Blog Exercises: If You Wouldn’t Do It In Public, Would You Do It Online?

If you wouldn’t do it in public, would you do it online? Unfortunately for many, the answer is a resounding YES! However, most of us have some…whatever you call it…oh, yeah, class, ethics, moral fiber, manners – etiquette. I’m not the Dear Abby of social norms, but I’m first in line to tell you that […]

Writing Better Blog Post Titles

I’ve written a lot about writing and creating powerful, effective, and attention-getting headlines and post titles on your blog, but more needs to be said on the subject, especially for blogging teachers and students. The following are not effective nor attention-getting post titles: March March 2006 March 17, 2006 Today’s News Homework Today’s Homework In […]

Adding Video and Podcasting Bling to Your WordPress.com Blogs

We’ve mostly focused on static visual things you can do to dress up your WordPress.com with Blog Bling. Let’s take a look at how to add video, podcasting, audio files, and more to your WordPress.com blogs. There are videos and podcast files found around the web that you can provide access to via your WordPress […]

WordPress.com Blog Bling: Blogroll and Sidebar Bling

I’ve covered adding blog bling to your WordPress.com blog in the form of graphics and photographs, lines and smilies, fonts, blockquotes, social bookmark links. Now it’s time to add some blog bling to your WordPress.com blogroll and sidebar. The sidebar area of your blog is typically the canvas for the most blog bling. Sidebar blog […]

One Year Anniversary Review: Blogger’s Rights and the Risks of Blogging

The issues of protection for bloggers, bloggers rights, and copyright protection for web content is still an evolving issue. As more people find freedom of expression in blogging, other people seem to find more excuses to stop or control not just what they say but how they say it. There is even a guidebook for […]

How Do You Know If a Blog Has Integrity?

CRE8PC on Usability and Holistic SEO writes in “Blog Usability for the Considerate Blogger”: How do you know if a blog has integrity? The blog that has reposted your posts, in full, whenever you write one is a copycat. Granted, they say that being copied is a form of acknowledgment that you’re doing something right. […]

Link Etiquette: You Do Not Need Permission to Link

In an interesting discussion on Split Coast Stampers Forum, the old question of whether or not you need permission to link to someone, in your blogroll or otherwise, has come up. Again, let me make this perfectly clear to everyone. The blog “etiquette” for linking to someone is to link away. You do not need […]

The Secret Recipe of Comment Spam Comments

Mr. Louis Vuitton just sent me a message in my blog comments I’d like to share with you. I share this touching message because it is highly educational when it comes to the art of spam comments, and serves to remind us of why we love having Akismet, the best comment spam fighter, on our […]

Customizing Your WordPress Theme Footer

UPDATE: WordPress now has custom menus. At the bottom of the article, I explain how to customize your WordPress Theme’s footer using Custom Menus. Yesterday, I covered the basic code found in the footer of the WordPress Default Theme, and gave you some ideas on how to add some impact and navigation to your WordPress […]

WordPress Plugins for Comments

There are so many WordPress Plugins that deal with blog comments, I’ve been working on this post since a month before this month long series on WordPress Plugins began. I’ve not covered all of them, so please include your favorites and why in the comments below. There are so many things you can do with […]

The Perfect WordPress Dashboard

There as been a lot of news about the new wordpress.com dashboard, and I thought I would describe my perfect WordPress Dashboard, along with a few improvements that could be done with the WordPress Administration Panels. The perfect WordPress Dashboard would provide “me” with the information “I need”. That’s a lot to ask, but in […]