This was a bit of awesome news for me today as I saw a tweet mentioning that I had become featured blogger on the website, Bloggers, a website where bloggers like myself can hook up with other bloggers and show off their blogs to the world!!!

So I was over the moon when the I saw the tweet and just had to get to my blog and, well, blog about it. I am hoping this shows that I am doing something right with my blog and it is getting recognised in the blogging communities.

So I must say an awesome big thank you to everyone over at Bloggers for the opportunity to become the featured blogger, so please stop by and check out me out on Bloggers, while you are there please vote for me also, if you are a blogger, then why not add your own blog

Tags: Blog, blogger, bloggers, Blogging, blogs, Community, Social

I’ve visited a few blogs since I started blogging and over the last year my blog has grown in popularity and it’s comments, but the question is:

Is there a right or wrong way to display comments?

For those who are not sure what I mean by displaying your comments on your blog I shall try to explain…

On a Wordpress set up you have several options for your comments, one is that you can display your comments as the most recent comment at the top of the comments list or most recent at the bottom,  another option which is useful for Website SEO is the option to split comments over pages, for example imagine you’ve got 40 comments on one post, imaging how big that page would look! So you can spread the comments over so many pages and does it make a difference in the SEO of your blog and help with the loading time with Google.

So now it’s over to my readers ….

• Do you prefer to have the comments with the latest at the top or the bottom of the comment list?
• How many comments per page do you think is just enough?

It will be interesting to see everyone’s responses about this

Tags: Blogging, blogs, commenting on blogs, Website SEO, Wordpress

The other day I posted about if you have a donate button on your blogand the comments have been very interesting, so I thought I would continue on the subject but this time with a different outlook on the debate of Donate Buttons.

So I’m going to ask you all something about the side of donating to Blazing Minds, if I was to give away one of our albums to download to each person that donates a minimum amount of say £2.99 would you be more likely to donate to the blog and support my music project? For example you can currently get one of the Remergence EPs for £2.99 you could get that if you wanted

Yes I know this is probably the same as buying an album, but, with a difference that you could decide on the amount you wish to donate it could be more if you so wish.

Then anyone who donates is actually getting a little something back, anyway, let me know what you all think and if it looks good I will update the donate button to something like “Donate to Blazing Minds and get an album download”

Tags: Blogging, fundraising donations, music downloads

I was happily tweeting away the other day when a tweet came in from @jsinkeywest about the BloggerLuv community, now I’m not one for whoring myself out to these communities and social networks, I am really, so I had to stop by.

Now I like to think that I am a supporter of fellow bloggers and I do try now and again to give a bit of advice and linky love to fellow bloggers, and the BloggerLuv community is one such place that in my humble, if not deranged, opinion is a site that all bloggers should become part of. I’ve not been a member long and I’m only just getting used to what can be done, but it’s one hell of a site!

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Blog, blog tips, BloggerLuv, Blogging, blogging communities, blogs, Do Follow Blogs

Hi I wanted to Thank Karen for letting write a post about why I always like to add videos to my post. Now right off the bat you may think about increasing your bounce rate and I never really knew or cared about how long someone stays on the site  but it does seem like an easy way to increase the time someone is on your site. But what I like about it is maybe I think I haven’t really got my message across or I’m trying to cast a certain mood on the post. Videos let me add one more dimension to my message , it hopefully adds to the emotional impact I’m trying to have people reach.

Sometimes if I’m pumped up I will add a song from youtube that I just heard on the radio, this is cool because you often get to add videos that just came out and people haven’t seen yet . I like vodpod because it’s easy to grab the code off there especially when the  song has been blackedout on youtube.

I also recently noticed vodpod gave me my own little video vault . I don’t spend much time on there and all that but Vodpod does have a community on there of mostly young hip music buffs. Karen is down with the music scene so vodpod seems like a great spot to launch a video to get feedback on. Check it out Vodpod ‘s a cool site.

The main point I’m trying to get at is  I found adding the right video especially if it’s a song that inspired me to write the post adds some extra flavor and hey if it helps your bounce rate all the better.

Ideally videos that YOU made using camtasia uploaded to youtube with your links in the sidebar then used tubemogul would be better but adding music videos has worked for me so  give it a shot Thanks everyone

John Sullivan

PS now this post may seem silly and common sense but the reason I wrote it is because I don’t see many people doing it

Peace

Tags: Blogging, Music, Videos, Website SEO

I can hear you asking, what is ebuzzing? Well it’s a platform started in 2007 that brings advertisers and bloggers together and helps bloggers with make a bit of money by posting on their blogs. They do this by, as ebuzzing says, “relaying” campaigns from the advertisers to the readers of their blogs. Bloggers have several ways to monetize their blogs including broadcasting videos and creating content for brands. Ebuzzing is already operating in the UK and they are going to intensify their offer!

So what does this mean to bloggers in the UK, like myself? Well putting it simply, even more options for monetisation of their blogs and help with the funding for running a blog. You can monetise on your blog via video campaigns with a dedicated player,  video campaigns using “syndicated players” and banners. All campaigns (player and banner videos, and articles written) are about brands and services that you want to recommend to your readers

If you enjoy something, the majority of the time you will recommend it on your blog, so why shouldn’t you get paid for doing it? By recommending an advertiser on your blog you will get paid and this all adds up to a little bit of extra cash in your pocket. Also doing this sort of sponsored article will show that you have an expertise in the field you are blogging about, and over time you are likely to improve on your blog visits.

Ebuzzing has over 800 advertisers have proposed campaigns to bloggers with the help of ebuzzing such as Coca-Cola, Intel, MTV, L?Oréal, MasterCard, Toyota, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, eBay, Canon, Diesel, Warner Bros, Philips, and StudioCanal… Though ebuzzing requires the presence of the disclaimer “sponsored post” for all articles, and for the videos the name of the advertiser must be placed so that it is visible to all viewers.

To keep all the search engines happy all articles that are posted must be declared as a Sponsored Post and also all links are nofollow. Also posts must be of good quality and be at least two hundred and fifty words in length.

So what are you waiting for, stop by and register on ebuzzing.com today and start earning money from the blogging that you do.

Tags: Blogging, ebuzzing, ebuzzing uk, make money blogging, money blogging online, sponsored reviews

This is a guest post from Duncan who is an online marketing specialist and keen blogger representing an online vases retailer

There is a very common SEO technique for building links called “blog comment spamming”. This is very different from “blog commenting” and it is important that a distinction be made before we go any further. Blog commenting is taking a genuine interest in the blog post and leaving constructive feedback or questions in the comment section that ‘adds’ something to the post. Blog comment spamming on the other hand involves not evening reading the post in most cases and leaving some truly generic or mindless comment for the sole purpose of gaining a link. Most importantly, blog comment spamming often ‘takes’ something away from the post and in my opinion is not good for SEO for the following reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Blogging, comment spam, SEO, spamming