Tag Archives: blogging

Rewarding Reader Participation

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Because reading blogs should not be a spectator sport.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m blogging to myself. I know I’m not — the stats show more than 3,000 page views a week here, which isn’t too shabby. But the people who stop by seem to read (or browse) and hurry on their way without offering any feedback on what they’ve read.

Now everyone has an opinion and I like to think that everyone has additional insight they can share on many topics. That’s what the Comments links are for. So, in an effort to encourage comments from readers, I’ve decided to experiment with a little giveaway.

At January month-end, I’ll give away one of my books to a randomly selected commenter who posted a comment on one of my January 2007 posts. The book is reader’s choice from currently available titles. If this little reward program is successful at getting site visitors to participate with useful, insightful comments, I’ll continue the program for each month with similar rewards.

Keep in mind that this applies to comments posted using the Comments link for a particular post on this site. (Feedback submitted via contact form is not eligible.) The comment must pass muster with our spam prevention software, so if you comment and your comment doesn’t appear within 48 hours, it’s likely that its content was considered spam.

What do you think about this? Don’t keep it to yourself. Use the Comments link.

Wanted: A Few Good Feeds

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I need to feed Endo.

I’ve been trying for a while to use a feed aggregator to keep track of blog and site feeds. Although I prefer reading articles the old fashioned way (on the Web in my Web browser), I have since realized the value of using an aggregator to quickly identify and open the articles that interest me most.

A typical session with Endo (my reader of choice) works like this:

  1. I launch Endo and let it download entries from feeds I subscribe to.
  2. I open my InBox, which includes all the new entries since the last time I read them.
  3. I breeze through the entries at the alarming rate of 10-20 per minute, determining from their titles and first paragraphs whether they’re something that warrants further reading.
  4. I click the title link for an entry I want to read, thus opening it in a new tab of a Firefox window lurking in the background.
  5. I decide whether it’s worth continuing my subscription for each feed and delete the unworthy subscriptions. (Keep in mind that I sometimes try them again in the future.)
  6. I quit Endo and read the articles waiting for me in Firefox.
  7. I often link to the articles I find most interesting and want to share, either in a blog post or via del.icio.us, which automatically lists each day’s new bookmarks in my blog (see This just in…).

The topics I’m interested in most are news (real news, not celebrity news), blogging, technology (consumer and computer), Macintosh and Apple, productivity, and writing. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in other topics — I am. I’m just not sure what they are yet.

And that’s why I’m writing this post — to get suggestions from readers about sites and feeds that might interest me.

Here’s the deal: use the Comments link to share your suggestions for RSS-published sites that might interest me or, considering the topics on this site, other site visitors. You can include your own site only if you include at least two other sites that aren’t yours that you sincerely think visitors and I might find interesting. Since SpamKarma is likely to flag posts with multiple links as spam, I’ll have to check daily (at least for a while) to retrieve messages marked as spam. So be patient if your comment does not appear immediately. I’ll leave the comments open as long as there is no abuse or until I think I have enough results.

If you recommend a site and I like it, I’m likely to link to it (formally), mention it in an article, and/or mention it in an upcoming episode of my sorely neglected podcast, Maria Speaks. If you recommend a site I think is a complete waste of time, I might mention that, too, but not in a way that would send any visitors there.

That said, please comment!

Adding a Personal Touch to Your Blog

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Some advice from ProBlogger Darren Rowse.

If you read the ProBlogger Web site, you probably already know that Darren Rowse has written a series of articles under the heading “Adding a Personal Touch to Your Blog.” If you don’t frequent that site or subscribe to its feed and you’re truly interested in making your blog the best it can be, you really ought to head over there and pick up a few tips.

Although this series started in mid December, I didn’t think about blogging about it because it didn’t strike me as something worth sharing. Darren’s tips seemed like perfect common sense to me. After all, don’t all bloggers get personal in their blogs? I know do (perhaps I over-do) but apparently many others don’t. And perhaps that’s what’s holding a lot of bloggers back.

So I urge you to stop by Darren’s site and check out this series. In it, he explains how you can make your blog more “personal”:

…by personal I don’t necessarily mean that I’m going to be reflecting upon having a personal blog (as in the type where you talk about your cat, boyfriend, hobbies and last night’s dinner). What I’ll be focussing upon is how to make your entrepreneurial blog more personal…

If it works for Darren and others (including me, I think), it might work for you.

Tips for Becoming a Good Blogger

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From MPDailyFix.com.

Tim Jackson at MPDailyFix.com wrote an article back in November titled “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Good Blogger’?“that I just stumbled upon. In it, he provides five tips for better blogging. Here they are with my take on them; you should read Tim’s article for his take.

  • Know your topic. You really shouldn’t write authoritatively about a topic when you don’t know enough about the topic to do so. Opinion is one thing, but if it’s based on facts, get the facts straight. That means doing your homework. These days, that’s easy — you’re sitting in front of a computer connected to the Internet, aren’t you? Use Wikipedia, Google, or your favorite search engine to find articles that explain things you aren’t sure about. This really hits home with me today because just yesterday I was blasted for not knowing off the top of my head that Apple sells a “two-button” mouse. I was familiar with the Mighty Mouse product but did not know all of its features. I corrected myself in the very next post, but that wasn’t enough for some readers. Ouch!
  • Know your audience. This one is extremely difficult for me, primarily because this site covers so many topics: support for my books and articles, stories about flying, information about writing, opinions, articles about travel, and stories about the things that go on in my life. Exactly who does this blog appeal to? I have no idea. But I can use stats or metrics to learn more about what people are reading when they come here. For example, yesterday’s article “Apple’s ‘Two-Button’ Mouse” was a huge hit with visitors, getting hundreds of page views and nine comments in a matter of hours. (Huge numbers for this site.) Articles about blogging and statistics also seem to do very well. Is that what my audience wants? Perhaps I should deliver more. But I’ve also decided to install polling software that asks readers which topics interest the most. That might help, too.
  • Read other blogs and leave comments on them. This is something I’ve been working hard to squeeze into my schedule. I’ve found that RSS reader software (I use Endo) is very helpful because it delivers articles or summaries of articles right to one central location. I can spend a few minutes browsing through the inbox, then follow links to the original articles. That’s how I found the article I’m discussing here. This is time consuming but it has three major benefits: (1) I learn a lot about the topics I’m following, (2) I get fodder for articles on this blog (or at least links for my automated del.icio.us links posts (see This just in…), and (3) I’m able to become part of the blogging community. (More on that in a moment.)
  • Follow the links. This isn’t a huge deal for me, since I don’t have many incoming links. Yet. But it is important to see who is linking to your site. Sadly, many of the incoming links appear to be from sites trying to up their Google ranking by linking to other sites. But when I do follow a quality link, it’s good to see that someone else has appreciated what I’ve written. And that brings us to Tim’s last tip.
  • Say thanks. This is a great way to become part of the blogging community. When someone has linked to one of your posts, it’s always nice to say thanks. Not only does this make the person on the other end feel good about sharing your work with other readers, but it builds community. This morning provided a great example of this in my e-mail inbox: I had a thank you note from the author of one of the articles I’d blogged about yesterday. She’d spent a few moments on my site and had some positive things to say about the Contact Me page, which has always been a sore subject. It was nice of her to take the time to write and even nicer to get some positive feedback about my rather strict contact policies.

Again, this is my take on Tim’s five tips. To read Tim’s take and the comments left by readers on his site, read his article.

And I’d love to get some comments about this topic here. Use the Comments link.

How to Build a “Digg Culture” on your Blog

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Some Digg tips for bloggers.

I’m not sold on Digg, but I’m certainly not going to avoid being “dugg.” That said, it might be a good idea to see how I can make the most of Digg. The way I see it, any service that can direct traffic to my site — even “fleeting” traffic — is worth looking into.

From “How to Build a “€˜Digg Culture”€™ on your Blog” on ProBlogger Blog Tips by Darren Rowse:

How do you build a “€˜Digg Culture”€™ and get repeatedly on the front page of Digg over time? In this post I’€™ll share 10 ways that top bloggers do it.

The article does indeed include those tips. But it begins by explaining exactly what Digg can do for you and your site and why you should care. If you want to be dugg, you might want to check out what Darren has to say.