3 Easy steps to create bulk content for niche sites

July 18, 2008 | 0 Responses

1. Pick a topic - Choose something you know well and can explain in detail without getting sick of writing about it. It can be anything from your favorite hobby to ways you improve your workplace or even your home and family. Choose something that are comfortable being an expert source on and talking about often.
2. Identify subtopics - Once you have gotten a general theme in mind think of some things you can tell your readers about that sub topic. Think about different aspects of your area of expertise. Be it explaining how to get started, varying methods of approach, introducing new factors and situations. There are always things you know about your topic that you might take for granted and keep in mind you are writing in order to teach others what they don’t already know. A good model for disecting content in this manner is this:
   

   Write a headline for something you can explain. Now Quickly write out a list of things the reader will need to know for you to explain it as quickly as possible. Write short articles explaining each item in your list. See how you’ve turned one article into several?

3. Make headlines and write articles - Now that you have a few different items to explain you can begin constructing the first set of articles for your niche site. Since fresh content is detrimental to niche sites, it is a good idea to save some larger articles and see if you can’t break them into shorter, articles explaining in depth areas that may require more detail. It is also easier for a reader to digest information in steps like this.

MBL Widgets and why you have to comment to show your face around here

January 31, 2008 | 5 Responses

I mentioned before that I am not a fan of the MyBlogLog reader community widget. As you can see, although my community continues to grow, I still haven’t taken a shining to using the widget. The reason for this is simple, people don’t actually have to read your blog to get their profile linked. I’ve even auto-joined communities just by passing over the same link more than once without even being aware of it. This means that my picture, and therefore my profile and therefore my website, has been linked on websites I’ve never so much as skimmed. Is that fair? No, not really. But if the website’s owner wants to give it away like that, who am I to stop him?

I am still a fan and avid user of MyBlogLog and chose to implement the community on my website in a different manner. MyAvatars is a plugin that displays the commenter’s Gravatar or their MBL avatar next to their comment. I found this was more of an everybody wins approach to using display pictures because they still get their profile linked and I, in return, get a comment.

After all, wasn’t that the original intention of having a blog as opposed to just a collection of articles? Getting comments? Many of us choose to reward our commenters with a top commentators list (much like the one I have). Well would it make sense if all somebody had to do was load my page to get onto the top comments list? Ofcoarse it wouldn’t. So, to me, it just makes good sense for someone to have to comment in order to get their picture on this website.

JustSayHi … a little clarification please?

November 27, 2007 | 1 Response

JustSayHi.com, is an enigma wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in the internet. its hard to figure out what they are getting at. The site is listed as a dating site, and from the top level of the domain, it appears to be nothing else.

The confusing part about it is the pages from within this site that turn up on StumbleUpon. Several blog related quizzes and even an entire gallery of “silly & clever” blog badges bearing slogans like “This blog will self destruct” and such really seem to throw the visitor alternate impressions.

Is it blog love?

Well, I’m not signing up to any dating community, so I guess my research isn’t exactly thorough, but is it possible they are here to drum up cases of blog boy meets blog girl? If this is the case, they aren’t quite making it clear enough what they are there for. It comes across at first as nothing more than just another online hook up spot. Besides, who else but bloggers need to look up online dating sites?

Is it just a V thang?

There is the possibility that they were just attempting some viral publicity. Perhaps these blog related pages are just meant to draw in bloggers who can’t resist posting their surveys and generating a backlink to the site’s main page. If this is the case, its pretty clever marketing. Not exactly the most ethical, but it is likely effective.

Testing 1,2,3… Podcasts coming soon

November 27, 2007 | 2 Responses

Part of the reason things have slowed down so much is because I have been extremely busy with school. Since I’m working on audio and video stories at school anyhow, I decided to start posting them here.

I’m testing a few different options for delivering my podcasts, so you will notice alot of strange things going on (particularly with the RSS feed).

I have been using the old videos from the Video page and some random audio clips so you will notice some of this old content popping up. Please bare with me as I am working on this in what little free time I have.

Thanks for reading.

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