Most bloggers have tried some sort of advertising as a way to make money, but how many of you have paid for advertising to promote your own blog?

Recently I have experimented a little with the banner ad you see here. I have gained some interesting results which I thought I would share with you:

I’m by no means the first to advertise a blog, John Chow famously would use adwords placed on blogs with cheeky messages to promote his own blog.

Unsurprisingly my results fall into good and bad. My design skills only stretch so far so some of the blame has to rest with my meagre artistic ability!

• Costs range from $10 up to $1000 a week
• BUT It is possible to find a good fit for your blog in the $10-$20 range if you ask around
• The higher prices do not necessarily translate into better results!
• You need to place your ad on a blog that matches but does not 100% overlap your own audience
• Investigate carefully your exact ad placement AND what will happen if the site sells another ad after you - you don’t want to be pushed down below the fold after paying
• Experiment with ad copy, ad format, site category and landing page for best results
• Closely compare the cost per click against Adwords, in my case only one blog provided better ROI than Google 
• In my case conversions and bounce rate beat both my previous Squidoo Squidoffer and StumbleUpon advertising experiments
• There is branding benefit from 125x ads but don’t take that into account in your ROI calculation as it is hard to measure. Just assume any advertising helps get you better known.

The fourth release candidate for Movable Type 4.2 is out now, and apparently it is the last one prior to the release. Check it out if you want to be bleeding edge.

Om Malik of GigaOm fame has announced that his company, Giga Omni Media, have acquired mobile gadgets blog jkOnTheRun. No amount have been specified.

The reason for buying the blog is of course that it is a great one, filling an empty space in the GigaOm network. The choice was to either build a blog in this niche from scratch, or buying one. With that in mind, the deal was and is probably a no-brainer.There’s a reassuring launch post over at jkOnTheRun as well.

We are quite honored that Om Malik and company like what we do here on jkOnTheRun and very happy to be joining them. Our blogging has a great fit with the other work they are doing and we think you’ll find the total package to be a great stop on your web visits. We are confident you will find this change to be a very good thing for jkOnTheRun and that you will enjoy what we do even more.

Meanwhile, Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch does some predictions for the blogosphere, interesting insights for sure.

I predict that this is just the beginning of the process that will accelerate over the next 12-18 months. Larger blogs lacking the stomach for competition will sell to large media corporations. The more competitive large blogs who want to see this thing through will start to acquire the smaller ones and group by topic areas. Whoever builds the network of the most interesting and prodigious voices will eventually “win.” Or perhaps everyone will win, but to different degrees.

This plays nicely with Om Malik’s words from the announcement post:

I think in many ways that is the blueprint of our strategy going forward: When we find blogs that allow us to dig deeper, to complement and extend our areas of coverage, we will acquire them. If we can’t find ones we like, we will build them.

Michael of TechCrunch fame is reporting that Google is in talks to purchase Digg for approximately $200 million.

(TechCrunch) Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside of Google, and the two companies are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property. The acquisition price is in the $200 million range, says one source. [...]

The companies are now in final negotiations according to our sources, although it could be a couple of weeks before it closes.

Even though Google already has a social linking service, they are probably attempting to keep one of the internets hottest properties away from Redmond giant (who already run ads upon Digg).

While owning Digg will help the search engine giant compete against Yahoo Buzz (as well as Del.icio.us, a service Yahoo! acquired earlier), integrating it within Google News could help distinguish that property from upcoming rivals (like Topix.com).

Digg is a popular serviced used by millions of users around the world (note: especially geeks), although one may wonder if Google’s acquisition of Digg will cement its power even further online (not to mention kill of the countless Digg clones that have popped up over the last few years).

Your blog archives are the list of months some bloggers keep in their sidebar that link to monthly chronological collections of their blog posts. In the early days, a site with such a monthly listing in their sidebar meant this was a personal blog. Without it, it was a website or professional site.

Are you still displaying your blog post archives? What benefit do bloggers get when the offer a long series of months and years in the sidebar of their blog? Do visitors and readers really use them? Do you?

With all the worry about duplicate content and Google’s PageRank, if your blog is generated similar or duplicate content within the categories and tags, then why do you need to clog their databases with archives?

Have you ever found archives in a search result? I do all the time. I click though hoping to find the answer to my question and find nothing. That information might have been on page 4 of that month’s archive of posts, but now, the natural chronological push from the present to the past of the blog structure may have pushed the information I need onto page 6.

How would I know?

If the site’s archive page I just landed on looks like there is a lot of related content, I’d probably hit the blog’s search form, hoping it would lead to the information I need. If the archives weren’t in the search engine results, I might get to the information faster.

This chronological pushing and moving of timely content isn’t confined to archives. It happens with categories and tag pages. The difference is that (hopefully) the results are related content, with a greater chance of finding the answer within the results. With archives, what you write today might be different from yesterday or last week.

When you published isn’t as important as what you published. The content has priority over the date.

Why bother?

Many like the long listing of dates in their sidebar as proof they have been blogging a long time.

Why not put “Blogging since 1994″ in your tagline or purpose statement, or in a note in the sidebar? You can add it to your About Page or anywhere to convey the same information without cluttering up the sidebar.

The calendar was an add thing to me when it arrived in blog sidebars. Click on a date to find out how many posts you wrote and what you wrote on which day. Who cares when? People care about what! Calendars are for appointments and events, not posts. Thank goodness most people saw blog calendars as I did and stopped using them.

The calendars and archives are also deceptive. You could have published only one post in April and 50 in May, but you only get one listing for the month. If you don’t publish for that month, your blog program and Theme might not display the missing month, giving you a very odd gap in the schedule, and evidence to the world that you weren’t paying attention to your blog for that month.

Honestly, if the length of time you’ve been blogging is important, make it prominent, not clutter.

Archive post lists do not make for easy searching of your blog content. Return readers might want to find something on your blog that they read last month, but they might not be sure of exactly when, so they’ll click through April, May, March, and get frustrated looking through post after post in the archives. The search function is much faster.

For blogs that want their blog posts read in chronological order, from the first the most recent, then create a Site Map that lists your blog posts in chronological order for reading. There are WordPress Plugins that may help you create this list, or you can put the links in manually, controlling the order yourself. Readers can go from link to link easily, reading the story of your blog.

If you are currently relying upon your blog’s archives list for reader and visitor navigation, hopefully you have learned how little they use them. So why not replace the archives with valuable navigational aids?

Are your blog categories listed prominently and clearly labled as to the content within them? These are the most used navigation features on a blog, so make sure they represent your blog’s content well.

What about tags? Do you have a tag cloud featuring the most popular tags on your blog? Do all your blog posts feature tags to help visitors find related content?

Is your search form near the top of your blog’s page in the sidebar or header, easily found and used? Have you checked the search results page to ensure it shows excerpts, not full posts, to make the searching process faster?

Make sure there are next and previous posts listed on every post, so readers can move in chronological order. If you want them to move from next and previous posts only within that category of posts, there are WordPress Plugins that will add that feature.

Want to help your readers even more? Add a related posts feature to each blog post to direct them to content specific to the subject matter they are reading. You can do this with a Plugin or manually.

Think about how your blog’s readers and visitors use your blog and design for them.

That’s right, the iPhone application from Automattic we talked about earlier is now available from the iTunes App Store, free of charge. It supports self-hosted WordPress versions from 2.5.1 and up, as well as WordPress.com hosted blogs.

What do you think, iPhone owners?

This is interesting. TechCrunch have started a project where they want to build an open-source based web tablet, running Firefox and possibly Skype on top of a Linux distribution, with just a touch screen interface. Add a power button, and a $200 price tag, and you’ve got the essentials of this interesting project.

There’s great interest in this, truly, because the first post on TechCrunch is at 593 comments, and TechCrunchIT, another site in Michael Arrington’s network, have two posts for discussions, the first which is now closed, and a new one to keep the discussion going on.

I’m hoping they’ll pull this one together. A simple web tablet for $200 would be sweet indeed.

Let’s preface this post by warning you that the site we’re about to talk about uses one of those shady, ‘we’re going to take all of your money,’ templates.

The technically challenged no longer have to let their Technophobia keep them out of the blogosphere. Blog Setup Service is a new site that promises to do all of the blog setup legwork for you for $97 a year.

As someone who spends much of his time writing blogs - and not setting them up - I was curious to hear from you on the value of such a service.

I’m not analyzing this specific company offering the service. Rather, I’m curious to hear what you think the demand of this type of service is and what a fair fee to charge for it is.

I know many strong writers who have been scared to blog because of the tech involved. Perhaps a service like this would strengthen the blogosphere even more.

In 2006, I wrote about copyright violations saying that it wasn’t a matter of if but when your content would be stolen. The same premise applies to blog bullies.

It’s not a matter of if a blogger will blog bad things about you but when.

It’s going to happen. It may have already happened. It’s happened to me plenty of times. So what do you do when someone makes fun of you, pokes at you, says hurtful or harmful things about you or your blog on their blog?

For a while, the natural tendencies towards evil in humans appeared to be suspended in the virtual world of the Internet. During the beginning years of email, Usenet, and online forums, people realized that what they were experiencing was precious - life changing - connecting with people of all ilks around the world from the comfort of their home or office. We treated each other, and this new technology, with respect. Sure, there was always porn and advertising scams in the background, but they were in the background and consumed little of our energy. We thrived on high moral values and self-confidence through this new medium of communication. It was special.

Somewhere along the line, we lost the special. The masses started to show up and brought their nasties with them. Long time web users were stunned, and new web users were often angry and humiliated, feeling helpless against the bullies.

Well, guess what, folks. Bullies have always been around. They are not a new phenomenon on the web. We had bullies in the playground and now the playground is virtual, bullies will be found.

I’m not talking about opinionated folks who love to shoot off their mouths on our blogs. I’m talking about downright mean - purposefully mean - folks who just get a thrill out of saying something nasty when silence or “thank you” could be their better part of valor.

A lot of bloggers who blog about blogging and speaking out about the “meanies” on the web, acting surprised and shocked that people would be so vicious. Where have you been? Have you forgotten that the web was created by and used by humans? Humans bring their nasties with them no matter where they go. The more gather, the more nasties.

Since being mean is part of human nature, don’t be surprised when it appears on your blog. Be prepared.

As the web became more accessible and easier for anyone and everyone to get online, anyone and everyone did, and moral values seemed to fly out the window. Today, it’s not just typical to say nasty things about other bloggers and people, it’s expected. People get traffic for taking competing bloggers on, and some even win big when bashing celebrities, if they play the game right.

Here are a few things you need to know to prepare your blog for the nasties.

1. Have a Solid Comment Policy: Have a comments policy in place that sets the ground rules. Put a link to it near your comments form. Anyone breaks the ground rules, the policy establishs the consequences. Respond accordingly, and consistently.
2. Be Prepared to Edit Comments: There are a lot of reasons to edit blog comments, and editing nasties is your right. If what they say is valid, but you feel they are abusing your comments by soliciting or comment-link-bait, such as putting nicknames and search term keywords in the comment name and links in the comment area, edit the comment, change the name, and remove the link but leave the words. If they are being really abusive, delete it. If they are using swear words or language you do not allow, edit it with asterisks (f***) or dashes (s—) or use a synonym. It’s your blog, edit the comments as suits your comments policy because comments are content, and you have as responsibility to your readers.
3. Nasites Brings Traffic: It’s an old ploy. The Hatfields and McCoys for bloggers. Two bloggers battle each other on their blogs all to drive traffic. Sometimes it is planned, sometimes not. Either way, both parties can benefit if they play the game carefully and right. If you think another blogger is abusing you to drive traffic to or from your site, carefully consider how far you want to play their game. It could help, or hurt, you and your blog. Your blog reputation is at stake and if your readers detect that this is a game, you can lose some serious credibility.
4. Prepare Your Response: There are many ways to comment, and many ways to respond to comments on your blog. You can choose to say nothing, say something, take an aggressive stance, or defensive, or say thank you - at least you got a comment. Think back through your life on how you responded when someone was nasty. How did you respond? Did you wish you had responded differently? A blog comment doesn’t need a response NOW. It can wait. Put it in moderation and think about it for a while until YOU are ready to respond.
5. Prepare for Opposition: If you put an opinion out there, someone will have the opposite opinion. Be ready for it. Some may feel so strongly against your stance, they will challenge you on their blog. Be ready for it. Let this evolve into a debate of ideas not a bashing of heads. Be willing to let your views be known and to argue and defend your point, but keep your temper in check. Sure, there are dummies out their, ignorant fools who don’t see the world as we do - which is the ONLY way to see it, of course - so let them have their day in the sun and you can have yours, and let the world judge you by your behavior, as well as your opinion, fairly.
6. Prepare for the Pain: The nasties hurt. They can hurt really bad. They will come. Are you ready? Remember, these are just words - think sticks and stones may break my bones - and it is up to you to control how much influence they will have on you. Be strong. Resistance is not futile.
7. Seek Support Privately: You are not alone. I do not recommend blogging about the specifics of a blog bully attack, as that often feeds their need for attention, justifying their continued bulling. If you must blog, blog carefully. Or talk to your blogging friends privately, asking for support. Many of us have been through blog bullies and know how you feel.
8. Don’t Misinterpret Zealous for Nasty: It is easy to get over-sensitive to comments and misinterpret too many comments or a zealous commenter as a spammer. Slow down and check things out. If you are still in doubt, contact the commenter and say thank you, asking their intentions or if they need help. You might find a bully lurking, but more likely someone who doesn’t know they did wrong.
9. Not Every Copyright Violator is a Criminal: The first time your blog content is ripped off, it’s a stunner. You feel violated. After the sixth, tenth, twentieth time, you want to hit back. Yes, content theft is becoming rampant but not every blogger who abuses your copyright is a bully. Some of the time they are just naive people who don’t know any better. Be careful in your initial approach to test the waters before you bring in the big guns. And remember, content theft will happen. Be prepared.
10. You May Be The Bully: Have you thought about how your blog’s opinions, your blogging voice, how you respond in comments, or how you comment on other blogs could be interpreted as bullying? Maybe you might be the blog bully? It’s hard to play nice-nice all the time, and sometimes we let our emotions move faster than our brains. Never forget that once it is on the web, it’s there forever - well, almost forever. It’s really hard to take it back. Think first, type second.

BlogCatalog, the self-proclaimed ‘fastest-growing social network for bloggers,’ has launched a new Political Channel, hoping to engage millions of members in the political process.

“As we approach the Democratic and Republican conventions, BlogCatalog’s Political Channel will serve as a benchmark of what is on the minds of mainstream political bloggers across America,” stated Tony Berkman, BlogCatalog CEO. “With almost 5,000 political bloggers and 114,000 non-political bloggers already part of the BlogCatalog conversational ecosystem, BlogCatalog is the Internet’s leading destination for mainstream political bloggers to have their political voices heard, engage in the political debate, increase their blog’s exposure, and participate in lively discussion.”

New political channel features include:

- discussion area
- highlighted posts
- political social search
- political groups
- open call for writers

All bloggers listed in BlogCatalog are opt-in and must pass a 5-step qualifying process, reviewed by a BlogCatalog Analyst.

A recent article in ABC News paints a fairly grim picture about the current state of blogging. According to the article, as well as the Media Law Resource Center, there have been 159 civil and criminal court actions taken against bloggers since 2004 with countless others threatened into silence before any kind of action was filed.

Though the number of actions taken are still very small compared to the number of bloggers writing (Technorati was tracking over 70 million blogs at its last report), the threat of legal action is enough to scare many bloggers into changing the way they write, removing content or otherwise altering their site.

The problem is that, even if the image of bloggers being sued is an exaggerated one, the image of bloggers being threatened with such suits is much less so. For every lawsuit that reaches trial, there are dozens that are settled and for every one that is settled there are likely hundreds that are threatened, but never filed.

This has helped to create a climate of fear, one that bloggers need to be prepared for.

Arrests and Criminal Charges

As the ABC article points out, the danger you are in for arrest is almost directly related to the country you are operating in. If the country posts severe restrictions on access to the press and free expression, then criticizing the government can lead to an arrest.

But while these arrests may happen in Egypt, China and Iran, the countries cited in the article, they are almost unheard of in countries such as the U.S. However, there are still at least a few ways that a blogger the U.S. could find themselves in arrested for what they write. Some examples include the following:

1. Threats and Harassment: If you use your blog to frighten or intimidate others, there is a slew of potential criminal charges that could apply depending on the nature of what was said and the reason it was said.
2. Child Pornography: Obviously, any publication of what might be deemed child pornography could result in an arrest.
3. State Secrets: Equally obvious, giving out information that may jeopardize national security could also be cause for arrest.
4. Criminal Copyright Infringement: Though copyright infringement can become a criminal offense, it is unlikely that a blog will reach the required level. Most current criminal copyright infringement cases involving the Web in the U.S. have dealt with bittorrent trackers and other file sharing sites, not blogs, but it still is at least theoretically possible.

In short, while there are ways that you can be arrested for your blog, if you operate your site in good faith and avoid obvious legal issues, criminal charges are unlikely unless you live in a country where they are more common.

Still, it is important to know your rights and the boundaries the law sets before you in order to be certain that you do not run afoul of them. If you think that something you are considering could create a situation that you could be arrested for, it is wise to consult with an attorney before pressing the “publish” button.

But while criminal cases involving bloggers are still very rare in most countries, lawsuits and threats of lawsuits are much more frequent.

The problem is that, while journalists have long studied media law as part of their education and training, most bloggers have not and are both unaware of their rights and the gray areas they have to avoid. Likewise, many people who feel that they were wronged may not understand the rights a blogger has and that they, the allegedly infringed, have no recourse.

This has set the stage for a lengthy series of legal scrapes, the bulk of which never result in a lawsuit being filed, where one or both parties do not fully understand their rights in the situation. These situations are dangerous and often lead to one or both parties unwittingly hampering their legal rights.

Though the ways that a blog could find itself are in legal trouble, the most common seen these days are the following:

• Copyright
• Defamation (libel)
• Privacy
• Trademark
• Trade Secrets

With that in mind, it is important that bloggers, big and small, to understand the law in these areas. Fortuantely, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has assembled an excellent legal guide that covers most of these areas.

Best of all, the guide is in simple, easy-to-read English that explains these matters in Q&A format, making it a fast an informative read.

The simple truth is that there are many legal risks associated with blogging. Bloggers do get sued and many more are threatened with legal action.

But while many of these disputes are unavoidable, for the most part, one can avoid these types of disputes by operating in good faith, having a solid understanding of the law and knowing their rights.

But while there is no manditory course on media law for bloggers, there are many out there, including the EFF, who are willing to help you understand and empower yourself.

But while no one likes to take the time to study law, knowing your rights is an important part of blogging without fear and being the most effective blogger you can.

Dr. Arnold Kim apparently quitted his day job a couple of weeks ago, but I just learned about it in a New York Times piece on him. Kim is the owner of MacRumors, a popular blog about Apple stuff, and a great one at that, with 4.4 million readers monthly according to Quantcast.

The NYT article is a nice inspirational read, with some nice quotes from Kim, and some good advice as well. Funny thing is, Kim is a doctor already pulling in decent money, so the step is really interesting in principle.

Check out the NYT article, and wish him luck! I’m pretty sure MacRumors will be even better because of this.

Amazon’s hosting service, S3, had a massive outage just recently, which in turn had an impact on a lot of web services. The service is usually used to store static stuff like avatar images and such, which means that Twitter was pretty ugly using apps like Twhirl during the outage. Everything is supposed to be back up now.

However, this is indeed horrible for the whole “cloud” concept. As Om Malik points out, the last outage in February and now this certainly underlines the fact that web applications are very fragile. Meanwhile, we’re using Gmail as our main e-mail application, and are moving our Office suites online.

WebWorkerDaily really nails it though, while reasoning around the SLA that guarantees 99.9% uptime:

The requirements for claiming a refund, though, are onerous enough that no one except large users will bother (hey, Amazon, how about an automatic refund when you know your servers are down?).

Yes indeed, Amazon, why not do automatic refunds? In fact, why not do automatic refunds all over the cloud, dear Hosting Companies?

More on Techmeme.

What do you think? Is the cloud all that great?

The writer is… an athlete required to break the four-minute mile every morning.
— Irving Stone

Replace writer with blogger and you have a good description of what the job of blogging is.

I’ve been collecting quotes since I was very young. One of my favorite books is the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, which just celebrated it’s Diamond Jubilee. I don’t know when the old rusty red edition found its way into my hands as a child, but I was totally taken with the never-ending collection of wise and whimsical things people said for every occasion. I wanted to talk like they did, combining words in such a way to make a powerful punch when provoked.

Maybe that was my first introduction and training into press release, editorial, and technical writing?

From time to time I start or include appropriate quotes to my blog posts, as the words of others often introduce or summarize the topic at hand better than I can. It’s also a way of sharing my love of quotations with others, after all, the power of the quote is that it is quoted - and shared.

A friend sent me a collection of fabulous insult quotes today that made me wish I’d said them in response to many a blog comment or post - that artful slice and dice with words that confuses the less witty with repartee. Here are a few of the prize winners to me:

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
Oscar Wilde

I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.
Stephen Bishop

He is a self-made man and worships his creator.
John Bright

He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.
Samuel Johnson

He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.
Paul Keating

He had delusions of adequacy.
Walter Kerr

Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?
Mark Twain

His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.
Mae West

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
Oscar Wilde

Don’t you wish you’d had one of those on hand when the moment to serve a good slap and run with words arrived?

My favorite quotes are about writing such as:

Work every day - no matter what has happened the day or night before. Stop when you’re writing well. Then you’ll never get stuck.
- Ernest Hemingway

A few quotes have made their way to walls around my desk area over the years, inspiring me and keeping me focused on my writing and work. I’m sure you have a few stuck up in places to kick your creativity in the butt, too.

What are some of your favorite quotes that help you through the day, your blog, your work, and your life? Any personal favorites?

Here is my all-time favorite quote, which I wrote this weekend on the wall of a restaurant bathroom in Vernonia, Oregon, called the Blue House Café. Don’t worry, I wasn’t vandalizing. They provide the pens, you provide the words, and the bathroom is one of the most entertaining dining (and sitting) reading experiences of your life.

Everyone was born with two ends. One is used for sitting. The other for thinking. Success in life depends upon which one you use the most.

Heads you win. Tails you lose.

What’s yours?

Here’s a question. If blog comments are mini-resumes, which comments are bringing the most traffic to your blog?

When you leave a comment on a blog, there are three things at work.

1. Your desire to participate in the blog conversation and topic.
2. Your desire to increase your link credits through blog comments.
3. Your desire to encourage traffic from your comment to your blog.

A lot of pro bloggers cover the first two, but I want to explore the last one. If you really want to drive traffic to your blog through comments on other blogs, is it working for you?

Have you been paying attention to your blog referrals and incoming traffic to see where your traffic is coming from in relationship to your blog comments? It’s a very good question because we blog and comment on the premise that blog interaction helps drive traffic.

Why else would people want to sign their comments with their blog links? Why else would people fuss over nofollow and dofollow in their blog’s comments? If comments are that important, then how important are they? Are they really driving traffic to your blog?

To find out if comments you leave on other blogs are bringing in traffic to your blog, check your blog statistics for referral traffic. Go down the list and look for URLs that match blogs which you’ve commented on recently.

Depending upon how your blog analytics program tracks numbers, you might have to do some searches and dig deeper for blogs you’ve commented on, especially those you interact with on a regular basis. Any direct traffic from those?

While you are at it, check out the referral traffic from other “conversational” referrers such as Twitter and FriendFeed. Are you still playing with MyBlogLog, FaceBook, and MySpace? What are the referral traffic rates from those social sources?

The key is to turn your focus away from the major referral traffic sources, the blog posts praising your blog, and taking a look at the traffic that comes from comments and online conversations and microblogging efforts. You put a lot of effort into recruiting traffic through your comments and social networking. Are they paying off for you?

Many bloggers are reporting huge boosts in traffic from social microblogging sources like Twitter and FriendFeed, but this is to be expected as these are hot services right now. We used to thrive on the Digg-effect for traffic, and now we are thriving on the percieved boost from Twitter and other peer-driven referrers.

However the traffic arrives from these referral sources, it still boils down to providing the incentive through our comment content. What we say and how we say it is what motivates people to click through and check out who we are and what our blog is about. We work so hard to make sure our blogs are ready for traffic with customized landing pages and content and navigation to convert every visitor we can into a return reader, right? Are our comments working for us?

“Great work. This is really helpful information.” Is this enough incentive for someone reading a blog post to click through to your blog and check you out?

Of course not. Nor is a lengthy rambling comment. That might even encourge people to NEVER visit your site. Somewhere in the middle is the happy medium that tells the readers on that blog that you have something worthwhile to say and that they will benefit by clicking through to your blog.

Are you getting comment referral traffic? How much? A lot? A little?

If you aren’t getting traffic from the comments you spread across the web, then what are you doing wrong? Are your comments mini-resumes? Do they really prove your worth and value while contributing to the conversation? Are they too “begging-for-traffic” in their presentation, a frequent turn-off for savvy web users? Do you say enough, too much, or too little? How can you improve your comments to turn them into referral traffic?

What motivates you to click through a commenter’s name and blog link to read their blog? Is it their wit? The information and expertise they brought to the topic under discussion? The clarity of their writing? Their pretty or interesting gravatar/avatar? What inspires you to move your mouse to check out that commenter?

Toronto’s Globe and Mail is asking the question that’s on everybody’s mind (sarcasm): Does rapper Kanye West have a “ghost blogger?”

While the concept of ghost writing is hardly new (celebs have been relying on professional writers to create content that is officially credited to them forever), it looks like ghost blogging is blipping onto the radar.

Kanye West’s blog was called out by Montreal-based blogger Marcus Troy.

“How the Hell does Kanye have time to update his blog with 10 new post a day? while touring, making beats, sexing, looking at porn, shopping, creating vodka commercials, attending fashion shows and whatever else a dude of his caliber is doing? The only way I see it happening is with a “Ghost Blogger”. I know by some of his post it seems like he is the one finding all the cool stuff and writing all those post, But we don’t believe you, you need more people.”

Kanye, (or his ghost writer’s response):

“I DON’T KNOW WHO THE HELL THIS IS… BUT I COVERED HIS NAME AND FACE SO HE WOULDN’T GET THE PUB HE WAS OBVIOUSLY LOOKIN’ 4!”

West then went on to post several images of himself typing away on an in-studio laptop.

I always go on the assumption that artists are relying on blogging pros to power their blogs. And if they really are writing, it’s just gravy.

What do you think? Are most celebs really blogging?

Since the announcement of what I will be talking about at WordCamp UK this weekend, I have had some interesting feedback. The topic is “Making a Living from Blogging”. I didn’t realize the subject would be so controversial!

The reactions I have received have fallen into three broad categories:

1. Impossible!
2. I do …
3. How do I …

Some of those in the first category have been adamant that just by going ahead with my talk I am selling snake oil.

The fact is, I make my living through blogging and there are quite a few others doing the same. It’s not just the famously profitable folks like Darren and John Chow. I asked the question over at LinkedIn and answers are beginning to come in from others who make all or part of their income through blogs and blogging.

There are numerous routes to earning money from blogs, but each takes time and continued effort. I think most of the problem people have with the subject is there are those who would have you believe it is a quick and easy way to make big bucks, when it is anything but.

What do you think about the whole making money from blogs subject? For? Against? Wish everyone would stop talking about it? Please let us know in the comments …

PodPress is probably the most used podcasting plugin for WordPress, and the one we’ve been using here at The Blog Herald. However, there have been issues with it since WordPress 2.5, and it doesn’t work with recently released 2.6. Among others that are frustrated are David Peralty, who’s written about the issue.

Luckily, the PodPress developer says that we can expect a 2.6 compatible release within 10 days.

I wonder when WordPress will get native podcasting support, similar to the PodPress plugin? It is about time, I’d say.

Twitter experienced an unplanned outage, and is down and out for maintenance. They are using this outage to upgrade the affected database, according to a blog post. The service is still down, but hopefully we’ll be getting our microblogging cravings satisfied soon.

Speaking of Twitter, they have apparently tested a new design on select users. SheGeeks and TechCrunch have got screenshots.

There is a new official WordPress theme directory over at the wordpress.org site. Naturally, it is hosted under the “extend” tab, where we already go to find our plugins, so it is a natural addition. As of now, there are only 3 themes available, but since this is brand new, you can expect more to be submitted and added soon enough.

If you would like your theme hosted in the official directory, you need to GPL it, make sure that there are no paid links or similar in it, and fill out the other (not too evil) requirements.

As of now, there are no API available, for version checking like we’ve got with plugins hosted in the extend plugin directory, but this is supposed to be added in the future.

This is a good thing, since the old themes directory is pretty much defunct. A central spot is also good, although the GPL limit will be keeping some themes out of the official limelight. There will be no paid themes either, which will turn off a lot of theme developers.

Check out the new themes directory, and tell me if this is a good idea or not!