Blogging Experience

Hey, Is Your Blog’s Layout Just Fine?

by Melvin · Oct 17, 2009

This post isn’t really about the blog’s theme or the how beautiful the design is. We all know people who can spend can have the “best” theme while people who don’t have the money can settle for the average. The post that I am going to tackle is about blog design resolution of your website/blog. Why resolution? Well the layout of your blog, might it be the best or the worst, highly depends on the monitor’s resolution of your readers. In short, good design is useless if your readers still have to scroll horizontally just to view every part of your content.

So to kick things, this is how MelvinBlog looks in my laptop (1280X800) (click for larger view):

While on most computers w/c have the 1024X768 screen resolution, it does show like this:

What you would notice is the fact that in my laptop, there is still a space both in the left and right side part while in most screen resolutions, there’s no margin anymore and the content is like stretched. And still it doesn’t look annoying at all!

The main point here is that don’t try to base the design of your blog in your wide screen computer’s resolution. In a certain survey about screen resolutions, it’s been proven that a lot of people are still using the old fashioned 800X600 and 1024X768 screen resolution. In the end it just means that don’t decide based on your personal preference. Remember that our readers’ user experience is still the one that counts the most. We, liking the look of our blog is no match against them, not finding it good enough.

So, what does my blog look like in your computer? Scannable enough or completely crappy? How about you, have you already asked other people on what they think about the design of your blog based on their own screen’s resolution? Or maybe you haven’t even considered resolutions on carving out your design? Hmm..

Blog Updates And Announcements

by Melvin · Oct 6, 2009

September was a pretty good month for me because that was the month that I didn’t have to wake up early and sleep early to prepare for stupid internships. I was able to take the much needed rest and relaxation while also being productive doing what I want and what I need. It was good also because I was able to raise enough money to support myself and my expenses without needing to annoy my parents asking for allowance.

Anyways for this version of blog updates here are some of the more notable happenings and changes to the blog.

Pagination Problems Resolved
No theme change up to the end of the year
WWSGD plugin removed
Guest Posting galores on some blogs
Loyal Commenters Awarded.

So first is the pagination thing. You can now look at the footer part and click the next page or paged number as its completely working well now. I have also decided not to change the blog’s theme up to the end of the year at least! You can remember me posting an article asking you on whether to change the theme or not and the final decision is not yet. Meanwhile the popular WWSGD plugin w/c analyzes cookies and sends out different message for different visitor has been removed. I really love the plugin but since it’s hurting my search rankings, I have decided to pull it off. Credits to Mihaela. I’ve also guest posted on some of the blogs and well most of my guest posts are still not up. Hmm. Lastly all the the people on the top commentator’s list were rewarded with free advertising for a month. These are bloggers who kept on reading and commenting on my posts despite the atrocity of it. 😀

Announcement

The major announcement that I am going to make is the launch of Great Deals in the near future. Great Deals is eventually just a part of the site (a page actually) where you can see offers you’ve never really seen before. OIO Publisher for $27? How about the Ultimate Blogging Theme for just $47? Most offers are UNBELIEVABLE and those things mentioned are just preludes. Yeah, you’re not gonna believe it. 😀

And yes, suggestions, criticisms, opinions, advice is always entertained. If you have something to say which you think can really improve it would be highly ridiculed appreciated.

Problogger Forums Is Fine As Long As…

by Melvin · Oct 3, 2009

Darren Rowse, the genius behind the popular blog Problogger has already launched the forum which is more known as the Problogger Community. Although he hasn’t yet made a formal announcement of it in his blog, the community is rapidly growing already with over 3000 members on board . Some of the prominent figures I’ve seen there are the likes of Daniel Scocco (DailyBlogTips), Jim Kukral (JimKukral.com), David Risley (DavidRisley.com) and more.

Although there is no scarcity in blogging forums, the Problogger Community is still expected to surpass all other forums and get to the top in no time. Registration is NOT free but at $1.95, heck it’s a bargain. According to most, this registration fee exists to filter out spammers. The price is set to increase soon so if you’re planning to register then the best time to do it is now.

The forum is going to be big soon and there’s no doubt about it. But on whether it can be different on other blogging forums remains to be unseen. I have been doing some detective works and observing the forums. To be honest, the forum is really good because there aren’t so many categories yet it’s not lacking anything it seems. But still I am seeing a lot of reasons why this forum can be just your another average blogging forum and here are the reasons:

Experts Are NOT going to lurk there – The main selling point of the forum I believe is that it’s packed with several authorities in the niche. While it can really be exciting (and astounding), it’s still the fact that these bloggers won’t devote 10% of their time in that forum. I mean these bloggers are business guys and they are busy for most part of the day so I don’t see any reason for them to lurk over there. And if I’m correct, then the main selling point is canceled out already.
New Forum, Same Mindset – People who go to forums usually just go there to make promotions and marketing, both direct and indirect (debatable). Aside from its a paid membership, there is really no difference between it and other blogging forums. The rules are kinda the same. You still see people drop gazillion of links (like me, or Im just joking!), see annoying members, and see a lot of blog critiques with less than 2 critiques! The forums shows leniency and in my opinion I think it needs to be more strict.
Lurking is Bad – Like what I’ve talked here in the blog about lurking on forums, I think it can still harm people’s productivity. Most bloggers love to lurk and waste their time lurking. Im sure they enjoy it but since they joined the Problogger Community, then I’m assuming they want to be a professional blogger. And hurting your productivity doesn’t help to become a Pro Blogger.
Getting Bigger – Theoretically there’s nothing wrong on having a large forums, but I always prefer smaller forums. Why? Because a smaller forum can give you a tighter community where everyone really gets to maximize every benefit they could ever gain. It builds better relationship amongst bloggers and it can really help benefit everyone. Digital Point Forums and Warrior Forum used to be a good forum and it only gets out of hand when it became highly populated. You can post a thread asking for something and in the next 20 minutes your thread is already on the third page w/no replies. Big is good, but toooo big is not!

I don’t have anything against the new community. If I have, then why would I join? Why would I care about writing this post? It’s a good forum that can be a future source of awesome content to the right person. But as far as seeing the difference of it to other blogging or webmaster-related forums, I don’t see much. I may be correct and I may not be. And someone can prove me wrong here.

Do You Appreciate Your Readers?

by Melvin · Sep 28, 2009

It’s kinda sad that most bloggers (even popular ones) don’t seem to show they appreciate they readers/audience. There is a big imbalance between bloggers wanting to get too much traffic and bloggers showing their appreciation to their readers. One crucial factor I think why blogs get loyal readers is the fact that readers feel appreciated and therefore they keep returning because they know the author “care” for them.

Many people misunderstood my posts about not caring for PM’s on contact form and not replying on blog comments as a proof that I really don’t give much value to my readers. It’s understandable but it’s totally untrue. The value that I place to the blog readers is the highest (higher than advertisers). Because no readers literally means no money made at all and no fun.

Well today I am going to list ways on how you can show appreciation to your readers and I hope you guys like it.

Read and reply to their comments – It sure did take long for me to realize this one. Contrary to what I believed before, its not true that readers comment on blogs and don’t come back anymore. It surprises me a lot of times when I replied to a comment that the readers comes back and say thanks for replying. Replying to every comment may look silly but it builds readership and loyalty.
Link out to them – Although its impossible to link out to all your commenters, giving a link love to some of their best posts can be helpful. Believe me, bloggers feel appreciated when someone links out to them, may it be a big blog or a small blog. Most people are afraid to give links because they don’t want to dilute their pagerank w/c is a lame reason. Readers > Pagerank/Metrics.
Ask for their opinion – If you’re a long time reader of this blog, there is a customary question and answer thing here wherein a reader can ask a question and me hopefully me being able to answer it. The mistake that most blogs do is they stuff their readers so much that they are an expert in their niche that their readers won’t anymore do anything which is completely wrong. Ask out your readers for something, post a poll or just simply encourage them to do interactions with you.
Give out incentives – Ok, so here I have never had given an ipod or a flip (and I think it’s far-fetched). The blogosphere is a tight community that every incentive received is a big thing. I can’t stress this more. It doesn’t have to be a physical product or a cash prize but anything that can be useful to them is a nice thing.
Show Social Media Love – I always feel good when someone retweets my post or stumbles something here and stuffs. Another good way to show your appreciation is to actually do the same for them. If you’re into social media (who’s not?), a simple digg, or some buzz on their article can mean a lot to them. Remember it’s ALWAYS giving first then receiving second.
Network With Them! – The reason I put the little social bookmark/network icon on the sidebar is to network more with my readers. Everything we are doing online is marketing. Marketing is not business, but it’s a function of the business. It helps big when you connect to your readers via other social means like Facebook, Friendfeed or maybe Youtube and etc. The good thing with blogging is that it enables us to maximize networking with other people w/c at the end leads to bigger business relationships, joint ventures or just simple friendships. If you’re not doing this, then you’re missing out a lot!

Showing your audience that you appreciate them is a big factor on having a successful blog, successful business. Sad state is that most people don’t even pay attention to it. What do you think? I would love to have your own take about it and you can do so in the comment form.

Note: Interestingly, all people who are in my top commentators list (@ sidebar) would be able to get a free advertising for one month. Just comment here and I would hook you up on something. Thanks. 😉

Being Nice To Your Readers

by Melvin · Sep 22, 2009

Intro: If you guys don’t know it yet, Lax is running a cool contest in his blog where one can win $100 per month by just commenting. Must-see! Anyway’s this is not a paid plug or stuffs. I just thought its worth a mention 😉

For today’s recipe I would like to talk about my experience of communicating to my readers and if I am being nice or not. When I was just getting started with this blog, the blog didnt really had much traction and attention from other people and I was receiving very few PM’s and comments. But anyways I did respond to them just as like as how I respond to people now.

This blog has been up for about 2 years (?) and I’ve had tons of experience with dealing with different kinds of people. Sure there are those who were really annoying, some are so arrogant, some are douche, and some are too nice that I’m not sure it’s for real! I also made some mistakes in the past and have really adjusted with it.

The main point of this short post is just remind you guys to try as much as you can to be nice to your readers. Sure, it’s hard to make yourself look godly when you’re really not but I think there goes a threshold where we, bloggers have to be professional in the way we communicate. I know some of you would say “hey Im not a pro-blogger”, but since blogging is just everywhere, being more approachable to a wider sense of people can still be the “better” thing.

I’m going to be the first one to tell you that it’s hard. Yes, it is. I myself is a hardcore criticizer, someone who mocks the misery of an idiot, a guy who makes fun of any hilarity, and a frequent user of slang destructive terms to people. But does those stuffs evident here? Partly yes, but I bet you’d noticed it. Not being nice to douchebags is never a good thing although Im not saying the contrast is the best thing. My point here is that your audience/readers is generally flawed. They ask questions that are totally written in a post, they demand too much, and they can just be annoying to a certain degree. But what we bloggers can do is just simply try to interact with them, the most polite way we can.

I’m sure all of us, at each certain times, used to be annoying as well. And maybe that experience is something that we can use to deal with it this time. How’s your take against it? Is there a point here when you think I was being too harsh to you, readers?

What I Learned In Wordcamp 09

by Melvin · Sep 20, 2009

So like what my previous post said, I have finally attended a blog event here in Philippines and it’s the popular Wordcamp 09. Much to my dismay that my camera lost bout three days before the Wordcamp started, I still attended the event with high hopes that I would learn a lot and more importantly meet new people and make new friends. Here are some photos that was taken from Jehzlau’s gallery (I just took some pics):

As I’ve said this is the first event that I happened to have attended and I was really tensed at first. Good thing is that a guy named Alvin (hey your link?) approached me and introduced himself and introduced me to the Nuffnang people and some other people as well, and that paved the way for me to open my mouth and start talking. 😀 Just in case you don’t know I am a really really shy kid and stuffs.

Anyways w/o further ado here are the things I have learned from the said event and how you can learn from them as well:

Overcome shyness – Yes. It’s totally useless if you’re going to attend an event and talk to no one. One of the meat in these events is the “talking part” w/other people. If you’re shy like me my tip is, try to get yourself going. I mean just a simple hi or a smile to/from someone could boost your confidence a lot. And then try to capitalize on it and just keep going and go with the flow.
Make the Most of the Opportunity – You may have heard me a lot talk about Carl Ocab here. The truth is, prior to the event, we have not seen each other face to face although we know each other kinda about 2+ years now w/o meeting personally. So what I did was I approached him and just talked spontaneously. Boy, it’s such a humbling experience to have a conversation with a guy like him who is really bright and knows a lot of stuffs.

Another one is a guy named Jehzeel Laurente. He is a very popular figure (he’s like the Shoemoney of Philippines) and one of the sponsors. We talked together very briefly during lunch and it’s a pleasure to actually meet someone famous personally. So talk with people you know when you see them personally and try just not to be annoying.. 😀

Ask Questions – Just like in anything, not all are understandable. Even the best speakers in the world, had their audiences asking questions. If you don’t understand somethign, ask questions~! Or again if you’re shy, you can do so after the said event. Example is, I had a question to Mr. Ryan Reynolds Seth of Firefox and because I was shy, I approached him at the end of the event.
Bring Business Cards – Oh my god! I can’t believe I didn’t have one for the event. 🙁 Well my piece is do not ever think that people would get annoyed when you hand them out with your business card. The truth about events is that people attend it to network and meet new people, w/c would lead later on to joint ventures, friendships and stuffs. If you don’t know how to make one, just try to get a small piece of paper and put your details and thats it! 😉
Attend the after-parties – LOLs, another one that I didn’t do. Unfortunately that day I was kinda rushing to go to Greenbelt three to meet someone. Well if you’re really out to meet new people and make friends, you must attend the after-parties. After all it’s fun and you wouldn’t get that much drunk anyways (hopefully). 🙂
Bring a Camera – In my case I lost my camera, and so I brought my Flip to take some clips from the said event. I know some people would say they don’t have one, but it’s not really hard to borrow from someone right? Remember the one thing that you’d probably want to have is a remembrance of an event you attended.

Wordcamp 09 is really a good and interesting event. I’ve learned a lot, enjoyed a lot and got tired eventually. Hope you guys learned and if you have anything to add, feel free to do so in the comment form.

Note: Would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of the said event, the Mindanao Bloggers community. And well, I’d list all people I’ve seen there and there link hopefully. Gratitudes to Blogie (one who told me there’s no dress code), Migs (emcee), Chatee (lone girl in the organizer’s section) Alvin, Jhoey, to the photographers and many many more (more name and link here, please). If you’re one of the photographers and had taken a pic that includes me, feel free to send it to me and I”ll send you a cup of coffee.. 😀

Your Blog Can’t Survive This Year

by Melvin · Sep 7, 2009

Early this year I made a challenge post about if your blog can survive 2009. The post was made specifically asking my readers and partly the blogosphere if they can sustain their blogs up to the end of the year and hopefully for life. Although most bloggers really can, there are several factors though that can still make it the other way around. Blogging is so cheap that any man making a minimum wage can pay for it without having a problem at all! The problem I think lies on other factors like lost of desire and passion, or simply being too busy and stuffs.

Well I was scanning pretty much of the blogs that used to be a loyal reader and some blogs that I used to visit and notice a lot of them have died (literally)… Here’s the long list (blogs in mmo niche) of them (most of you know them) and the reasons and stuffs:

SuiteJ.com (stopped blogging)
MoneyBites.com (stopped blogging, heck I even one several contests with this blog)
BlogSmartly.com (The owner was a promising teenager but for some reasons he just stopped posting)
SplendidKid.com (The owner was a fellow Filipino. It looks like he either had his blog hacked or database corrupted (no backup), hence has to start over.
BloggerVenue.com ( The blog was a promising one but he decided to sell it and the new owner just totally sucks.
TheGermz.com (Another student who has been super duper busy)
Blogsessive.com (Not died, but decreased his posting frequency to once a month, wtf?)
MakeMoneyDynamo.com (site had a thousand subscribers. Eventually, it looks like Jason just completely abandoned it… sad)
Flimjo.com (The guy was one of my first blogs to read because he blogs interestingly about how passive income and the usual misery of having a day job.. Stopped posting for a long time)
Courtneytuttle.com (Another established blog that seemed to just vanished off)
InternetBabel.com (I love this blog! Even when there’s a change of ownership I thought the posts were still great. Apparently Dave’s lack of posting and interaction (and theme change?) killed the community. from 60K alexa to 1M+ today, sad)
TheBlogEntrepreneur.com (Stopped Posting as well)
Green-Flamingo.com (The guy had struggles with maintaining this blog and have seemed to be tentative since then)
Blogriffic.com (The owner is experiencing health problems, get well soon Salwa)

I want to keep that longer but that’s it for now. Although it’s been stressed many times that blogging is just blogging and cannot be put ahead of more important things, it still feels sad to see a former blogger/reader stop blogging or struggle with it. The blogosphere is a tight and enjoyable community and that’s the main reason why it’s sad.

For the case of Blogsessive, CourtneyTuttle, DoshDosh, they really don’t need to post everyday, every week and stuffs. These blogs are authoritative blogs and they can go on w/o posting that much and still rank below the 50k mark of Alexa w/o any problems at all. My bet is that they’re getting a ton of organic traffic because they have their blog indexed really deep (both quality and quantity) on search engines.

But in most blogs, it’s really kinda sad. Of course we can’t say a blog is dead until it’s domain is already parked, but a blog w/a dead atmosphere and community is 3/4 dead anyway! The surprising thing is when you ask people time from time, they usually respond saying ‘yes they will be patient and can hold on with their blog for a long time’. At the end it just goes to show you how really unpredictable things are. Today, you’re blog is in top 100, the next month it’s for sale, the next few months its nearly dead, in a year all the content is completely wiped out and the domain is not even renewed. Things move very rapid. It’s profitable, all of a suddent its not. Of course, it’s still nicer if there’s such a thing as farewell post every time a blogger kills his/her blog. But that happens very rare…

What say you? Any other blogs to add in the list? Or if you’re one of the bloggers listed above, any reasons why you’re blog got killed?