5 More reasons that less is more in blogging

August 31, 2007 | 4 Responses

The old saying “Less is more” applies to blogging in many ways. You will hear a lot of copy and design bloggers telling you this for many different reasons. The words ring true with so many of the standards of blogging out there today. Here are 5 more reasons that less is more when it comes to blogging.

#1: Less is more in the way you plug your site

A link in the sig and on the profile will go a long way. Theres no need to pitch your posts or your feeds on other sites. Focus on being a good citizen in each of the communities that you are a part of and the traffic will come. Once someone gets to your site, then start the pitch.

#2: Less is more when it comes to your theme

Ad serving is fine. I don’t have any problems with any of the major ad servers that don’t cause pop-ups or anything to annoying. But a cluttered theme drags down loading, takes attention away from the reading and in the leading cause of ugly on the internet.

#2.5: Less is more with advertising and monetizing

This obviously stems a bit from #2. Like I said, ad serving is perfectly fine and legitimate. But too much has many negative effects.

  • It annoys your readers
  • It murders your credibility
  • It slows the heck out of your site
  • And above all Clutter your theme. (see number #2)

If nothing else, think of it this way: Your visitor is more likely to respond to and click a single and noticeable ad rather than one of dozens of distractions.

#3: Less is more when it comes to the time you spend at your site

You can’t spend all day at your blog approving or replying to comments, touching up your theme or even writing posts. Sometimes it is necessary but it is better to do things in one big spurt and then come back later on. You could be sucking up resources if you are signed in working or linked in your ftp client. If you suddenly get the inspiration to post an article but you’ve been at your blog all day, consider these options.

  • Write the post in a text editor and post it later -This is good to do anyways because it allows you to think more about your content
  • Use Google Docs and Spreadsheets to write the post and post it straight from Google with your XMLRPC (Wordpress rules)
  • Write a heap of articles in WP’s editor and set them to auto-post at different times.

Another thing to remember is you have to get out and experience things, interact with people and stimulate your mind in order to have something interesting to talk about. You can’t do that from behind your WYSIWYG editor.

#4: Less is more when using your own resources for rich media

Youtube and Vimeo along with other similar sites are not just there for people without hosting.

Just because you can host your own podcasts, music videos and mp3 players, it doesn’t mean you have to. Even if you have the space and bandwidth required to do it, you are still using server load that you don’t have to. Increasing the amount of bytes gobbled up by each and every visit and, thereby, increasing the chances that the next viewer gets the dreaded Connection Was Reset or NO CONNECTION error. Outside hosting is fine and often necessary.

#5: Less is more when you are explaining things

It is a very good skill to be able to break things down for people. But you don’t always have to do it. It can actually make people feel dumb if you overdo it. The last thing you want to do is insult the person who is taking the time to read your thoughts. It is perfectly fine to assume your readers are already familiar with some things. If all else fails, you can always link to another post that explains the basics of your idea and move on with your analysis.

Does designing affect your outside life?

August 31, 2007 | 3 Responses

Have you ever found yourself applying techniques or ideas that you picked up from designing?

I was redoing my resume recently and I was having some trouble getting my word processor to do what I wanted. Suddenly it hit me. Why don’t I just code my resume with XHTML and CSS? So I did. And believe me, it went much smoother after that. Once the initial tables and such were laid out, I just had to copy, paste, and update the content of my out-of-date resume into the feilds.

I was pretty impressed with myself, then I started wondering what other aspects of my life has it infiltrated. Whats next?

Stop offering me hosting

August 30, 2007 | 2 Responses

I’m downright insulted when people offer me hosting. What can your host possibly offer that I don’t already have? Unmetered bandwidth, unlimited domain hosting, unlimited email address, subdomains, mySQL databases, ect.
Realistically theres only so far that a hosting company can push it. Don’t get me wrong. I like being able to host as many domains as I want. Its also nice knowing my bandwidth will never run out. But you might as well all stop offering me hosting because I get all that and more already.

I like that they hand out free text and pay-per-click advertising to each and every customer.The search engine submission is nice too. Its really great to have a host that will back you and help get your site started.

Support is also very important. We all like to think we are web professionals but everybody gets a case of the stupids every now and then. The support at my web host have seen me through many such cases and even helped me out with some issues that would baffle any pro.

People try to dazzle you with all these stats and extras. But the fat is, every hosting company with a decent arsenal of servers has the resource to offer that same thing. It is other stuff that makes my host outweigh the average Joe server-in-my-apartment Jr.

You can’t top a business that gives you free stuff, helps you out when the product isn’t working. Not to mention has one of the highest affiliate payouts of any web hosting company. ;)

So who the frig do you host with?

I joined Midphase two years ago and never looked back.

A word or two on Akismet

August 30, 2007 | 0 Responses

This blog uses Akismet to fight nonsense posts. It is a very popular free plugin. All you need is a Wordpress.com API to activate your protection. Akismet checks your comments to see if they are spam and then it decides what to do with them. To Post or not to Post.

The odd thing is that I have had to manually approve some legitimate comments that were relevant to the discussion. I don’t know what caused them to be marked as spam but I’ve noticed more of it happening recently. It makes me wonder how many have slipped through.

So how does Akismet work? I checked on Google and it told me the FAQS were a good place to start. Google make me feel small.

When a new comment, trackback, or pingback comes to your blog it is submitted to the Akismet web service which runs hundreds of tests on the comment and returns a thumbs up or thumbs down.

And if a regular comment gets marked as SPAM, you just have to mark it as NOT SPAM. Pretty simple.

In other news, I’ve shut off the moderation of comments. Akismet recommends you to use the moderation queue. This doesn’t sit well with me. I see a lot of other blogs where my comment is posted instantly, even if it is the first.

One of the issues with WordPress is that it can sometimes be really hard to fight the right plugin to do the right job. There are many duplicate plugins. And comment plugins are in especially high volume. I’m not talking about SPAM related, just a lot of the different things that many bloggers want on their comment board. Dofollows, anti-spam, top commentators among others are in large demand and it isn’t always clear which plugins are the top contenders.