Blog Exercises: Feed Readers

Without the feed reader, my blogging life would be seriously hard work. Feed, commonly misidentified as RSS, is the proper name for the contextual version of your site as distributed through various feed types such as RSS, Atom, XML, etc. They are basically your posts stripped of your website design, read like articles in a […]

Power Blogging Tips: Comment on Blogs From Within Google Feed Reader

One of the most frustrating aspects of reading blogs through feed readers is the process of commenting on blogs. The typical step-by-step process is: Scan through the blog post titles. Find an interesting title and click on the title to open it and read. Want to respond or read more? Open the post title in […]

What Inspires Your Readers to Interact With Your Blog?

By Rachelle Chase Static content that talks to readers is not enough today, especially with the meteoric rise in popularity of online communities and social networking. Good content is still the key to attract and compel people to return to your site, however giving them more than static content and blog comments for interaction gives […]

Reader Appreciation Project: Putting Readers First

Ronald Huereca writes for the Reader Appreciation Project blog and recently caught my attention with My Thoughts on Being Paid to Post. When one starts blogging for money, there are new considerations. Who am I really writing for? Am I writing for my new boss that will pay me per post? Am I writing for […]

Bringing the Best of the Best Blogging Resources to Your Feed Reader

I recently highlighted Liz Strauss’ list of 20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy and she’s done it again with Strategy: 40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!. What is blog reading and commenting to you? Is it entertainment, interaction, or research for your work? How much time do you spend on the average day […]

Live Up To The Expectations of Your Readers

In The Perils of Problogging, Stellify makes some very good points in the issue of having ads on your blog and the business of blogging. However, I want to point out a beautiful statement: If you call yourself a writer because you are a blogger, then live up to the expectations of your readers. More […]

Aggcompare – Comparison Directory of Feed Aggregators and Readers

I had no idea there were so many different feed readers and aggregators available. Aggcompare.com is the Directory of RSS Aggregators, listing dozens of feed readers and aggregators with their features. It’s not pretty, but it’s an amazing list. The features list is huge for each feed aggregator and includes information on which browser it […]

How Are You Communicating Online With Your Blog Readers?

Blog Herald’s Amit Agarwal reports on “More Ways to Interact With Blog Readers” offering an interesting selection of online communication options that integrate with your blog. The list includes Skypecasts, Gabbly, and Odeo. Are you using any of these on your WordPress or WordPress.com blog? How is it working for you? How are you using […]

Feed Stats Spike: Feedburner and Google Reader Strikes

Before you get too excited when you check your feed stats, whether you are on a WordPress or a non-WordPress blog, including WordPress.com blogs, don’t get too excited. Reports are flooding the blogosphere as people check their feed stats and think “Wow! I’m suddenly popular.” Calm down. It’s not true. Feedburner’s has started reporting how […]

Testing Readers: Survey, Polling, Rating, Testing, and Reviewing WordPress Plugins

Polls, surveys, ratings, tests, exams, and reviews expand the native interactive nature of blogs with collaboration between the reader and the blogger. They help the blogger to ask specific questions and get a measurable response. Ratings WordPress Plugins come in two formats. One which allows the reader to rate a post or its content and […]

Building Your Blogging Audience One Reader at a Time

8 Steps to Growing Your Blog Community One Person At a Time by Ben Yoskovitz is a great step-by-step approach to helping you build a relationship with your readers and audience, one reader at a time. In the first three tips, Yoskovitz points out comments as the top of the list way to encourage your […]

What Can The Blogger Do to Make Me a Regular Reader?

Pronet Advertising’s article on “Increasing Your Blog’s Readership” sings a song familiar to many of you who read my blog. It’s not just about attracting traffic. It’s about keeping them. Neil Patel of Pronet Advertising explains: When I read a blog, I always think about what the blogger(s) could do to make me a regular […]

Blogging Rants: Tangential Blogging Can Lose Readers

Over the past couple months in my travels, I’ve been interviewing a lot of old and newly found family members on their life and family history for my own needs and my new family history blog I’ll be starting soon. Today, I heard an interesting family story that I want to share with you. When […]

TechCrunch: Review of Online, Web-based Feed Readers

Techcrunch offers “The State of Online Feed Readers”, a look and review at what is available for reading feeds, the features available, and which ones score best. Researching these nine readers further underscores the extremely competitive atmosphere surrounding this industry’s development. On a feature-set basis only, two companies stood out: Rojo and Bloglines. Google Reader […]

What Do Young Readers Want?

Poynter Online recently brought my attention to Readers Don’t Want Gimmicks, We Want News by Taylor Somerville, an article written by a young person on a panel recently exploring how to bring young people’s attention to reading newspapers. Young newspaper readers are no different than older people who enjoy newspapers (aside from being better-looking). We […]