Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

WordPress 2.7 "Coltrane"

Dec 11, 2008 99 Comments »

As it always happens when I am trying to update my WordPress installation I almost lost a blog while upgrading to WordPress 2.7. I’m generally one of the last people to upgrade my WordPress installations, it’s just that today when I was going through the various twitter notifications I noticed some body mentioning WordPress 2.7 so I thought, well, this time I shouldn’t get so late.

It is always advised that you take full backup of your existing blog before upgrading to a newer version; anything can go wrong and you can lose years of hard work. But I haven’t taken my backups for more than 3-4 months.

The biggest surprise in WordPress 2.7 was the total overhaul of the dashboard interface. It really looks neat with crisp buttons and a spiffy layout. Here is the image of the dashboard of Writing Cave:

It seems there are still many people who use the default editor of WordPress to publish blog posts. I haven’t used it for years. Even when there was no desktop editor available I used to prepare all my posts in my favorite word processor and then simply copy/paste the content into the editor. If you notice in the image I have encircled the part that lets you quickly post without ever having to leave the dashboard area. They have arranged all the important links at left. Another significant change that I have noticed is that they have brought back the comments to the dashboard as people had been missing this information on the dashboard.

There is a turbo link at the top bar and I wonder what it does. When I clicked on it, it asked me to do something, I did that, it processed a few hundred files on my computer and then I lost track.

I’m still to use all the features present in the latest WordPress 2.7 version. In fact, as usual, I will end up using a very few functions because I rarely log into the admit area; I publish all my blog posts using windows live writer.

Here are some WordPress 2.7 upgrade tips from Lorelle.

Another great overview of WordPress 2.7.

Top 20 WordPress 2.7 features from Mashup.

New version of MovableType is big on social media

Aug 15, 2008 15 Comments »

It’s time for blogging to move on to the next level (I haven’t been doing much blogging so moving on to the next level seems like an over-statement). Blogging is evolving to be more than a personal publishing experience and exchanging views through the comments sections. It is more of a social media affair, if you go by the features being offered by the latest version of MovableType. Aside from the regular blogging and CMS features, the latest version also gives you social networking tools like creating online profiles, online forums and profile exchanges. Check out their blog.

To be frank these features are not for everybody. Why would you create a social networking website if you simply want to publish your thoughts to be shared by a regular audience? I think extra features do nothing but distract – if you want to blog, simply blog.

Feature-rich blogging platforms will be good for corporate blogs though because they can help them develop and sustain a community.

Writing a good blog post

Jul 08, 2008 6 Comments »

I was preparing a quote for a new blogging assignment and while preparing the quote I was explaining to the client who intends to hire me what makes a good blog post. At that point I thought will also share my thoughts on this on my blog. So here are a few things that make your blog post a good blog post (the opinion may differ from blog to blog but it can be generally acceptable):

Make your blog post interesting and topical

I think this goes without saying. People are not going to read your blog posts if they are not interested and they will only be interested if you can offer something interesting. By “interesting” I mean something that is highly relevant, that is current, that is useful, that is realistically useful, and that is topical. Current topics, garnished with your own personal opinion, are generally great in bringing more and more people to your blog. I will quickly like to add here that more people reading your blog post does not make your blog post good; the entire goodness exists in the relevancy of your blog post.

Pay attention to the title and headings

Titles and headings make it easier for the reader to quickly go through your blog post. After all one has to visit scores of blogs in a day and a post that goes on and on and on quickly sends the less interested visitors away. A good way of keeping them hooked to your current blog post is highlighting the relevant portions and expressions with the help of headings. The title is what gets them initially interested and the headings keep them reading your blog post. A well-defined title can get you good rankings on the search engine result pages. Your headings are like orientation tools. Once you know what is there in the paragraph you can read that paragraph faster. Therefore if there is heading over a paragraph it is a lot easier to read that paragraph or at least skim through it.

Keep your blog posts short if possible

Although personally I have nothing against long blog posts — in fact sometimes even I write pretty long blog posts – keep the length of your blog post as much as there is requirement. Don’t unnecessarily increase the length of your blog posts because your readers are intelligent enough to see through if you have got nothing solid to say.

Organize your main thoughts in bulleted lists

It seems everybody loves bulleted lists on the Internet and they come highly recommended. In fact the bulleted lists are so relevant that even search engines take them into consideration while ranking your web pages and blog posts according to the related keywords. So if you think that you can write your thoughts in bulleted lists instead of a paragraph then use bulleted lists. They not only reduce the size of your blog post they also make it easier to read.

Stick to your fundamental theme

Don’t try to cover everything under the sun; people come to your blog to read on a particular topic and preferably on a topic you specialize in. So if you are a web designer it is better that your blog posts deal with web designing rather than cooking macaroni, although sometimes you can do that to keep things interesting.

Instill passion into your blog posts

This is a must; write only if you believe in it and if you believe in it then people will be able to perceive the underlying passion and passion is always powerful.

Do successful bloggers have a great ego?

Jul 04, 2008 2 Comments »

I was just now reading this very old post at technosailor about most successful bloggers having a big ego. The writer says that successful bloggers do things in order to gain attention from search engines, from readers and from other bloggers and this satisfies their ego. So is it necessary that if you want to be a successful blogger you need to have an ego?

It depends on how you perceive ego. Some say it is your inner consciousness and some say ego is what you think other people think of you. In blogging personality, attitude and attention do matter and in fact they matter a lot. To stand apart your blog required an identity, a unique personality so that people can instantly recognize you and then remember you. Along with remembering you they must also remember you in good stead. It is no use being notorious because although you will get attention initially this attention won’t last long. You need positive attention, you need people to like you and appreciate you and value whatever you publish on your blog. For some this is ego boost and for some it is a step towards something else.

People blog for different reasons and of course there are people who blog merely for attention. But some people mean to do business from their blogs, through their blogs. This business can be selling ads, promoting affiliate programs, promoting own business, spreading awareness regarding a social cause and disseminating religious and political messages. Of course social work, religion and politics don’t come under the ambit of doing business but after all it is an objective. For such people – who are blogging for one of the above-mentioned objectives – blogging success is not merely a satisfaction of the ego. They are not bothered about their personal fame (although very few people dislike the idea and the outcome); they are more bothered about the effect it is going to bring about.

Having said that I have often noticed that successful bloggers do develop a certain kind of “superior” attitude and I don’t mean it in the negative sense. Success takes lots of perseverance, skill, effort and networking and there are very few people who can sustain for a long time. This obviously fills a person with a sense of achievement. Nonetheless, there are few bloggers who remain untouched by all these feelings.

Checking out ScribeFire

May 23, 2008 1 Comment »

Update: and now I’m checking whether it updates the existing blog posts or not.

For a long time I’ve been using Windows Live Writer; I don’t know why it is very slow on my laptop, and it really bothers me to wait for 10-15 seconds just to post a few lines. So I’m checking out ScribeFire after installing the plugin. It doesn’t have as many features, but at least it is faster.