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What is Entrecard?

Entrecard is a free advertising exchange network. Its like dropping a business card on any blogs you visit. Users can advertise their own Entrecard ad on any blog in the Entrecard network for free for a certain number of days. Ads are paid for through Entrecard Credits earned by exchanging cards.

To get started with Entrecard, simply sign up on the Entrecard website. Once your account is activated, click on the “Get Code” tab to copy the code for the specific widget you want to use on your blog. Simply paste that code into a widget on your blog and you can start earning credits.

When you join Entrecard, you’ll have the opportunity to create your own 125×125 business card. This card will also serve as your ad when you advertise on another site in the network. You can change your card’s appearance at any time. Remember, this card is your ad, so try to create something that users will click when they see it.

 

Check out this post from Guide To Blogging:

As per a comment posted here the other day I recently joined BloggrZ.com and from what I’ve seen of it so far it’s going to be a wonderful new service for both those that love to visit other people’s blogs as well as those want to build the readership of their own blogs. By installing the BloggrZ Toolbar you can easily explore other blogs and get your own blog visited.

(from: Exploring The World Of Blogs)

I am using Blog Bridge RSS Reader. I have all my memes in one guide (category).

This makes it super easy to scroll all the entries in one place.

Click for larger image
That’s one reason I like Blog Bridge. Here are more reasons:

There are many choices out there but Blog Bridge offers an unsurpassed set of productivity increasing, information distilling, eyeball-pleasing capabilities.

Legend:

1. Attention statistics and metrics (release 5.13)
2. Micropublishing - post directly to your own blog
3. A built-in meme tracker (release 5.13)
4. Beautiful album layout for Photo feeds
5. SmartFeeds - standing searches modeled after iTunes Smart Playlists
6. Dynamic subscription to OPML reading lists
7. Publish industry-standard OPML Reading Lists
8. Huge collection of Feeds and Reading Lists to get you started
9. Direct integration with del.icio.us
10. Wide integration with numerous other services, like Amazon, Google, Technorati and Flickr.

My friend Amy has a few blogs. Her Split Decisionz blog is a place for new or seasoned bloggers to get tips, techniques, tutorials, and free templates to enhance their blog’s appearance and usability.

There are many small and uncomplicated things that can be done to give your blog the look and feel of a professionally designed blog and Amy will  show them to you.

 

Darren Rowse has been blogging for 1053 days for  an average of 11.6 posts per day. He is in a posting frenzy.

Read some of his post about Quality vs Quantity:

• Generating High Quantities of Content for your Blog
• How to Generate High Quantities of Content for Your Blog
• More on Posting Schedules
• Does Frequent Posting Boost Traffic?
• Blog Tip - Generate a high Quantity of Content

For most of us blogging is a labor of love, personally, it’s one of my few productive activities in which I take pleasure in. Most of all I love the fact that I can make my voice felt and known in the world, I actually help make a difference in the world; something that wouldn’t be possible in normal conditions. Blogging is very rewarding from so many points of view, even financially for some lucky few of us, however, at times it can be a very frustrating task, especially when you’ve ran out of things to say.

Read the full post with 12 great blogging suggestions for blog content written byTibi Puiu at The Lost Art of Blogging

My favorite suggestion was this one:

RSS is your friend. Take advantage of the marvel that is RSS and subscribe to the leading, most authoritative blogs in your niche. Look for blogs that produce constant original and unique content and religiously follow them. Don’t just read their most recent work, but confidently scour through their whole archive, if possible from the very first post. I did this with Problogger a year ago and most recently with Skelliewag, when I read all their archives from day one. The amount of knowledge and insight, that I’ve been able to gain, was truly immense and not only helped me develop a great deal as a blogger, but also provided inspiration.

Related: What is RSS and Will it Make M y Life Easier

 

“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive–it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?” –L.L. Montgomery ~ Anne of Green Gables

You might be an information junkie if…

• you come home from the public library with more books than you returned.
• you not only manage your browser’s bookmarks, you keep them in hierarchal folders for easy location later.
• you have memorized the Dewey Decimal System because it’s easier than using the card catalog.
• you would rather spend a free evening at local bookstore than at the local movie theater.
• you suffer from information fatigue syndrome.

,,,you were first in line to order a Kindle.

Blogging: A Deeper Walk into Information Addiction

Blogs are interactive. It is difficult to pull away from the nearly continuous stream of comments. These interactive outlets allow us to write about information pulling it all together while adding our perspective and get feedback getting other peoples perspectives. What’s not to love?

Are You Addicted to Blogging?
You can take a blog addiction quiz by clicking the image below.
85%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

You may be addicted to blogging if

• an RSS reader is constantly open on your computer’s desktop.
• all of your friends have an @ in their names.
• you hop from blog to blog until your brain goes numb.
• when asked,  “How are you doing?” and you reply with “Haven’t you been reading my blog? ”

add a sign of blogging addiction in the comments.

Credit: portions of the Info Junkie list from Everything2.

 

What is a meme? If you spend anytime browsing homeschool or Christian blogs you’ve probably seen Marriage Monday, Wordless Wednesday or Thankful Thursday. These are memes (pronounced like theme with an m) a meme is an idea that is shared and passed from blog to blog.

Memes are FUN and each time you join one you are promoting your blog and getting higher ranks on search engines.

I was looking through all the memes by day and was having a hard time keeping them straight, so I compiled a list of those I would like to take part in (those suitable for Christian homeschool moms) and made a linked scrapbook page. Proving that: 1. I’ll scrapbook anything. 2. I get confused easily and need everything in one place. You may want to bookmark this page to have all links to all your memes in one place.

Click the image for a larger view.

Blog Meme List by Daily Themes

This is a quick reference meme list for daily themes. Visit the blog meme hub for details or to grab required code or sign up.

Super Simple Spiritual Sunday This is a great place to start. No brain work or study involved. Simply keep track of blog posts you enjoyed during the week and post the list on Sunday with this pretty pink and yellow image and go to Heartofwisdom.com/blog to post your link. Make it seven links and you can also joinSunday Seven below (2 birds, 1 stone!)

Sunday Seven: Share your joys, your blessings and your burdens. List seven things going on in your life this week. Go back to the hub and comment on the current week’s thread so that other Sunday Seven-ers can visit you.

Marriage Monday: Blog about your marriage. Visit the Fruit In Season, the Marriage Monday Blog Hub for weekly marriage themes. This site uses Auto-Linkies for anyone interested in posting a lengthy answer to the questions posed for each Marriage Monday. Bloggers can link their name and website directly to the Marriage Monday post for that week. Comments are welcome as well.

Meal Plan Monday. Plan your menu each week with others by joining Laura, the passionate organizer at http://orgjunkie.blogspot.com.

Tuesday In Other Words: Christian Women Online give you a quote to make you think (and write about). Copy the current quote and use it as a journal writing prompt for your blog entry on Tuesdays. Add your URL to theMr. Linky’s auto links when your post is ready on Tuesday.

Tackle it Tuesday: Celebrate little steps of victory in your housework. Each Tuesday moms post a before and after pictures of a project or trouble area that they tackled that week. The project can be little or big – whatever you want. Basically it is about giving incentive, deadlines and satisfaction in getting our household tasks done.

Works for Me Wednesday: Wednesday you post a little tip you’ve learned–whether on parenting, or cleaning, or computers…basically anything that has “worked for you” in making your life easier. You post a link back to WFMW post, and enter your link in the “Mr. Linky” form at the bottom of the Rocks in My Dryer list.

Word Filled Wednesday: The purpose of Word filled Wednesday is to share God’s word through photos & a verse!

Wordless Wednesday: Post an image on your blog that needs no explanation. Go to Wordless Wednesday.com and enter your link in Mister Linky’s Autolink Widget to share with other Wordless Wednesday-ers.

Thankful Thursday: Count your blessings every Thursday. What a great way to pick up your mood than to make a list of things you are grateful for. Grab the code from Sting my Heart and get added to the blogroll. (I’ve combined Thursday 13 with Thankful Thursdays by listing 13 blessings.)

Thursday Thirteen: This began as a shorter version of “100 things” every week- to help bloggers get to know fellow bloggers. In order to get on the blogroll, you need to be a Thursday Thirteen regular, and you need to have the blogroll displayed on your blog. That may lead to problems because this is not a Christian list. You can always post 13 things without joining the blogroll.

Booking Through Thursday: This is not a book review meme, it is a meme about reading. Each week visit the hub to get a questions about reading. Copy the questions, paste them into your blog and answer them. When you’re done, go back to the hub to post a comment or trackback letting everyone know so they can read your responses.

Photo Friday: A weekly challenge. Each week Photo Friday posts a photo assignment. Your mission is the creative interpretation of the week’s theme. When you’re done, post the picture you took to your website and submit your link to Photo Friday. It’s not a competition. Anyone with a camera and a place on the Internet to post pictures can participate.

Fruit of the Spirit Friday: I started this meme. You have three options. 1. Write about one of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 2. Write about a person who exhibits fruit or 3. Answer the 7 discussion questions.

I’m hosting a fun March Meme now at Heart at Home. What’s On Your Refrigerator? Meme

 

We all have refrigerators and most of us have personal items on the doors that reveal a little about our lives. The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone a little bit better. It will help your readers get to know you and help you to get to know other bloggers.

To make it more fun we are offering TWO bloggers a prize! Both winners will receive Clutter’s Last Stand.

1. FIRST PRIZE: The first winner will be the person with the most interesting fridge.
2. SECOND PRIZE: The second will be from a random drawing.

Ashish Mohta shares 11 tips which can help you to manage both work and blogging activities.

Read 11 Time Management Tips

Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works helps you write successfully for web users. It offers strategy, process, and tactics for creating or revising content for the web. It helps you plan, organize, write, design, and test web content that will make web users come back again and again to your site.

Excerpts

• Chapter 1 Content! Content! Content!
  (PDF, 1.3MB)
• Chapter 5 Writing Information, Not Documents
  (PDF, 2.5MB)

Learn how to create usable and useful content for the web from the master − Ginny Redish. Ginny has taught and mentored hundreds of writers, information designers, and content owners in the principles and secrets of creating web information that is easy to scan, easy to read, and easy to use.

This practical, informative book will help anyone creating web content do it better.

Features

* Clearly-explained guidelines with full-color illustrations and examples from actual web sites throughout the book.

* Written in easy-to-read style with many “befores” and “afters.”

* Specific guidelines for web-based press releases, legal notices, and other documents.

* Tips on making web content accessible for people with special needs.

Janice (Ginny) Redish has been helping clients and colleagues communicate clearly for more than 20 years. For the past ten years, her focus has been helping people create usable and useful web sites. She is co-author of two classic books on usability: A Practical Guide to Usability Testing (with Joseph Dumas), and User and Task Analysis for Interface Design (with JoAnn Hackos), and is the recipient of many awards.

Book Reviews

“the book meets a major, previously unmet need of a very large audience: almost everyone who works on a web site. As Ginny points out, good writing is a critical success factor for every web site, and the really good book about how to write for the web just doesn’t exist. Personally, I’ve been waiting for it for years, because I didn’t want to write it myself.”–Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think!

“Redish has done her homework and created a thorough overview of the issues in writing for the Web. Ironically, I must recommend that you read her every word so that you can find out why your customers won’t read very many words on your website — and what to do about it.”–Jakob Nielsen, Principal, Nielsen Norman Group

See all 14 customer reviews…

Great question, eh?

Heather at Spiritibee answers this question by giving 10 ways to improve your blog to get more traffic.

Thanks, Heather. I’m getting the traffic and subscriptions but no comments

I’d like to add Fruit of the Spirit Friday and Spiritual Sunday to the list of memes Heather suggests.

Come visit my Heart at Home homemaking blog. It has a new scrapbook look. See you there.

How you end your posts depends on what you’re trying to achieve and what action you want the reader to take. When it comes to prompting reader interaction, how you wrap up your blog posts or articles may make all the difference between a handful of comments and an explosion of discussion.

Read Copyblogger’s post

One Simple Way to Generate More Comments on Your Blog

Do you have trouble getting comments on your blog?

You can turn your blog into a book with images using Blurb.com. Angie at Many Little Blessings wrote a review of Blurb.com that brought this to my attention. She had the idea to create a book for each year of blogging. You can view Angie’s blog book on her blog. Thanks, Angie.

Your blog. Automatically slurped into a real book.

• 
• 
• 

• Works with many blogging platforms – Supports Blogger, LiveJournal.com, TypePad, and WordPress.com blogs.
• Edit in real time – Allows you to customize and edit your book as little or as much as you like.
• High quality – Hardcover and softcover books feature professional binding and four-color printing on coated, semi-matte paper. Up to 440 pages accommodate thousands of blog posts.
• Fast turnaround – Orders arrive on your doorstep in approximately 7 to 10 business days.
• Automatic slurp action (watch the video) – Imports and maps blog text, images, comments, and links into professionally designed page layouts.
• Affordable – Prices start at only $12.95 for a 40-page softcover, $22.95 for a 40-page hardcover with dust jacket. The bookmaking software is free.
• Flexible ordering – Order just one or many copies of your book. You have the option to place your book in Blurb’s bookstore for fans to purchase.

What if you looked at your blog’s readers as potential girlfriends or boyfriends? Wouldn’t you do everything you could to get their attention? to get them to respond to you?

In honor of Valentine’s day, The Blog Herald offers 9 Ways to Romance Your Blog Readers.

Sometimes advice on what not to do can be more important that what to do. I wish I had the time to list all my mistakes but I’ll use that time to write posts for my homeschool and homemaking blogs and point you to these articles instead:

• Ten Top Design Mistakes by Jakob Nielsen
• Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Blog? by Brain Clark
• Twelve SEO Mistakes Bloggers Make by Stephan Spencer
• My Blogging Mistakes and Their Outcome by Thilak
• 18 Stupid Mistakes Bloggers Make in their First Year by Christine Kane
• Don’t Underestimate the Commitment by Andrew
• The Biggest Blogging Mistake I did was not Blogging by Francesco
• Learning from Mistakes: Opening Links in New Windows by Nirmal
• Common Blogging Mistakes by Vijay

Your turn: What is the biggest mistake you have made blogging?

According to Jakob Nielsen’s study only 1% of your blog’s readers are regular commenters:

• 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute).
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: they often post in just minutes.

How can you encourage comments? Chris Garrett gives

10 Tips for Attracting More Comments

Your blog can be thought of in many ways. As a pulpit, a soapbox, a magazine, a platform, a newsletter, a diary. A lot of bloggers focus on the “broadcast” aspects, getting their message out. While great content is essential, never neglect the community element of your blog. As we have shown your audience can be your best asset. Here are some tips for attracting participation.

First of all, as we have said time and time again, you must answer comments that are made on your posts. It is not only the polite thing to do, it also encourages more comments. If people see they are treated with respect and they will get answers, they will comment more. It still surprises me the amount of bloggers who post, then sit back and ignore the feedback they receive.

Read the Ten Tips Here

PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS POST

One common suggestion is to ask readers to comment. So I am asking you lurkers to comment. Is anyone reading this blog? Are the posts helpful? Do you want more posts about blogging? A little feedback goes a long way
Thanks for commenting.

An important key to blog popularity is linkbuilding. Increasing the number of incoming links to your site will aid promotion through the page rankings on search engines and draw traffic.Tiffany at The Personal PR blog posted that the best way to build relationships online is using a combination of three strategies:

1. Comments
2. Links
3. Contact

Tiffany lists 27 ways to use linkbuilding (with tons of links of course).

Read the post here.

Comments and resulting discussion can add many dimensions to a post but most people do not comment. No one comments on this blog but I don’t mind. I don’t really write much here. It’s more of a place to share posts from other blogs.

My other blogs Heart of Wisdom and Heart at Home receive between 500 and 1000 hits a day, but usually only a hand full of comments (unless there is a contest or controversy). I wish there was more interaction. I’ll be working on it and posting articles I find here. Meanwhile, the Fine Art of Blogging has a good post on this topic:

There is every indication that blogsphere - vibrant and unique community with its own criteria – is gaining greater influence as the number of blogs is exponentially growing and awareness of the form is becoming widespread.

One feature that distinguishes weblogs from static websites, making them more interactive, is that they allow instant comments by others. This is a matter of choice for bloggers, though. They can disallow other visitors to comment on weblogs or single entries or can authorize comments for all internet users, for members, or make their blogs as read-only. Generally speaking, comments are what most keep most bloggers (including me) going.

Read the full article on The Fine Art of Blogging

byBrian Clark

When it comes to innovative content, we’re usually trying to come up with compelling things to say that will bring us attention and enhanced credibility, maybe much like we would if we were writing a serialized book. But this is definitely not a book.

Read 4 ways here

1. A Reality Check on Blogging for Money - a post that has struck a chord with quite a few on some of the less publicized aspects of blogging for money.
2. 7 Types of Blog Posts Which Always Seem to Get Links and Traffic - a great post by Skellie which I know a few bloggers have used as the basis for their weekly posting cycle.
3. 10 Remarkable (and Free) Wordpress Themes - if you’re looking for a new template for your blog but don’t have the budget for a professional design then this list might be one to start with.
4. Give Your Readers Room to Participate in Your Blog - sometimes when your blog posts are comprehensive you might actually be crowding your readers out and not giving them space to participate.
5. 14 Essential Mac OS X Applications for Bloggers - I reveal the most used applications in my own blogging workflow.
6. Don’t Just Have a Blog - Learn to Think Like a Blogger - a lesson from my health and fitness kick that applies to bloggers too.
7. 9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers and How to Use it - a popular mini-series of posts looking at how I’m using Twitter to improve my blog, drive traffic and build a brand.
8. Using StumbleUpon to Get on the Radar of Other Bloggers - the story of how one StumbleUpon user got on my radar by Stumbling one of my posts.
9. Why My Wife Would Make a Great Internet Marketer - the title says it all. A glimpse at what I think makes a good internet marketer (and no she’s not started a blog despite my pleas).
10. The Costs and Benefits of Running a Competition on Your blog and how to run one - how to use competitions to build traffic, community and interaction on your blog.