Are You Wasting Your Blogging Time?

Easton Ellsworth of Business BlogWire offers When Is Blogging A Waste Of Time? 10 Nasty Examples, a brilliant satire on how bloggers waste everyone’s time, including their own. Here’s an example: 3. When you are only pretending to be “blogging” (you’re reading, you’re looking at email, you’re surfing YouTube, etc.). Excellent. Are you wasting your […]

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: 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 […]

Blog Exercises: Clean Up Your Most Popular Posts

“It’s dated 2008. It must be useless.” This was the response to an article I tweeted out recently. Yes, the article was dated 2008. Did that mean it wasn’t a valid, timely, and invaluable resource? It was, but that’s not the point. Some people equate old with useless. With the aging population gaining the majority […]

Blog Exercises: Comments and The Blog Bullies

No matter what we do or say, there will always be bullies and mean people. Some are mean intentionally, some can hurt unintentionally. And then there are those moments when we read the black letters on the white screen too much in-between the lines and come away feeling sick to your stomach. Welcome to the […]

Prove It: What Makes You Trust a Website?

What makes you trust this site? What makes you trust me? What makes you trust any website you visit? What is it about the site that earns your trust? I’ve asked this question at most of the conferences and keynotes I’ve given over the past seven years: What makes you not trust a website? The […]

Managing Multiple Authors: Managing Writers in a Multiple Author Blog

In this series on managing multiple bloggers in WordPress, I want to now focus on the content, specifically managing the editorial voice and purpose of a site with multiple bloggers. There is a huge caveat to this topic. Every blog is unique, as are all the voices within it. It is often that uniqueness that […]

WordPress 3.2 Released: Faster, Prettier, Powerful

WordPress 3.2 has been officially released, this time after a fairly short testing time period. To upgrade, use the built-in automatic upgrade. According to the announcement, this is the 15th major release of WordPress. Wow, that just doesn’t seem possible, and yet it also feels like too few. How far WordPress has come since 2003, […]

WebVisions: How to Manage Multiple Bloggers in WordPress

I’m very honored to be a part of WebVisions this year, May 25-27, 2011, in Portland, Oregon. If you don’t have tickets, register now as this event is hugely popular and there is limited space for many of the various workshops and sessions. My session is called C.R.A.P. Happens: WordPress and the Art of Managing […]

Is Your WordPress Blog at Risk from the Epsilon Email Theft?

I’ve just published news and tips on how to respond to the recent announcement and news about the Epsilon email theft on WordCast, “Epsilon Email Lists Breached: How to Protect Yourself.” I’ve included a list of the companies involved and tips on how to identify email phishing scams, deal and respond to them, and advice […]

Disclosure Now Required on Blogs, Twitter, and Other Social Media Sites

With the news that the UK is cracking down on those blogging and tweeting for pay without disclosure, and California law making online impersonation potentially illegal, social media and blogging are taking a hit. In summary, if you pretend to be someone you aren’t, famous or not, or blog about a product or service for […]

Blog Struggles: SOBCon, Idea Whelmed, and Tell It To the Telephone Pole

A few people were concerned when I started my first Blog Struggles Diary recommending that I not blog every day thus changing the whole tone of my site. This confused me as I thought this was what my site was about. I had to take some time to think about that…then life and work interfered, […]

The Freedom in Freedom of Speech

Before and after WordCamp Whistler 2009 in Whistler, BC, Canada, I took advantage of the good graces and lovely home of Glenda Watson Hyatt of Do It Myself Blog (@GlendaWH) and her husband, Darrell Hyatt of Enabling Abilities to Appear in Vancouver, British Columbia. Spending time with Glenda and Darrell is filled with laughter and […]

When is the Best Time and Day to Publish a Blog Post

I’ve just updated my article, “When is the Best Time and Day to Post on Your Blog?” Originally published in June of 2006, once a year I update the post, continuing to evaluate when is the best time and day of the week to publish a post on your blog, helping you make your own […]

Comment Spam Alert: I Read a Similar Article

Bloggers should now be familiar with the blog comment spam ruse of “X wrote an interesting post” to lure us into thinking this is a legitimate trackback, and now comes “I read a similar article also named…” to lure us into thinking this comment is legitimate. As Tony Hung illustrated, the comment spammers use a […]