Blogging is more than just putting words onto a website. It is about interacting with your readers, about developing long-lasting relationships, and about really creating a discussion.

Over the past decade, blogging has transformed many people’s lives. You no longer have to “write a book” to get on TV, you just have to be able to run a successful blog. Of course, nothing comes easy, and blogging is a long-term project, not one that most people can become successful with just one post each month.

Seth Godin and Tom Peters are considered every successful bloggers and embracers of new media, and they discuss how blogging works and can change your life.

The video is rather short, coming in at about a minute and a half, but can really inspire you to start a blog – it’s free and just requires your time.

From time to time, I like to showcase great themes that bloggers can use on their site. This time around, it’s a WordPress theme designed for blogs and magazine sites, with an emphasis on images. You can find it here, but read on to learn more about the theme and how you can use it to your benefit.

NewsPress is a magazine and news theme designed for any niche, but for the bloggers who want a clean, professional-looking theme that costs nothing.

You’ll notice that the theme has a clean overall look, which is both optimized for speed and search engines.

Most of the theme is laid out in a two-column format, although the main page features a split column beyond the main post.

The three-column footer is widget-ready and ideal for additional content.

Using the 960 pixel grid system, the design is formatted for optimal reading. A theme options panel has been included, making editing the main elements easier.

Images automatically resize when you insert them into your posts, and no custom fields are required due to how they are “caught” from your posts.

Gravatars and pagination have also been built into and designed for the theme.

Overall, the theme is well-designed and will make a great addition to your site when it comes time to re-design, or a great solution for a new site!

I realize I might receive disagreement from some, but these are the ways I see RSS subscriptions and Twitter followings growing or evolving.

The past few years have been great for bloggers. Finally, they’ve been able to receive some form of a reward for their work, even though the traditional media still feels that they [we] should but shut up. Traffic grew, regular/return readership rates increased, and blogs saw success in many ways. Bloggers went onto bigger things, as they outgrew their small blog, and there are many bloggers that are making a full-time income, or more from their writing and work.

The Problem with RSS

A growing problem with RSS is that it is an acronym and thus a reason most people do not really understand it. Go up to anyone and ask them what RSS stands for or what it is used for, any you’ll likely see some confused expressions. Ask them how to subscribe to a blog, and they’ll also be rather confused.

More people than ever are getting news form blogs, but for the most part, people don’t return to blogs other than by bookmarking the site and/or typing in its address. If they have no need to be updated as soon as an article is published, they won’t have a need for subscribing to it. RSS readers are much like email clients – the users either ignore them completely or constantly monitor them.

Even though I know how to subscribe to and use feeds/RSS/subscriptions, I still “hate” to subscribe to many blogs (unless of course they are really good) because the process is too complicated. There are more than two steps, and this draws users away from using a service. While there may be a link within the address bar of many sites and the feed can automatically be detected simply by entering the address, in some cases, you have to search through the page for a subscription link or worse yet, sign up to the site.

Additional Drawbacks of RSS/Readers

• There are many sites that do not offer full-feed RSS, completely voiding the purpose of RSS and subscribing to a site.
• Blog authors figure they can garner more income from their blog alone, so they don’t look into feed monetization (or use partial feeds).
• RSS isn’t promoted enough, or it isn’t used by enough people (I believe the usage is around 15% or so), only bloggers and people who find a use for it.
• There’s absolutely no interaction unless you add value to the footer of your feeds (not really that ideal).

The Benefits of Twitter (Versus RSS)

Don’t get me wrong. Twitter can sometimes be a pain to monitor, especially if you are following a lot of topics or people, but it can also provide a better option for you in the promotion of your site.

Much like a landing page or stream for your blog, using Twitter to promote and stream your articles can be great for both you and your readers. Clicking one link to your profile and one more to follow you through the service, your readers can subscribe to and follow your updates.

Twitter integrates RSS into your profile for both your tweets and favorites, so you could alternatively publish Twitter tweets into your blog for readers and as another form of promotion.

Many people know what Twitter is. Look at the traffic – Twitter is up 660% versus this time last year, and FeedBurner, the main place where bloggers can create and distribute feeds for their site is down 16% (partially due to the Google transition). Twitter is mentioned multiple times during many news programs, including in newspapers. You’ll rarely ever see an article referencing feeds or RSS within a similar article.

Other Benefits of Twitter

• You can see who exactly is following you and information about them.
• It’s easy to add value for your readers with additional links and thoughts.
• You can follow other people within your industry, and make branding easier.
• Converse with people who may have a question.
• Interact with others easily.

Conclusion

Remember, each of these are single services, although the primary way of your readers to stay updated with your articles. RSS subscriptions may continue to grow, but adoption to Twitter will likely continue to grow at a faster rate than RSS ever will. Both can be monetized, and there are definitely benefits and cons for both.

The main point to think about is how you can integrate each into your site on a regular basis, and how to engage your readers most effectively.

Which method do you prefer for subscribing to your favorite blogs, and why?

FiveSecondTest is one of those tools that was created to do one thing, and one thing well, and in this case that is testing websites. Let’s say you are a designer and want to roll-out a new design for your blog, but don’t know where your focus currently lies. After all, you might think differently from what your visitors think, mainly because you are the designer, and they are the visitor,  if you get the point.

By creating a test on the site, you can upload your design, and then pick a test format, either “Ask users what they remember about your design” or “Ask users to click on parts of your design.” With these two options, you can get all the feedback you need.

There is also an option to allow random testers to participate, but you might want to uncheck this if you want feedback only from a select number of people.

You are able to do a sample test using this link, and leave feedback or simply try out the tool. More than 98,000 designers have already used it to receive feedback.

If you are unconvinced that the tool works or is useful, I recommend using it for A/B tests. For example, before redesigning your site, test your site, then do it again to see whether visitors have noticed an improvement.

Registration is option, there are only a few features deemed as premium, and the tool is fast and responsive.

As new features are introduced or planned, they are posted to their Twitter profile.

Link exchanges were introduced when there were relatively few blogs. People just didn’t go on the web to look for new content. They typically only visited a few sites per day, due to the speed of the Internet, and everything was more close-knit. Today, there are millions upon millions of blogs, and there are some that are so similar to one another, that it is difficult to tell them apart.

When you think about link exchanges, it traditionally revolves around sharing some of your favorite websites, with the other blogs returning the favor. Today, the only way to do this is by focusing on some of your favorite blogs, and linking to others through regular posts.

I’d have to say that blogs really do work. Think about the traffic that you can receive through Twitter. It is quite remarkable, and this is all through link sharing and distribution. People still click on links, and there are still benefits to linking to other blogs through prominent positions within your blog.

One of the other main reasons this practice stopped growing is when people discovered that you could make money selling the ad space where these links went, and ultimately, it became less prudent to share links.

Let’s say you are linked to by a popular site – receiving ten times the monthly traffic as you. There is a good chance that you will see an extra thousand or more visitors to your site. Even if you have a modestly popular site, this would amount to a steady increase in traffic as long as that link remains. Now, of course, some of the blog authors could remove the links, but you’ll still see some return on that initial link back to your site.

Your Thoughts – What do you think about link exchanges – do they still work or have they gone out of style and aren’t worth it?

I’ve received some questions in the past about the main differences between the blog platforms, and I want to clear some of the misunderstandings up as best as I can.

This chart compares the main features of both platforms, including the positives and negatives. Obviously, I couldn’t incorporate everything into the table, and some of the features I am a little more biased towards one platform, but in the end, it is a good comparison between the two.

Conclusion

More changes will be added to this table as they become available. I’ll be highlighting the “better” features, and more categories and information will also be added.

As you can see, WordPress.com certainly has limitations, but you also get more tools built-in to allow quick publishing and editing, and it is extremely powerful, at least compared to what Blogger provides out of the box. Overall, it is better for people who want to get right to blogging, compared to Blogger, which is for people who want relatively more freedom.

What are your thoughts on the comparison? Please let me know if there is any incorrect information and whether anything should be changed.

Last Updated: November 1, 2009

Google Analytics has been the main player for nearly everyone that has a blog. The suite and tools included are enterprise-class, giving you everything you need to run a campaign or track what people are searching for within your site.

Woopra recently came out of private beta, and now everyone can have an account, but for anyone with over 30,000 page views during the month, they will have to upgrade to a $4.95/month package or higher. Receiving ten million page views per month, you’ll be paying well over $1,800. Google Analytics is free up to five million page views, and I doubt that the limitation is enforced for all sites. As long as you spend $30 ($1 minimum budget within AdWords), you can continue using it once you break the threshold.

Additionally, Woopra is real-time like Twitter, while Google can be looked at as Google Search, which only updates every few hours.

Now that you know some of the main differences between the two, the Royal Pingdom blog has covered many other key differences and similarities between the two services.

Quote from the post:

Both Google Analytics and Woopra collect similar data. Like any analytics software, each provides the same dizzying array of visitor information — number of page views, top referrers, visitor language, browser setting, and more. If you just want to know how busy a site is or how visitors end up on a certain page, either tool will suffice.

Link: Royal Pingdom

This post will be rather brief, but still fairly important. Twitter has grown into a great distribution point for bloggers and content creators. The reason why? There are so many extensions that can be used. For example, as long as I have connected to TweetMeme at least once in the past, all my new articles will automatically be published there, making it possible for others to re-tweet them on their own accounts.

If you utilize SEO plugins of have your blog setup in any way that is at least somewhat SEO friendly, your individual posts will also contain your blog’s title. In most cases, this isn’t necessary, as you already have your blog’s title within your header or logo area. When it comes time to publish your article to Twitter or others re-tweet an article, this will also be placed within the tweet.

For example, the Platinum SEO plugin as well as others like the All-in-One SEO Pack include your blog’s title within each individual post. The longer your title, the more characters each tweet will use. Adding any additional information will further reduce the number of characters – bad if you want to add your own thoughts. Furthermore, others won’t be able to re-tweet or re-link to articles that you have shared.

Previously this post tile was: A Quick “Optimization” Tip for Twitter | Blog Tipz

Now, it can appear as: A Quick “Optimization” Tip for Twitter, a reduction of at least twelve characters.

In terms of SEO within the search engines, I don’t think there will be a significant difference by not attaching your blog’s title to each article. Most blog platforms are already optimized to contain some form of your title within the meta information, and many of the larger sites don’t place it in the title. In all honesty, it creates a cleaner look without the tile present.

The option to remove the post tile can be found within the setting page of your SEO plugin or through a back-end option panel for permalinks/etc. This should only be considered if you use Twitter frequently and want others to share your content through the service.

Covering how to be effective on Twitter in the past, this post will continue that one in some ways, by teaching you how to become an influential part of Twitter. If you haven’t already realized this, Twitter (along with Facebook) will forever change the way we communicate with one another, in near real-time. There is no longer the wait that email used to have, plus it isn’t one-sided like chat.

One of the keys to becoming a bigger part of Twitter is realizing how it works, and I’ll be covering some of those basics here.

Five Basic Rules of Twitter

1. Provide Value – There is a lesser chance that someone will follow you if you don’t provide useful information. You need to do this, or you’ll simply be promoting your site non-stop and other useless content.
2. Connect with Others – Start conversations with others if they are having difficulties blogging (or whatever), and let them know that you are thankful for what they do, if they have re-tweeted or provided value to you.
3. Market Appropriately – Not everyone will be able to generate income using Twitter, but some will. You have to know how to leverage the traffic and users of Twitter in order to gain some new visitors/readers.
4. Expand Your Blog – Using Twitter is a great way to find new information and resources for including within your own blog.
5. Utilize the New Lists Feature – I believe that there is a lot of potential in the new lists feature, after having used it for some time. You can use it to market your favorite sites as well as more closely follow your closest followers.

What You Need to Do

The key in setting yourself apart on Twitter is doing what no one else has done before. Sure, you’ll have to take risks, but you’ll certainly be rewarded for them if you see an increase in followers or traffic back to your site.

• Promote Your Followers – Even though you may be more inclined to promote yourself than others, it may be beneficial to focus on your own followers. They are following you and may be following each of your tweets, why not give hem a little promotion in return?
• Be the First – Like the news cycle, you want to always pay attention to your niche, breaking great articles before others do. You’ll receive more traffic and become an authority quickly.
• Share Insider Knowledge – Many Twitter users don’t provide too much “personal’ information, but it is good to see users who are, providing a glimpse behind-the-scenes of the account.
• Add Something More – By providing additional content through your Twitter stream, you are emphasizing the point that you are committed to helping your readers out.
• Be Knowledgeable – Share what you know and others will respect your ability and follow you, re-tweet your tweets, and add you to their list of recommended users.
• Separate the Good Content from the Bad – Because there is so much content on Twitter, you have to know what to spread yourself, and when.
• Grow Over Time – Your readers want to see growth over time, and there is no better what to show this than through a Twitter account.
• Leave an Impact – Leaving an impact doesn’t stop at helping others with their minor problems, but you can also go so far as distribute bonus content to those who ask for it.
• Be Consistent – Twitter users want some form of consistency, much like within a traditional blog. Don’t tweet five times one day and fifty times the next, returning to just two the next day. You have to spread tweets out and focus on building your brand.

Conclusion

Building a brand and separating yourself on Twitter really does take time. There are more tips that can be added to the list above, but I want to leave that up to you. How do you try to separate and create your own pack on Twitter?

One of the best ways to get new traffic to your posts is by “pitching it to other bloggers.” Using this method, you are either emailing, commenting, or tweeting to a more popular or similarly-known blogger about one of your posts. Ideally, it is in a similar niche, or there just isn’t any point in doing this.

Across the main distribution points, this is most effective, because you are leveraging the traffic of other bloggers, of people who have more experience in their niches, and have more dedicated readers. These factors all work to your benefit, providing that you pitch your posts in the proper method.

On Twitter

Twitter has made it easier to recommend articles, but it also has made it harder to get your articles seen. There is just too much content flowing through Twitter at any time to get articles really noticed. You must have a “killer” article in order to get noticed quickly on Twitter.

Use @ messages or Direct Message a well-known blogger with your post link, and wait for a response. Usually, one will never come, but in some cases, whether in an weekly round-up or through a re-tweet, you’ll see a return on your time. This link or recommendation may very well serve several thousand additional visitors to your site that day.

Through Email

While email has been around the longest out of the main methods, it is also one of the harder methods to properly target. Not everyone reads all their emails, so you are almost trying to market your email’s subject like a blog post.

The Title – Let them know what you are trying to do within the title, but don’t be pleading. This won’t really get you anywhere. With a title like: “LOOK AT THIS POST,” the other blogger may just become offended and discard the message. Your title has to be clear in intentions, but still be able to stand out.

The Content – Don’t include too many details. Like the subject, keep it as straight-forward as possible, telling them about your post, providing details about yourself, and a link to the post (of course, the most important).

Attitude – This is an important factor in the conversation. They know that you are trying to leverage their traffic, so only a small percentage of the time will they answer your request. Make sure you speak in a reasonable attitude, not using caps or any form of “shouting.” It can sometimes be difficult to properly communicate online.

Through Others’ Blogs

Marketing your posts to other bloggers through this method is often the least popular, because you don’t typically see good results. You’ll certainly see a small return due to the traffic from other visitors to their site, but not too much more. The article may be picked up by other bloggers, but not the author you intended.

Using a post link instead of your traditional blog URL can be beneficial in driving traffic to specific posts, but may not be too effective in meeting the addressed goal.

Key Points

When providing links to others for them to check out or post to their own blogs, you have to keep a number of things in mind. For one, a majority of bloggers will accept the link, but may forget to post it or not be willing to. Even though new, unique content is posted each day, there is still a lot of it that may appear to be a repetition of what’s already been posted. For this reason, your content must be really good.

Another important point to remember is that behind all blogs there are real people. Simply stating that you want an article posted won’t help you. Address them by their name or include some reasons why you think they will want to have the article appear within their site. It’s so similar to actual advertising that it is difficult to tell the two apart.

In pitching your blog, you have to market it in a way that the person on the receiving end has a reason to publish it. It sure sounds easier than it really is. You’re in competition with thousands of other bloggers, all who hope to capitalize on the same traffic.

After several failed attempts, you will soon realize what works and what doesn’t. Just like blog articles, this has to be worked on in order to achieve the best results.