The Demographics of Who Clicks on Ads

In Who Clicks on Ads? And What Might This Mean? by Apophenia, there is an interesting discussion going on about ad-generated revenue on blogs and websites. Advertising is the bread and butter of the web, yet most of my friends claim that they never click on ads, typically using a peacock tone that signals their […]

Creating a Clickable Header in Your WordPress Theme

While working on the CSS design for this site, I wanted two things: A site design that meet web accessibility standards as much as possible. A header design that was interesting, original, and clickable. The accessible part was easy. The Sandbox WordPress Theme, which allows WordPress.com users to customize their blog Theme, puts the blog […]

Blog Challenge: Testing Your Blog Clicking Experience

What do you click on a blog? For the next few days to a week, I want you to take note of what you click on when you visit a blog. Most people either revisit blogs they enjoy or find them through search engines. When you arrive on the blog and find the information you […]

Blog Advertisements: Begging for Bucks and Clicking for Cents

Tim’s Mother Tongue Annoyances blog recently tackled a subject similar to my recent post on If I Had Ads Here, Would You Click Them?. In “Ruminations on Personal Blog Advertisements”, Tim tackles the issues of ads on blogs, specifically begging for bucks or straight advertising. Now then—what do we make of the choice of some […]

If I Had Ads Here, Would You Click Them?

I think this is a fair question. If I had ads on this blog, would you click them? More importantly, why would you click them? I had my first web page in, oh, um, way back before the turn of the century. I’ve been on the Internet in one form or another since before the […]

Blog Exercises: How Does Your Blog Make You Money?

In an interview with Daniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips, he asked me how long a blogger should wait to monetize their blog. Ha! Forever! I do not think bloggers should monetize their blogs. I think that people who want to get into the business of blogging must make a business plan on how they will use […]

Blog Exercises: I Thought You Would Appreciate This Gratuitous Picture

For many years it was thought that every post published on a blog had to feature a gratuitous image, some photograph that would lure people to click through and read the article. The myth perpetuated itself, which myths tend to do, and many still publish content with gratuitous imagery. A gratuitous image is one that […]

Blog Exercises: FAQs

A FAQ is a web page featuring “Frequently Asked Questions.” Does your site need a FAQ? Most sites do not need a FAQ Page. Yours might. How do you know if your website needs a FAQ? If your site offers products and services, a FAQ may be necessary to answer frequently asked questions about the […]

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 […]

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” […]

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 […]

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 […]

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” […]

Blog Exercises: The IKEA Effect for Bloggers

The Ikea Effect was coined by researchers who found out what we all know but rarely admit, we put too much ownership into our own brainchild ideas and concepts. In other words, we tend to fall in love with our own ideas and creations. If you have ever been around kids, you’ve probably had that […]

Blog Exercises: How to Link to Comments

Do you have brilliantly intelligent and thoughtful commenters? I do. I often find something someone’s left in a post comment worth writing a blog post about and quoting. In this Blog Exercise we’ll look at how to link to comments on your site and how to properly reference them and cite the original author in […]