Putting Some Thought Into Blog Categories and Tags

There has been a lot of talk about the differences and similarities between categories and tags, and how to implement their use. I’d like to talk about the process of choosing categories for your posts. But first, let’s take a moment to examine what categories and tags are. What are Categories and Tags? In the […]

Tags Are Not Categories – Got It?

Tags are Not Categories by Carthik Sharma agrees with my opinion that categories are not the same as tags, and he makes a good point. Categories organize, hierarchically. Tags need not. Tags provide meta-information, Categories need not. Tags cross-connect, Categories do not. By cross connect, I mean, when you go looking for posts tagged with […]

Feed Your Ego – Literally

Feedster Ego Builder Feed will help you feed your ego, literally. Update 2010: Feedster is closed, but there are many ways to monitor your social media exposure and activities today. Google Alerts – Monitor the Web for interesting new content, Twitter searches, WordPress Plugins, and social web monitoring services. I am leaving this post up […]

Creating Multiple Single Posts for Different Categories

Tips Apply to the Full Version of WordPress. I had a unique challenge. I needed to assign a specific stylesheet for only one category of blog posts in a WordPress blog. There are a lot of ways of doing this, but I wanted it to be fast and simple. I choose to use a WordPress […]

An Interesting Use of Category Tags in wordpress.com

Jacob Appelbaum’s blog on Hurricane Katrina is an amazing read, but it also features an interesting use of categories as tags. I’ve talked about the difference between categories and tags, the limitations of using categories as tags, how to manually add Technorati and search tags to wordpress.com, and an even easier method for adding tags […]

Show Just One Category in WordPress Categories

Tip Applies to the Full Version of WordPress A challenge come up on the forum for a user who had a very interesting wish. When clicking on a category from the main page, he wanted a page showing the categories, but ONLY the categories from that category, not the children of the categories. Let me […]

Categories versus Tags: Defining the Limitations

I recently talked about categories and tags, what they do and which one to choose and adding Technorati tags to WordPressMU sites, like wordpress.com, and I want to share with you a recent struggle I went through on this issue. I have spent the past five days debating about the name of a new category […]

Categories versus Tags – What’s the Difference and Which One?

Categories and Tags are for your visitors, not just search engines. Think of your visitors’ needs first. Categories and Tags are about navigation and sorting, grouping your content to help visitors find related information. Categories and Tags are not fashion statements. Don’t be colorful or imaginative with either. Categories are your site’s table of contents. […]

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 […]

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: 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]