Archive for April, 2006

Stats, Stats, Stats. The good thing about stats is that they allow you to track your users and better optimize your content and page layout for search, monetization, and readability. The bad thing about stats is that they give you just one more reason to not be writing content and to be procrastinating hoping your numbers will increase.

Procrastination aside though one set of statistics that allows you to promote your site, track your regular readers, and show off your readership is Feedburner. Feedburner is a service that tracks people who subscribe to your RSS or XML feed. Your feed is basically your online newspaper that is updated every time you write new content and sent to your subscribers. They can easily keep up to date with all of the blogs or news resources they read.

The great thing about Feedburner is that it tracks your readers for you. You simply follow their instructions to re-direct all your feed traffic through their site and software and they’ll track the users and report the statistics back to you. Feedburner keeps track of day to day readership as well as which syndication readers were used to grab your feed (Google Reader, Bloglines, etc).

The best thing about Feedburner (that I feel anyway) is they allow you to show-off your stats right on your site. You can show your visitors just how many regular readers you’ve had in the last 24 hours and hopefully impress them enough to grab your feed and join the list.

Check Feedburner out to add it to your blog statistics tools.

Unless you are an established business with “corporate colors” you probably don’t have a color scheme chosen for you blog. At first, that’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with having a hodge podged color scheme or a generic one. It’s that content that you should worry about at first.

However, once you get going and have visited enough blogs and sites that looking at your site makes you cringe, it’s time you change around your colors. If you’re using CSS to develop your blog (using wordpress automagically does this for you) then all changing your colors around takes is a few hexadecimal number switches. (Consult your specific CSS for which colors changes effect which parts of your blog.)

If you notice some of the color schemes of the sites you regularly visit chances are good that those sites only use 2 or 3 colors aside from the standard black text. Which by the way, changing the color of your content text is a risky move. Only some can pull it off and even then it makes your eyes hurt after a while. There’s a reason black on white is so popular, it’s the least straining to your eyeballs.Â

If you do go with more than 3 colors try and only adjust for the shades of those colors rather than having too many contrasting colors. To many colors makes a page look crazy. You don’t want your visitor getting so scared at first glance that they hit the back button right away.

Text Likes to be Black

As mentioned, text likes to be black. Or maybe I should say text likes to be black on a white background. It’s easy on the eyes and just seems normal. Sure you may get the wow factor if you use magenta text for your content but once the reader gets into the text they’ll be wishing they never started the paragraph.

Stick to what works here.

Earth Tones

es, greens, and browns are in. The colors are friendly and they can be easily brightened up or dulled down depending on what you want your scheme to portray. Don’t go over board unless you have a good reason for keeping a bright green or blue, the colors can be distracting if not used properly.

Use the Fade

Most image editing software now a days comes with a built in fade tool that allows you to blend or fade colors into one another. The gentle transition of and Earth tone into white or a dark tone into a light tone of the same color can be flashy but at the same time soothing to look at.

Now this doesn’t go without warning of course. I have seen some fades that go through three or four colors before finishing and that can just look ugly. Stick with two colors and make sure they go together. If you don’t think they do ask your mother, she used to dress you and I’m sure she knows how to match colors.Â

Experiment

Look around, visit blogs, and just try out colors. I suggest using Color Schemer Online. They use some formulas or something to magically choose which colors go together. The 16 colors that come up as you change the main color usually seem to be a good match although I wouldn’t suggest using all 16 of the colors on one page. They should be a good starting point to get you going. Good Luck.

A blog in its simplest form is a Web Log (hence the name) where a person writes down their daily thoughts or happenings so others can read and comment on them. The content (mainly called posts) are usually categorized and dated and the posts are most likely organized chronologically on the main and successive pages.

That’s just it’s simplest form. Blogs have turned into so much more than that. They are now used for all sorts of information, from consumer products to personal development blogs are invading every aspect of the internet. They are political sounding boards, business progress announcers, and a way to get your voice heard. Some people make a living at blogging like, Steve Pavlina and Darren Rowse. Others use it to help them catapult their fame (see any reality TV stars blog.)

Blogs are everywhere and getting bigger by the minute, literally. There are well over 25 million blogs on the internet as I write this and that number is growing daily. Search engines have now dedicated search engines just for blogs. The main search engine is Technorati, followed by the usual, Google and Yahoo. Hundreds of directories have popped up as a way to get your blog known. Ranking systems, syndication readers, the list goes on.

A whole world on the internet is being formed around blogs. If you haven’t visited a blog yet or published one yourself, your time will come, you’ll come across a blog. You might not even know you’re at one.

What Blogging Platform should you choose? It’s all a matter of preference. I would stick with a free one, and one that lets you write from anywhere, on any computer. Aside from that, really, it’s all up to you. Some you’ll need a server to host the software on (Wordpress, etc) which could end up costing you money, and some will offer hosting service for free with the blogging software (blogger, etc).

Blogging On Empty has put together a list of some of the more popular platforms below. This list is by no means exhaustive and will be updated as much as possible. The links are to the particular website of that software and aren’t affiliate links so the list is in no ranking order. Check out their sites for more information on what services are offered and to get a demonstration of the blogging software in action.

Wordpress
Typepad
Blogger
Movable Type
Expression Engine
Live Journal
Xanga
iblog
MySpace
Again these are just some of the blogging platforms that are available to you right now. There are new ones being developed all the time. All of the ones listed here allow you to host your blog on their site with some limitations on them. BOE will discuss these limitations in a future article but suggest taking a look for yourself to see what these softwares can do for you.

Help promote your site and this one by exchanging links with Blogging On Empty. If you have a site you think the readers of Blogging on Empty would prosper from follow these instructions.

1. Add this link to your Blogroll
URI: http://www.bloggingonempty.com
Text: Blogging on Empty

When you are done with that just use the contact form to let me know you have and let me know your URI and the text you would like me to add.

We will soon be offering select positions on this website for advertisers to purchase on a weekly monthly or yearly basis. If you are interested now in getting in early please contact Blogging on Empty to find out more.

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Blogging On Empty blog tips series are coming soon. Please check back often to view updates and subjects like, site design, post writing, monetizing, promoting, and more.

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Welcome to Blogging on Empty, a blog focused on providing blogging tips to those who don’t have all day to sit around and blog, blog, blog.

When I first got into blogging I was introduced to the now infamous weblog by Steve Pavlina and how he was earning over $5,000 a month simply by payed per click advertising companies such as Google Adsense, Chitika, and Yahoo Publishers Network. $5,000 a month and all he did was write a few days out of each week. Brilliant!

I soon came to find out that blogging for dollars was a little more difficult than writing a post every other day. The following is just an abbreviated list and whether you’re blogging for fun or blogging for wealth, if you want a successful blog, you’ll be jumping into at least a couple of these areas.

Blog Topic – One Niche, multiple Niche’s, personal, news reporting, etc
Blog Software – Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger
Blog Design – color scheme, font size, font spacing, link look, list look
SEO – aka Search Engine Optimization
Backlink Building – Getting people to link to you
Advertisement Placement
Attracting Advertisers
Promoting, Promoting, Promoting

The list can go on and on and it can be quite consuming when it comes to having a successful blog. Those of us with full-time jobs, hobbies, and family can find it even more discouraging and frustrating when we see others doing it, and seemingly with ease.

I’m here to tell you those people may be blogging with ease now, but getting a top blog takes time and patience, as well as a lot of hard work. However, that work can be cut drastically if you know where to look and know how to blog efficiently. That’s where Blogging on Empty comes in. I’ll help you find what you’re looking for learn tips and tricks to succeed and publish one or multiple blogs as though you were doing this for years.

Who knows you might even be fairly successful at it and make some new friends, business partners, wealth, or all three.