tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57699982007-09-29T13:19:29.882-07:00The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-31418538411789994722007-05-11T16:54:00.000-07:002007-05-11T17:14:42.091-07:00

I recently asked the community of bloggers over at the Digital Point forums for their opinions on two of the leading free blogging platforms available, WordPress and Blogger. I currently use Blogger for this blog, but have heard so many good things about WordPress that I decided to find out more. And to my surprise, as a long-time Blogger user, WordPress came out way ahead in my informal poll.

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-11082909748391368112007-04-04T09:00:00.001-07:002007-04-04T22:39:10.706-07:00

While you're filtering comment spam with word verification and moderation tools, you should also be encouraging readers to post relevant, constructive comments on your blog. The right kind of blog comments are valuable in a number of ways: Each new comment increases the chance of another comment, as other visitors read and react to it. Ideally you'll end up with a full-blown discussion on your

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-85440259319013433532007-04-01T23:40:00.000-07:002007-04-02T00:40:35.616-07:00

One way to increase your blog's exposure is via syndication services that will make your posts available to other websites to republish. If a high-profile website decides to feature your content, you'll get a prominent byline with a link back to your blog, which can potentially generate significant amounts of traffic and increase your online readership. The best-known blog syndication service is

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-51964901839744383592007-03-30T09:29:00.000-07:002007-03-30T10:21:09.007-07:00

If you've been blogging for long there's a good chance you've encountered that periodic curse of authors through the ages: writer's block. Or in this case, blogger's block. You may just find yourself sitting there, perhaps at this very moment, staring at the screen wondering what there could possibly be to write about and marvelling at how you've managed to type all those words so far. What were

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-20356093279885969582007-03-28T23:41:00.000-07:002007-03-29T10:47:15.288-07:00

If you've blogged for any length of time, like an hour, you've probably come across the term "ping" somewhere out there in the blogosphere by now, or else right in your own blog dashboard. For instance, Blogger gives you the option in the Settings > Publishing tab to send pings to Weblogs.com, which tracks updates to blogs on a near real-time basis. But I'm already getting ahead of myself - what

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-53560547309653251872007-03-27T14:49:00.000-07:002007-03-27T15:33:55.723-07:00

I'm sure you've seen those sites with the newsletter sign-up form, inviting visitors to submit their email address and join their mailing list. If you're like me it probably seemed like a great idea, but you found the prospect of maintaining the mailing list, putting together a regular newsletter, and coordinating the mailings too complicated for your taste. And you're right, if you were trying

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-7742840288187762222007-03-27T09:30:00.000-07:002007-03-27T10:00:51.651-07:00

Actually, before you start one let's define what a blogroll is. Basically, it's a list of blogs you link to from your own blog. Usually your blogroll would go in the sidebar of your blog, and would include links to blogs you read frequently, or wish you read frequently. It could also include blogs you've exchanged links with - they add your blog to their blogroll, and in return you link to them

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-26943054745473267842007-03-25T23:43:00.000-07:002007-03-26T00:26:12.226-07:00

In the 19th Century Charles Dickens famously serialized novels including "The Pickwick Papers" and "Great Expectations" in monthly installments in newspapers and magazines. Today he'd undoubtedly be doing the same thing, but quite likely in blog form instead. Blogging offers a cheap and easy way to serialize and publicize literary works online. Indeed, blogged literature has acquired its own web

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-34343090777634052032007-03-25T08:23:00.000-07:002007-03-25T14:03:38.924-07:00

Maybe you're tired of staring at text, text and more text on your blog all day. Then before typing yet another word you should consider starting up a photo blog. With the right blogging platform it's the easiest thing in the world, and a great way to share your photography with a larger audience. All you'll need to get started is a digital camera and the software to transfer images from the

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-80537884072806186752007-03-24T11:02:00.000-07:002007-03-24T11:47:20.466-07:00

That's a lot of verbs for one headline. Why not just say "tag your blog posts" and call it a day? Well, different blogging platforms have different names for what I consider the same basic process. Maybe it's a legal thing. If you're writing a Blogger post (which I am) you have the option of attaching labels to it, which will classify it with other posts into a handy subject-specific archive. Way

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-66622293516721750382007-03-23T16:42:00.000-07:002007-03-23T18:05:29.390-07:00

Ever wonder what exactly you should be doing with those RSS feeds that come with your blog? Or maybe you're just wondering what RSS is - well, you wouldn't be the first person. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it's a data format based on the XML standard, which allows the efficient, standardized transmission of digital information from place to place. That could be from website to

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-58039796717055364062007-03-23T11:26:00.000-07:002007-03-23T13:41:20.199-07:00

A great way to increase your blog's visibility is by submitting to web directories that specialize in blogs. Submission to most of these directories is free, though some will request a link back from your blog in exchange for a directory listing, and a few charge a fee to review your submission and add it to the directory. I generally stick with the free ones, but if you've got money to burn, the

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-85333136798849534722007-03-23T10:57:00.000-07:002007-03-23T11:21:30.617-07:00

If you're looking for easy ways to boost your blog's readership, one of the easiest may be just a couple clicks away. I'm talking about the ability to create "post pages," which simply means that each blog post you create will exist as its own stand-alone web page. But you'll need to make sure you're taking advantage of this feature in whatever blog software you use. In Blogger, for example,

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-88118010048864604342007-03-23T10:29:00.000-07:002007-03-23T10:46:08.249-07:00

As I just discussed in my post about comment moderation, blog comment spam can be a real problem for bloggers trying to maintain a high standard of content quality and prevent unwanted posters from clogging up their comments with commercial pitches for their own spammy sites. In addition to enabling content moderation, another useful feature that can help stop comment spammers is word

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5769998.post-35557998437487646332007-03-23T10:10:00.000-07:002007-03-23T10:24:04.605-07:00

Any blog that's been up for a while, allows comments, and has at least a reasonable amount of online visibility will eventually run into the problem of unwanted comments being posted by complete strangers. These commenters are usually out to accomplish one thing: get a link back to their own blog or website and siphon away some of your visitors. They're often running automated scripts or software

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