The origin of what we call blogs started as personal diaries, but like everything they have changed, grown and been adapted by media, become larger and the personal part of blogs has been lost in the large blogs. The problem is that the big box blogs that we see on the top lists on sites like Technorati are no longer blogs. They might be run by blogging software but the personality and personal expression of blogs has been wrung out of them to the point where only the numbers of readers, dollars and page views matter.

We need a revolution in blogging; we need to be radical! Blogs need to return to their personal nature. Whether your blog is a personal blog, or a business blog can people see you in the blog or have you been wrung out and hung out to dry?

Seth Godin is right, we need a new list that is not just about the big box blogs. Time to create a list of the best blogs that have a personal touch. Let’s start it here. Leave a comment with your favourite blog that has a personality, where you can see the author, and why you think their blog should be on the list. I want to read your favourite blogs, share them with me and let’s revolutionize blogging again together.

Photo by stuttermonkey

• Top Blogs Failing at Error Pages
• The Taxman or A Taxman?
• List Building vs. Valuing Readers
• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors Revisited
• Blogs are Worse Than Ex-Girlfriends

First is a usability issue. They use an annoying pop-over that blocks your access to the website. They are hard to block and are the most annoying form of advertising since popups. Why have these bloggers decided to put a good user experience behind building their newsletter list? Simple, they have discovered that the annoying pop-overs work and signup rates go up. Daily Blog Tips recently did a poll asking if people would stop visiting a website that has a pop-over. The results showed that 36% of people will stop visiting blogs that have a pop-over. These once interesting blogs have been turned into nothing more than a cheesy sales page. You know the ones where they promise you XYZ in return for entering your name and email address. If you want a cheesy sales page make a cheesy sales page, don’t call it a blog.

Second, lets be honest about why they want you to subscribe to their newsletter list. It has nothing to do with community or building trust, it has to do with one thing, MONEY! I have no problem with making money, but don’t bull*&%$ me and tell me it is about building community or building trust. Permission marketing is all about getting people’s permission to sell them something. Building a newsletter list is all about making money either by selling directly or through affiliate links, driving traffic back to the blog or advertising.

One of the unique things about pop-overs is that they are hard to block. Unlike traditional popups, pop-overs are part of the webpage itself and the only way to stop them from appearing on the page is to disable Javascript. This will disable the pop-over from appearing on the website in the middle of the screen, but it will usually still appear as part of the page. By disabling Javascript globally you also disable other features that you might want to function on a website. If you are using Firefox an option you can try is to install the NoScript addon to have more control over what Javascripts are allowed to run on what websites. I have it running and have successfully blocked the annoying pop-overs from Chrisg.com, Digital Photography School, Shoemoney.com, Remarkablogger, Caroline Middlebrook and John Chow dot Com while still being able to use other Javascript features on the sites.

It is unfortunate that readers need to take such drastic actions to be able to enjoy reading blogs without being annoyed by these pop-overs. We will probably have to continue to take such actions until the bloggers either realize that they are annoying more people than they are gaining, start actually getting hurt in their pocketbooks or until big brother Google comes out with a statement saying that websites should not have pop-overs that deter from user interaction similar to statements that they make on popups.

Photo by oddsock

• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors Revisited
• The Great Personal Blogger Search
• Reasons Not to Blog
• Blogs on the Go - 7 Ways to Make a Mobile Blog
• Digg - A Bloggers One Night Stand

Epiblogger… it’s what’s for breakfast. That was a delicious breakfast. It’s a meal like that that let’s me know I am doing ok. But I can’t say the same for Epiblogger or for the genre.

Is it just me or does everyone notice that the world would be far better off without metablogs? I subscribe to a large portion of metablogs and I can skim through them and think—what is this bullshit?

I have two problems:

• I assume that everyone thinks like me.
• I shouldn’t be passionate about anything because I just get pissed off.

The first problem is probably most peoples problem. For all I know you love metablogs. You can’t get enough of them. You could—if faithful enough—live on metablogs alone. The second problem is probably familiar as well. I don’t watch hockey because I end up spending three hours yelling at my television and it becomes obvious that I am slowly becoming my father. While I love my father, that’s not a bridge I am ready to cross.

The solution

Here is the solution as I see it: stop metablogging. But on the other hand we have a PR3 and why should give that up? Plus I think at least 4 people read this blog on rare occassion. I mean, the reasons to keep going are overwhelming.

This is point where I use an analogy

And a bad analogy at that. I think it has something about how everyone needs breakfast and I have the best breakfast in town so keep coming back to Epiblogger… right?

Lament or rejoice?

I am somewhere between being completely in love with blogging and the community it represents and disgust for the constant white noise that spewn from the general metablog community. However, who is going to benefit from me sitting around bitching about it? So what am I supposed to do? At the very least you can be happy I am using headers.

Keep going

I have ideas. We have changed the theme. I am feeling a fresh breath of air for Epiblogger. I am going to go in slightly different direction and tone with my posting here. I am going to continue to experiment with new ideas. And I suppose you’ll probably be able to find helpful stuff here too. But don’t expect me to play nice. Expect me to play nice-ish, but with a small splash of bitchy.

Long story short

I am back. I want to rejuvenate the genre of metablogging. Also, in case you don’t know, I have to talk things out. Thanks for listening.

• Do You Love Your Blog?
• Navigating the Downs
• Who Are We as Bloggers?
• A Great New Way to Blog for 2008: Conversation
• The Reality of Comments

The WP Greet Box WordPress Plugin gives bloggers the ability to show custom messages to readers based upon the referrer that sent them to the blog, as well as showing a default message to users that come from a referrer that is not defined. The plugin combines many of the popular plugins so you only need to run the WP Greet Box WordPress Plugin instead of a plugin for Digg users, StumbleUpon users, Delicious users, etc etc. The plugin also works well with sites that use cache plugins by using JavaScript to output the messages. This prevents the welcome to a Stumbler of Digg user being output into the cache version of the page and being shown to the wrong person, a common problem with some of the other plugins to welcome visitors.

The WP Greet Box WordPress Plugin has also made it easy to add additional messages for other referrers by simply adding a new URL and message. This can great if your blog starts to get referral traffic from a specific URL such as another blog or forum, allowing you to offer those readers a custom message.

You can download WP Greet Box from the WordPress plugin repository. It might be the plugin you were needing to be able to disable several other plugins and have a solution to welcome visitors that is compatible with cache plugins.

• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors
• Blogging with Google Maps
• Making Backup Sexy!
• Digg - A Bloggers One Night Stand
• 5 WordPress Security Essentials

Digg can send an enormous amount of traffic to a blog, there is no doubt about it, but the rush is short lived and and then you need to pick up the pieces of your smoking server and carry on. Face it Digg is like a one night stand. Like meeting someone at a night club and being taken up in the moment. Sure it might be fun for the night but the next day after you sober up and you just end up having a headache and hoping you have not caught anything. The biggest long term benefit you can gain from Digg is a chance that others will blog about you and give you some backlinks. Of course that can backfire on you as well depending on who it is that links to you. Face it, Digg is a one night stand, and nothing good ever comes from a one night stand. Look at the types of posts that people write for Digg, nothing but top 25 this and top 50 of that. Drivel! I guess that is what appeals to Digg users.

There are many bloggers that say you should write for social media, and it is tempting to come up with those kinds of list posts. I do write the occasional list post, because they are easy. They take very little thought just some time to compile the list. Great content to enhance your blog and offer something more substantial to your readers does not fit will in a huge list. Relationships take time to nurture and grow. Building relationships with people and offering them content that allows them to grow and think will provide your blog with more long term growth than the flash in the pan Digg can provide. As you write your next post think about how you can offer your readers content that will grow relationships with them and not feed them junk food.

Photo by Night Star Romanus

• Social Proof - The Masses Can’t Be Wrong
• Obscurity to Popularity - Entrecard
• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors Revisited
• Reasons Not to Blog
• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors

If your blog has been feeling under appreciated lately then you might be interested in joining an idea to help under appreciated blogs become more appreciated. Chuck Westbrook has an idea that might help. The idea is simple in some ways join together and appreciate other blogs and your blog will be appreciated by others. This might be just the thing to give you some new blogs to read and gain some more appreciation for some new blogs as well.

• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - The Starting Point
• Blogging is About Relationships
• Blogging with Character and Leave Botox Blogging Behind
• List Building vs. Valuing Readers
• Ten Things Teletubbies Can Teach You About Blogging

AideRSS is more than just a top posts widget. AideRSS is actually a way to sort through a lot of the noise by filtering out posts by different levels based on your interests. For example you might not want to read every single post Boing Boing posts. Using AideRSS you can subscribe in your RSS reader to the best posts that they create, thus eliminating some of the noise that can clog up your RSS reader.

The side benefit of AideRSS is that they create top posts widgets. You can submit your own blogs RSS feed, such as your Blogger.com blog and AideRSS will create a top posts list sorted by what they call postrank. You can choose the time period that you want the top posts to be created from. Either year, month, week or day, and the number of top posts you would like to show. Here is a sample of Epibloggers top posts widget showing the top five posts for the year.

If you are looking for a top posts widget for your blog the AideRSS widget might be just the one you are looking for. Because it is Javascript it will create no extra load on your web hosting if you use a self hosted blogging platform and if you are on a hosted blogging platform, such as Blogger.com, most allow some Javascript widgets to be added. You could even use it to show off your friends blogs top posts if you want. With a little CSS styling you could probably make it blend in perfectly with your blog.

• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - Blogging Platform
• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors
• Blogging is About Relationships
• Blogging in Reruns
• Blogger Buster - Interview

Now that you have been reading and you have chosen your blogging topic you can look at what blogging platform you will use to power your blog. There are a number of blogging platforms available and each has its advantages and disadvantages. The first decision you need to make is whether you want to have a hosted blog or a self hosted blog. What is the difference? A hosted blog is one where the content of your blog is hosted on the blogging services servers. Examples of a hosted blogging service include Blogger.com, WordPress.com and TypePad. There are many other hosted blogging services and Wikipedia has a good list of available hosted blogging services.

While some people will tell you that you should never use a hosted blogging solution for your blog there are some very good reasons to use a hosted blogging service. If you do not have a very technical background a hosted blogging service can get you up and blogging faster with less headaches. You don’t have to worry about software upgrades, security is less of a concern just make sure you have a good username and password to keep your account secure. Each service has its differences and I would encourage a beginning blogger to test and experiment with each service to decide if they want to use that service. Personally, I find the Blogger.com service very easy for beginning bloggers to use. The number of settings do not seem to be as over whelming to the beginner and they have made a number of enhancements over the last few years including allowing you to have your own domain name and scheduled posts that make the service more attractive.

The biggest disadvantage to using a hosted blogging service is you do not own your content. There are many stories of blogs being closed down for any number of reasons and your content can simply vanish overnight. It is for this reason alone I like to host my own blogs on my own web hosting. Wikipedia again has a nice list of many of the open source self hosted blogging platforms that are available. If you dislike free and open source software you can also look at the proprietary weblog software that you can install and use.

If you have never blogged before and you are just starting installing blogging software on your own web hosting space I would recommend looking at WordPress as your blogging platform (no surprise there eh). There are many good reasons to use WordPress as your self hosted blogging platform. For beginners there will be a learning curve to using any blogging platform, but the self hosted WordPress is perhaps the easiest to learn from the many options that are available. Many web hosts also offer an easy to use install service called Fantastico or another similar system that will install WordPress for you quickly and easily. Dreamhost, the web host Epiblogger is now hosted with, offers a one-click installer. This takes some of the harder work out of installing WordPress. Once you have WordPress installed you can also use the easy installers to upgrade the software when new upgrades are released. While some blogging consultants recommend you don’t use the easy installers for your initial install or upgrading and there are reasons to not use it, for beginners they are useful tools. You should at some point learn how to upgrade your WordPress installation without the easy installers.

The best reason to use WordPress as your self hosted blogging platform is because of the great community of WordPress users. They are a great resource for helping bloggers of all levels from beginners to expert. Many solutions can be found for any problems you might encounter in the WordPress support forums. If there is a problem you can’t find a solution for in the WordPress support forum the widespread use of WordPress makes it easy to find a WordPress guru to pay to help solve your problem.

Your choice of blogging platform can make a large difference in your blogging. You want to make the most of your time and when you are just starting out the learning curve can be kind of steep no matter what blogging platform you chose. In my experience of working on the web and working with many different blogging platforms over the years I do find Blogger.com and WordPress, either hosted or self hosted, to be the platforms that are the easiest to use. It is also possible to move your blog at a later time to another platform if you feel you want to change. Some platforms don’t give you any options to move afterward and you will then either have to abandon your blog and start over, or find another way of moving your data, such as copying and pasting.

Your turn, every blogger has an opinion about what platform people should use. What blogging platform would you recommend to a beginner blogger?

Photo by whiteafrican

• Easy Top Post Widget
• Developing Money Making Niche Sites with WordPress
• RSS - What, Where, Why and How
• 5 WordPress Search Engine Essentials
• Making Backup Sexy!

Looking at the last 10 months of Epiblogger, it occurs to me that I have been entirely too clever. There really isn’t a lot of diversity in what I have said. I have found new ways of saying the same thing over and over again—which continues to tell me that I am bound for a life in radio, but that’s beside the point. I have been beating the idea of Organic Blogging to a green-mash. But everyone needs a bit more fibre. Keeps us regular. So, I am going to do my darnedest to be a bit more practical and try to keep my head out of the clouds.

The reason for this shift in thought? Well because I am changing and two weeks go I was laid off which forced me to completely deconstruct my thinking. Last week, I read one of my favourite bloggers was removing comments and I am disappointed.

After I was laid off and feeling like the world had just failed me (or vice versa), I watched the Band of Brothers mini-series to complete my feeling of utter disappointment and to validate the thought that the world is a bad place. Alright, so I had an ice cream and Julia Roberts day. Except it was nachos and explosions and the utter depravity of humanity captured for my viewing pleasure. One of the great things I understood from watching the series is the nature of leadership. The best leaders, the best teachers, the best bloggers are those that are in shoulder-to-shoulder in the muck.

There’s a problem with that analogy. It’s not completely true. Obviously, if we follow through with the military analogy, the Generals aren’t getting their feet-wet. However, if they are the best leaders, then they will realize where they came from. If I started a blog where I lectured you on topics A, B and C and had no comments from the start, that would be fine. However, if I started a blog, building a community and reputation through comments and communication, then I pulled a Caesar on you—it feels disappointing.

I didn’t start this blog at the top. I started shoulder-to-shoulder with people in similar stations. And if Lee and I ever get to the top, I hope we never consider removing the community’s—who’s been so gracious as to spend their time with us—voice.

I get that some people are assholes. Some have bad advice. Some just like to give you a bunch of useless knowledge interwoven with a new practical spirit *cough*. Some people want attention. And some genuinely want to discuss and converse about the nature of the topic at hand. When it comes to community and comments, you can’t shut out the same people who support you and you have to deal with all types of people.

In retrospect, now that I have my friends and family helping me find employment—even though I lost my faith in humanity momentarily—I have seen the bad side, but I have seen the best side from people that I don’t even know. People who want to help in anyway they can. I promise that as long as I believe in humanity, I will believe in conversations.

Ultimately, there are bad people out there, but I believe that more-or-less most people just want to help. It would be prudent for yourself to accept that help. I know that Lee and I are not going to go anywhere without you.

You take the good and take the bad… and I think we all know where this is heading:

Photo by Sammis Co

• I am part of the problem
• The Cool Bloggers
• Social Proof - The Masses Can’t Be Wrong
• Nationality and Blogging
• Bring the Audience to You

I personally was using the method I described in my previous post on my webmaster blog, and it worked great. The biggest problem was the need to redo it after every upgade. Granted the time spent redoing it is nothing compared to dealing with the hundreds of robots leaving comment spam. After the last upgrade I did not have time to complete my spam fix due to other time pressures and commitments. It did not take long for the comment bots to start taking advantage of the opening. In a few short days I had hundreds of automated comment spam piling and stinking up my blog like the giant a pile of horse shit that it is. Thank goodness for Akismet that kept it off my blog so I did not have to sort through the comments and delete them.

That is when I found WP-SpamFree. WP-SpamFree uses a combination of Javascript and Cookies to prevent automated comment spam from being left. While it works on a different principle than the method I described in my method, it relies on the fact that many automated comment bots cannot handle Javascript and cookies. It is an effective combination. I have been running it on my webmaster blog for just over two weeks and the number of comment spam that I have received has dropped to nearly zero. Looking at the web server log files I can tell that the comment spam I have received has been from actual people visiting the site and leaving it, not from automated comment bots.

Installation is as easy as any other WordPress plugin. Simply download the plugin and unzip it. You will need to upload it to your WordPress blog into the plugins folder. Once it has been uploaded simply activate it in your WordPress administration section by clicking Activate on the plugins page. Once it is activated you will see a WP-SpamFree menu available on the Plugins section. Here you can configure the plugin and set some additional settings to deal with trackback and pingback spam as well as some contact form settings.

If your WordPress blog is swimming in automated comment spam give the WP-SpamFree plugin a try. It might make a world of difference in the amount of comment spam you have to sort through.

• Keep the Comment Bots at Bay
• WordPress Annoyances
• Blog Spring Cleaning
• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors Revisited
• 5 WordPress Security Essentials

As I was watching the movers pack up our house into the truck in Rosthern and then later that day spending the night at our new house in Regina it struck me how both these places were just houses. They had no personality, they were just empty shells waiting to be filled with our lives, our memories and our stories.

Since then my children have made new friends who are routinely coming and playing in our house and backyard. The neighbours have welcomed us to the block with some baking, and certificates to eat out while we were getting settled and this new house in Regina has slowly started to feel like our home as more and more of us comes out in how we care for the place, how we decorate the rooms and as our stories start to be told here.

Blogs are likes houses, they are nothing but empty shells waiting to be filled with our stories that will make the blog our online home of our lives. It is not easy to risk and expose ourselves on our blogs. It is like welcoming strangers into your home, but for those that we connect with our lives will become richer with the new relationships we have created on our digital home. Do we welcome people to our blogs like they are coming to our home or are they merely strangers that we want to make leave as quickly as possible?

• The First Official Epiblogger Meetup
• Blogging in Reruns
• Make Your Blog Work for You
• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors
• Blogging with Character and Leave Botox Blogging Behind

Recently there have been some highlights for Epiblogger. We made Liz Strauss’ 260 Blogs: 260,000 Thank Yous! Rhett and I would both like to thank Liz for including Epiblogger on her list. There are some great blogs that she showcased. If you want to subscribe to all of the blogs that Liz showcased in a feed reader you can use an OPML file that Barbera Ling put together.

Epiblogger has been open now since January 1st of this year and I thought you might be interested in visiting or revisiting some of the more popular posts that we had over the last 7 months. Of course you are also welcome to browse the archives for some of our other great posts. I am sure this will probably make Rhett grimace, but here are the top ten posts on Epiblogger since we opened our doors to the world:

• Our Lives on Twitter: 140 Characters or Less
• 5 WordPress Security Essentials
• The Cool Bloggers
• Blogging with Character and Leave Botox Blogging Behind
• Blogs on the Go - 7 Ways to Make a Mobile Blog
• Nationality and Blogging
• Use WordPress to Welcome Visitors
• WordPress Annoyances
• The War of Numbers
• Why Real Estate is Nothing like Blogging

We will continue our regularly scheduled blogging soon!

Photo by dawnzy58

• Closing up Epiblogger
• Easy Top Post Widget
• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - The Starting Point
• Developing Money Making Niche Sites with WordPress
• Blogging with Google Maps

Personal Blogs

If you want to start a personal blog this step can be very easy. Personal blogs allow you a great deal of flexibility to talk about what ever you wish. You can talk about your family, experiences, your hobbies. While I do not currently have a personal blog, Rhett is currently running a personal blog at Bailing Bucket. I think Rhett’s blog is a great personal blog. It allows people a chance to get to know the “real” Rhett. His blog is a part of who he is. Don’t be fooled into thinking that personal blogs do not have a focus, it is still important for a personal blog to have a focus. For example on Rhett’s blog you will rarely see him talk about work. Rhett’s focus is to talk about who he is, not what he does for a living.

Topic Blogs

If you want to start a topic blog that is more focused than a personal blog you might have more research to do before moving on to the next step. To start a topic blog the first place to look to focus your topic is inside you. Find a topic that you enjoy it will make writing for your blog much easier otherwise you will be nothing more than a botox blogger. You need to find your character and bring you to the blog. Without adding your unique perspective and story to your blog you are not going to add anything new or interesting.

Once you have narrowed down your topic to a few do some research on your topic. Search Google for other blogs that are on your topic. Do some keyword research using the SEOBook.com Keyword Research Tool and Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool to determine if there is enough people interested in your topic. You might find there is already a lot of competition on a particular topic, but if you narrow it down you might find it easier to write. Perhaps focusing your topic on a more local level or on a specific area like families. Even if you are interested in a competitive topic don’t give up hope. Find what it is that you have that is unique and you can still be a success.

If you want to make money from your blog (don’t we all want to make a living from our blog) you will want to look at some ways that you can monetize your blog. When a blog is new it can be best to look at using some affiliate networks. Look for products and services that you use on your topic, and consider placing those ads and maybe writing a post or two about the products or services and why you use them and recommend them. Be genuine. For example here on Epiblogger, Rhett and I have placed two ads. Rhett purchases t-shirts on a regular basis from Uneetee.com and I use MozyHome as an online backup solution for my personal computer. We did not choose those ads lightly. We only wanted to recommend products and services that we personally use. Being genuine in your recommendation will help a great deal in your blog monetization. I will talk more about how to monetize your blog later in the series as well.

What are some ways that you focus your blog topic when you start a new blog?

• Keywords Does Not a Blog Make
• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - The Starting Point
• Closing up Epiblogger
• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - Blogging Platform
• Lather, Rinse, Repeat

I was talking to my friend Mark Steadman earlier this week about authority. He felt he didn’t have much because his niche is saturated. Which is interesting. Mark is a brilliant .NET Developer who is currently working on his own CMS, as well as a brilliant podcast and working full-time. How can he not have authority? It’s because there’s a bizillion other .NET developers, all blogging and all using up authority in that area. Authority is being shared and can Mark, can I get a piece of that pie?

If you want to be an authority, at anything, you have to develop, dig deeper, go further and you will find an undiscovered niche. A gem waiting for you to exploit. That’s where your authority lies. There will always be another niche, right?

I think you could argue and say that I am just not imaginative enough. If I were truly engaged I would find a niche. Or I did the unthinkable and dive into a heavily developed niche, like metablogging, and try to yank some authority from my, would-be, competitors: Darren, Chris, Liz, and so on. And if I want to get authority I need to link to my competitors so that they will notice me and hopefully take pity on me and spare some change. In real life, I am a normal/weird, happy person and online I am a panhandler for authority.

Even Seth noticed this the other day:

It’s tempting to use a medium to write about the medium. It works for a while, but there’s a limit.

Sooner or later, our niche runs out. The well goes dry. It’s all used up. We have nothing else to say or someone else says it better. So we go back to the drawing board and start again. Develop, dig and go further. This method hasn’t lead us astray yet, has it?

Yes, it has. It has in the real world and it has online. Global warming is real, just as much as our desires to mine the internet for every last dollar. But, at the risk of pushing this analogy to it’s breaking point, there are other ways to develop authority. We don’t have to use coal to make power and we don’t have to exploit niches for authority.

And the answer is the exact same thing I have been saying all along. We have to reassess how we approach the net. We need to start with a renewable resource. Something that continues to grow without running out.

Let me suggest to you that you (or your “people”)—yes, you—are that renewable resource. When you come before the subject, when you bring yourself into the equation, that your niche, your content and your authority grows through your vitality. We when approach the web organically than we have something that will only run out if we let it.

Photo by Amanda

• Bring the Audience to You
• A Great New Way to Blog for 2008: Conversation
• Where Are Your Pictures?
• Make Your Blog a Home
• Developing Money Making Niche Sites with WordPress

The Starting Point

I tend to jump in to web projects feet first. Meaning I jump right in and start installing WordPress, start writing and just start going. When Rhett came to be with the idea of Epiblogger the first thing I did was read, and I read a lot. Why should we start another blog about blogging? There are so many out there. I read through a Problogger, I read through Copyblogger, I read DailyBlogTips, I read Lorelle on WordPress, I read, I read and I read. In the end we decided to go ahead with Epiblogger because in all the reading we did we decided we have a unique perspective on blogging to give to people.

The point is if you think you might be interested in starting a blog, the first thing I would suggest you do is read. Read other blogs, take part in those in those communities and start to explore what it is you would like to blog about. While you are exploring other blogs, reading and taking part in the discussions you can explore what it is that you really want to blog about. I have talked about this before, and if you are a regular reader of Epiblogger you might be getting sick of me saying it, but you need to find your passion! Great blogs are not created by keyword research, they are created because the people that write for them are passionate about their topic.

What are some blogs that you spent time reading before you started your blog? What advice would you give a new blogger about where to start blogging?

Photo Infinite staircase by fdecomite

• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - Blogging Platform
• Closing up Epiblogger
• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - Choosing a Topic
• Keywords Does Not a Blog Make
• Blogging in Reruns

Once again, I am speaking in generalities and just making observations. About two months ago, I was in Vegas. I was overwhelmed, but Vegas is no place to make general judgments about America. But Idaho feels like a good place. It’s a little more realistic.

You might say that Canadians have a bit of a mania about being compared to Americans. It would likely be fair to say we are often overshadowed by the magnitude of America. But the truth is we are extremely similar to America, in many ways. We hold very similar values, but there are small differences that make us individual.

In my last Nationality and Blogging post, I was concerned about having Authority. And I wonder if this push for authority comes from the congested areas of the world. The west side of Idaho is very similar to Alberta (the province where I live). Trees, hills, mountains, lakes, rivers and ranchers. One major difference is simply the amount of people. Canada has some 30 million people. America has 300 million. Even in Idaho, I could feel the swell of people. It’s a subtle difference, but once you sense it, the feeling doesn’t go away (or it didn’t for me). Therefore, I can’t help but wonder if the necessity to be noticed amongst the crowd only increases.

So how do you Americans stand out in such a big crowd? Perhaps that’s not a question I can answer. But the people along the trip who stood out to me were the honest ones. Like the woman at the gas station who made fun of me for asking the time when there were clocks on every single wall. The border guards, who had a lot of authority, were just another face in the crowd.

But, I open the floor to you American or non-American bloggers once again. Let me hear what you have to say.

Photo by Hot Ash

• Nationality and Blogging
• Niches are Non-Renewable
• Navigating the Downs
• Blogging Grief
• The War of Numbers

It can be difficult to constantly be creating new and creative posts for your blog. To be creative and a better writer you need to take a break occasionally. Your mind will relax, your body will relax and most importantly you will return in a better state of mind to continue pouring your heart and soul into your blog.

I think we have some great posts coming up in the next little while when Rhett and I return from our holidays. Rhett, I believe, is going to continue his series on “Being Sold (Out)”. I have also started a series of posts specifically for new bloggers. Posts that will help people get started blogging. It will be great to come back full of energy and ideas.

What do you think should bloggers take vacations from blogging?

• Blogging in Reruns
• The Blogging Wall
• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - The Starting Point
• Closing up Epiblogger
• Make Your Blog Work for You

Rhett and I appreciate everyone that has linked to us but I wanted to say a special thank you to a couple of people that have been kind enough to give us advertising space on their blogs.

First is Simonne over at All Tips and Tricks. I have been a regular reader of All Tips and Tricks for a while and enjoy Simonne’s writing and can often find something interesting and new to think or write about myself. Simonne offered to place Epibloggers 125×125 ad several months ago and I really appreciate her support of Epiblogger.

Next is Ronald over at The Reader Appreciation Project. The Reader Appreciation Project blog has many things in common with Epiblogger and I think our blogs compliment each other very well. The Reader Appreciation Project focuses on why the readers of blogs are the greatest asset a blog can have.

Thank you very much to everyone that links to us. We appreciate that you take the time to read, comment and link. It is a great show of support for Epiblogger and I have been enjoying getting to know you all through comments and reading your blogs.

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Preparation H

We did all the legal stuff. We setup a business partnership, we agreed on roles (I’m the superstar and he’s my support, obviously) and how we would approach the blog. I wanted to be prepared for everything. It’s like when you were twenty and thought it would be a great idea to move in with your best friend and then it destroyed your friendship. I liked being friends with Lee and I didn’t want to jeopardize that for the sake of the blog. But there was one thing I didn’t factor into being prepared—my craziness. Frankly, I think I was initially worried about Lee, because I am such a good communicator how could I ever go wrong?

Crazy? No you!

Well, it occurred to me today, after a small crazy display, that since there are so many people moving to blogging partnerships, multiple authors and various other group blogs that I should approach this subject of working together.

Why Won’t the Ducks Line-up

The first and most importantly, be as prepared as you can before you start. Talk about your fears, get business agreements and vocalize everything important and absurd. Especially, if you think in worst case scenarios, like me. One of my ridiculous fears, was that Lee (because he took care of my hosting for a while) had access to my personal domain names. I worried that we would get into a fight and then he might steal my domains. I told him that. Because I have heard stories of how mental people get after they get involved in businesses together. Do I really think Lee would steal my domains? Absolutely not. But I wanted to be upfront and honest and I knew that Lee could handle that level of my craziness. I still have a weird fear about losing domains, so I recently moved them all to one registrar all in my name. Yes, it cost me more, but the piece of mind is nice.

The Diva has Entered the Building

You have to know yourself. And you have to remember and remind others about who you are, so they can anticipate the crazy. Prior to being married, I dated a girl for a couple years that got to know me pretty well. And she used to say that once and a while I would explode. I would sit on something and think and think and think and think about it, like a volcano who’s pressure was continually building. And sooner or later, without warning, I would blow. And the person (in this case Lee) would be completely surprised and shocked. And to further the damage, I generally want an answer (to usually my large questions immediately). Just because I was thinking about it for the last week, doesn’t mean you get a whole week. I need an answer now!

Luckily for me, Lee is both graceful and wise. And he usually can defuse my would-be explosions easily. Because, even though I think I have thought of everything, I haven’t. And yes, I am a bit of a diva.

It’s Not Always About You

Not only is compromise integral, it’s really integral. For instance, I just completely blindsided Lee with a bunch of questions about where Epiblogger is going, what are we doing and am I ever going to be the superstar that I want to be? To which he replied whoa, that’s a lot of questions. He told me that we just need to keep going, he’s got big dreams for this place (as do I) and he’s got too many things on his mind to completely focus on the “big picture”. He’s moving and so am I (we finally got a house). Which makes total sense. Rhett = defused.

Let’s Talk About… Everything

Me erupting like a volcano isn’t necessarily the most healthy way to communicate, but at the very least it is communication. If you are in a partnership you need to be able to communicate with those who you are dealing with. You can’t turtle (hide in your shell) if you annoyed or angry and you can’t Hulk Smash your partner either. You need to assertively approach the situation and explain yourself and be willing to listen and hear the responses.

So far, from my perspective, Lee and I are doing pretty good. How about you? Also, I generally don’t use sub-headings, but I have been watching a lot of Frasier lately.

Photo by Taro Taylor

• The War of Numbers
• Why Real Estate is Nothing like Blogging
• Add Some Spice and New Perspective to Your Blog
• Avoid Failure by Capturing Your Audiences Attention
• Do You Love Your Blog?

I have no doubt that this topic has been covered, repeatedly, with statistics. In fact, I have read a couple. And where would humanity be without our god—Statisticus. We have stats for everything: statistics that track eye-movement and clickthrough rates and pagviews and so on. Funny enough, the numbers go up when we use images. It’s like dangling your keys in front of a baby. Gah! So shiny and makes noise. In my mind, Gah! is sound a baby makes in exclamation.

Instead of assuming the shiny-object theory, I say we give ourselves a little more credit and say that I want to see pictures because I want to get to know you. I can’t help it. I do. But you keep witholding yourself from me. I click on your About and I see just a small block of text and no pictures. Get over yourself. I know, you feel arrogant for writing in the third person and putting your beautiful face online. I used to feel that way too. Maybe the internet just needs you to be a little arrogant.

I have said it before and I will say it again, the internet is naturally void of humanity. It is your job as members of this community to bring yourselves into it. I don’t care if you are a small or big business or a personal or professional blogger. Put your damn picture online. Share yourself.

Not putting pictures of yourself, your employees and the people you love and work with online is the biggest mistake and most people don’t do it. And if you want to chalk it up to stats, marketing and keeping users on your site, than do it (And a little trick put them in a Z pattern, it leads the eye down (like pinstripes)). And I won’t argue. It will absolutely work. But, if you are looking for the deeper reason, it’s because we all want to know you. So, don’t be a jerk, put your picture online and share yourself.

• Being Sold (Out): Risky Blogging
• The Looking In Advantage
• Blogs are Worse Than Ex-Girlfriends
• Keywords Does Not a Blog Make
• The First Official Epiblogger Meetup

• You read all the “top” bloggers and really can’t say anything that they have not already said.
• You really just want to make money online and not do any work.
• You don’t really like people and don’t want to hear what others have to say.
• You have no time already, how are you going to keep up with a blog and write posts that people will actually want to read.
• You don’t really understand the whole Internet thing and have never actually read another blog.
• You want to spend time with your family/friends/kids/dog/cat/boyfriend/girlfriend/etc instead of blogging.
• You just want to make the front page of Digg or some other social news website.
• You are just a negative person and just want to rant about how everything sucks.
• You dnot konw how to selpl.
• You can’t think of anything good or original to write about so you only make up lists. (opps)

If you are guilty of blogging for the majority of those reasons, maybe you should consider why you are blogging? What do you have that is unique that you can offer to people on your blog? Is it your passion for crafts, sports, accounting? Find your unique perspective and your blog will be a huge success!

• Blogs are Worse Than Ex-Girlfriends
• Digg - A Bloggers One Night Stand
• It Takes a Community to Raise a Blog
• Bring the Audience to You
• Keywords Does Not a Blog Make

I should also admit that my life is full of realizing incredibly inane and obvious things. Currently, I work as a Web Project Manager and I started this job four months ago. When I started, in the men’s bathroom, the paper towel dispenser was on the north wall. Unfortunately, the paper towel dispenser was above the basket that holds the magazines and inevitably, after washing your hands, you would end up dripping water all over the magazines and that was a bit gross. All the men in the office got together to discuss this and we came up with the brilliant idea of moving the paper towel dispenser to the south wall. Problem solved. Until the next time.

I went to the bathroom and I washed my hands, turned to the north wall and remembered it was moved. Well, for the last month, every time I went to the bathroom and washed my hands I turned to the north wall first. Needless to say, I was stuck in a pattern. It was like I lost a limb and I was having phantom paper towel dispenser sensations.

Luckily, even though I am sometimes hard-headed, I can change. We bloggers live in a medium that is inherently organic and therefore changing and perhaps this is the greatest argument for being an organic blogger. We must change with the times and with ourselves. Being organic means that we are constantly changing and we have the sails open and are ready to move. Some times we might drop the anchor, but we can only stay static for a short time.

Where did the sailing imagery coming from? How do you approach growth and change?

This was the third part of the series ‘Being Sold (Out)’. You can also read part one and two.

Photo by Alyson Hurt

• The Blogging Wall
• Closing up Epiblogger
• Being Sold (Out): The Organic Switch
• Lather, Rinse, Repeat
• Being Sold (Out): Risky Blogging

Google Maps My Maps
The Google My Maps feature let’s people create their own maps. You can add placemarks, create lines and shapes over top of the map. They have alos made it easy to embed the maps now using an iframe. Simply click the “Link to the page” link and you are given a link to the page and an embed code. Below is a simple map I made with some placemarks of the Town of Rosthern where I live.

View Larger Map

Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
As great as the Google Maps My Maps features are, I still like to get under the hood a little bit. The Google Maps Plugin for WordPress lets you do just that. While you can use it to create simple maps and with one point, or use it to add a Google Maps My Map into your blog, the real benefit of using the Google Maps Plugin for WordPress is the ability to map blog. The content for the map is not stored in an inline frame on some other server, it is stored right on your blog post so it is able to be indexed by the search engines as content.

To use the Google Maps Plugin for WordPress you need to install in like most other WordPress plugins by uploading it to your plugins folder. You will also need a Google Maps API key for your domain. I entered www.epiblogger.net to get the API key for Epiblogger. Once you have the plugin installed and the API key entered you can start creating maps from simple single marker maps to complex multi-marker maps. You can also use the Google Maps Plugin for WordPress to add your own custom Google My Maps that you made above instead of using the Google inline frame embed code.

Here is the same map I embedded above except I embedded it using the Google Maps Plugin for WordPress. It is a simple link. The default is to add a marker at the center of the map with the content of the link showing on that marker. You can easily turn that off with some of the parameters that are available to customize the map.

This is the same map I added above but it is added using the Google Maps Plugin for WordPress. This content shows in the center marker, but it is also indexable by the search engines.

I would encourage you to read through the great documentation that is available for the Google Maps Plugin for WordPress. It can walk you through how to create all types of maps to add to your blog with easy to follow instructions.

Conclusion
There are other mapping solutions you can use to add maps to your blog, but these are the two I prefer to use because they are easy for anyone to use. For the most basic maps the Google My Maps feature you can have a map embedded on your blog in under five minutes. If you want more control and are concerned about the content of the maps being indexed by search engines then the Google Maps Plugin for WordPress offers you several options to add maps to your blog.

Just think of the possibilities that are open to you now. You could map and blog about your last vacation and add photos/videos to each point. You can create a contact page with your exact location for customers to find you, along with a form to get directions to your office. You can create a custom map to your next blog meet up so no one gets lost. What are some ways you could use maps on your blog?

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It does take a little while to get the hang of Jott but it is very easy to use. Simply sign up for the service at Jott.com only calls coming from your phone numbers you have registered will work. You can add multiple phone numbers to the service so you can Jott from your home phone, your cell phone and your work phone. Once you sign up I would experiment with this service a little by calling and then sending a Jott to yourself to get the hang of the service. If you need a hand they have a number of tutorials on how to use the service to send Jotts to individuals, groups and other web services like Twitter and of course most importantly your blog!

Jotts can only be approximately 30 seconds long. For creating a blog post it is best to actually Jott to yourself and put them together later instead of posting directly to your blog. That is how this post was created. I Jotted to myself several times and put the post together afterwards.

Jott can be used to not only help you post to your blog but also help you keep up with the great many ideas you have for your blog. Update Twitter, Google Calendar, send e-mails and a wide range of other web services. Jott could become your virtual assistant, helping you do many other tasks you do right now in front of your computer.

What are some ways you think you could use Jott in relation to blogging?

Note: The body of this post was created using Jott. The links and some punctuation were added and or corrected in under 10 minutes when I copied the text to Epiblogger.

• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - Blogging Platform
• Being Sold (Out): The Organic Switch
• Blogs on the Go - 7 Ways to Make a Mobile Blog
• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - Choosing a Topic
• Keep the Comment Bots at Bay

The Wall is a legendary thing. Usually encountered around mile 20, it’s the point where the flesh weakens, the spirit sags and the will drains away into a little puddle on the ground. Legs turn to melting Jell-O and breath comes in short, gasping gulps. In all of sports, there is probably nothing as feared, or misunderstood, as this inner barrier where the unprepared run out of steam and can go no further.
From: Breaking through the wall - marathon running techniques

While I am not a runner by an stretch of the imagination, the blogging wall is as real as the wall that marathon runners experience. Bloggers put great amounts of energy into writing and creating posts week after week, day after day and at some point the energy just seems to dry up. It is at this point that many bloggers will stop posting on their blogs altogether. They seem to disappear off of the blogosphere, and sometimes even the Internet.

I could make a long list of things that you as a blogger could do to make it through the blogging wall, but there is only one thing you need to do. Just keep going! Keep writing, keep posting, keep participating in the community that you have started and in the blogging communities that you are a part of. To quote Dory from Finding Nemo:

Dory: [singing] Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.

What helps you as a blogger to keep going when you have hit the “blogging wall”?

Photo by Paul Keleher

• A Beginners Guide to Blogging - The Starting Point
• Make Your Blog Work for You
• Closing up Epiblogger
• Closed for Holidays!
• Blogging in Reruns