Jump Starting Your Page Rank is not helping my readers any and that it is a waste of time but when you see what results from being on a list such as the one a few posts below, you will realize the power of the link train. However, I do agree with some of the critics of the link train because you can’t rely solely on the link train to help you break the barriers in the blogosphere; you have to give your readers something MORE and I am here to tell you what that is:
Great Content
I have always mentioned this as number one and mainly its because without content there isn’t any reason for the your blog’s existence. Today itself, Problogger had a video post about how visitors only stay on a blog for a few seconds and the impression your blog makes in those seconds is what makes or breaks your blog. You have to make your blog stand out with the type of content you offer. People come to your blog because of what you have to offer them and not because of how nice your layout looks, even though design does play a role in first impressions.
Design
As I said earlier, your blog’s first impression could also be its last impression but if you are able to hook a visitor who just happens to come across your blog then you have a winner on your hands. Your design has to be able to speak to your readers and keep them on the website longer. Mostly blogs or websites that have ads all over the place are the ones that are still struggling to be noticed and its mainly because I don’t suggest monetizing your blog to a point where all you have is ads.
Your design should reflect your style and should have a clean look. If your style is messy then you may not be able to keep visitors on your site long at all. Make sure your design looks good and that it doesn’t seem odd or flashy. I also suggest that you should customize your WordPress templates instead of using the default setup. I don’t mean to praise myself but as you can see, my template has been highly customized to meet my needs and also creates a certain visual appeal for my readers. If you don’t have extensive knowledge in design then don’t worry, ask around and I am sure that there will be some kind hearted souls that will be willing to help you.
Reader Feedback/Comments
If you don’t have readers then your content may not have meaning because reader comments and feedback is what helps enhance your posts. It is the interaction between you and the reader and between the readers themselves that makes for interesting discussion. I also suggest that you should take time to reply to your comments because otherwise there isn’t any interaction at all. Over the past week I have installed a few plug-ins that have helped boost the number of comments on my blog. I can’t say that the plug-ins are the reason for the higher comment rate but they have definitely made things a lot easier and better!
1. Brian’s Threaded Comments – This allows you to have comment threads so its easier for your readers to interact with each other. Your readers won’t have to scroll down all the way to see a response for a comment they posted earlier. It creates nested comments and several websites use this particular plug-in and there is a reason for it!
2. Comment Relish – I have read that if you have a large number of commentators then this plug-in may not be for you because it goes through your database and could possibly slow it down. I have quite a few people that comment on the site and I have seen blogs that have 1000 commentators use this, so if your site is larger than that, then this script may not work as well for you. The concept of this plug-in is simple. It will send a welcome email, that you write, to first time commentators on your blog. Usually this welcome email should be written in a way that doesn’t seem forceful because you want to make a good impression. More on this particular plug-in later but do try it out!
3. Better Comments Manager – This has been a life saver for me. If you own a blog then you may find it a little difficult to respond to all your comments by going through each post to respond to several comments. What Better Comments Manager does is that in the admin section itself, it lets you respond to comments on your blog. You can even post threaded replies if you are using Brian’s Threaded Comments as mentioned above.
4. My Avatars Plugin – Most of you are members of MyBlogLog and this plug-in is very useful because it puts a face to the comments. If a member of MyBlogLog posts a comment on your blog then this plug-in will place their avatar next to their comment and it really helps in getting to know your readers better. This was the first plug-in that I had installed and it has worked really well.
So those were the 3 main components of having a successful blog. Sooner or later I will have more details about some of the plugins I use on this blog and how they can help you. I hope you enjoyed reading this post and I really hope you can incorporate some of these at your blog. I would love to hear your comments on this!
Record Breaking Day for Enkay Blog!
Jul 27th
Yesterday was a bit hectic and I apologize for not having a post up but there is a reason for that. I had a post titled “Jump Start Your Page Rank” and I wanted to make sure that I had given it enough time on the front page for things to pick up and it surely did. Yesterday was the record breaking day for almost everything on this blog, except for earnings that is. If you haven’t joined the list, dont be disheartened because you can still post it on your blog and its only been a day so there is still time. The list will go on forever and I will keep adding websites to the list as long as a pingback is received. Anyway, lets look at some cool statistics.
Alexa dropped about 10,000 during the day itself! My Technorati authority went up from 57 to 65 and my ranking went down by about 16,000 and all of this happened in one day! As far as traffic goes, I received well over 1,100 hits over half of which were unique visitors!
Hard Work Pays Off
Nothing can be as exciting as this for me and although the intention of the blog is to try and make money, nothing makes me happier than knowing that my hard work is paying off. What a lot of people don’t realize is that I started this blog while I was taking summer classes at the university to get ahead (over achiever!!) and ever since summer school ended I have devoted my time to making the blog better not only for my readers but also for my own personal satisfaction. I try not to be glued to my monitor but since I do have more time on my hands, I keep a close watch to make sure everything runs smoothly. I try to keep up with whats going on in the blogosphere and I do not disregard anyone just because they have a “not-so-popular” blog. I was in the same boat and I know how difficult it is and I try to help out when I can. So, if you need a little advice or help or want to give me some feedback I would really appreciate if you would write to me. I do respond to my emails within the day itself, so go ahead, write on!
Design Changes
I have been doing a lot lately to try and improve upon this blog and there have been some small visual changes to the blog. First of all, the buy me a coffee plugin has changed and now reads “Help Me Get Buff, Buy me The Hulk from Smoothie King! 23g of Pure Protein Power!” considering that it is summer time and there isn’t anything more satisfying then to be cut up, and not in the bad way either! Secondly, if you noticed the green box at the bottom of every post has changed too and thats mainly to include the “Leave a Comment” link so that people aren’t confused about how they can leave comments. There have actually been quite a few changes and there are several more changes to come.
Changes to Come
As far as design changes go, most of the design changes have been completed however, Adsense ad positioning is soon going to change and even though the website isn’t going to be in maintenance mode, you may see some of my ads move around so don’t be alarmed. I’m experimenting with ad placement to see what works best for the blog and with the high influx of visitors pouring in on a daily basis, it would only help to see what the best setup is.
A note for those who have linked back to me or added my list on your site, if you don’t see a link back from me please send me an email and I will get that taken care of immediately!
Well, I hope you enjoyed this short update. I have an entertaining post soon to follow. In the mean time, check out the post below and I really hope you can take advantage of the link back chain I have started! Thanks for reading!
Jump Start Your Page Rank
Jul 25th
Well, as we all know that pretty soon Google will be releasing their page rank updates and I figured, its now time that we all give all our Page Ranks a jump start. How, you ask? Well, I want to start my own link chain but unlike the technorati link chains and feed your feed chain, this will be a little different. Its main purpose is to get as many link backs as possible. So lets get to it:
** Start Copy Here **
We all know how important getting link backs is and with this chain, you can get the ball rolling! You don’t have to be an established blogger to take part in this chain.
Here are the rules:
1. Copy this post from the point where it says “Start Copy Here” to the point where it says “End Copy Here”
2. Add yourself and 5 of your favorite bloggers to the end of the list.
3. Post this on your blog
Enkay Blog | Ms. Danielle | Cash For Comments | BetShopBoy | JohnCow | Mr. Gary Lee | Jon Lee | Dosh Dosh | Some Make Money | The King Kong Blog | RomanDock | Michael Kwan | Ed Lau | Jane May | Sam Breadstone | Windows Tips, Tricks and Hacks | ProBlogger | The Beef Jerky Blog | The Prize Blog | Online Coupon Codes | Jamaipanese | Rugjeff | ShadowScope | The News Press Net | JohnWaraas | Life Is Colorful | A Touch of Sweetness | That Says It All | Bama 365 | Bohemian Bloggers | The Sassy Southerner | Protocol In Practice | TJ’s Anti Contrarian | Londoner Life Dot Com | That Bitchy Chick | Theres A Blog In My Soup | Daily Webbers | Clear 2 U Marketing | Drunken Housewife | Vic2x Programming | Riches of Destiny | BISEAN | Agloco Hours | Net Business Journal | Milton Ramirez | Adsense Tracker | Mischief | Gaje Master Blogging |The Life of Socrates | Rowan Forest Homeschool | Blog Duck | Cash Rich Tools | Monday Morning Power |Twice As Nice or Double or Triple | How To Get Traffic On Blogs | Grok Dot Com | Digital Nomads | The Paint Veil | Monkey Giggles | Average Joe Blogger | ShaMoney Maker | Le chasseur d’avion | Xcodec | Cricket | Ahmed In The Middle | Cute Knut & Friends | Hillary’s Place | Laces and Roses | Five Point Someone | LeLabu | All The Info | Blogitude | Anton Olsen | Spare Moolah | Susan Suarez | Keeyit | Your Name Here
**End Copy Here**
Well, its just that simple. Once I get a ping back, I will add you to my list automatically! I do hope that the people I have tagged in this original post do take part and post this on their blogs. Doing so will only expand the list of link backs and will give others a chance to be a part of this chain too! Thanks for reading!
Yahoo’s YSlow – Blog Optimization Tool
Jul 25th
Recently I had talked about a tool for Firefox users called Firebug in my post about optimizing your blog. Today Yahoo released an extension to Firebug (not Firefox) called YSlow.
What is YSlow?
YSlow actually helps to optimize your blog or website. It grades components of your design from a grading scale of A to F which is based on compliance to Yahoo’s Performance Rules. It was initially used internally by yahoo but today it has been publicly released. You need to have Firebug installed and then go here to download the Yslow extension.
How Does it work?
The tool actually sits in your toolbar as you can see above and once clicked on, it will start to collect data from the page you are viewing. It then creates the performance, components and statistics reports. I have provided some screenshots of the different features below.
YSlow Features
Aside from the Performance grading scale, it has a stats tab that lets you see how your page size varies when you have a visitor with an empty cache compared to a return visitor. There is also a component tab that lets you see every component present in a website. There is also a tools section that contains things such as JSLink by Douglas Crockford and two separate components that let you see all the CSS and JavaScript present on a page.
Final Score
Well as I said earlier, the tool grades a website based on several performance factors. I decided to put the tool to the test on several highly popular websites including my own blog.
Yahoo – A (93)
Google – A (99)
Ms. Danielle - D (61)
Mr. Gary Lee – F (59)
Derek Semmler – F (54)
ProBlogger – F (50)
DoshDosh – F (48)
ShoeMoney – F (48)
Jeff Kee – F (48)
John Cow – F (46)
Carl Ocab – F (40)
Guy Kawasaki – F (38)
John Chow – F (35)
Enkay Blog – F (35)
I can’t really say how well the tool worked mainly because the only one to pass from my list of bloggers, aside from Google and Yahoo, was Ms. Danielle! Even then, I visited about 25 blogs and websites, and so far only 3 have passed. The tool does give you details on why you actually failed in certain areas and that can help you improve the performance of your blog. I will be looking into this to see how I can increase my grade but until then, I will have to settle for the score I have received. If you install the tool, let me know how well your blog ranks or you can leave me a comment with your url and I will visit the blog myself and let you know! Thanks for reading!
Really Long Screenshot
Jul 24th
I saw that the crazy cows had a really long screenshot of their blog that they had found on another blog. They wondered how such a long screenshot could be created and since I had a little time on my hands, I figured I would create a long screenshot of my blog too. It does take time and several print screens to make so it does take patience. You need Adobe Photoshop’s photomerge feature to actually create the screenshot. What I basically did was take about 14 print screens of my blog and then saved them. Then, I opened all of them in Photoshop and clicked on File -> Automate -> Photomerge and the software does what it can, after that you have to solve the puzzle by putting the pieces together. Its a little complicated but here is what my screenshot looked like:
Hope you liked it, if you need any more details about how you can do this, stay tuned because I will have an update later this week that explains how you can do this too. In the mean time, join my contest!
