Steer Clear of “Free Article” Directories

By Kevin | Published: July 3, 2009

Blogs are supposed to be unique. Even though it takes time to write content, researching what you need to include in your next blog post, it is more important than simply having the content on your site.

Many bloggers think that it is okay to simply reproduce content from “free article” databases and news articles, citing that this content is free to use on their blog, even though it may not be. These databases and news sites were created for people to use more for sharing information, rather than “stealing” for use on their own blogs.

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Ten Reasons Why You Don’t Need Your Own Domain

By Kevin | Published: June 30, 2009

There is a myth out there that you have to have a domain to get anywhere in the blogosphere. While partially true, you also have to realize that you have more responsibilities when you place the commitment into your own domain. You have to think about renewing or extending the life of your domain, having enough bandwidth (if you are self-hosting your site), and whether your site is optimized for search engines.

The hassles that come with owning a domain may be too great for some bloggers and website owners, so you might want to stick with a domain that isn’t “completely yours.”

Posted in Domains and Hosting | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Categories and Tags are Slowly Dying

By Kevin | Published: June 30, 2009

Tags and categories are two of my worst enemies when it comes to writing posts. When you think about adding tags to your post, you either have to stick with a strategy of adding one or two tags to each post, or every tag imaginable. Unless you incorporate the tags into your content, you aren’t really utilizing their benefit unless you are able to somehow have the tags indexed in search engines, and this isn’t good for SEO. Sure, they may add keywords to your content, adding links back to other areas of your site, but they are often more of a nuisance than anything else.

Posted in Blogging | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Great Resources for Finding Even Better Domains

By Kevin | Published: June 28, 2009

The search for a brandable domain has to start somewhere. Most likely, any terms that you think of for use as a website name will already have been taken, especially if it is more common. As in the case of this website, blogtips.com was already taken and anything related to it didn’t really pertain to the niche as closely. However, the domain I chose had an interesting spin to it, albeit still a bit general.

I have gathered up a list of resources that you can use to find domains. It is incomplete and may be expanded – I need your recommendations. What tools do you use beyond those listed for finding domains besides those that come with your registrar?

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It’s Not Necessarily How You Start

By Kevin | Published: June 27, 2009

Often, you might find yourself struggling on how to start your blog, especially in the case that you find that you don’t necessarily enjoy writing about the particular topic. This happens to a lot of people, thus the high rate of blog “failure.” In all reality, starting a blog is the right step and how you continue it once traffic builds is what really defines who you are.

Take a look at the archives of many “top” blogs today and you’ll find that they started with only a few posts in the initial months, sometimes even abandoning the blog in the initial phase. Before you can reach any form of stardom with your blog, you have to define who you are and where you want to take the blog.

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The Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites

By Kevin | Published: June 26, 2009

Social bookmarking sites may not be the best for traffic that will stick around and subscribe to you or contribute to your site’s growth in the long-term. However, the traffic is good if you want to jump start your blog on a path to immediate success, with at least a little recognition from thousands of new visitors. Sure, your site may be brought down under the heavy load, but in the end, you’ll be able to recover with the increased traffic rates.

Posted in Tools and Services for Bloggers | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Highlight Your Posted Content with LinkWithin

By Kevin | Published: June 21, 2009

LinkWithin is a plugin compatible with WordPress (self-hosted), Blogger, TypePad, and “other,” which likely means that you still need some type of hosting account to place the script on your page. In brief, it makes it easy to add related posts with thumbnails to your blog.

LinkWithin

Please Note: I (and some other users) have been having problems downloading the plugin. While I was able to test it on another site, you have to use a unique code (which has the dark/light background setting and is unique for the site that you have used. Therefore, the generated images would have been displayed for the wrong site. More details about this are included in the review.

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The Market for “Premium” Plugins

By Kevin | Published: June 20, 2009

In the past year, and especially recently, a market has begun to develop for what you might coin as “premium” or “paid” plugins. Much like the market that exists for premium themes, there will be disputes from various community members, should more people begin to pursue a different form of benefitting from their work and efforts.

A recent post on ToMuse by Kevin Eklund sums up some ways that the business model could be created, although I will be providing some of my own input into this, not necessarily based on the open-source community, but more around what people are looking for when they install a plugin.

Posted in Blogosphere News | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments