Blog Elephant - Wisdom and Whatnot

8 Tips for Writing Sucessfully in Front of the Small Screen

Sean Hodge — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:11:19 -0700

Struggling to find time to update your blog. Yet you never miss your favorite TV shows or somehow find yourself watching "Roeasanne" again, c'mon "Roeasanne". What channel even has the audacity to still play that show anyway.

You could be writing right now. Or least sitting there with pencil and paper in hand looking like a writer. Don't worry we'll get your hand moving across that page. This post will cover some tips to make things happen in front of the small screen.

1. Relax

Your writing can't be as bad as another episode of "Night Court".

2. Love the Reruns

Usually reruns are boring. "Seinfield" isn't so funny the 5th time. But when its time to write in front of the TV reruns are your best choice. The more times you've watched a show the easier it will be for you to tune it out and write. In fact buy some "Friends" DVDs and play them while prime time is on. You might miss the next "Prison Break" or "24", but you'll write better. Who am I kidding. I'm not missing my favorite shows.

3. Embrace Distraction

There is a reason your in front of the boob tube. Either your feeling tired, lazy, bored, stress-out, or your just procrastinating. In any case your there for distraction. Well writing is as good a distraction as any.

4. Accept that Your Not Shakespeare

Clearly the greatest poets of all time didn't write in front of the TV, which is good. It takes the pressure off. You don't need a muse flowing through you to get some good ideas down on paper. Your also there ready with pencil in hand if lighting does strike. And we're bloggers anyway. Not poets for god's sake. Take that black turtle neck sweater off.

5. Let Your Ideas Flow

Don't furrow your brow with concentration. You didn't sit down in front of the TV to concentrate. Just let the ideas flow without pressure.

6. Capture Your Thoughts

This isn't the time to do your most detailed writing or work on polishing a draft. It is a great time to come up with some ideas. Make lists of topics for your blog, or lists of headlines that interest you, sketch out some concepts, or write a rough article outline.

7. Turn Off the Editor

If inspiration comes run with it. This is a great time to turn off that internal editor. Don't worry about misspellings or bad ideas. Just run with your thought process. You'll be surprised at how much good stuff comes out. You might surprise yourself and bang out a good first draft during a 30 minute episode of, yet again, "Cheers".

Even if you end up cutting out half of your writing once you go to edit later on that's OK. This is work you might not have gotten written down any other way. Would you have found the energy or the time otherwise?

8. Have Fun While Finding Your Voice

Writing in Front of the TV is a great way to inject some of your personality into your posts. Your relaxed, your defenses are down, your just having fun writing. Its a good way to find your voice.

Worst Case Scenario

If all else fails you could actually watch that episode of "Law and Order" for the eighth time, which is what you sat down to do anyway.

Now tell the truth. How many of you have been writing in front of the TV lately?

Branding Yourself With Gravatars

Sean Hodge — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:01:37 -0700

Its well known that one method for gaining more readers for your blog is to comment on blogs in your niche. Its a way to establish your credibility. You can further enhance your branding and recognizability when commenting on others blogs by using Gravatars.

What are Gravatars?

To quote directly from http://site.gravatar.com “A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an 80×80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?”

Some influencial blogs have Gravatars enabled. Take a look at the comment section in a popular blog like Freelance Switch. Here is a link to an article on Evil Knievel that has some Gravatars in use in the comments.

It is really simple to set up a Gravatar. You create an account at http://site.gravatar.com. The site walks you through a really simple process of uploading an image that you can use as your Gravatar. You associate your Gravatar with an email address. So when you go to enter a comment on sites like Freelance Switch the form asks you for your email address. The Gravatar you have associated with that email will then show up when you enter the comment.

Benefits to Using a Gravatar

You could use your logo or anything really as your Gravatar. By setting up your Gravatars you will have a consistent brand image next to your comments. This helps to give you quick and professional recognition on these websites. Its a technique that allows your comments to stand out. It will get your brand scene by many new potential readers. Combine that with your excellent tips in the meat of your comment and you've got a winning combination. This will help to pull more readers back to your website.

Using a Self Portrait as Your Gravatar and On Your Blog

Why do author's always have a photo of themselves on their book jackets? As an author their photo is their brand identity. As a blogger you are a writer and you can utilzie this same kind of personal brandability.

As a blog author you are a big part of your brand. Especially, if you are a single blogger on your site and not running a multi-blogger site like Freelance Switch. You can use an image of yourself on your blog and for your Gravatar. Its also possible to further brand this self portrait with design elements from your website or your blog's logo. You could wear a t-shirt with your logo on it for example.

Whether its at the small Gravatar size or if its a larger size. Your individual blog will benefit by placing a portrait or photo of yourself on your blog. Some obvious places to put an image of yourself would be on your website's about page or in your sidebar. If you opt to put the photo in your sidebar then your personal branding will be persistent throughout your site. You could also get creative with your placement and find some space for it in your header or in a unique area in your blog's theme.

Look at skelliewag.org. This is a blogger that is an excellent writer. Skellie's brand identity would benefit from some personal branding. Especially, with such sparse branding currently. Now look at Problogger.net. What jumps out at you on the home page. Yup, its a video of the author Darren Rowse. The videos are persistently shots of Darren and serves as a great brandable image on the website. He's also got a nice portrait shot of himself on his about page

Furthering the Use of Your Self Portrait

As a guest writer on other blogs you may be given the opportunity to place your photo next to your profile. You can use the same image in social media networks like facebook or technorati. You could use your portrait as an Avatar on forumns, which is another great place to gain new readers for your blog. Ultimately, you can use the same image to brand yourself all over the web. As we move into the future a persistent personal identity will help you to be recognizable.

What if You Have More Than One Website to Promote?

This is the position I'm in. I resolved this by creating an illustration of a photo of myself. Then I added branding elements from the different websites and blogs I want to promote. When I use the image on social networking sites I use the plain unbranded version. When I leave comments on blogs I choose which site I want to promote next to my comment. So, I have a flexible system that can expand for different brands, but they are all held together by the common element of my self portrait.

Its also really easy to set up multiple images at http://site.gravatar.com. You just create a different email and then associate that Gravatar with that email address. See the image below When you comment on blogs you can choose which email address to leave. Depending on which email you choose to use for the comment you'll get the associated Gravatar.

For full design instruction on the self portrait visit the AiBURN article. Let me know if you have any questions and your thoughts on Gravatars and Branding yourself.

Tips on Making Great Taglines

Sean Hodge — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:09:30 -0700

Your blog's tagline should be short and memorable. It should sum up your blog's themes and tone. It should be a sticky phrase with some personality that ties into your brand.

That's allot to accomplish in just a few words. The more specific the topics you write about in your blog the easier it is to make a tagline. As with any part of your brand identity, look to see if there is something else that differentiates your blog. Something that could help you to stand out. That something might make a good tagline and is worth exploring. An uncommon and succesful example is, NorthxEast including their publishing schedule in their tag line, "Unmissable Weekly Articles For Bloggers".

What doesn't make a good tagline is a really long sentence. The longer the tag line is, and the less connected the sentence is, the less memorable it will be. I've also noticed that some great writer's don't necessarily have great taglines. So, this is a topic that a blog owner at virtually any level can benefit from.

Taglines are not a branding requirement. They are a differentiator. If your Logo and the rest of your branding elements allow you to stand out well in your niche you may not need a tagline.

There are some blogs that do need a tagline though to strengthen their brand. Now if your blog's name is your own personal name serving as your blog name, or your blog's name doesn't clearly state the niche you serve, or its something a bit generic than a tag line can be a beneficial addition to your brand.

I see that some bloggers use taglines as less of a sticky branding message and instead for listing topics that they blog about. That isn't memorable, but it does help to clarify what your blog is about when users land on your blog. Its a good start. Try improving on this though. If you currently have a list of topics you blog about serving as your tagline try integrating it somehow into a memorable sentence. It might make a real positive difference for your brand.

I'm on the fence about whether a list of topics you write about underneath your tag line is helpful or not. I think that if you create clear hierarchy it could work. You could have a really memorable tagline in a larger stylized font and then in a small light plain font have a list of what you blog about. I think this would work best if the tagline was removed from the logo. If anyone has seen a successful use of this please put a link in the comments.

An Example of a Great Tag Line

The blog Copyblogger has the tagline, "Copywriting Tips for Online Marketing Success". That defines what Copyblogger is really well. Its short and memorable. Visually it stands out by being placed on a sticky note in the web design. Great Work.

Three Locations to Place Taglines Successfully

Next to Your Logo

Next to the logo is a good place to situate a tagline. It fuses with the logo and they function as one brand element. A good example of this is Blogsolid.com, which has the tagline of "Ideas for Better Blogging". This is a really interesting blog design as well.

Below Your Logo

Another way to fuse the tagline with the logo is to place it below the main text of your logo. Wake up Later uses this format.

Removed From Your Logo

The third way to place your tagline is to remove it physically from the logo. A common place to move it to is over to the right of your header if your logo is on the left. The blog IttyBiz has a similar tagline placement as copyblogger. It is also enclosed in a graphic and moved to the right.

Let's Look at 2 Blogs that Could Benefit from Tagline Improvement

There are a lot of blogs out there that we could look at. I chose a couple of blogs that I like the writing of and that I subscribe to their feeds. I think that offering feedback about blogs I like can only improve them.

Case Study 1: Looking At a Blog That Currently Has No Tag Line Incorporated into the Website Layout

Here is an example of a great name for a blog that has some real personality behind it Self Made Chick. It does ok without a tag line. Though a tag line could help to define the brand a little more. Help to say what she writes about and stands for. Maybe something like, "Overcoming Business Challenges" or something with the first person in it "My Trials in Entrepreneurship." A tagline would help to ground the name of the blog with what she writes about. Whether you think she should have a tagline or not check out the blog its great, selfmadechick.com. After reading her blog you'll see that her topics are about her successes, trials, and failures in entrepreneurship. She also gives some good blogging and business tips as well.

Before publishing this article I noticed that this site does have a tag line. Its shows at the top of the browser. Though its not used in the design of the page. The tagline is, "Make Money Online, Work From Home, and Take Back Your Life - One Entrepreneur's Journey." I like, "One Entrepreneur's Journey". Its short and memorable and represents the sites topics well. It would benefit the site to incorporate it into the page design though.

Case Study 2: Looking At a Blog That Currently Has Competing Tag Lines

Mytropicalescape.com is a great blog that is likely growing fast. I see some high quality writing coming from Mark over there and his publishing schedule has really picked up. I think he could benefit greatly by rethinking his tagline. Currently he has two competing taglines. One is a list of topics he blogs about located directly underneath his logo and the other is removed from the logo and placed over to the right.

I don't think he needs both. I think the tagline on the right "Providing Organic Relief from the Common Cubicle" is unique and he should possibly stick with that. It fits his blogging focus of living overseas and differentiates his brand. Though Mark may be feeling some growing issues that might make him consider changing his tagline.

A blog considering rethinking its focus, or thinking about how to successfully incorporate new interests into their existing brand, is common with many blogs as they grow. Mark blogs about many topics. Also, he has started blogging about some popular topics a lot like blogging, achieving goals, and business. So, he may need to rethink his brand to fit his current blog focus. Maybe a tagline like, "Island Advice on Blogging and Business". That ties in his blogs current focus and the concept of his blogs name. Its focused enough to differentiate his blog, but loose enough to encompass his wide array of writing topics.

Applying Changes to Your Blog

Irregardless of whether you agree with all of my assessments above, the analysis points out some of the thought process you should go through in determining a tagline for your blog, assessing its relevance to your brand, and its stickiness in your potential reader's minds. Good luck with picking a tagline for your blog and let me know how it works out in the comments below.

7 Things to Consider When Choosing a Designer to Redesign Your Blog

Sean Hodge — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 08:48:08 -0700

Did you get your blog started with a free template? Have you visited other blogs in your niche and said, "Wow, that looks just like my blog." There is nothing wrong with using free templates. There are some advantages to starting your blog with a free template. Namely, you get off the ground quickly and cheaply. Though the disadvantages of not having a professional design and brand image for your blog from its outset grow as time goes on.

The more successful your blog is the more you will wish you had invested some resources in your blog's brand in the beginning. Now that your blog has had a modicum of success you could invest some of the earning you've made back into the branding of your blog and really stand out with a professional look and identity in your marketplace. A good design with good branding will help to make you memorable to your audience in your niche. A good design makes it easier to gain new subscribers as well. Because people visiting your site for the first time can feel the blog in its design before even reading a word.

This idea of capturing the feeling of the blog is essential. Its more difficult when the blog is being redesigned than when designing a blog from the beginning. The part that is more difficult is in the capturing of the blog's writing voice, niche, and style visually. When a blog is just getting started out the design and writing can grow together. You also risk alienating your existing audience with a redesign. So, you have to choose a designer for your redesign carefully.

There are lots of good reasons to get a good design from the beginning of your blog. If your starting a new blog I recommend that you have confidence that you will make a return on this initial investment. Though if this didn't happen in the beginning not to worry. To follow are some tips for selecting the right designer to bring that professional brand and blog template design to your moderately successful blog and help turn it into a highly successful blog.

1. The Designer's Portfolio

The reason this is so high on the list is that design is a visual medium. The quickest way to access the skill of a designer is to view their online portfolio. Time is money and the time you invest in this process needs to be taken into consideration. If you can afford a good designer than only consider working with designer's who's portfolio feels like a good fit for your blog.

Following are the types of questions you should ask yourself when choosing a designer. Has the designer created Blog's before? If so have they created a blog in your market? Do you like the style of this designer? Does the designer's style of design fit with your successful vision of your blog?

Seriously consider choosing a designer that has already made successful designs you like. Though professional designers often have a range of styles they can work in, its a safer course of action to choose a designer who's existing portfolio fits the results you are looking for.

2. The Designer's Process and Professionalism

A Designer's process can be as important as their final results of past projects. Are they professional? Are they organized? It can be difficult to assess these immediately. The level of professionalism of their website is a good indicator. Do they have any articles about their process on their website? Do you like the writing on their website? Does their website come off as professional? The way that they communicate with you is also a large degree of what will access their level of professionalism.

Some questions to keep in mind after you start to communicate with the designer. Do their emails feel professional? Do they help lead you and educate you through the design process? Do they discuss deadlines, cost, and scope of work up front? Are references of past clients available? Do they appear experienced in the design and blogging field? Are they available by phone or instant massaging if need be?

3. Choose a Designer that Understands Your Blog

Ideally, this designer would already be subscribed to your blog. An individual that has read your writing and subscribed to your feed is likely a fan. So, they are likely to care allot about the success of the redesign. Though be very wary of sacrificing other areas to work with a fan.

In capturing the feeling of your blog it helps that they already have exposure to your writing style and the community that has evolved around your blog. In fact they have a vested interest in your blog's community. They are likely to have some ideas about creating your blog's redesign that are an insiders perspective, which is often difficult to find.

You may also be able to work out some kind of trade of services or other deal more easily with a fan of your work. This could save you some funds. Though remember your not limited to this group of readers and that a professional designer could certainly do an excellent job with redesigning your blog.

4. Their Technical Abilities Need to Be Above the Needs of the Job

This is a blog they are redesiging. That involves more than a photoshop template. Unless you know how to cut up the design and integrate it into your Content Management System yourself. Do they know html and cascading style sheets? Are they familiar with the system you've built your blog in? Or if you are switching system's, are they familiar with both systems? Do they know at least the fundamentals of the programming language your blog's Content Management System is written in? Can they demonstrate their abilites with these technologies if asked to do so? For example, they might send you a template they have coded for review. If you don't understand the template that's ok. Just their willingness to show you proves their confidence in their abilities.

5. A Designer's Blog is Important to Evaluate

Much like portfolios a designer's blog can be an indicator of how good they are at blog design. A designer that has a blog, especially a professional blog, has put in the time to truly understand what blogging is all about. Its not just another website its a blog. And developing a blog community, while having some parallels with other website communities, is a different medium, and has its own unique idiosyncrasies to understand. A designer involved with blogging will be a greater resource than a designer that hasn't blogged or only recently got into blogging. If you like the style and professionalism of a couple of designer's you could look to this forth area as a deal breaker. The areas below can be looked at as ways to differentiate some final candidates as well.

6. Look at Other Services They Offer

Your spending time and money building a relationship here. It is worthwhile to consider what other resources this individual could serve in helping your blog to grow. Are they an adept programmer well versed in the languages your blog's Content Management System is written in. There is a big difference between a designer's cursory knowledge of a programming language and a programmer's depth and abilities to write symphonies with it. If this designer is also an excellent writer or search engine optimization specialist well that means they have some other expertise that you could utilize to help grow your blog.

7. Your Budget

Clearly you need to be able to afford the designer. If their price range is not within the scope of your budget then you won't be able to use them. Though your concept of your budget should be put in the perspective of risk and reward. A designer that meets all 6 points above will likely cost much more than a designer that only meets two. That's because they have a proven track record of success and can clearly demonstrate the results you will get for your money.

Its up to you to decide which of the above points are most important to you and how they fit within the scope of your budget. Just keep in mind that the less a designer can demonstrate with past success the more risk you, as the blog business owner, are taking on in the redesign process of your blog.

The Narrowed Down List

Hopefully, this list has narrowed down the field of potential designer's you are evaluating. And you'll have some tools for evaluating their quotes within the scope of professionalism, your budget, and the results you are looking for. Any questions you have about these suggestions let me know below.