Bloggingtricks

Last week there was a remarkable event held in San Jose, CA. It was called BlogHer. The organization called BlogHer bills itself as a community "building a guide to women bloggers. In 20+ popular topics, you'll find lists of blogs by women and constantly updating guides to what's hot..."

Lots of bloggers were posting from the conference and I was able to follow along quite nicely even though I wasn't at the event. The men (yes men could attend the conference) and women who attended seemed to get a great deal out of the event and I have to say I am really sorry I couldn't attend. I think there's a great deal to learn from these people...everything from how to put on a conference to how to blog. The BlogHer folks get the spirit of blogging.

There are many resources at the BlogHer site and it appears that there will be audio and blogs from the conference that you can take advantage of, even if you didn't go.

You can get a sense of what it was like from watching this short FilmLoop.

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Technorati Tags: blogging, Weblog, blogher

In a previous post about making money with your blog I mentioned Google's AdSense. A few of you contacted me to ask about some AdSense-related products you saw advertised on the Web. That prompted this post. Be careful out there!

Unfortunately, there are scammers who will offer you get-rich quick schemes involving AdSense. And while I can't tell you specifically which of these products is legit and which is a scam, I can tell you to use your head and remember, there's never, ever a free ride.

Unless you're very easy to fool, you'll probably spot most of these. One guy offers to "sell you a copy" of his website. He claims to make tens of thousands of dollars in AdSense clicks each month and says you can too if you buy AN EXACT COPY OF HIS WEBSITE and host it on your server. Yeah, right.

Anyway, you get the idea. If you were to participate in any of these schemes, you not only won't get rich quick, you may get banned from Google's AdSense program.

Tip of the hat to Digital Inspiration for pointing out these scams.

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It's important to know what people are saying about you and your blog(s). But it gets old going out and doing active Internet searches on your name all the time. Enter PubSub. PubSub is a matching service that instantly notifies you when new content is created that matches your subscription. Using a proprietary Matching Engine, PubSub is able to read millions of data sources on your behalf and notify you instantly whenever a match is made. In other words, it is a passive search engine that searches into the future. It's a free web-based service that you can use to create an RSS stream that you subscribe to. That stream can be any future search you want performed. For instance, you might set up a PubSub search on any or all of the following criteria:

1) Your name
2) Your blog's name
3) Your competitor's name and blog

That way you always have the ability to respond quickly to inaccurate or damaging information and to capitalize on positive information.

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I've been studying an obscure situation lately. I've been trying to figure out the best time of the day and week to post to a blog.

This may seem like a very fine point on an already fine head, but believe it or not, I think it makes a difference. And in a world where there are five million blogs, any competitive advantage, no matter how slight, can mean more readers.

Bloggers aren't the only ones who study such things.

For instance, public relations types will issue a news release late Friday that covers bad news, knowing it will probably be ignored, and it's impact marginalized. Most people don't pay as much attention to the news over the weekend as they do during the week.

Likewise, Monday morning is a very busy time since the world of business ramps back up, people go to work and everyone has to catch up on e-mail, meet with their peers and bosses, and generally get back to work. They may not have time to catch up on all their favorite blogs until Tuesday.

So when's the best time to post? There's no one-size fits all rule but here are some guidelines.

1) If you post daily, try to get your posts up early in the morning. This will put you in better stead than someone who posted at 11:00 PM the night before, since their post will likely be buried in the morning by all the new posts that come out. Since their post goes to the bottom of the heap, that means your post goes on top. It's common sense really. I aim for no later than 9:00 AM, EST.

2) If you post weekly or bi-weekly, pick a day of the week that isn't already so crowded. Monday's and Friday's are usually bad days since there's already a flood of activity on blogs and newswires. Tuesday and Thursday, again in the morning, seem to be the best times for most weekly or bi-weekly posters. There's not as much competition for attention then.

3) Ignore number two and post on weekends. Why? Since many bloggers take the weekend off, it might give your blog a chance to land on the radar of bored readers looking for something new.

4) If you post monthly, don't post on the first or last day of the month. Once again, there's just too much competition. Any other day, using the above guidelines, should be fine.

If you're in a situation where you can't physically access a computer or post during these times, see if your blogging platform supports post scheduling. If so, set your posts to publish according to your desired schedule and don't worry about it.

If you blog in a field where there's some specific reason to post at a time that's dictated by circumstances, do what you have to do. Also check your own statistic pages to see when readers are most active on your blog. Your audience may live by a different set of rules.

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The results are in. I posted a poll question on the right side nav bar asking the question: "How often do you blog?"

I was surprised that 14.3% blogged more than once per day. That seems higher than I expected and means that people are really getting into their blogging. There was a tie for the most common answer. About one fourth of respondents said that they blog once per week and an equal number said they blog once per day.

More than 100 people responded to the poll. It's obviously not scientific. But it is interesting. Use the data in any way that you can to inspire, improve or reflect on your own blogging efforts.

And be sure to vote in the new poll: Which blogging platform do you use?

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Almost everyone who writes a blog wants it to be popular. And lots of bloggers become obsessed with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and fill their posts full of mindless keywords hoping to improve their Google ranking, etc.

I actually have one client who checks her rankings on each of the popular services like Technorati, Digg and Google several times a day. She's so enthusiastic about it that I barely had the heart to tell her that much energy researching, writing and posting would probably do more to improve her rankings than anything else.

And what's all the fuss about being a top blogger? Guess what, you don't need to be in the Technorati Top 100 to be important, helpful or influential. All you really need is an audience of one. One person who is your target audience, and who really needs to hear what you have to say.

If you reach that one person at the right time, it can lead to success in many ways.

If you measure success by money, that one person could become a long-standing, profitable client.

If you measure success by making a difference, the help you provide that one person could positively impact their life in ways you'll never know.

If you measure success by just sharing what you know because it makes you feel good, then the happiness you get from doing what you love is payment enough.

The point of my rant today is not to get all wrapped up in how many people link to your blog. Especially when it's new. Face it, there are 75,000 new blogs created every day. You and your blog may not become internationally famous overnight. But if you find that one person who needs you, who can be inspired or helped by you and what you have to say, you'll be famous to them.

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While I have a great deal on my mind when it comes to blogging, I occasionally read something somewhere else that's so good, I want to pass it on to my readers here. That's called linking out. It's a common practice in the Blogesphere. Some new bloggers are reluctant to send traffic AWAY from their blog but there's one important lesson to learn about the new social media. . . the audience is in control. Gone are the days when you can trap someone at your site. And you shouldn't feel the need to do that anyway. If you find something very cool and share it with your readers, they'll thank you by coming back for more.

So without further ado, here's a link I think you should visit. It's a blog writer's style guide for lack of a better definition. It's an article by Dennis A. Mahoney called How To Write a Better Weblog. Read it, believe it and practice it. Your blog will be better for it.

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I recently read a blog written by an investment advisor. I try to read one new blog everyday, just to learn how other people see things. This particular blogger actually had a few snippets of wisdom that I found engaging. Unfortunately, at the end of his post, he had more than a snippet of self-promotion. . . while there were about three powerful and valuable sentences in his main post, there were 20 sentences that promoted the financial products he sold and all of his products and services.

In fact, at the end of each and every post on his blog, he provided this 20-sentence advertisement (full of links to his web site where there were, you guessed it, more advertisements) and it takes up half the page.

While it's perfectly normal to want to promote yourself and your business(es) on your blog, there is such a thing as too much drum beating.

People aren't stupid. They'll understand that you're an expert on whatever it is your blogging about without you telling them so. And the blogespehere doesn't like self-promoters. They'll avoid you like the tax man if they think you're just out to blow your own horn. You have to earn the right to talk to them about what you do. Here's how to do that.

Provide good information on a regular basis to establish your expertise. That's it. People will realize that you're the person to approach if they need help. Make sure your contact information is easy to find on your blog, provide a few sentences on your front page about yourself or your services and leave it at that.

It's worked for me and it can work for you.

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Take a look at the right side navigation on this blog. You'll notice that right under the search bar is the title "Subscribe Free." Following that is a list of chicklets and a tutorial on RSS, followed by an invitation to join the BloggingTricks.com Email list.

Making it easy to subscribe to your blog is an important first step to attracting readers. While a great many people are familiar with newsreaders, RSS, XML and the notion that "subscribing" is something that's usually free in the Blogesphere, the majority of the population is not familiar with any or all of these.

So it's your job to make it easy to understand.

Notice I put the words "Subscribe Free" above the chicklets. Many bloggers just use the chicklets and assume that everyone knows what they mean. But for those who don't, the two simple words "Subscribe Free" are both an invitation and instruction.

Don't forget that attracting readers is at its core, simple salesmanship. And the number one rule for any good salesman is to ask for the order.

So ask your readers to subscribe and make it easy for them.

UPDATE: Blog templates don't translate for every RSS reader the same way so some of the information I am describing in this post may not be available to you unless you enter my blog from the root URL, i.e., www.bloggingtricks.com. For that reason, I'll add that it's probably a good idea to put your RSS information in each post so everyone can find it. Thanks to Glenn from PublicityShip for pointing out this problem to me.

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One of the most obvious things new bloggers overlook is making contact information available on their blog. Suppose you have a brilliant thread going on your blog and a major newspaper sees it and wants your comment on the relevant issue for a story? But you forgot to put your e-mail, phone number and address in a prominent place on the blog so they went with a different source.

Authenticity is another reason you need to identify yourself on your blog. Who you are matters to your readers. If you're an experienced photographer and you share a piece on getting good results with long lenses, that carries more weight than someone who isn't an experienced photographer saying the same thing. And if you're an employee of a company touting its products because you really like them, be sure to disclose your relationship. Don't try to hide your title or position. If you do and the audience finds out (and they will) you've lost all credibility.

Unless you have a really good reason to remain anonymous, put your contact information on your blog. The more detail the better and make it easy to find.

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Technorati Tags: blogging, Weblog

Blogging is no different than baseball, piano or cooking. Sometimes it takes practice to get good at it. So today's trick is a simple one: Practice, practice, practice. Practice is the act of repeating something over and over for the purpose of learning and gaining experience. Your writing/blogging will improve based on how often you do it. Keep writing and blogging. That's practice. You'll improve.

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Technorati Tags: blogging, Weblog

One of the best ways to learn more about blogging is to read other blogs. And if you want to see how the big boys (and girls) do it, go to the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki. It's a directory of the Fortune 500 companies that have blogs.

In case you're not familiar with the concept, a "wiki", it's a type of website that allows users to edit and contribute to the content of the site.

And this particular wiki was started by none other than Wired's Chris Anderson (of the Long Tail fame.)

Reading through some of the blogs by these Fortune 500 companies might give you some ideas for how your blog should take shape. It's also a fun way to keep tabs on your favorite businesses.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Weblog

This post is part of my series on promoting your blog and increasing your blog traffic. Read Part 1, read Part 2, read Part 3, read Part 4 and then read Part 5 first, then follow-up with this post.

This is the last official post in this six-part series. I will continue to provide blog promotion tips on occasion but I want to do a couple of other series as well. Since this is the last trick in the series I wanted to save the best for last. Are you ready?

Issue a news release announcing your blog.

Once you have a few posts under your belt and you've worked out any technical or design issues, you should issue your first news release.

A news release is just an announcement that tells the world about your blog. Newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations and even new media rely on news releases to find out what's happening that is newsworthy.

Writing a news release is as simple as deciding on what's news, who is involved, why it matters, who is impacted, how the information can be used and how or where to contact those involved.

A company called PRWEB will distribute your news release to a wire service for as little as $40. This could get you national exposure and at least will put you on the radar of journalists covering your industry.

PRWEB has an excellent free tutorial you can check out to learn the basics of writing a news release.

And for an example, check out this news release that I issued when I launched my PodcastingTricks.com blog.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Weblog

A few people have e-mailed me asking about making money from blogging. Since this blog is aimed at new bloggers, I will post something that beginners can use to start making a few bucks from their blog traffic.

One very simple way is to employ an Amazon ad on your blog like the one I have on the right side nav bar. When people buy a book via a click on that ad, I get paid.

You probably won't get rich this way but it's a way to start covering the costs of maintain your blog. Visit Amazon for more information on their associates program.

Another way to make money is Google's Adsense. If you're using Blogger, you can employ Adsense right from the Template tab in the Blogger interface.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Weblog

While I often mention technology or cool marketing tips here, I also want to make sure I sprinkle in some tricks that relate more to content and approach than blogging platform and tags.

This is one such post. This particular posting is primarily aimed at business bloggers but anyone can benefit from these rules.

1) Be absolutely honest and genuine. The Internet is full of people who have BS detectors. Tell the truth on your blog. Especially if you're responding to criticism of your business. It's always going to come out anyway so you be the one to tell it and avoid the drama.

2) Ask for feedback and pay attention to it. I am not advocating accepting comments. There are times when that's appropriate but I don't often allow them myself so I prefer other feedback methods. In my podcasts, I broadcast a toll - free 800 number that people can call if they have a comment. I also often publish my e-mail address and ask for opinions. This sort of request for feedback is usually all it takes to engage your audience. And when you do it, be prepared to respond to their comments.

3) Passion wins. If you believe in what you're saying, chances are your audience will believe it too. And the inverse is also true. Don't allow someone to blog on behalf of your business if they're just a hired hand. Make sure they believe in, understand and can passionately articulate your mission.

4) Treat everyone (even your competition) with respect. I've learned the hard way what happens when you forget this rule. I now go out of my way to show respect, especially to enemies and competitors. It's easier than fighting all the time and it's more professional to boot. I'd go so far as to say it's a good idea to give props to your competition when they deserve it. It's what the new Internet culture expects of you. Anything less will disappoint your audience.

5) Consider using blogrolls. These are links to other blogs of note that you enjoy or think that your audience will enjoy. It increases your visibility, causes your audience to better understand your thinking and shows respect to others.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Weblog

If you want to attract readers, tell a story and build interest in your blog, one of the best ways to do this is interview interesting people. Some bloggers regularly feature interviews as a way to engage the audience and increase traffic all at once.

I interviewed Guy Kawasaki, a venture capitalist and one of the people who was part of the original Apple Macintosh team when he launched a new product called FilmLoop. The interview was incorporated into a podcast but just as easily could have been done on a blog.

When I announced the interview, my traffic went way up, my readers responded with lots of e-mail and Mr. Kawasaki was kind enough to link to my site. I attracted a new audience and kept my existing audience happy.

Now you don't have to interview someone famous to be successful. Just someone interesting. Whoever you interview, you can count on one thing. Other people in the interviewee's circle of interest will find out about your blog and perhaps visit it for themselves.

Technorati Tags: blogging

How do schools, businesses, non-profits, clubs and other organizations use blogs? Lots of ways. And if you want to develop your blog so that it's really useful, look at what other bloggers are doing. That's not new advice here. I've talked about it before. But in this post, I want to make some specific observations about blog use.

First of all, it's important to note that blogs are not always the best tool for the job. Blogs aren't the best way to present an artist's portfolio or for teachers to give tests. Politicians learned that blogs can help raise money but not drive votes.

So ask yourself is there's a better tool for what you want to accomplish and if so, use it.

Now what are blogs good for? 1) Starting conversations. 2) Engaging an audience in a two-way conversation (as long as it doesn't have to be real-time.) 3) Alternaive publishing sources. 4) Raising money or awareness. 5) Answering critics. 6) Announcing products. 7) Establish expertise. 8) To supplement other communications medthods. 9) Team building. 10) Tech or customer support.

These are just some of the ways in which people use blogs. How about you? Do you have an interesting or unique way to use a blog? If so, email me at info@bloggingtricks.com and I'll share your ideas with my audience.

Technorati Tags: blogging

It's important to regularly search for blog posts that are similar to your own, that cover the same topic as you or that might even quote your blog. Blogs are also a great starting point if you just need to do some research.

To search blogs, you could just go to Google or another standard search engine. But regular search engines return the 'best' results for a given search. Searching for 'xbox 360' will return Microsoft's XBox site as the first result. If you search using a blog search engine you'll be given up to the minute blogs of people and/or review sites talking about the XBox 360 (which can sometimes be more useful depending upon what kind of information you are after).

Searching for XBox 360 on Google or Yahoo will return fairly similar results day after day that slowly change over time. Blog search engines on the other hand will return potentially different results each day depending upon how many people are talking about the topic you are searching for.

If you're lucky enough to be a Mac user, I'd take a long look at Bloglight. Bloglight is a desktop blog searching application. It lets you search for weblogs (blogs) by using a number of blog search engines. Search using Bloglight and you'll be searching using Google BlogSearch, IceRocket, Feedster and Technorati all at the same time. The results are then consolidated and displayed in an easy to digest format.

It's about the fastest web search tool I have ever seen. You download it to your desktop and you get 30 free searches to try it out. I was hooked by the third search and signed right up!

Technorati Tags: blogging

You might notice that I always have a poll running in the right sidebar. It's a great way to keep the audience interacting with the blog. I change the poll once a month or so. I changed the poll yesterday and several of you have already sent email asking for the final results of the old poll. So here they are.

The question asked was:

"Does your company have a blog?"

69.2% Yes
15.4% No
15.4% We're planning one

While this is not a scientific poll, it is still valuable. More than 100 people answered the poll question and that's a large enough sample to get some general idea that there is a real trend here.

Be sure to participate in the new poll: "How often do you blog?"

If you want to run your own poll on your blog or website, Vizu offers a free service that I find fun and easy to use. Check it out.

Technorati Tags: blogging

Tags:

This post is part of my series on promoting your blog and increasing your blog traffic. Read Part 1, Part 2, Read Part 3, Read Part 4 first, then follow-up with this post.

If you're new to the world of blogging you will want to know about tags. Tags are category names. They help people know what you're blogging about and more importantly, they help bring people interested in those subjects to your site.

I like the way Technorati organizes and uses tags. Accordingly, at the bottom of this post you will see a link to the Technorati tag "blogging."

To associate a post with a Technorati Tag all you have to do is tag your post by including a special link in the body of your post. See the tag tutorial at Technorari.

You should only use tags that are relevant to the post. Make sure to include rel="tag". You do not have to link to Technorati. You can link to any web page that ends in a tag - even your own site! Once you have posted the tagged post, there are two ways to have your post included on a Technorati Tag page:

If your blog software is configured to ping Technorati, congratulations! You're done!

If your blog software does not support automatic pinging, or if you haven't set it up yet, or if you're not sure, you can manually ping Technorati. You might also want to configure your blog software to ping us automatically so you don't have to do that every time.

Technorati Tags: blogging

Nearly all the popular blogging platforms allow you to set or change the date of each post. Making sure that you have the right date setting for your new posts is very important. Here's why....

A client recently complained to me that her blog wasn't showing up in search engines, even though she'd built a nice set of content, and a nice design and delivered her updates each day consistently for six months. I looked at her blogging tools and realized she'd somehow managed to set the date wrong. Each of her new posts automatically featured the date she originally created the blog and not the current date.

This matters to search engines. They are extremely date sensitive. They index things that are current on top. If your post is relevant but has an old date, it will move down the list. This is also important to RSS feeds since they are indexed by the most recent first.

If you have not set your date properly, go back and edit your old posts so that the correct date is reflected on your blog. It might be too late but it's worth a try. Going forward, always make sure that the current and correct date is applied to each new post for maximum search engine and for that matter, human recognition.

New is cool.

Technorati Tags: blogging

If you'd like to create a level of interaction with your readers that goes beyond accepting comments or trackbacks, you might want to consider setting up a user forum. This gives readers a place to post feedback and ask questions.

Unfortunately, the investment in time and money required to build a web forum from the ground up keeps most bloggers from considering this idea. There are alternatives.

ForumUp.org is a free service that allows you to remotely manage and host a dedicated web forum with all the bells and whistles. In return for the service, ForumUp will place Adsense Ads on your forum pages.

If you're willing to pay a few dollars per month for a forum, EZBoard is a clean option with no ads. The cost is $30 for six months and this option is a bit easier to set up than ForumUp.

And finally, if you want to host your own solution, vBulletin is $85 per year and is a full-featured forum application with lots of advanced features.

Forums can add lots of traffic to your blog but be advised that they do require monitoring. If you set up a forum you will have to deal with spam and offensive posters. Many bloggers feel this is a worthwhile tradeoff given the service it offers the readers and the increase in traffic.

I usually don't allow comments on my blog posts for a number of reasons that I won't cover here. But there are some cases when you really need to allow comments. Some examples would be when you want to build traffic, do research, rate public opinion, start a debate, etc.

Unfortunately, the spammers love to populate comment threads with their ads. There is a way around this. It's called word verification. Blogger users have access to a word verification option on the Settings tab of Blogger.

This prevents automated systems (the kind most spammers use) from adding comments to your blog. While word verification won't stop the really serious spammers from adding their ads by hand, it will stop them from attacking you with thousands of worthless posts.

If you don't use Blogger, check with your blogging platform. Chances are good that they offer some sort of word verification option as well.

Turn this on and use it and you'll see your comment spam nearly disintegrate.

While I regularly cover blog-promotion on Thursdays, today I am throwing in a bonus blog-promotion trick.

If you've started taking the time to submit your blog to search engines, you've probably come to realize that it's time consuming. You can save a bunch of time by hiring someone else to do the work. A company called Coffee Cup Software has devised a product called Submit Fire that does the job for you.

SubmitFire submits your site to more than 3000 of the most popular search engines and directories, considerably increasing the chances of someone entering your site.

The automatic monthly submissions are essential in preventing newly submitted competitors from taking your place in the search results.

The fee is $7.95 monthly for 1 year, or a one-time fee of $79 USD. There are no additional monthly fees or charges for re-submission and the company does not offer any contract shorter than one year.

I would still suggest that you manually submit to Yahoo and Google in addition to using something like Submit Fire just to make sure you have the big boys covered.

There are a couple of new marketing schemes floating around that make me nervous. These schemes ask you to blog about a certain company or product in return for money or other bribes. It seems innocent enough. But I think it could lead to a great deal of trouble in the blogging community.

My advice to all bloggers is to blog honestly. Be up front, genuine, respectful, truthful and honest in everything you do. No matter what search engine optimization tricks you learn, no matter how many blog lists your own, no matter how many trackbacks you've collected, you need your audience if you want to matter. And you'll lose your audience if you aren't honest with them.

Full disclosure is important. If you review a product, let people know if you have a relationship to the company that makes it. If you stand to personally benefit by promoting something or someone, be up front about that. Your audience will respect you and in fact, most of the time they will help you if you just let them know what you want them to do and why. Be honest in all things.

Now I am not one of those anti-money, anti-establishment, anti-success types. I am not down on these new marketing schemes because I hate success. I just think that bloggers should put a premium on honesty.

If you want to blog about something because you are passionate about it, go for it. But beware situations where you are turned into a shill for someone else's agenda. The few dollars you make in the short term may cost you audience (and more money) in the long term.

While it starts to cross over into the advanced territory, there's no doubt that some of you will eventually want to start tweaking your blog design. Maybe you want to experiment with something basic like changing the text or link color. Or maybe you want a new background color.

In order to make these sorts of changes you will need to know some HTML, CSS or both. There is a great resource on the web for learning the special codes that represent these colors. It's from Elizabeth Castro's great book, HTML for the World Wide Web by Peachpit Press. The website contains not only primers on web colors, but scripting, Xhtml, hexadecimal conversions and other tips for would-be programmers.

This is a superior resource and even if this seems like it's over your head now, bookmark Elizabeth's site so you can find it when you need it. Her home page is here.

Get listed on Google.

This post is part of my series on promoting your blog and increasing your blog traffic. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Read Part 3 first, then follow-up with this post.

Every Thursday I offer a blog promo tip. Last week I talked about submitting your blog to blog search engines. This week I will cover submitting to regular search engines.

First things first, is how the saying goes and the first thing you should do with any new blog is make sure that Google knows about it. Google has become the dominant search engine on the web. People tend to go to Google to find the information they need. But they won't find your blog listed there unless you tell Google you exist. And it's easy to do.

Go to http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl. This is the page that Google has set up for submissions. There is no guarantee that submitting your site to Google will cause them to index it, but it sure is a good start. Follow the directions and sit back and wait for the traffic to start flowing. Once you're listed on Google, people will eventually find you.

There are other mainstream search engines you should approach.


In future posts, I'll share some tricks for increasing your profile on Google and other search engines.

If you have your blog hosted at Blogger.com or any other blog host that permits you to have access to your blog template, you should consider making a backup copy of the template. This is particularly important if you have made extensive modifications to a standard template. In the event that the blog host's server crashed or was the subject of a hacker attack, you could end up losing your template.

While there's probably little chance that your template would be corrupted by a problem with your host, there is a more realistic scenario that involves you making mistakes while making changes to your template and then losing your precious data.

I copy my template every time I make a change, paste it into my favorite text editor and then e-mail it to myself. I leave my e-mail on the server so I can access it wherever I am. That way I have a pretty fool-proof backup in the event of a major failure at Blogger or more likely brain freeze here on the home front.

For extra safety, e-mail a copy of the template to a friend or relative for safekeeping.

Responsible bloggers use proper grammar, fact check and source their material. And just like print journalists and other mainstream media types, bloggers need to pay attention to syle, tone and vocabulary. You might be tempted to build a large reference library to support these efforts. But there's no need.

Here's a simple and quick list of all the reference material you should need to keep your blog in tip-top shape.

This list of best online reference sites provides just about anything you could possibly want or need to make sure your blog is well-supported by top-notch reference materials. Enjoy.

Even though I am a photographer, sometimes, I just need a special photo to illustrate a concept or I just don't have time to sift through my vast library. Since I don't want to violate other people's copyrights, I license stock photos from a company called iStockPhoto.com.

iStockPhoto is a large royalty free imagebank, where companies buy licenses to download and use stock images. They have almost every picture you can imagine and they are all easily searchable. Best of all, most of the pictures can be used for a buck! That's right just $1.00. Larger versions can cost more. Read the iStockPhoto.com license agreement carefully to make sure you understand how you can use the images legally.

I use the images for my blogs and newsletters and think it's probably one of the best investments you can make if you want to dress up your blog.

More and more web filtering schemes are popping up and some RSS readers are employing filters as well. Why? Because the spammers love RSS just like we honest folk and they want to use it to send their spam-ridden messages.

To make sure your blog posts don't get confused with spam, and to improve the overall readability of your blog, consider these tricks.

1) Avoid excessive use of words like "free." "guarantee," "sex," etc. These can trigger filtering software and can be offputting to readers.

2) Avoid red text since it is hard to read and can trigger filtering software.

3) Avoid using all capital letters because it too is hard to read and can also trigger filtering software.

4) Avoid excessive punctuation since it's poor grammar and can trigger filtering software.

5) Avoid multiple dollar signs or symbols. It's poor grammar and can trigger filtering software. Use descriptive words instead.

6) Avoid using the phrase "click here" over and over. This too can trigger filtering software.

According to JupiterResearch, depoloyment of corporate blogs will double in 2006. Jupiter is known for being conservative so you can guess the numbers will be even higher at the end of the day.

One of the researchers said:

"By engaging prospective customers in active dialogue, companies can showcase their expertise and domain knowledge, creating a forum for communication of their strategies and visions," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterKagan. "In doing so, companies can generate buzz around their products or services, while eliciting feedback and collaboration from product evangelists."

If you need ammo to talk your boss into letting you build a company blog, point her at this new research finding.