Our Mommyhood

Posts Tagged ‘Blogging’

Alyson, Contributor, Commonsense, Dancing (@amlanders)

I passed my one-year blogging anniversary with little fanfare recently. Little fanfare because I was blissfully unaware of it. I wish I could be so together as to have this kind of date marked on a calendar somewhere, but I’m not. Passing that milestone was not unlike realizing you’re another year older – where did that year go? What did I do for these last 12 months? Of course my best thinking goes on in the shower, and here’s what I’ve realized:

5) What you write lives on. You can go into your admin dashboard, resort your published posts by date and relive these last 12 months. You can cringe at what you thought was worth writing about a year ago and smile at the things you’ve already forgotten but were memorialized in the blog, just as you intended. I am encouraged to keep writing.

4) “Straightening up” isn’t just something you should do in the kids’ bathroom or on your nightstand. Take a look at your site with an eye for design. Is it cluttered? Do the things there – the buttons and the tabs and the links – still work? Do they go where they’re supposed to and are the destinations still important to you? How’s the clutter? Can you streamline, brighten, freshen, polish? Skip the kids’ bathroom and spend some time “in” your blog. Oh, and keep writing.

3) People actually read this thing. Huh. Let’s not get crazy; not a “*lot* of people read my blog, but enough that the readership (both terms of number and identity) is surprising. What’s exciting is that I never know exactly who is reading it, and how delightful to get a comment from a far-away cousin or a friend I haven’t actually exchanged out-loud words with in years! It’s like a box of chocolates; you never know who’s going to be rummaging around in there, snagging the caramel one and writing to tell you how delicious it is. Keep writing.

2) You shouldn’t write anything on the blog that you wouldn’t say to someone in their presence. I’ve not violated this one (yet); I’m too cognizant of #3, above. As tempting as it is to rail, by name, against the jerk at the tile store, the crazy lady on the treadmill next to me (please stop using that towel to wipe your private parts while you tread. Ewwww) or that child in my house that has less-than-sanitary personal hygiene, I do, in fact, change the names (or details) to protect the annoying insane ridiculous innocent. I feel that I have a responsibility to be, well, responsible; that because of Blogging Lesson #5, my words live on. And I might discover that Treadmill Lady is someone who will be important to me in some capacity later on. Oh, and it’s important to Keep Writing.

1) Blogging – my own personal efforts – have allowed me to “meet” and “know” hundreds of really interesting people during this last year. I have commented at, and been commented upon, by writers inspiring, hilarious, thought-provoking, supportive and encouraging. Whether or not they are my “tribe” is not so important to me. I’ve learned about myself; my values, my ethos, my priorities. I have learned about the world: there are terrific people out there, doing Important Work, and that despite what the media or pundits or policiticians might have you believe, we’re all doing the best we can.

And oh yes, Keep Writing!

Alyson writes about where the Real and the Ridiculous meet up in her life over at Common Sense, Dancing. She did, recently, renew her domain lease {see last month!}, so it looks like she’ll keep at it for another year. Her Real Life — with four children, 3 Doodledogs and a traveling husband — often demands more of her than her blog does, and there are days weeks where Life gets way more attention than the blog (even though the Real Life continues to provide great material). When she gets her act together, she’s a big fan of Twitter (@amlanders) — where 140 characters on the fly is a bit easier to publish. Keep writing — no matter how many characters!

By Kitty Holman, Guest Writer

It isn’t all that strange that knowing journalistic writing strategies can aid in blog writing. After all, both journalists and bloggers, like it or not, are professional writers set with the task of conveying a message and (essentially) selling that message. Three must-know journalistic writing concepts for bloggers are: the inverted pyramid writing style, headline writing and visual writing.

Inverted Pyramid Writing Style

The inverted pyramid style conveys the most important and relevant information at the beginning of the news story and information of less importance as the story develops. A writer (especially one working within the world of the internet) only has a few seconds to capture their readers interest. Communicating the most significant information at the start of a piece grabs the readers attention and begs them to look for more.

The fundamental model for inverted pyramid style writing is broken into three parts:

1.) The first part is the lead paragraph. This paragraph communicates who, what, where, when, why and how (the 5 W’s and 1 H). This is the most essential information needed to convey your story.

2.) The second paragraph includes any information that is not necessarily essential to the story, but can help develop and add some color and context to your story.

3.) The last paragraph contains the least important information. This information is helpful for the reader to know, but not vital to the story.

Although a blog piece does not need to follow this format exactly, it can be helpful in focusing and refining your argument.

Headline Writing

Writing captivating headlines is essential to journalism and to blogging. Internet goers click around websites at amazing speeds, making it easy for a reader to simply dismiss an interesting and informative article with a not so interesting or informative article title. Bloggers should think of their blog titles as news story headlines. As with inverted pyramid writing, headline writing is all about conciseness. A headline should be descriptive, yet short. It needs to describe what the story is about without exhausting the story completely. Headline writing is not easy; it takes practice and patience, but mastering it is key to capturing readers.

Visual Writing

Journalists write visually without too much forethought. With newspapers and news sites having divided columns and set character limits, it is easy for journalists to break up text and limit their rambling. For bloggers it is not so simple. Bloggers must write visually. Long blocks of text are boring and difficult to read; use shorter paragraphs, subheadings, lists and images to make writing easier to read. Breaking off text regularly is essential to encouraging your reader to continue.

Blogging offers a certain amount of freedom in writing that can be both exhilarating and daunting. Utilizing journalistic writing strategies in blog writing can help a writer manage the overwhelming freedom of the blogging world. The inverted pyramid, headline writing and visual writing will help you write a clearer, more concise and more interesting blog piece.

Kitty Holman, regularly writes on the topics of nursing colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: kitty.holman20@gmail.com.

By Alyson, Contributor, Commonsense, Dancing, (@amlanders)

I got a notice from WordPress.com the other day that made my palms sweat a bit:

Your domain ‘commonsense-dancing.com’ will expire in 90 days time on May 8th, 2011.

Well, you say, that’s nice. A timely reminder, one that’s not all “OMG! It’s the end of the world! You’ve got to renew NOW NOW NOW!” This is true. It’s a gentle, timely reminder. The thing is, I really don’t know what the heck to do about it and this has me concerned. Here’s what went through my head when I read this email:

Didn’t I register with someone else? Why is WordPress.com contacting me? Why are they offering a renewal? How do I figure out exactly where I registered in the first place? If I renew with someone else, does this mean that I have to do something with the…with the….Oh lawd, I don’t even know what to call that place that I moved to when I switched over to a “self hosted” site. Oh no oh no oh no.

So let me back up. Last spring when I decided that I would, in fact, embark on the adventure called Blogging, I began slowly with my site on WordPress.com. This means that the site actually has “wordpress.com” in the address, as opposed to what is just a more simple “ .com”. But as I began blogging, and did things like “31 Days to Building a Better Blog” (look for this program – it occasionally runs in various locations, most recently on SITS – because it’s free and a great way to build a community, find your tribe, and get solid tips on, um, building a better blog), one of the first commandments was to get your domain name registered and move from WordPress.com to a self-hosted site. So, I registered “commonsense-dancing.com” and left WordPress.com for WordPress.org.

Here’s where, for me, it gets interesting (troubling?): I’ve heard some bloggers refer to their blogs in language reserved for children: “birthed,” “growing,” having “birthdays” or anniversaries, etc. I never really thought of it in those terms before, but now – having received this renewal reminder and having subsequently no clue what to do about it – it occurs to me that, in fact, I experienced a “post-blogum” period, in which I was, apparently, so high from the delight of creating this new life, er, BLOG and birthing it, that I must have been swamped with some kind of magic hormone (oxytonin?) and therefore have almost no recollection of *how* I moved the site, *where* I moved it to, *what* the experience was like (did I have trouble? Did I crash it? How did I know what I was doing?)

I exaggerate a little bit (but not overly much, truthfully). The thing is, I long for an IT person, a bloggy SuperNanny. Seems like everyone has an authority on parenting in their lives (Jo Frost, Dr. Spock, Elmo), Doesn’t everyone have an IT person? Or department? My post-blogum period has worn off, and now I’m just left exhausted (not unlike parenthood). I can’t bear to think about what I have to do to confirm that everything can carry on just like it’s supposed to. The files I have to pull from the disaster that is my desk. The passwords I’m going to have to pull from the disaster that is my memory bank.

The thing is, while I’m completely overwhelmed by the potential disasters that could befall my blog on its first birthday, I’m also proud of the fact that I even did it, that we’re still here, breathing and posting (again, not unlike that first year of parenthood!).

So, please excuse any disruptions in service you may experience over the next few months. My blogging life is not unlike my parenting life: trial and error, then trial and success. And hopefully, like parenting and child-rearing, we all emerge a bit smarter and none the worse for wear!

Alyson blogs over at www.commonsense-dancing.com, at least for now. Who knows what she’ll do to it in the next 90 days – the whole thing could be rendered useless, floating through cyberspace. She’s going to start figuring it out tomorrow, when the kids go to bed, the dogs leave her alone, and the husband leaves on a business trip. Like new parenting in that first year, a lot of the action happens in the wee hours of the night. If she gets too lost, look for her on Twitter (@amlanders) – it’s hard to screw that one up.

By Ashley, Contributor, Just Another Mom of 2 (@Another MomOf2)

Some people read only a few blogs. They read an occasional one here, an extra there. They remember the urls, know how to find them and pull them up instantly. Or, they read so few that they simply email subscribe to them all.

I’m not sure how that’s possible either.

But for those of us who devour blogs by the tens, twenties –okay- hundreds, we need a slightly more manageable way to keep track of all these blogs. So, we subscribe to the RSS feed to manage them in something like Google reader. While most blogs are set up to automatically produce a feed, this does not give bloggers the ability to keep track of their varying statistics. While not always focusing on stats is perfectly acceptable, Feedburner offers great insights into your readers.

How to Set Up Feedburner

Go to http://feedburner.google.com to set up your feed. Enter your blog or feed address right in the box:

Go to the next screen, which will display once your url has been verified and enter your Blog Name & the Feed Address. This step is very important: if you change the feed address later on, you will have to notify your readers; they are not automatically updated if you change the feed address.

Congratulations! You have a feed. Now what do you do with it? In Blogger, you want to go to your Dashboard and select Settings, then Site Feed. You will see a box titled Post Feed Redirect Url- put your Feedburner feed address here. For WordPress, download the Feedburner Feedsmith Plugin. It is the one recommended by Google (who owns Feedburner) and is the one that has remained most consistent with WordPress Updates.

There is a lot more to be done with Feedburner, but this will get you up and running and allow all of the avid blog readers to add you to their Reader. By going to the Analyze screen in your new Feedburner account, you can see how many subscribers you have, which items they most liked to read, the most common services used to subscribe to you feed and the reach of your feed – that is, how many people who have taken an action, such as read or clicked on your feed.

What questions do you have about Feedburner? More to come on how to get the most out of Feedburner!

By Ashley, Contributor, Just Another Mom of 2 (@AnotherMomof2)

While putting your creative, funny, thoughtful posts together for each new blog entry, it can become easy to overlook small enhancements to your blog. However, in both Blogger and especially in WordPress (self-hosted, remember) there are various plugins and add-ons to install to make your blog even better.

WordPress

Akismet

“vjlauoejalk jlihowe jsiohlw hgiopw”- Ever have a comment like this on your blog? If so, chances are you do not have Akismet installed on your blog. Go install it. Immediately. While you will have the ability to read through the spam comments if you so desire (and to make sure any link-happy commenters don’t get lost in there), Akismet will catch almost any spam comment made on your blog.

Editorial Calendar Plugin

This plugin will change your life. Okay, maybe not, but it will make your blogging life more organized. The drag-and-drop interface allows you to move posts around, set them as drafts or published and schedule your upcoming brilliance all right within WordPress.

WWSGD

I know these letter seem nonsensical, but this is one of the most powerful plugins you can possibly have installed on your blog. The What Would Seth Godin Do plugin displays a message to new visitors to your blog (such as, Welcome! Thanks for visiting!). Taken a step further the plugin also allows you to configure a different message for returning visitors. It’s a great, personalized way to greet your readers and to remind them to subscribe and connect with you!

WPTouch

A personal favorite of mine as an iPhone/smart phone lover, WPTouch presents your blog in a mobile-friendly platform, making it easy for readers to read and comment from their phone. Accessibility is always important and I love a blog I can read easily while waiting in the carpool line for an hour every day!

WP-DB-Backup

While not necessarily a fun plugin, the WordPress Database Backup Plugin is an essential to maintaining a database backup of your blog in case something goes wrong, such as a server hack or some type of blog crash or fail. I currently have the plugin configured to email me weekly backups, but you can do it daily, monthly or on demand (such as before doing a theme change or WordPress update). It is much easier to restore your broken blog if you have the contents easily accessible and this plugin will help minimze downtime in case a problem should arise.

Blogger

Slightly different from WordPress, Blogger has a combination of add-ons, gadgets and theme tweaks available to improve your blog. These are just a few of the must-haves.

About Me Widget

Such a simple detail that is often overlooked, Blogger makes it easy to have an about me box right in your sidebar. Alternatively, if you do not want it on the main page, consider adding an About Me Page. Readers want to connect with a blogger and feel like they “know” the person behind the blog. An About Me widget or page is a great way to accomplish this.

Random Posts Gadget

Great for increasing traffic to posts that you may have written quite some time ago or did not receive a lot of attention, this widget will display random posts from your blog and will include a thumbnail if desired. (Also available is a Related Posts Gadget that operates in the same manner.)

Social Bookmarks after Each Post

Essential to each blog is the ability to share with others. This code allows you to add social bookmark icons and links after each one of your Blogger posts.

Official Twitter Share Button for Blogger

Simply input your information into this page and code is generated for you to copy & paste right into your Blogger theme to have the Tweet button at the ready for each of your posts. Twitter is a powerful tool to promote your blog posts; make it easy for your readers to help promote it too.

Featured Post Content Slider

Featured Content Sliders have been becoming more and more popular on blogs. With this code, you can add one to your Blogger blog. *Note that this is a slightly more advanced trick, but it is fast becoming a requested feature so I wanted to share it.

Your unique blogging voice will make your blog stand out, of course, but adding a few bells and whistles can really help elevate it to the next level. I do want to note that while plugins are amazing resources for helping to make your blog run just as you want it to, you should also keep in mind that too many plugins can slow down your blog. Try to limit the usage to about 10 or so if possible. More can be used, but if you notice your site is slowing down, take a look at the number of your plugins.

Ashley is a stay at home mom (and social media consultant) who is not always sure what state she is in. She has moved her family to what will soon be 5 states in 6 years- whew! She can be found blogging over at Just Another Mom of 2 and also offers affordable transfers to WordPress. Email her at Ashley @ justanothermomof2.com for details!