Blogging « GotChance

6 Places To Push In Your RSS Feed Icon

November 5th, 2008 11 Comments »

RSS Subscriber count is an important parameter in judging a blog’s success (or failure). Also, RSS readers form the loyal readership of a blog. Check out my old post to know how to increase RSS subscribers. The topic that I’ll be dealing with, in this post is different. Its regarding the placement of your RSS Feed Icon. The more prominently visible it is to the visitors, the more readers you’ll gain. Lets see in detail where all you can place your RSS Feed Icon in your blog.

Above The Header

This refers to the top most position of your blog. When your page loads, this is the area that loads first. Also, it is very much visible and suitable for throwing up your Subscriber count as well…

In The Header

The header is the most prominent area of your blog and also the most attractive, in most cases. Your RSS Icon will be noticed quickly if placed in the header…

SideBar

Almost every blog has a RSS Icon located on the sidebar. Many blogs even have an Email Subscription box on the sidebar. It is the place where many visitors look out for a Feed Icon…

Footer

After viewing a post or a page, a visitor normally ends up at the footer of your website. So, its useful to place a link to your RSS Feed over there…

After A Post

This is one of the most effective positions. When visitors see a “Subscribe” link right after they finish reading a post, they may be effectively converted into loyal readers. Many blogs have begun to implement such links…

Before A Post

Actually you can place RSS links above or below a post using the What Would Seth Godin Do plugin. I’m going to do a little experiment with this place, by showing a Subscribe link only to visitors from search engine. I’ll do a write up on it later…

Here on GotChance, I have Subscribe links on the header, sidebar, after the post and also in the a footer (which is less prominent). As a said above, I’m planning on a new experiment. Where all do you have your RSS Feed Links ? Is there any other possible place where we can push it in ?

A Look at the Desktop Blog Editors

November 4th, 2008 6 Comments »

What are Desktop Blog Editors ?

Its true that majority of people still don’t know what are desktop blog editors. Just like how you use Outlook to send mails from desktop, just like how you post to Twitter from desktop, you can also post to your blogs right from your desktop. From a poll conducted by Lifehacker 2 years back, over 60% of the bloggers just use an online editor.

But, that was the situation 2 years ago. Now, with the availability of Windows Live Writer (WLW), many bloggers have switched to it. Still, I’m convinced that atleast 50% of the crowd still use online editors.

Why People don’t use Desktop Editors :

When we look at the reasons why people still don’t use Desktop editors, the first reason is that they don’t have the knowledge about the availability of one. When I started blogging 2 years ago, I just used WordPress’s inbuilt online editor, adjusting myself to the features available. But, after I came to know about WLW, I hop over to WordPress Dashboard only for things like comment moderation, plugin installation etc..

Why use a Desktop Editor ?

Windows Live Writer When you insist people to switch to Desktop Editors, you need to give them reasons, don’t you ? There are a lot of reasons to make the switch :

Manage more than just 1 blog. Almost every desktop editor gives you the ability to add many blogs. You can post to these different blogs from 1 place.
You can write offline. When you get a new idea for a post, but unfortunately, you’ve been disconnected from the internet. During such situations, you can still open your desktop editor, write down your post and save for publishing later.
You get more formatting options. Most online editors have limited formatting options. But, there are richer in desktop editors. Especially, I love the “Web layout” feature in WLW, which gives the look of frontend of your blog whilst you still write the post.
Enhanced Image Support. WLW lets you apply a number of effects to your photos like Drop Shadow, Sepia tone, Black and White, Watermark, Emboss etc…
Tagging Support… Most desktop editors come with either inbuilt tagging support or with the help of external plugins, for technorati, delicious and the like.

These are not the only features available in desktop editors. Its not just about listing down the advantages. Its the entire feel that you get when you use a desktop editor. The simplicity, the ease.. You don’t find these in online editors.

Now, if you are in look out for a desktop editor, I strongly recommend Windows Live Writer. But, if you want to look out for alternatives, I suggest that you take a look at this post.

10 Sites You Can Develop With WordPress

November 2nd, 2008 87 Comments »

WordPress is, without a doubt, the most popular open source blogging software. But, its much more than just a blogging platform. With its 3233 plugins (as of this instant), its the most flexible platform for developing almost anything. In this post, we’ll see what all you can do with WordPress.

Blog

WordPress was primarily developed to be a blogging platform and that is what it is being used for, widely. Almost every other blog that you come across today is powered by WordPress (includes my own blog). Also, WordPress.com hosts about ~~4,562,469 blogs~~ (when I started writing this post) 4,562,720 blogs (when I finished writing this post) that are powered by WordPress.

Static Website

If you are not going to blog and you simple wish to have a static website, WordPress can still help you with it. Also, you can just have the static website or have a blog attached with it. You can do it without any external plugin. This feature comes packed with WordPress. You can check out this post and this for more knowledge.

Magazine

Are you a print magazine publisher ? Or, do you want to write a magazine online ? You can create your own E-Zine with wordpress. There’s a huge pile of magazine themes available for WordPress. In my previous post, I dealt with using magazine themes. There are some very popular e-zines out there, powered by WordPress.

Social Network

All of you would have probably heard of Facebook, Bebo or MySpace. They are what we call today as “Social Networks”. The cool thing is that you can create your own Social Network with WordPress. Either you can do it manually by editing WP’s code. Or, you can simple install BuddyPress over an installation of WordPress MU. Also, check out this live social network which uses WordPress.

Email Newsletter Manager : WordBurner

Most of the Newsletter Managing softwares out there are very expensive. But, luckily FeedBurner offers Emails Subscriptions for RSS Feeds for free. Combining that with a WordPress installation, you can create your own email newsletter manager for free. NetTuts has an extensive tutorial on how to create this software called “WordBurner” ;)

Gallery

“A Picture says more than a Thousand Words”.

WordPress has inbuilt Gallery support using the shortcode. But, there are numerous plugins available to convert WordPress into a cool gallery. You can check out the whole list, but NextGEN gallery is my favorite.

Forum

Though softwares like vBulletin, phpBB and SMF rule the world of online forums, WordPress has its own solution called bbPress. bbPress is plain and simple forum software, plain and simple. It’s easy to use, easy to administrate, fast and clean. It is also highly customizable just like how WordPress is.

Feed Aggregator

Simply put, A Feed Aggregator is one which gets the content from various sources and puts them all at one place. A very powerful plugin called WP-o-Matic is available to serve this purpose. The plugin converts your WordPress into a personalized feed aggregator. But, such plugins are also being used to STEAL content from other blogs.

MicroBlogging

Does that word seem unfamiliar to you ? But, I bet you’d have heard about Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr etc.. They are nothing but the so-called MicroBlogging platforms. Using WordPress, you can create your own MicroBlogging site, with the help of the Prologue theme. And, the good news is that, it comes right from the WordPress team themselves. You can also check out the demo.

Membeship Directory

Do you want to create a moderated membership directory that showcases your member’s information? Do you want it to be flexible, be very little work after initial setup, and use a world-class open source platform that you are already familiar with?

Check out this detailed tutorial on how to create your own Membership directory using WordPress.

Do you use WordPress for any other purpose ? Or, do you know anyone that does it ? Have any new idea on how else WordPress can be used ? Share your views in the comments…

When To Use A Magazine Theme ?

October 31st, 2008 6 Comments »

Magazine themes for wordpress. A lot of such themes are available both for free and for sale. To check out a long list of magazine themes, check out this post and this post. I’ve also written two posts (one, two) comparing some magazine themes. Most of these themes look great and attractive.

Many bloggers who are starting up tend to get tempted by these designs and start using them. But, as the name suggests, these are aimed for magazine-style websites and not for general blogs. Of course, no rule tells you not to use a magazine theme for a blog, but still your writing need to satisfy certain basic qualities to get the best effect.

1) Many Categories

Do you tend write posts under a variety of categories ? Then, magazine themes are apt for you. Because, these themes help you manage them efficiently.

2) Images for Each Post

Most of these magazine themes have a thumb rule to display a small image next to each post on the front page. As I said, only little things like these make such themes look good. So, you must pay attention and add unique image for each post.

3) Video Blogging

Also, many magazine themes provide a separate area on the homepage for displaying video. Of course, you can add videos from Youtube and other video sharing websites. But, video blogging makes this space look much more personalized.

4) Update your Blog Often

These magazine themes give a very professional look to your site and thus users will expect professional content from you. They’ll like you to update your blog very frequently. “New Articles” on the homepage is displayed for a reason, and not to display the same articles for weeks together.

5) Less Interactivity

This is not a proven concept. But, my opinion is that, these themes give less priority to commenting. And the comments and the comment box are less visible to the user. Thus, it might affect the level of interactivity of your blog.

These are just my opinion. What do you think ? Have you used magazine themes on any of your blogs ? What is the effect ?

A Small Carnival Over Here

October 30th, 2008 No Comments »

I’m planning to conduct a small blog carnival over here on GotChance. A Blog Carnival not only is a motivation to write a post on a common topic, but also brings in traffic for your blog.

For those who are not familiar with a blog carnival, here is a small explanation. All the blogs that are participating in a carnival write a blog post on a common topic. After the carnival is over, the participant blogs write up a post linking to all the other carnival posts. Hope I’m clear here.

Now, the topic I choose is WORDPRESS PLUGINS. Now, that topic is wide enough to write all types of posts from list posts to “how to” posts.

And, I don’t want to run a carnival with zero participants. So, if you’d like to take part, post a comment below so that people will know how many are taking part.