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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! September 25, 2005 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About BloggingBy Greyhawk(But were Afraid to Ask) (Note: reposted in response to numerous "how to" questions received regularly here. Some of the links below may no longer be active. Feel free to leave alternatives in the comments section.) Okay - I'll tell you right off that the title is deceptive. You won't find everything here. But this guide will offer ten fundamentals about which anyone wanting to be a blogger should be aware. Whatever your blog might be about, I think you'll find this info useful. This isn't about writing, or site design - it's about the knobology of blogging, the nuts and bolts, (hmmm, maybe nuts is the wrong term...) and that applies to everyone. 1. Get a Blog Done? Good. If you want to you can stop now and blog happily away. 2. Hit counters And how much should you charge for blogads once they do? Get a hit counter - a little string of code you add to your page that allows you to see who's visited. Sitemeter is the blogger's "industry standard". (Hint: get one) I also really like the Onestat hit counter - it can't be beat. Click my onestat link in the sidebar (the round symbol below the sitemeter visit numbers). Check the features. Test drive. Once you're on the onestat page note the pull down menu in the upper left corner area, and the listed options below it. They're both free. Don't lock them - leave them open for public view. They tell you how many visits you've had and they also tell other bloggers how many visitors they've sent your way. Don't get obsessed about either number - your visit numbers will likely be small initially, I know mine were. But they are of interest to anyone who's serious about blogging. Let's face it, we're in this to communicate, and these are simply letting us know who we're communicating with. I like to know what works best when I link to someone else - a simple "This is a must read!" or a paragraph sample followed by a "read it all". Lock me out of your site meter and I won't know. Another option you might try is the on-screen referral log. I have that too, you'll find it farther down the right side bar. I often use the blog list there to find new sites I hadn't seen before. Last important note: be sure to put the hit counter code on your main page template and all archive templates too. At least 40% of visits here come to individual pages from links from other bloggers. I know a few bloggers who are getting a lot more visits than they think they are, because they don't have hit counters on individual archive pages. 3. Comment Comments are easy and need no explanation. I began my blogging career by commenting at another blog. When Mudville started I had a handful of regular visitors who knew me from there. If you're a new blogger, or one who wants to draw a bigger crowd, leave comments at those other blogs that have posts about topics on which you write. Etiquette note: don't just say "Great post - I linked it from my blog here!" along with a url. Contribute something to the conversation and people will follow that url linked to your name in the comment back to your site anyway. Do this at enough places and people will soon see your obvious expertise - do it wrong enough times and people will know you're just a pest. Besides, that "I linked your post" stuff is what trackback is all about. 4. Trackback Blogspot recommends Haloscan's free service. A lot of big bloggers use this option. But here's a quick fix that's just so cool you'll probably want to try it just to see it work. Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Pinger. To use it, first click the 'trackback' option below. You'll find this entry number there: http://www.mudvillegazette.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2250 That's the one you'll want to enter in the first box on the Trackback Pinger. (Note: it is not the url you link too! The url to link to is the 'permalink' below) The other entries should be self explanatory. That's it - trackback! 5. Open Posts I also run at least one open post every day, a place where fellow bloggers can trackback any post they want, on any topic. (Well, I'll delete any pure attack pieces or anything I think gets too much inspiration from Jerry Springer...) Other sites offering open posts include Wizbang and Outside the Beltway. 6. Finding your tribe Technorati - enter any url or keyword into the search window and you'll get a list of sites who are linking that url or using the keyword. Here's the list for Maureen Dowd. Memeorandum - this one tells you what certain big blogs are linking too. There are other options, but these will give you a start. Find others on your topics, link, trackback, comment or 7. email On the other hand, some bloggers don't have open trackback or comments, and they welcome emails. Most will be quick to tell you they prefer a pointer to a specific post than to an entire blog, but few would post their email on their site unless they wanted people to email them. Of course, smaller bloggers will probably be more likely to respond. You also will want to email your entry into the 8. Carnivals Now back to the future: there are lots of carnivals now, for medical blogs, for recipes, for you name it. My advice to you is to visit the Carnival of the Carnivals - it lists them all. See which ones are on topics you write about, find out where the next one will be, and get your post submitted. (Note the compiler of the Carnival of Carnivals has offered it to a new home, perhaps you would like the task?) Then watch the numbers rack up on those new sitemeters. You'll also find bloggers in your area of expertise, and as you do, be sure and add them to your 9. Blogroll Here are some tips for running a blogroll: Two methods to create a blogroll. 1. Manual - build the links yourself or 2. Use blogrolling.com. With blogrolling you also have an option of their free service or a paid service with more features. Greyhawk's advice: Use blogrolling's paid option. It's not that much money and it's money spent in the blogosphere, and that's good. Now, as to building your blogroll. Do: add as many fine blogs as you can. Do Not: Simply put Instapundit, LGF, Hugh Hewitt, PowerLine, and Michelle Malkin, and The Corner on your blogroll and stop. Do add those sites, but do not stop there. Add several smaller blogs too. Are you using the open post trackback feature here? Go visit some of the other blogs that do. Have you checked out the Carnivals I directed you to? I know there are great blogs there, and many would love to exchange links. Blogroll those you like. Leave a comment at their site telling them that you enjoyed your visit and added them to your blogroll. They'll likely be glad to learn that - I know I am when I find a blog that's just linked to me. Whether you use blogrolling or not, be sure to "ping" blogrolling whenever you put up a new post. This will automatically update other's blogrolls to announce your new post. In some cases "new" will appear by your blog's name (or whatever the site owner has decided) in other's you'll actually move to the top of the list. Little by little your site visits will begin to creep upwards, and you too will be climbing... 10. The Ecosystem NZ also tracks blogs by visits, by the way - if they have an open sitemeter. There you have it - the power is in your hands. Why would I be so willing to help you out? Because when you become a huge blogger I want you to remember me and link me from time to time, okay? That is how this whole thing works. Recap: 1. Get a blog. (reposted from 2005-04-28 21:12:08) Posted by Greyhawk / September 25, 2005 2:15 PM | Permalink 54 TrackBacks
Jeff Jarvis has said before that we're witnessing a tipping point from mainstream media toward citizen's media. This week, Jeff notes Read MoreGrayhawk at Mudville tells how, and he has a simple little tutorial walking you through a trackback, and gives another link or two to some downloads to permit trackbacking. Those links are both great resources for new bloggers, but some of us still wo... Read More Link: Mudville Gazette. Read More Mudville Gazette: How to start blogging found this via Instapundit. I can not address technical issues but here it is for you to figure out.... Read More The Mudville Gazette has a long and informative post about blogs and blogging in general. Via Instapundit Note: I will include a permanent link to this article in our What is a blog anyway? link to the right... Read More As you might guess I make it a point to point all customers to the blog at the end of our calls (or chat or whatever). I am actually surprised at how many of our customers don't know what a... Read More It's probably better you didn't -- you don't need the headache and frustration, and I don't need the competition -- but if you pine to opine, you should take Mudville Gazette's advice. He recommends, as I always do, that new... Read More The Mudville Gazette has a long and informative post about blogs and blogging in general. Via Instapundit Note: I will include a permanent link to this article in our What is a blog anyway? link to the left.... Read More WOW! The advice offered on Mudville Gazette by Greyhawk is just what I was looking for last week when I started blogging. Had he been a few days earlier on his post, it would have saved me several hours of hard labor. As it is, there are several item... Read More ...but were afraid to ask, I suppose. Mudville Gazette has this interesting post that offers ten fundamentals about which anyone wanting to be a blogger should be aware.... Read More (trying again with correct link...) WOW! The advice offered on Mudville Gazette by Greyhawk is just what I was looking for last week when I started blogging. Had he been a few days earlier on his post, it would have saved me several hours of hard la... Read More The Mudville Gazette offers Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Blogging. An instant classic! Read More Here are the steps:1. Get a blog. 2. Get a sitemeter (and a onestat) 3. Leave comments. 4. Use trackback 5. Take advantage of open posts - here, here, and here for example 6. Find your tribe (memeorandum, technorati, etc) Read More New bloggers! Check out Greyhawk's post on everything you always wanted to know about blogging. I'm an old vet at this stuff myself (two months, 22 days) Read More There is a lot of great information there for new bloggers. Like me. Read More The Mudville Gazette has a post about starting a blog, and it has mostly good advice. Anyone unfamiliar with blogging would certainly do themselves a favor by reading the post. But I disagree with the recommendation to use Blogger Read More I'm not terribly good at "Track-backing". In fact, I have no idea how it works. This is a test of Mudville's Track-back instructions. Read More Mudville Gazette has a posting on advice for a new blogger that I wish I had when I started this in Frontpage last year. Read More It's been a few days since I issued my challenge to students to lay down their Xanga/LiveJournal blogs and start taking blogging seriously. No takers as yet. I guess just because I read their blogs, it doesn't mean they read... Read More As you may or may not know, I am still a new blogger. I started Northshore Politics just one month ago. Even though I was a regular blog reader, there was A LOT that I was absolutely clueless about until I started this site. Most of it I learned by d... Read More The Mudville Gazette has some pretty cool tips for new bloggers. I found it pretty useful, seeing as how I have only been doing this for about a month. Read More ...it clearly establishes me as totally clueless, but I didn't realize that you had to "ping" Blogrolling to trigger the Update Message to appear on people's Blogrolls. Read More The Mudville Gazette offers some pointers on blogging, including using Blogrolling to "ping" when you've updated your blog Read More You will need:1 jar, Read More Well you know...we all want to change the news. Or at least the way we get our news. Lots of people are still asking, "what's a blog?" If you really want a good explanation, you probably should ask this guy. Or better yet, read his book.... Read More This weekend was rather busy for me, so I haven't had time to work on the essay that I wanted to. I haven't even had very much sleep, in fact. Still, the world stops for nobody, so for my readers, here are a few things to tide you over until I've got... Read More I was thinking about starting a blog last December. While surfing the Blogosphere, I came upon this post and decided Read More The Mudville Gazette, the preeminent milblog, has posted a goldmine of blogging advice. If you want to watch your page views grow- read, grok, and follow. Read More Would anyone care to guess how many blogs, like this, spring up ... Read More Also, here is a link to an interesting post at the Mudville Gazette called Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Blogging. Read More Mudville Gazette... Read More As you know, I a fairly new to the world of blogging. So I have been reading and paying attention to experienced bloggers when they put out tips on being a better blogger. Here is some of the things I have found: Read More Blog's up, got two site trackers, got trackbacks, got a blogroll, reg'd on Ecosystem. Watch out Glenn, here I come! Read More Armchair Genius has several good write ups on the current state of the economy. In particular the Housing Bubble and Social Security. Via Hugh Hewitt, Don't be fooled by the FEC Via Instapundit, More on the influence of the blogosphere: The b... Read More Anyway, some of the folks I link to have posted good information about some of their recent blog improvements that I thought I'd like to have in one place. So that's what I'll do after I ruminate on blogging in general and then dispose quickly of a top... Read More I wish this post would have come along a few weeks back when I first started The View From My Window. When I first started blogging I felt stupid because everyone claimed it was so easy to start a blog, but I couldn't make mine look like everyone els... Read More Today I was without internet access all day - truly a hardship. It is the price of living in the country with one high speed option and I'll pay it for the peace of walking out the door with my dogs and into the fields and woods behind our house. ... Read More According to this handy blog how-to, this website you are currently reading is not a blog. Consider the evidence: I do not have a hit counter or a site stat thing trackbacks open posts any interest in participating in Technorati,... Read More Chrenkoff notes an article in the WSJ's Opinion Journal describing bloggers as a virtual Mongol Horde. I think that is a powerful image, and there are many positives that bloggers can take from it, such as the Mongol's use of superior tactics, the abilit Read More From some of the things people have asked, I get that we draw a very, er, varied crowd here. So I think it makes sense to pull together these How Tos everyonceinawhile. They don't cover everything someone new to blogging... Read More Mudville Gazettte posted some terrific information on what every blogger (especially the newer ones) should know. It's required reading. Read More Mudville Gazettte posted some terrific information on what every blogger (especially the newer ones) should know. It's required reading. Read More Blogs are the new big thing in communication - and now companies are getting on board, too. What is a blog? Very simply, its a "web log". Do you remember Captain Kirk's "Captain's log, stardate xyz"? Well, that's kind of what blogs are. They're ... Read More Mudville Gazettte posted some terrific information on what every blogger (especially the newer ones) should know. It's required reading. Read More Taking my cue from The Mudville Gazette's tips and pointers for new bloggers, I embedded the Sitemeter counter on all the blog's pages. This has added new details to the blog, among which is the realization that at least half... Read More ** Very top-notch tutorial for beginning (and advanced) bloggers! Must read! ** Ha! That is funny! Read More They finally let me host a carnival! It's so exciting! And even more cool is the fact that I get to highlight some rising stars in the blogosphere. The new guys just figuring it all out...of course after reading some of their posts, I realize that I ... Read More
In looking about the Bay Area in general, I find that informed reporting on military affairs is less than common. As such I have decided to try to fill some small part of the chasm, and begin with a piece which intersects with Bayosphere's empha Read MoreMichele Malkin linked to the peeniewallie.com web site today and it appears to have caused quite a traffic jam for the Peenie Wallie host. The image below represents a problem that I would really enjoy troubleshooting. I drop Michelle Malkin and... Read More This was suggested as being relevant by a visitor. Read More I have now posted another new search engine for searching Blogger profiles. It is in my sidebar under “Search”. The blog “A Consuming Experience”, which is linked on my “Blogging Help Page“, created it and she has ... Read More If you haven't figured it out yet, head on over to Mudville to get some basic blogging tips. Very important are instructions on how to do trackback. Blogspot won't do it, so you have to use another service. Greyhawk shows how Read More I host about 30 blogs for other Soldiers Angels who wanted to try out the blogosphere (you can find their blog links in my right sidebar). Since I first started offering to host blogs I've been keeping track of these new bloggers to see how they're doi... Read More 35 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
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Wow Greyhawk, nice post. Another tip that I have is to develop your own voice. Readers should be able to tell if you are writing at your site or another site without looking at the name...and that will build a "fan base".
I'm not that experienced as a blogger, but that is just my two cents worth :^)
Thanks for that - I'd been meaning to research how to do trackbacks. And I learned a lot from the rest of the post as well. Awesome!
As a new blogger there is so much I don't know about yet. You addressed lots of those in this one. Thanks for that. Every bit of G2 helps break the code on this blogging thing.
Since I use Blogspot, I wonder if all the blog programs are as cruddey in terms of entry methods? It is hard to imagine all of them being like that.
Great ideas - thanks for the info.
The challenge I face is in running a "business blog" that deals with real estate. Politically I lean right, and read many great blogs...but I don't want to link them because a.) I want people to use the site as an impartial resource and not be turned off of using us as agents because of our politices, and b.) if I blogrolled right-leaning blogs, I'd feel the need to give equal time to left-leaning blogs...and I don't want to do that :-).
But...if those are the blogs I read and respect, and I'm looking for ideas to drive traffic to my site...what's a gal to do??? Inquiring minds want to know....
Jane N-B
www.TwinCitiesRealEstateBlog.com
USAF '85-'92
Very good information. Explained some things I was a bit mystified about, and also placed them in context of their relative importance. One piece of advice: If you are tempted to use Post Nuke for any reason, DON'T. It's not newbie friendly. It doesn't do archive posts worth a flip, and for all of it's vaunted tools, if you really want to make changes to it, you have to know too much PHP. Supposedly, version 8 is going to fix all that. Supposedly, Post Nuke 8 was going to be ready for release about 18 months ago. I know just enough to get myself in trouble with it, and now wish I could undo everything and had never messed with it. When I get time, I'm going to try to replace it with Moveable Type.
Outstanding! Thanks for the good advice!
Thanks for the post, wish you'd had it in Jan. when I was a lost little baby blogger.
Another tool I've found helpful is an aggregator. After you get more than 10 or so blogs that you read daily it helps to have something like bloglines to keep track of new posts all in one place. But that's more on the reading side than the writing side.
I think, Jane N-B, that you have to run a political blog for your own right-wing fun, and the real estate blog for business purposes. We must not unnecessarily confine ourselves to a single blog!
Great post. I agree with all but the NZ Bear Ecosystem, which I think is broken.
I question the value of the NZ Bear Ecosystem. One of my blogs has been going from 197 inbound links back down to 60 or less and then back up again. What good is that? I think the ecosystem. My blog at http://caveviews.blogs.com has been jumping around even more and I have taken if off that blog.
The trick to sending email suggesting links is to send links to material you think the bigger blogger will want to write about, rather than to your own postings. "This caught my eye and it looked like something of interest to you." You will get hits off the occasional hat tip, and when you write something that actually is of interest to their readers your chance for a link will have been increased.
A tip of the hat to those thru whom you learn of stuff you write about is not only polite, but can generate extra trackbacks.
A note on the ecosystem: It's updated once a day. If during that scan blogspot is down no links to your site from blogspot blogs will be recorded. Likewise if one of the big hosts (Hosting Matters, for instance) is briefly down the same thing will happen.
Other things can go wrong too. The real point is if you're worried about your standing in the ecosystem from one day to the next you're probably a little too caught up in the moment. Think long term - and I mean months and years, and don't sweat the daily or weekly ebb and flow.
I suppose I should add this cautionary note: don't let sitemeter, the ecosystem, or technorati drive your blogging. Just keep doing what you're doing and enjoy.
By the way, Pajama's Media looks like a promising source of ad revenue even for smaller blogs - it hadn't been announced as of the time I made this post and it's probably best you determine you're going to stick with blogging before you sign on, but it's definitely a project to watch. (See Roger Simon's post on the topic here)
This is/was/will continue to be a HUGE help, thanks!
Excellent-- I have been blogging for almost a year and still learned a lot from this post. I am posting it on my blog and telling every blogger I know about it. Thanks!
Nice highly informative post! I'm taking advantage of your Point # 3 - okay go ahead and "discover" my book blog (www.booklinker.blogspot.com).
I'm waiting...
I'm still waiting...
Damn Blogosphere...never discovering me when I ask them to! I gonna go mope in the corner.
I admit it, I happened to be watching CNN this afternoon when they mentioned this post. I figured I would come check it out and you are most helpful. Thanks and if I ever get any readers, I will give you some major props :)
Anyway, I hadn't been here before and plan on checking back frequently. Thanks for the info again.
It goes without saying (although of course that won't stop me from saying it anyway) that the more you write, the more chance you have to be 'discovered,' just because you've got a larger body of work for people to stumble upon via Google. Every once in a while, one of those Googlers may become a regular reader.
As an aside, I ended up taking the sitemeter counter off my archive pages because I thought it was a semi-shady way of inflating my hit count, especially since the vast majority of my hits come from Google. If metering your archive pages is a Best Practice for bloggers, then I guess I'll put them back on!
NOTR: A personal favourite of mine is to bypass the CMS post screens. w.Bloggar is a simple tool that is almost invaluable in Blogging. It means I can carry .post files around with me, work on them when I have a moment or two free. It's an absolutely gorgeous piece of software.
Thanks Greyhawk, there was a lot of useful info in this post.
Hi Greyhawk,
Thanks for the comment on my site! Hope you had a chance to check out some of the reviews as I do look at military history books on a fairly regular basis. I appreciate the effort to drop by.
Let me know if you have any book recommendations.
Dean
www.booklinker.blogspot.com
Great Post.
A question for anyone reading: Does anyone use moveable type? If so, how is it?
Excellent post! I love the idea behind the "Carnivals" and as a video game blogger, I'd like to start a Carnival of our own. I'll be linking to this when I post this evening and get the ball rolling on our own Carnival.
On the topic of counters, I know Sitemeter is popular but I've really liked StatCounter (statcounter.com). Even though the free version only maintains a log of 100 hits (I'm not sure how many Sitemeter maintains) I really like the interface, the look, and the ease of use.
Great explanation of what I always call the additional tweaks and bells and whistles when I help someone start a blog. The only thing I would add is that when using a trackback ping, I, for one, am irritated when people ping the post, but don't actually link to the post--especially if you happen to get an Instalanche, etc.
Greyhawk,
This is good stuff. I have already started using some of your suggestions.
I actually started a blog before I knew what a blog was. My wife gave birth to our second child and I was using my web site to keep family and friends updated on his condition since he had a long hospital stay. I found out later that my chronological listing of facts was in a sloppy BLOG. I have been slowly converting postings from my original history page to Blog entries. I have been inspired to convert my blog into a book. It should be available at Amazon.com in a few months. Here is the blog:
Caden's Page
Thanks again,
Hank O
After reading the advice, I hope I did the trackback right. I will definitely be referring to this post in the future.
Thanks for the advice. Am printing it off now...then will be off to find by tribe (other than you, of course)!
Hello,
I am a person who has recently started blogging. And I have found your article really interesting. And you can be sure that I would try to use some of the ideas you have noted above.
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My Blogs
Indomitable Thoughts
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That's a good how-to guide. I found this via a link from a blogger who was entirely too pissy about the whole thing. Obviously this is a beginner's guide not a set of ironclad rules - things that most new bloggers want to know. Once you get started you can do anything you want. Most blogs have comments but there are a lot that don't. I don't have trackback. I don't need one more thing for spammers to abuse. It's all a matter of personal preference but these things are still good to know.
(1) How does a blog differ from a chat room?
(2) What does "URL" mean?
(3) What's the difference between Yes and No at the question "Remember personal info?" above?
Excellent information. I arrived at your site from an article in Business Week and am very grateful that I did because you spelled it all out so well. I recently started a blog and basically followed your site step by step. It worked.
I have two personal and one commercial blog launched, but this is by far the best quick set of start up advice I've seen on free or commercial sites that purport to know. If you have a chance, check out http://christianclassics.blogspot.com. I think you'll find it totally unique among blogs.
I will be adding this ammo to my own writings about blogging on http://advertisingspecialty.blogspot.com also and will link you there and at ideaplace.blogspot.com
Finally. A big hat tip to John Gillmartin at
http://www.sheepcrib.blogspot.com/ for suggesting I visit here.
Good reference here for incorporating other services into your blog like technorati tags and translation:
http://consumingexperience.blogspot.com/
Another good tip is to get yourself a valid feed for your site, advertise it with a subscription button and then use a service like KingPing to advertise when you update your blog.
This got me to try blogging again. But for some reason I can't get the trackback to work. It keeps rejecting the trackback address from this post.
http://www.deepwaterweb.com/wwwboard/messages/28335.html archinghigherlose
http://freepanty.xp2001.org/8094318/ hatslikessweatshirts
I don't know if I am the only one but to my knowledge there is no way to get this right now. If I am wrong please let me know how to get the on-screen referral log, as I have been trying to get it for months now!
"Another option you might try is the on-screen referral log."