Strip Down Your Blog: CSS Naked Day

Get ready to go naked. On April 9th, 2008, hundreds, possibly thousands, of blogs and websites will go naked in honor of CSS Naked Day. Join fellow WordPress bloggers in honoring web designers and WordPress Theme builders by going naked. This is the third year of the annual CSS Naked Day which honors web design […]

Blog Struggles: When An Old Post is New Again

You never know when an old post will revive itself and become one of the most popular posts on your blog at the moment. I’ve had this happen many times. Sometimes, it’s expected. More often not. In the beginning, it would send me into a panic, just another of my many blog struggles. I will […]

Are you a Blog Curator or Caregiver?

In Blogging is About Caring Not Curating, Anne Helmond makes a very good point about how a blog is different from a directory, catalog, and many other “categories” a blog can be dumped into, summarizing it with: A blog is more than a collection of blog posts on a certain topic. A blog is never […]

Weekly Digest: Back on the Farm, Improving Your Blog Series, WordPress Podcast Reporter, and More

While the world is rushing around doing holiday activities, I’m in panic mode to finish up some major projects and working very long hours – in between feeding animals and doing farm work. Had a lovely adventure with one of the mini-donkeys, Rocko, who got lose and I found him wandering around in front of […]

Access Requested to the WordPress Theme Viewer

Update December 11, 2007: Matt Mullenweg offered updated news on the WordPress Theme Viewer saying: Just wanted to do a quick update for those wondering when you’ll be able to add new themes or update existing ones here in the directory. We’ve been working very hard on a new Subversion-backed database for themes that will […]

Weekly Digest: Floods, Harp Guitars, WordPress 2.4 News, and Improving Your Blog Tips

I’ve been back for a week and already have been snowed, hailed, rained, frozen, and flooded. The electricity held but the Internet was down most of four days, so I got a lot of behind the scenes work done, as well as unpacking. I’m playing catch up as fast and furious as I can amidst […]

WordCamp Israel WordPress Tips Talk

The following are my tips and recommendations to help you get the most out of WordPress, be it on WordPress.com or the full version of WordPress as presented to hundreds of WordPress fans at WordCamp Israel (English) recently. This is a fleshed-out version of my program notes outline, with links to more tips and recommendations […]

Blog Struggles: Taking The Moral High Blogging Ground

Oh, the stories I could tell. I wish I could tell you about all the times when my instinct was to take the low road, to accuse, to play Devil’s advocate, to leap to conclusions, to express unfounded opinions, and to lower my standards. Oh, the times, the many times. A constant struggle of mine […]

Caring About the Little Links on Your Blog

Malaysia Can Blog’s Ultimate Guide to Getting Lots of Link Love is a collection of posts about getting links to and from your blog that is a wonderful collection, but I love the point the author makes in the introduction: Quite frankly, there are four compelling reasons to care about “little links”: * Little links […]

WordPress.com Marketplace and The Theme Debate

Last week, Matt Mullenweg made public his idea on creating a WordPress.com Marketplace to add more options to WordPress.com bloggers for a fee, especially meeting the demands of so many for more, more, and more. Among the proposals under consideration, and I stress that, since this is not a done deal but an idea, is […]

The Dos and Don’ts of Blogging

In Basic Blogging Etiquette, Do’s And Don’ts, Plagiarism, Deb shares some tips to help bloggers blog better: I’ve discovered since I started blogging that it’s not possible to be a lone ranger. If you had started your blog as a private diary and you’re satisfied with three visitors a day: your mother, your boyfriend and […]

Blog Struggles: Changing Your Blog’s Focus

Last week, I covered the definition and benefits of having a focus on your blog, and then gave you some tips on discovering your blog’s focus by examining and studying the clues your blog currently contains. Today, I want to cover how to change your blog’s focus now that you’ve found it, as part of […]

Blog Struggles: Why Should Your Blog Have a Focus

Why should your blog be a focused, narrow niched blog? Because: It establishes you as an expert. It creates a consistent flow of information and content. The blog and you become a source for information, not just a link. Increased incoming referrer links and increased likelihood of being blogged about, not just linked to. Like […]

Blog Struggles: The Blog Focus

In a comment recently on this article series on Blog Struggles, Lindsey asked: I have been blogging for a couple of years. I started blogging because I thought it would be a fun thing to do, and I still find it fun. However, my blog doesn’t really have much of a focus, so it doesn’t […]

Blog Struggles: The Search for Blog Content

The first topic I want to cover in this new series on Blog Struggles, discussing the trials and tribulations of blogging, is about the issue of finding content for your blog. Finding content. I have a problem right off the top with that phrase. Blog content can be found anywhere, but saying you have to […]