Successful Blog

How to Code Links for Sidebars and Posts

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How to Code Links

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One of the first things I encountered as a new blogger that seemed to perplex me was writing the code to build my own links. Once you know how, it seems easy.

I remember too well a major directory I wanted to be in that required you take a button and link it back to their blog. They didn’t provide the code only .jpgs of buttons. I wrote support for help and a guy with geeky attitude basically said, Figure it out for yourself.

Even if you already know how to code links, having this post that lays it out plainly is a handy thing because you’re bound to have a new blogger friend ask you for help on this in the next few weeks.

To keep a blog healthy and sleek, build links the old-fashioned way. It’s really not hard once someone shows you how.Turn the page for explicit examples. [Read more…]

6+1 Traits: Word Choice — A Writing & Business Power Tool

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Word Choice Reveals Things About Us

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Hugh Prather says, We cannot talk without talking about ourselves. Word choice is where our bias shows.

Difficult, arrogant, clever, brilliant, resistant, creative, out-of-the box, genius, spoiled brat, misunderstood, having a bad day, playing with you, smartass, ambitious, valuable, disruptive.

I heard all of these words said by different people to describe the same exact behavior by a single individual.

Each person chose a different word. The word for them described the behavior, but even more it described their mindset, the filter through which they see the world.

Words reveal the mindset of a company culture too.

Does your company choose nice words to talk about inanimate objects and violent ones to talk about people? Does it seed catalogues and grow the business, but target customers and kill competition?

Word choice is a powerful thing. It communicates our unconscious thinking. At first we think it’s just a habit, but imagine for a second. What if we said “seed and grow customers”? How would that change the way we think and what we do?

What if Google called us customers? Would Blogspot bloggers have more service? What if Technorati called us partners?

Word choice is a power tool — both in writing and in business. [Read more…]

Email Subscriptions Got My Mother-in-law & 2 Nuns to Read My Blog

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Who Wants a Blog by Email?

See the subscription form in the sidebar under the search box? It looks like this.

I put it on my blog as an experiment. I was skeptical. I thought Who’d want a blog in their email box? Wouldn’t that change the whole experience?

3 Good Reasons

My dad used to say get 3 good reasons for what you want to do. I did my homework, and I got them. Three good reasons for trying email to my blog.

  • Some folks spend a lot of time on email and little time on the Internet.
  • Some folks don’t want to come to find me. They’d rather I came to them.
  • RSS feeds are hard to explain to folks who’ve never seen or used one before. I know. I’ve tried.

Two other reasons I gave email subscriptions a try were that I don’t have to pay anything, and I like the way the email version of my blog looks. I made a screen so that you could see for yourself. [Read more…]

Great Find: 2 Standalone Trackback Tools

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Trackback Troubles

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A few months ago, I was having a problem with trackbacks. It occurred right after a server move. Everything seemed to be working, yet the trackbacks weren’t appearing. I found the situation somewhat distressing. What I was writing was important and incredibly cool — as everything we write is.

This week I am having a problem with my trackbacks again. It just started happening for apparent reason. I haven’t had the time to play detective, but I know the value of well-placed trackbacks.

Trackbacks show other writers that I’ve thought about what they’ve written. They offer my work on the same sujbect to another conversation. People notice trackbacks. Sometimes they even follow one home.

Being without my trackbacks is a lot like being without. [Read more…]

9 + 1 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer

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Where to Start

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It can seem complicated to write for a readership that includes beginners to experts. I’ve done it for over two decades. It can seem like there’s too much to consider to meet them all at their own level.

My experience is that beginners and experts are not that different when they read. They might choose to read different things, but we all do. Beyond that difference of content, beginners, experts, and those of us in the middle — all readers — want the same things from a writer. [Read more…]

Writing for Readers — What’s My Promise as the Writer?

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Readers One and Many

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Most people think of writing as an individual activity. Many folks say, I write only for me! That could be so, but even then what a writer writes comes from experience, observation, and interaction with other people or of the writer as a person. Writing is intimately individual but also dynamically social. Even when people don’t read what I write, they have inspired it in some way or another.

Writing for an audience can seem overwhelming. It’s easy to get caught in a loop — thinking of each person who might drop by as someone you specifically have to write to. I find what works best for me is to define the group and to define my promise to them as a writer. [Read more…]