Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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Newsweek Tells What’s Bloggy Hot–NOT!

Filed Under Blog Review, Business Life, Successful Blog | 3 Comments

Newsweek logo

Today in Blog Watch at Newsweek

Do you know Blog Watch? The tagline is A mainstream-media snapshot of what’s hot (and what’s not) in the ever-widening world of weblogs.

Here’s January 30, 2006 selection.

Hot?
Making fun of celebrity fashion–gofugyourself.typepad.com
A war of words over the New York Knicks–deadspin.com
A Mel Gibson parody that Mel is threatening legal action–melgibsonsblog.blogspot.com

What’s Not Hot?
Blog Watch didn’t mention. Darn. It’s probably what I’m reading.

How many blogs are they watching ? . . . Makes me wonder about their criteria. Think a hat was involved?

I have an idea! Why not have a blogger write Blog Watch? What a concept!

Okay, so it was just an idea. . . . What would I know?
I’m just a blogger, not even a hot one at that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: Tlog Blogging Tips Series

Filed Under Basics, Blog Review, Checklists, Great Finds, Successful Blog, Survival Kit | 2 Comments

Great Find: The Tlog Blogging Tips Series
Type of Article: A Growing Series of Articles on Setting Up and Running a Blog
Permalink: The Blogging Tips Series
Target Audience: Any blogger who wants to think about blogging or rethink the direction his or her blog is going.

Content: Pedro Timoteo, the Tlog owner and developer of this series is a network administrator. I’ve read through these posts and they put out in sequence the step-by-step basics of blogging. It’s well worth looking over for a thorough blog review. The organization has a programmer’s knack of parsing out knowledge in manageable chunks. They are delivered in language that is clear, accurate, and respectful of the reader. This belongs in everyone’s survival kit.

Look at this list.

Tlog Blogging Tips Series

What’s not to love about this? The thought that went into this series shows in the list alone.
AND there’s a whole blog beyond this.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles:
Blog Review Checklist
What Is Content that Keeps Readers?
How To Beat Writer’s Block
Why Dave Barry and Liz Don’t Get Writer’s Block

Great Find: Blogs about Blogging

Filed Under Audience, Blog Review, Great Finds, Marketing, Successful Blog | 10 Comments

blogging_wurk_net Blogs about Blogging

Great Find: Blogs about blogs, blogger, and blogging by Barry Bell
Permalink: Blogging/wurk.net/
Target Audience: Anyone interested in Blogs about blogging

Content: Somtimes you can read someone’s writing and know you’d have a fun time at dinner with him. That’s how I feel about Barry Bell. In this, what amounts to his Top Nine blogs about bloggers and blogging he gives a tongue-in-cheek review of who should be reading each blog and why they should read it.

Included are Problogger, Jack of All Blogs. Blogebrity, Workboxers, Performancing, Successful Blog, Blogherald, Blog Network Watch, and Pajamas Media. In it he says things that I realize I’ve known unconsciously, but never actually put the words into a thought of my own. One or two of the descriptions were so perfect, they made me laugh out loud with their honesty.

For new bloggers, especially those who’ve not taken a course in marketing this review shows fine examples of product differentiation. All of these blogs basically “sell” the same thing. However, each has chosen to serve a differerent market niche and has developed their blog to that audience with that purpose in mind. The product differentiation is so clear that Barry Bell as a reader can state in a few words who each blog is meant for and what purpose it serves.

Barry has nailed it, and done so in a post that is an easy, fun read. Seven of the eight of the judges give Barry a ten and pass this one into the gold medal final round. The judge from New Zealand, who’s still sleeping–he phoned in a 9.9. The NZ judge does that sometimes.)

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: GraphicPUSH

Filed Under Blog Review, Content, Design, Great Finds, Successful Blog | 3 Comments

Since this week has been about Design, I thought you might enjoy exploring this Great Find over the weekend.

Great Find: GraphicPUSH by Kevin Potts
Target Audience: Everyone who’s looking for or learning about design
Site Type: Design Site
Content: The quality of Kevin’s work shows in his own site’s design, in the relevancy of the topics and transparent, well-thought, well-written content of his posts. He markets his work with generosity by providing a quality free offer–three sets of beautifully-rendered free icons to spice up your own blog’s design or your desktop.

Notes: Don’t cheat yourself by jumping straight down to click through to the free icon sets. There’s plenty to see, and to learn about, if you go exploring on this site. Be sure to read the 9 rules that he wrote. No I didn’t realize this was a 9rules network member when I found it. I went there for the free icons I could get for you–and was delighted to find so much more.

More Great Blog Designs to Discuss

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blog Design Checklist

Filed Under Audience, Blog Review, Checklists, Design, Successful Blog | 11 Comments

A successful blogger is always asking the question, How does this serve my readers?

To many of us design is the fun and “creative” part of building our blog, talking and tweaking design can take up more time than writing content–if we let it. A checklist can help keep my creativity at uptimum levels and keep my focus on how my choices will ensure my readers enjoy their stay well enough to return again and again.

Blog Design Checklist.

Use this checklist to remind yourself not to let too much design creativity take the “fun” out of reading your blog. Then get started. Have fun tweaking.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

And don’t forget the other checklists in the set:
Blog Review Checklist
Editing for Quality and a Content Editor’s Checklist
Checklist for Linking to Quality Blogs
A Blogger’s Personal Narrative Checklist
Checklist for Starting a Directory Listing

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