Since starting the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project I’ve received quite a few suggestions for topics that readers would like me or someone else to cover. I’ve got a list as long as my arm of posts that I’m planning to do in the remaining 17 or so days so thought I’d make some of the questions public in the hope that some of you might be able to write tip posts on them on your own blog (and let me know of the URL). In this way we all learn something and its not just me doing the sharing of knowledge. Here are the questions I’ve received (I’ve decided to keep them anonymous). They are direct excerpts from emails that I’ve received:
- ‘Tips on blog design and editing tools. A poll on what people use perhaps.’
- I’d also like to see thoughts on thinking beyond the blog into CMS software.’
- I would like to get your opinon (and that of your readers) on “Donate” buttons on personal blogs. I am seeing them more and more. Is it “begging”? Are they tacky? Or is it simply requesting a donation for providing entertaining or informative commentary?’
- ‘Could one of the 31 days to a better blog be about getting started and what sorts of things newbies are likely to run into and need to do?… It would be interesting to see sort of a generic road map to getting a new blog off the ground.’
- ‘One fairly major topic in this series could address hosting effects on indexing. Darren and most of the people who comment here are self-hosted. I went the other way, with a Blogger account, knowing that I would be indexed faster by Google.(Oddly enough, Yahoo indexes Blogger sites even faster than Google itself.) One of my free hosting issues – which is quite surprising – is the inconsistent way Google spyders my Blogger blogsites. Sometimes it indexes the individual posts, which maximizes keyword effectiveness and relevancy; sometimes it serves the searcher an entire month’s worth of posts in response to a keyword search hit that should deliver a single post’s link. I am trusting this anomaly will straighten out over time, but it is a little frustrating. Would be interested in hearing the experiences of you self-hosted folks eventually.’
If you feel you’ve got something to say on one or more of these topics simply write it up as a blog tip on your own blog and let me know of the URL. I’ll then feature it in one of my daily summaries for readers tips.
