- Read WriteWeb points to the relaunch of one of my favorite organizational tools – Backpack.
- Anne shares some ways that Writers (and I guess that means us bloggers) can help stop global warming.
- b5media is currently hiring for 5 new positions including server ninja, junior tech support, editorial director, executive assistant and WP developer.
- Enkay points to a new Yahoo firefox/firebug release called YSlow which grades components of the design of your site based upon Yahoo’s Performance Rules – handy.
- Andy Beard writes about why some paid comments on a blog can actually be an ethical thing. I agree – but would still think that paying someone to comment in the ways he suggests would be best if the comment leaver identified themselves as themselves and did so in a genuine way that added to the conversation. When the main goal of the leaving of the comment is for SEO I’m not so sure in it’s value.
- Brian shares 10 Tips on becoming a better writer. Of course the temptation could be to apply it to blogging by substituting ‘write’ for ‘blog’ – but I don’t think that would be wise. There’s a difference between ‘writing’ and ‘blogging’. I think part of the skill in being a good blogger is knowing which parts of your writing to publish and which bits to leave unpublished.
About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Thanks for the link through Darren
One think I forgot to mention in the post, but have now added to the comments is that some blogs don’t have, at least in general, such a high percentage of high quality comments.
In my comments policy I specify that I want people to link through to blogs that tell me something about them specifically, and if they follow that rule I don’t mind anchor text.
As an example I have deleted links in comments that had just a company name, and led to a totally legitimate company, with multiple employees.
For me a link is meant to be a way to tell who a person is as a reference point.
Even with followable links from comments, I have generally managed to keep quite a high level of conversation.
It is however quite ironic that that post has already attracted one manual spam entry that was almost on topic, but not quite…
interesting…
The paid comments is a little questionable though.
I enjoyed the global warming post. I do my bit with printer paper and stuff.
The buy blog comments post by andy may make sense if the company themselves did it in an ethical way. But they don’t. They sincerely promote it as black hat SEO tool. That’s probably what put everyone off, well except you of course ;)
Darren,
You’re mixing things up – substituting “blog” for “write” – but good point. Writing a lot will improve your writing and blogging, but publishing everything you write is a recipe for disaster.
I’ve actually been thinking about this quite seriously as I look back at some of the absolutely terrible stuff I used to publish and considering axing it – the problem is it brings in traffic – and some traffic from bad content is better than no traffic at all, right, right???
Darren,
I like the backpack software. I will give it a try. Do you really use it?
:D
Francesco
Guadagnare on line con Nuovibusiness.com
Francesco – I sure do.
Cool!!!! :-)
Thank you very much for the pile of stuff to review… Sounds great (BackPack seems very useful and has a nice L&F).
Thanks again and kind regards from Spain! :-)
Paquito
http://paquito4ever.blogspot.com
Thanks for the link back Darren! I highly appreciate it!
I forgot to mention, you can check out my new post called
“Jump Start Your Page Rank” here:
http://nkhan.jwmediabox.com/blog/jump-start-your-page-rank/
Its a new way to get a higher number of back links. Even though I know you don’t really need it Darren, it could be of help to others =) ! Thanks again!
>>I think part of the skill in being a good blogger is knowing which parts of your writing to publish and which bits to leave unpublished.
Bingo. Unfortunately, some people can’t bring themselves to write unless they see the immediate benefit (it’s content!). But if you don’t practice writing in other contexts, your “content” will never be as good as it could be.
I was laughing at Brian’s post.
What can I say? Short, Sweet and Effective
I can vouch for Backpack, I use it and it is excellent. The upgrade is actually an improvement, which is always nice.
I have the $5 a month flavor and you get an amazing amount for that. I might upgrade to the kingly $9 a month version so I can have more pages, although with the new page divider tool, I may not even need to do that.
Here are some of the pages I keep in Backpack:
– My home page has lists telling me what I’m “waiting for,” what I should follow up on, and a next action list for my copywriting biz.
– I have a page for each client with their contact info, copies of important emails, and copies of any projects I’m working on for them. These files make a great cheap remote backup.
– A list of next actions and reference notes for my web site.
– A list of blog or article ideas, with Word docs containing the articles already written.
– A page of notes on best practices for blogs & web sites.
– Pages with eBook ideas and notes (I’ll put the drafts there as well once I actually, you know, start writing).
– Notes for the graphic artist I have yet to find.
– Copies of all invoices I’ve sent.
– Records of all istockphoto & Corbis purchases I’ve made, with the image files attached.
– My professional network and ideas about ways I can help them.
– Notes on potential products and services I can offer.
– SEO notes.
– Squidoo ideas.
– Stuff to buy down the line for my business (decent printer, possibly a new font, etc.)
You’ve gotta admit, that’s not bad for five bucks.
“When the main goal of the leaving of the comment is for SEO I’m not so sure in it’s value.”
Do search engines even pay attention to SEO and links within comments, Darren? I want to say I heard WordPress now has the “no follow” guy as protocol. I think a little over a year ago I was getting incoming links from my comments, but now I don’t think so…
Jason it depends on where you leave your comments.
1000s of bloggers have decided that comments add value to their blog, and as a way of encouraging them, or just a way of respect or thanking them for taking the time, they use various plugins and code hacks to remove nofollow from their blog comments and trackbacks.
By keeping an eye out on manual spam, and using spam filters and plugins, very little spam makes it though, and what does is normally quickly deleted.
Just Google for “dofollow” and you will find the 2 most popular plugins for WordPress.
Just under those you will find my comprehensive list of solutions for multiple platforms.
Gaining in stature in the search results is the Dofollow community I run on bumpzee, which has over 300 active members and blogs on all topics.
Not only do search engines give credit for followed links from comments, so do Technorati, though it is true they could decide to discount them in the future, just like they discount links in a sidebar heavily.
“There’s a difference between ‘writing’ and ‘blogging’. I think part of the skill in being a good blogger is knowing which parts of your writing to publish and which bits to leave unpublished.”
Ah, this would be the difference between writing and editing. Two separate skills. It’s absolutely true that in order to get better at writing, you need to write more. Most of that “more” for most writers will be drivel. That’s where, as you say, it pays to know which bits to leave unpublished.
Andy, thanks.
“Not only do search engines give credit for followed links from comments, so do Technorati, though it is true they could decide to discount them in the future, just like they discount links in a sidebar heavily.”
I noticed Technorati follows links anyway.
I didn’t know the dofollow was one of the most popular plugins.
I post a lot on “dofollow” sites, but I’m still not getting any incoming links from comments anymore. I wonder why that is.