The Ultimate Blogging Toolkit
Blogging and Marketing Resources for the Average Blogger and Business
Simplify Your Blog Strategy
Mar 8th
Regular visitors to the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit will quickly see a new look. While changing the theme of a blog doesn’t automatically conjure a vision of “simplification,” it is indeed part of a strategy to do so.
When visiting the many blogs that are part of my regular routine, I frequently see similar themes and formats. When looking closer at “About Me” or “Profile” pages, I see the same blogger authoring multiple sites – some very similar in content to others. I understand if multiple blogs are used to address multiple topics or perspectives (like me), but it puzzles me when they are so similar. I have noticed that for some time, but only now have I made sense of it and acted on my findings.
In Multiple Blog Monetization, I made the case for multiple blogs allowing prolific bloggers to post frequently, but spread their posts among different blogs as to not overload their readers. I subscribed to the philosophy, but with one fatal flaw – I was not prolific in my posts. My post frequency has proven to be much less often than I originally thought possible. The eyes were bigger than the stomach.
Simplify.
As part of the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit simplification process, I have moved to a new theme that provides more flexibility. The reason is that to simply my blogging strategy, I will be combining some of the multiple blogs that I maintain. My post frequency should be better matched to the number of blogs that require care and feeding. Also, in more of a “complexity avoidance” move, I will be adding a Marketing focus to the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit instead of creating yet another blog. This Marketing focus will include information for bloggers, online retailers and offline businesses as well – all with the intention of growing your business (or blog, as it were.)
I won’t bore you with my other blogging properties. If you are reading the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit, you aren’t reading the others. If you also read the others, you’ll see on those blogs when and how I will be making my migrations. This will take some time to execute properly.
I will be looking at the various sections of the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit with a critical eye and could use your input. Since I still have a large number of Free Blog Review requests queued up, I am still intending to stand by my offer. My “scattered” blog strategy recently has been a factor in helping me lose my focus. This move to simplify should help me regain it.
But beyond the reviews, most other areas are fair game. As I add more perspectives, some older “projects” within the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit may have to go away. Help me make those decisions.
Take a look at your blog or blogs. If you offer just one blog property, stay true to your purpose and your theme – or at least be clear on the multiple perspectives that your blog holds. If you maintain multiple blogs, give some serious thought to whether they are all necessary.
Dave
Numion: A Tool to Keep Your Blog Loading Fast
Feb 1st
The Numion Stopwatch
A good friend told me about a tool recently that is a very simple way to measure just how fast your blog loads. Sure, there are many of these utilities available on the Internet, but this one is free and easy to use, so it qualifies for a mention. It is The Numion Stopwatch.
Numion’s suite of tools includes “Yourspeed” and “Sitespeed” in addition to “Stopwatch.” In their “Bandwidth Calculators” they provide any type of visibility needed to help you tweek as much performance out of your blog or web site as possible.
In A Slightly New Look, I pontificated about the value in keeping a blog lean enough to load quickly and talked about the updates I had made to the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit. While I have added some things since then, you’ll see my measurements still aren’t bad.
Every day, I visit sites where there is so much animation, feed gathering, and widget population going on, it seems to take an eternity for the page to load. The Numion Stopwatch provides a look at the page loading and clocks it in a frame. Different types of sites of course have differing kinds of content, but it would seem obvious that keeping the page load fast would be pleasing to visitors.
CNN on the Clock
Let’s look at CNN.com. CNN is known for its big pipes out to the Internet, so it makes sense that in spite of considerable content on their home page, their load time is an impressive 3.56 seconds. That was achieved with a not insignificant amount of pictures and ads.
Google on the Clock
Now, let’s look at the Lean-Master, Google. Google’s pattern is that of stark necessity only, with an occasional updated logo commemorating a special day.
Even more rarely will they bring awareness to a serious topic. Again, their page loads almost as fast as the Enter Key or the mouse click retorts. Here, clocked at a blazing 0.23 seconds. Amazing, yes, but also expected.
The Kit on the Clock
In the spirit of full disclosure, let’s look at The Ultimate Blogging Toolkit. I have to admit, I did a few tests to see what what “typical.” The reason? Adgitize has been having no end of server problems in recent weeks and I had to try enough times to not let their problems skew the results. This appears to be a fair measurement at 3.401 seconds.
These are valid and positive examples, but I will hold short of throwing anyone under the bus with bad times. You know how you are – and if you don’t, I would recommend using the Numion Stopwatch to find out.
Thanks,
Dave
Your Turn to Provide a “Review”
Jan 9th
When I began offering Free Blog Reviews, I have been very pleased with the response and have grown quite a backlog of requests. Thank you for your interest and I assure all of you, I will get to all of them. However, this time I would like you for a review.
Recently, I added a PayPal Donate Button to the right panel of The Ultimate Blogging Toolkit. My thinking is that if the information contained in “the kit” is of value to you, you may throw a bone this way. Pleasantly, even after the test I had a friend perform, I’ve actually received a few “tips.” (No, not “stay out of the stock market!”)
What do you think? Back in February of last year, I weighed in with Donate Buttons: Classy or Trashy. At that time, I had only advertising on the site and posed a number of questions relating to monetization in general, appropriateness and if “donate” can or should coexist with “ads.”
I want your opinion. Over this past year, I have become more confident in my blogging skills and decided to test the water. Your opinions are important to me.
Thanks,
Dave
Battling Blogger’s Block
Jan 5th
Custom News Section Created
Wikipedia calls Writer’s Block “a condition, associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task in hand. At the other extreme, some ‘blocked’ writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers.”
One could argue that the blogging equivalent could be called Blogger’s Block.
We’ve all encountered it at one point or another. Fatigue (mental or physical), focus directed elsewhere (family or work), or just not in the mood. Sometimes we can fight through it; sometimes not. In the past, I’ve written about Google Reader as a convenient tool for keeping track of all the blogs you wish to follow on a regular basis. Setting it to show just the new posts is an excellent way to spoon-feed yourself with the new content posted by your favorite bloggers. More to the point of this post, it also provides for a “sampler” of topics. This sampler could be the tool to jog your memory and inspire you to break through “Blogger’s Block.”
But there is another Google tool (go figure) that can act as another Blogger’s Blog Jogger: Google News. If you’ve ever clicked there from Google’s main page, you know the collection of news stories in a number of categories that is updated constantly. In one way, this information overload does nothing for inspiring me for a topic.
Unless I use some of its features.
Custom News Section Displayed
Google News allows you to create a Custom News Section for any search term so that you can display a custom view with news stories on your topic of choice. For example, another blog of mine called Energication, I blog about renewable energy and its implications for K-12 education. As part of that, I have a specific interest in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. So, I have created a Custom News Section for PHEV. Now, I simply click on my PHEV collection and have the current and most relevant news stories served up on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
You can set up any number of Custom News Sections based on the subjects in which you are most interested. What I like about this approach to creativity is that while reading other blogs is enjoyable, reading other’s work applies their “lenses” to the topic. My viewing more “neutral” news stories, I get to see the topic through the eyes of the reporter. A very different perspective. Sometimes, just a certain collection of topic titles gets my attention, allowing me to get on a horse about some issue.
It’s very easy to use. Simply enter a search term in your Google News view. When your custom page is displayed, click on the link at the bottom of the page to “Add a custom section for [search term] to Google News.”
Creativity, perspectives, insights – and the tools to foster all of them – is the combination that makes for effective blogging.
I hope you find this useful.
Dave
Going Back in Time
Jan 2nd
Internet Archive
Just as I made the point recently about blogging being an international pastime, it is also one whose participants are generally curious in nature. They read thoughts from people all over the world, apply their own lenses to the perspectives published and weigh in with comments. Others do the same thing, an so on.
My curiosity not only extends globally, but back in time as well. As I was conducting research for my next Free Blog Review, I wanted to get a glimpse of what that site looked like in the past. I remember it generally, but the new look is outstanding and I wanted to make a point about it. During that search, I ran across InternetArchive.org. They are a non-profit organization, committed to developing an Internet Library, providing free access to information that exists digitally. From their About IA page:
The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections, and is working to provide specialized services relating to training, education, or adaptive reading or information access needs of blind or other persons with disabilities.
The Wayback Machine
They have a specific service in which I was interested, which is called The Wayback Machine. They have over 150 billion web pages archived back to 1996. Of course, not all web sites in the world are cataloged. I did not find a previous version of the blog under review, but many large, commercial sites are there. Here’s a look through the years at the results of a CNN search, and next, what CNN had to say on January 23, 2003.
What CNN had to say on January 23, 2003
The day I prepared this review the site’s response time was not great. Since I’m new to the service, I don’t know if that is normal. However, if you need an historical perspective of the world wide web through the eyes of a commercial site, this is your place.
It’s unfortunate that I did not find a previous look of the site I am reviewing currently. But check back soon for that review and a great new look of that site – this time, its a look “for the future.”
Dave
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