Raj Dash – Rethinking Blogging as an Income Producing Career

Raj Dash on Performancing has done it again with “Rethinking Blogging as a Career”, a discussion with outstanding graphic visuals that helps you understand the sources of income a blog can produce, directly and indirectly, and explores many myths around blog monetization. What if we’re all looking at this blogging thing wrong? Maybe we should […]

The Thinking Blogger Award

A few weeks ago, I was in the middle of an article about the new meme, The Thinking Blogger Awards, when I was unsuspectingly nominated by Dana of huffenglish.com. The article became Are You a Thinking Blogger? for the Blog Herald. In it, I thoroughly examined and evaluated the definition of a thinking blogger. …You […]

Wrong Thinking: Accusing Blogroll Links Not Sploggers

There’s something interesting and alarming happening on Alex King’s blog. It seems that one or more websites using WordPress are spamming Yahoo! Answers. Because his site, and other WordPress developers and designers, are included in the blogroll by default in basic WordPress installations, people are accusing Alex King and other WordPress developers or spamming. Matt […]

Are Blogs Now News Sources? Google Thinks So

According to Micro Persuasion, Google has added Google Blog Search to the Google News search bar links. Hmmm, that’s interesting. Blogs as “news” or “news resources” is still a hotly debatable point. Most blogs merely rehash the news with opinions and conjecture. A few actually report the news though, which challenges the fine line between […]

Developing New Ways of Thinking about Blogging

In a recent story on NPR called Back Pain Treatments Can Be Tailor-Made, a comment caught my attention. Years ago, doctors recommended that patients go to bed and stay there in order to heal. That’s absolutely not the recommendation today. In fact, not moving at all could be the worst medicine. Fishman likens the process […]

Do You Ever Think About What You Write About?

Do you ever think about what you write about? Okay, so Lorelle is getting a little philosophical. But honestly, do you ever think about what you write and blog about? Sometimes I catch myself finding anything and everything that might appeal to my audience, checking in with myself to see if this is in line […]

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 Exercise: When Was the Last Time You Got Personal

I walked into a friend’s home and found the fridge covered with refrigerator art from her seven year old. The traditional home often features such childhood artwork but this was extremely precious as the child has learning disabilities and drawing. The artwork was beautiful. I stood there transfixed at the crude scribbles, trying to find […]

Blog Exercises: Are You Setting an Example for Others?

A milestone in personal rights seemed to have been achieved recently when US basketball player, Jason Collins declared publicly he was gay, hopefully setting an example for others that it is now “safe” to come out of the closet. The news in and around his announcement has me thinking about heroes, mentors, and risk-takers, those […]

Blog Exercises: Become Your Own Fan Blogger

Fan blogging is one of the most challenging types of blogging. Fan blogging is blogging about a celebrity, television show, movie, sports team, sports player, criminals, or other groupie subject. Today’s blog exercise examines the art of fan blogging and how to learn from fan blogging to create your own fan club around your blog. […]

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 Exercise: Take Yourself on a Bloggy Vacation

Writer’s block is a tool — use it. When asked why you haven’t produced anything lately, just say, “I’m blocked.” Since most people think that writing is some mystical process where characters “talk to you” and you can hear their voices in your head, being blocked is the perfect cover for when you just don’t […]

Blog Exercises: Page and Post Abuse

If you are on WordPress, you are familiar with the concept of Pages and Posts. If you are on another Content Management System (CMS), it is likely you have similar content with a different name. In WordPress, Pages, with a capital P, are pseudo-static web pages on your site. They exist outside of the reverse […]

Blog Exercises: Making Lists

Got a list? Today’s blog exercise is a technical one. We’re looking at making lists in your blog posts. You would think that something like a bullet or numbered list would be simple. No discussion or training involved. Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as you would think. In the blog exercise on making a weekly […]

Blog Exercises: Emergency Drafts

I write my blog posts as far in advance as possible, using the future posts/scheduling feature of WordPress to set my posts to release over time, automating the process of self-publishing on my site and giving me time to live my life rather than be tied to my site. I rely heavily on my Editorial […]