Blog Exercises: Prepare for Summer

It’s Editorial Calender check-in and check up time.

May is the shift from spring to summer. From blossoming flowers to green leafed trees casting shade, the weather is changing, bringing warmer days to the northern hemisphere and colder temperatures down under. For those of us living in the Pacific Northwestern United States, we are experiencing record high temperatures and trips to the emergency room for sunburns and heat exhaustion are on the rise as we cope with a sudden summer before we’ve even had spring. It’s a time for change, too fast for many.

Summer brings parades and social activities outdoors. This Southern Bell Princess chats with a child during a festival in Mobile, Alabama. Photography Lorelle VanFossen.

While many consider the move from winter to spring to be about renewal, May is also a time of change and growth. Most of the baby animals have been born and are starting to find their own way in the world. Plants are blossoming everywhere bringing their sweet scent to freshen the air. Lawns are starting to be watered and mowed. It’s time for spring cleaning, sweeping out the dust and spider webs, cleaning windows and hanging clothing out to dry in the fresh air. People are shedding the layers of clothing for layers of sun lotion on bared skin in their desire to increase their Vitamin D and seek darker skin tones.

May is a time of health, energy, vitality as we move into the next season in the northern hemisphere. For those in the southern hemisphere, it could be the opposite as people start to hunker down for the chill.

Blog Exercises: How to Write about Something Someone Else Wrote

In the early development of the web, blogs were classified as echo chambers, vessels of redundant content as every original idea was shared, reshared, quoted, and spread across the web at rapid speed. Some estimates state that less than 2% of all the content on the web is original. It’s mostly regurgitation of the same stuff over and over again.

Yet it is critical that we share and spread news of innovation and bright ideas, brilliant thoughts and moments in time with each other. That is the magic of the web. If you like it, share it with your friends.

We love to share. Reblogging is easy on WordPress.com. Yet, how do we write about something someone else wrote and share their perspective while not contributing to the echo chamber?

In “Blog Exercises: Quoting and Blockquotes” I described how to quote, going into more detail in the article, “Copyright: How to Quote and Cite Sources.” Read these first if you are unfamiliar with how to create a blockquote and properly provide citation.

Blog Exercises: Excerpts and Continue Reading

Encountered the front page of a blog where the posts ran on and on and on and on, stretching across the length of the page?

Do you ever wish you had more control over the length of your posts on the front page of your site?

This Blog Exercise explores the use of the “more” feature in WordPress, the ability to control the excerpt of a post for viewing on the front of your site, and how to write excerpts.

We begin this exercise by explaining what an excerpt is, focusing on how WordPress uses the term.

An excerpt is a summary of your post article or the first few sentences of a post as it appears on the front page of the site.

Many WordPress Themes feature excerpts on multiple post pageviews, the view of a generated page featuring more than one post such as the category pageview, search, tags, archives, and author pageviews. Few WordPress Themes force an excerpt on the front page of the site, leaving the decision up to the site owner.

In WordPress, without touching the code, you may easily set the excerpt length on your posts, automatically truncating them for the front pageview of the site.

Blog Exercises: How Long Are Your Paragraphs?

How long are your paragraphs? Have you measured them lately?

One of the telling differences between traditional writing and writing for the web is the length of the paragraph.

Look at the example below. Which is easier to read?

On the left, the paragraphs are huge, long blocks of text. On the right, the paragraphs have been broken up into smaller chunks.

Most people find the shorter length paragraphs easier to read on the web.

In traditional writing, paragraphs could go on for pages without breaking, as could run-on sentences, taking the reader on a journey across many words and pages, turning the page as the eye scans the story, gobbling up every word.

Few writers on the web can get away with that form on their sites.

Blog Exercises: Dissecting Post Categories

In a recent article, Noah Weiss shared his struggle to figure out categories and tags on his personal site. I know many of you following these Blog Exercises have also struggled to figure out your categories, so I thought Noah’s site would be a perfect example, He has gratefully given me permission to rip his category concepts apart so we may all learn more about how categories work on your site, and you can improve your own category choices on your sites in this exercise.

In a nutshell, categories are your site’s table of contents, tags are your index words.

You would think that the concept of categories and tags wouldn’t be so difficult to understand, yet people struggle with them, often harder than they need.

Noah Weiss is a grad student at Northwestern in the United States going for his doctorate, and already a well-traveled and adventurous spirit. He describes his blog as “adding the ‘b’ to his hand-written logs,” sharing the stories of his life, travels, and thoughts on the world around him.

WordPress Anniversary: Comment Spam Lessons

It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned much from comment spammers over the years. I’ve learned that they are among the most hated folks in the world, yet you have to respect them as well.

As I look back on ten years of blogging with WordPress on this 10th Anniversary year, I realized that comment spam has been a popular subject on this site.

My site is not very interactive. I tend to publish articles that leave little room for discussion. Yet, like most of us today, this site has had more than its fair share of comment spam. Thank goodness that WordPress.com and the WordPress Community, along with dozens of other forum and web publishing platforms, have Akismet to protect them. Akismet is one of many projects created by Matt Mullenweg that make the world a better place and I’m so grateful.

I’ve watched comment evolve from email spam to being a nuisance on blogs to a billion dollar industry representing more than porn, casinos, and mortgage companies. The growth – nay, explosion – of comment spam in the last ten years has been stunning.

A recent story on The World radio show described how Chinese are learning English to improve the odds of catching a big fish in phishing scams:

According to the cybersecurity company, Mandiant, hired to investigate how the New York Times was hacked, one important tool hackers are now employing is “good English.” Moser says it’s a sign of the times.

“We know there are at least 300 million people in China learning English right now. That’s the population of the US. So there’s got to be lots of people good at learning slangy English,” says Moser.

It’s true, these scams have gotten a lot more sophisticated says Andrew Howard. Howard studies the effectiveness of phishing at the Georgia Tech Research Institute by writing and sending what he calls “ethical phishing emails” and measuring how many people click on the dubious link.

“In my experience even a really poorly crafted email, we see click rates in the 20-25 percent rate.”

Improve language skills and that click rate will rocket up. It’s up to us to be smarter than email and comment spammers, not an easy task.

In “The Secret Recipe of Comment Spam Comments,” I shared a broken comment template form that came through my comment spam. It featured the secret sauce recipe spammers use in bots and templates for human spammers to slam our sites. It was a study in well-formed comments, comments designed to fool you into thinking they are legitimate.

Blog Exercises: List Your Resources

In “Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reference Articles” your blog exercise was to identify your reference articles from within your site and list them on a Page or in a post as a reference list. Today’s blog exercise is to identify and publish your resources beyond your site, the reference material and sources you count on for your site, specialty, and industry.

By featuring your resources, you become a source, a reference and resource to your readers and others.

In the early days of the web, people wanted to be the only resource, the one-stop destination. This didn’t last long as the magic that created the web is based upon the practice of sharing. The more you share the work of others, the more valuable you become as a resource.

There are many ways to share your reference and resources with readers. If you have a set list of solid references and resources off your site, consider creating a Page listing them. Group them together by commonality and purpose such as I have with the many resources on Lorelle Teaches such as WordPress and Resources.

You may also wish to write a blog post featuring a collection of reference and resource material off your site. Smashing Magazine specializes in such post. Examples include The WordPress Community Offers Advice to Beginners and Exploration Of Single-Page Websites. I’ve written many including the popular “Hundreds of Resources for Finding Content for Your Blog,” “Blogging Resources and Sources to Help You Blog,” and “Blog Resources for English Language and Blog Writing.”

The key to creating a good resource list is to group the related topics and sites together. You may feature the list as a list, include it with words explaining why you recommend these resources, or with screenshots as well to create a visual connection to the content.

Your blog exercise today is to create a resource list post or Page on your site featuring external references.

Experiment with this model. Consider doing one the traditional list format, then make one with the same list with screenshots and explanations of each link in the list. If you have many resource collections, consider releasing them once a week or once a month in different formats to see which style your readers respond to the most.

If you blog this exercise, remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: Fall in Love with Words

There are certain clues that tell you how much a restaurant will cost. If the word “cuisine” appears in the advertising, it will be expensive. If they use the word “food,” it will be moderately priced. However, if the sign says “eats,” even though you’ll save money on food, your medical bills may be quite high…

I think when you eat out you should have a little fun; it’s good for digestion. Simple things. After the waiter recites a long list of specials, ask him is they serve cow feet.

Have fun. Be difficult. Order unusual things: a chopped corn sandwich. Rye potato chips. Fillet of bone with diced peas. Peanut butter and jellyfish. Ask for a glass of skim water. Insist on fried milk. Chocolate orange juice. Order a grilled Gorgonzola cheese sandwich on whole-wheat ladyfingers. Then top the whole thing off with a bowl of food coloring and a large glass of saturated fat.

- Brain Droppings by George Carlin

In “Blog Exercises: The Don’ts of Blogging,” “Blog Exercises: Stand Up For Freedom of Speech,” and “Blog Exercises: Site Policies and Bloggers Code of Ethics” I gave you Blog Exercises about swear words and setting the guidelines for freedom of speech on your site, citing George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words routine by example of how the laws in the United States have put limits on what we call “freedom of speech.” Today’s blog exercise puts the emphasis on creative use of words, not just protection of words. It’s about having fun with the words and bringing your audience along for the ride.

I adore George Carlin’s unique humor and passion for words and language. His fight for freedom of speech and identifying the words that cannot be said on radio and television (and elsewhere) wasn’t the start of his fascination into language. It just escalated the passion to great heights. Words became play things, objects to study, investigate, dissect, and persecute.

Today’s blog exercise is to explore your own creative use of the language. Find fun ways of saying things. Look at the words and phrases you use. Have fun with them.

Here are a few George Carlin comedic quotes to help you get started.

Blog Exercises: Who Changed Your Life?

This is one of the special Blog Exercises this year, a chance to really celebrate who you are and those who helped make you.

As we travel through life, people change our lives on a daily basis as well as for a lifetime. Today’s exercise is focused on those who stepped in your path and caused you to deviate, saving your life and changing its flow forever.

We often forgot to honor those who guided us along our path, the life changers. We lose track of them, often reminded of them by a death notice, a triggered memory, or accidental path passing.

There may be many, there may be few. It’s time to celebrate one of them.

There are so many who changed my life, influencing how I think, the decisions I’ve made and continue to make, my perspective of the world, how I speak, even the way I hold my body and walk through this life. Is there a single person I could highlight? There are many, so part of today’s blog exercise is the challenge of choosing. Today, do only one, not a collection of those who changed your life. Just one. Another day, celebrate someone else.

Your blog exercise today is to blog about someone who changed your life drastically, possibly dramatically. Someone who influences you still today because of their actions back when.

Share the experience, tell their story, help us understand how this person made you a better person.

The post may include links, photographs, video, whatever it takes to tell the story and share it with your readers, helping them understand a little more about who you are and why.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: Current Events for May

Been watching the news lately? It’s time to blog the news and current events for May in our Blog Exercises.

Have you enjoyed blogging the news? I’ve only asked for one newsworthy blog post a month. Some of you have gone a bit overboard, while others still struggle to find something from the news to fit into their site like a square peg in a round hole.

An artist friend of mine told me recently that the news and current events have nothing to do with her blog. She wants all that “nonsense” off her site so it will be a place of escape, both for her and for her readers.

She makes a good point, but these Blog Exercises are not about defending yourself against the assignments. They are voluntary. The point is to stretch your blogging muscles, to experiment. To try something different. To expose your readers to new topics and information and to see what happens.

However, I like a good challenge. I went looking for current events and news she could blog about that would not impact her readers or the sacred, peaceful environment she’s created on her blog. She specializes in handmade arts and crafts, specifically fine arts pieces and dolls.

The League of New Hampshire Craftsmen calls itself one of the oldest and most prestigious craft organizations in the United States, and host and sponsor of the oldest craft fair in the country. This year marks the The 80th Annual Craftsmen’s Fair in August, something newsworthy and worth celebrating, whether you live near or far.

Recently, Perry Hall Patch, a blog about Perry Hall, Maryland, reported on local artists selling on Etsy, the commerce website for handmade and homemade items and crafts. She could easily do a post featuring local artists in her area, and open up her network a little more as well.

I also reminded her that many of her ideas for her artwork come from the news. The news impact us daily, intentionally or unconsciously. Sharing that insight with others may help them open up their own minds to how the outside world influences their art.

How are you finding ways to incorporate the news into your own site?

Your Blog Exercises today is to blog about a current event. Find a way to make it fit within your blog topics and serve your readers.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: Writing Poetry and Recipes in Your Blog

Do you publish poetry on your site? Feature many quotes? Share recipes? Addresses? If so, you may need to learn how to publish content with single lines instead of double.

In WordPress and other publishing platforms with a WYSIWYMG interface, hit the Enter (Return) key and a wide or double space will appear. Each line will have whitespace between it. In poetry, quotes, and recipes, you may want the lines to appear on top of each other as a group.

Here is an example from a poem by my Great Uncle Robert Knapp called “Evenin’.”

Night drops down with usual calm.
The peaceful night birds cry.
The whippoorwill reiterates song,
Natures own sweet lullaby.

An owl hoots, from his lofty perch,
A hungry coyote whines,
Nocturnal animals in search,
Make chills go up one’s spine.

The Old Moon rises o’er the hill
Sends shadows every where,
Seems aid to night folks, greatly skilled,
On land and in the air.

This excerpt is a recipe from “The Best Fresh Fruit Recipe Ever” on Taking Your Camera on the Road.

Ingredients

1-2 kilograms (enough for four servings) of just about any fruit: strawberry, melon, pineapple, mango, cherry, apple, orange, grape, kiwi, banana, whatever
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water
4 cardamom pods
4 star anise

In a pot on medium heat, put the sugar, lemon juice, and water and begin to heat it (not to a boil). Bruise the cardamom, which means setting each pod on a cutting board, laying a big knife over it on its side and gently smacking your hand down on the knife to flatten the pod to open just a little, or doing the same thing with a flat heavy surface like a meat pounder. Put the cardamom with the star anise in the pot, but I want to give you an option…

Both of these work better with no spaces between the lines. The reader sees them as a group, a block of content in poetry as well as a traditional form with recipes.

In the Visual Editor of WordPress, a single hit of the Enter key automatically adds spacing appropriate between paragraphs. To create a single line, called a line break in HTML, hold down the SHIFT key and hit ENTER.

In the Text Editor of WordPress, you must use two Enters to create space between paragraphs. Hit it once to make a line break. Or you may wish to use the HTML line break <br /> to force the line break.

For more examples and tips, see “Writing with Single Lines Not Double in Your Blog Posts.”

Your blog exercise today is to practice and publish something with single lines rather than paragraph spacing on your site.

If you have previously published recipes, quotes, poetry, or addresses without this technique, edit those posts to correct the line breaks.

If you wish to share this tip and blog exercise with your readers, include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Blog Exercises: Comments Policy

We started with the Bloggers Code of Ethics in our blog exercises on site policies, starting you off on the right foot by knowing where you will draw your lines in the sand when it comes to your rights and responsibilities as a blogger. In this Blog Exercise, we are going to tackle the next of the site policies you may be required to have on your site: Comments.

The basic policies required to be on your site are copyright, disclosure, comments, liability, and privacy. Different countries and cities have different laws for what policies you are required to have on your site. While these pertain specifically to commercial sites, which include any site with advertising, sales (direct or in-direct), non-profits, and government agencies, these are good policies to have on your site to protect yourself and your readers.

A comment policy does multiple things.

• It protects you from commenters.
• It establishes the guidelines for acceptable comments.
• It sets the rules by which you may edit or delete comments.

While a comment policy serves to protect you from commenters, it also sets the tone by which you will comment and respond to comments. Like writer’s guidelines, learn how to comment properly so you do not spam other sites with inappropriate forms of comments nor your own site.

The guidelines for “acceptable” comments can be anything. You may wish to ban profanity or open up the door to it. You may wish to restrict language and subject matter that offends or is derogatory. Do you allow personal attacks? Or maybe your site thrives on that. Either way, you must clearly state what your rules of engagement are on your site.

Liz Strauss, queen of blog comments and social web interactivity, summed up her blog comment policy for many years with two words: play nice. She didn’t need to explain it. Everyone understood the rules of the sandbox. You don’t play nice, you’re out of the sandbox. Your comment policy may be simple and precise, or expansive.

I’ve written extensively on comments, covering guidelines on how not to comment and how to write a comments policy, and here are more resources to help you create your own comment policy.

Blog Exercises: Do You Teach or Lecture?

Do you teach or lecture on your site?

We all write with a specific “voice” and “style,” representing our perspective on the information we are presenting. On this site, I’m a teacher, sharing with you lessons to help you blog, use WordPress, and publishing on the web. You may share your expertise or your experiences with others on your site with others as a teacher, leading your students along the path.

Contrast that with what I call the lecture style, a style of writing and perspective that lets the reader know you are the expert and it is your way or highway. Those who lecture rather than teach would call the difference a game of semantics. As with everything, it is, but it is a comparison that needs to be explored.

The difference between teach and lecture is a fine one when it comes to web publishing.

A fellow college professor I know lets the students lead the class. He presents material and encourages the students to debate the answers, find alternatives, and come to their own conclusions, guided by the teacher. The student’s evaluation is measured by participation, interaction, and determination to learn and process the information.

Another college professor stands in front of the class and presents the material for two hours and goes home. He will give the students five minutes at the end of class to ask questions and get help, then he’s gone. His job is to tell the students how to think, what to think, and the answers to the questions. What the students do with this information happens outside of class and is measured through tests.

The first is a teacher, the second an example of a lecturer. Let me give you another example outside of academia.

Two lawyers blogs. The first shares lessons learned, comments on court cases, laws, and policies, teaching his readers but also offering commentary and welcoming social interchange. The second offers only legal advice in bits and pieces, rarely offering opinion just legal references. Comments are turned off and interactivity is not welcome nor encouraged. The first lawyer is a teacher, the second is a lecturer.

Does that help you understand the fine line between the two?

Blog Exercises: Own Your Site and Protect Yourself

I hear it every day. A webmaster, developer, or designer does the site owner wrong and the site owner is victimized, helpless, and frustrated with what to do next.

I’ve gotten calls in the middle of the night from people around the world trying to get help recovering their WordPress password because their “web guy” ran out on them. I’ve watched people turn over their entire online business to a family member “because they are young and understand all of this stuff,” only to have the family member make wrong decisions, abandon them, or take their money and run. I just got off the phone with another person taken advantage of from some web designer/developer in India. The developer locked up their site and threatened them that if they don’t pay him $500 a month, he will shut down their website and online business. He says that he controls everything on the site and that everything, the content and the code, is his and he has the right to control it all if they will not pay him more.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. It’s your site. You own it. No matter how much work someone does for you on the site, it is yours.

If you hire a gardener to work on your property, the gardener does not own the property. They are an employee, contractor, or, in the legal sense, work for hire. You might give them the keys to the property, but you own it. It is yours.

“If I stop them, they will destroy or take down my site. They will lock me out and hurt my site and business.” This is the most common fear I hear from people. No one has the right to harm your site because you refused to continue business with them. The gardener has no right, legal or ethical, to burn your house down because you end your business dealings with them. If they do, you have the right to take legal action against them.

However, if you violate the legal agreement with them, they also have rights to take action against you for non-compliance. They still have no right to deface or harm your site. While there are abusive web designers and developers, there are also bad clients. Don’t be one of them.

Site ownership has the responsibilities and liabilities of any business. Be responsible for your own site. Make sure you own the domain name, that you contract with the web host for the hosting arrangements (possibly on the recommendation of the designer or developer of your site), and that you have password access to everything. Get it all in your name. You never know when the relationship may sour. You want the online property in your name, under your control.

Too many times we hire friends or family members to do our business websites, trusting them with our business, income, and reputation. While they may be professionals, they may not act professionally. You must still act professional when it comes to your online business.

Blog Exercises for April

April seemed to fly by in this Blog Exercises series. Have you been able to keep up now that we are done with month four of improving your blog?

A lot of the blog exercises this month deal with interactivity and links, tips for building a community with your site. One of my favorite exercises was to encourage you to increase your thank you ratio by making fewer excuses and saying thank you more often on your site as well as your life in general.

We also spent some time expanding your editorial calendar and lists of topics to cover on your site.

I also started to discuss the legal policies required on most sites, beginning with giving serious consideration as to your blogger’s code of ethics and the rights and responsibilities you feel towards your readers.

That’s a lot of great tasks to do for your site, and we’ve even more coming up in May!

In April, the following blog exercises were covered.

• Blog Exercises: Fools, Pranks, and Jokers
• Blog Exercises: What Words Do You Abuse Redundantly?
• Blog Exercises: When Will You Not Link?
• Blog Exercises: How to Respond to a Trackback
• Blog Exercises: Does Your Site Look Spammy?
• Blog Exercises: April Random Editing Day
• Blog Exercises: Add Industry Events to Your Editorial Calendar
• Blog Exercises: How to Add Headings to Your Post Articles
• Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reference Articles
• Blog Exercises: Increase Your Thank You Ratio
• Blog Exercises: April Current Events
• Blog Exercises: Editorial Calendar Check-in
• Blog Exercises: The Royal We
• Blog Exercises: Site Policies and Bloggers Code of Ethics
• Blog Exercises: Footnotes
• Blog Exercises: What Are You Talking About Revisited
• Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reasons For Blogging
• Blog Exercises: Battling Self-Doubt
• Blog Exercises: The Search for Like Minds
• Blog Exercises: Stand Up For Freedom of Speech
• Blog Exercises: How to Link to Comments
• Blog Exercises: The IKEA Effect for Bloggers

The month of May has some exciting topics coming at you. I’ll be offering more tips on blog writing styles and forms, content organization, and many maintenance tasks. We will be exploring more on how to use your web browser, expand your editorial calendar, and shake things up on your site. .

Thank you so much for joining me on this great adventure. Here’s to another month!

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