Let’s face it - people love to win free stuff and hosting a contest on your blog or website is a great way to create excitement and increase your traffic. Large companies understand the value of holding contests and sweepstakes because they know it can introduce products, services, blogs and websites to new readers that don’t already know about them. Pepsi and Coke are prime examples of how using promotions such as “Coke Rewards” with an optional entry to win trips and cash can spike a use in their product and create a buzz.
Although language relies on certain rules, a story requires more than simple definitions to unfold. Look at this example to see how a simple sentence can be rewritten word by word to turn into a whole paragraph.
Certainly this is not art and it contains a considerable amount of redundant and superficial information. However, its creation did require imagination. The thing is, whether you’re writing a diary, a blog or a column for a magazine, writing remains a creative process.
No one can argue that one of the most popular blogging platforms these days is Wordpress. The solid framework makes it the geek’s choice, but Wordpress further gains its popularity among laymen because of its flexibility for expanding its functions and looks. There are thousands of plugins and themes available to be downloaded and used for free from the official Wordpress site alone which opens up unlimited possibilities of what you want your blog to be.
After using numerous items, I (and I’m sure that most people too) have reached the point where I wanted to make my own blog. While developing your own Wordpress plugins requires a certain level of programming knowledge, building the themes is not.
After a long wait, Google Adsense for Feeds has finally goes live. This gives Adsense customers the opportunity to earn some extra revenue by inserting Google adverts inside their blog RSS Feedburner feeds, either at the top or at the bottom of their posts. You can also choose whether the adverts appear in each post, in every 2nd post, 3rd post and so on. So the options are quite flexible.
Twitter is a great way to keep up with friends, family, online contacts, and even internet celebrities. It’s also a wonderful way to share news about yourself and your online exploits with people interested in YOUR story. A relatively new webapp called TwitterCounter can help you build a following and track your popularity over time.
TwitterCounter provides the Twitter community with a service that many other forms of communication already have. If you syndicate your own RSS feed, for example, Feed Burner is a quick and easy way to publicize and track the subscriptions to your feed. TwitterCounter is the Twitter equivalent of Feed Burner, automatically generating a counter for your site and giving you access to some fairly reasonable statistical data.
I was recently away when my blog broke. A plug-in had somehow broken down, became corrupt and an embarrassing PHP error was seen on the top of every page. Worse yet the admin section wouldn’t work period. The solution was simple right? Log in via FTP and delete the corrupt plug-in.
Unfortunately Murphy’s Law was at work. The computer I had access to had no FTP client (I couldn’t install one/didn’t want to take the time). My two options were to wait till I got home to fix it, or I could use an online FTP client.
So you are into reading blogs, right? You probably have RSS subscriptions in your favorite reader, ocassionally you also like to search a blog or two. Or you might be using Technorati. Ever heard of Twingly? Twingly is a new blog search engine. Ah.. another one, you may say. However, Twingly sets itself apart from the rest.
As for the search, Twingly claims to offer spam free search. It manages to do so by showing results from a blog that has link from ‘high quality sites/blogs’. In addition to this, it boasts of the following features:
Call me the upgrade freak as I always have to have the latest versions of everything. But there was one exception: the Wordpress installation on my blogs. The reason was that upgrading Wordpress was not a walk in the park.
If it’s just about downloading the latest version, then there wouldn’t be any problem. Unfortunately, the process also involves backing-up the database, deactivating the plugins, uploading the latest installation files (which could be a hellish experience, especially on an unstable and slow internet connection), upgrading the database, reactivating the plugins, and upgrading the plugins (if needed). Add to that the possibilities of crushing your blog entirely and you have the perfect combination of reasons not to try to upgrade.
There might be several reasons why a reader would want to be able to convert a web page to PDF, such as: to share with a non-online friend, to be able to email it or to put it into a PDF device to read later; while still retaining the original form of the page. That’s why web to PDF conversion tools are gaining popularity.
But if we look it from the perspective of the site owner, giving the readers the ability to ‘PDF-print’ your pages will improve your site likeability by several points, and increase the site’s exposure to new readers.
ChipIn is a neat and free web app that allows you to raise money online easily and quickly - without a lot of complicated coding or hassles.
Signing up is easy - just start filling in the boxes, tell them what you are raising money for, how much, how soon you need it, and your PayPal email address. It is important to note that if you use PayPal, you may be subject to their fees.
Recently, Tina introduced us to Springnote, a great Wiki-like application for taking notes, sharing them and collaborating. However, many of us still like to keep our personal lives documented and there are very few places on the net which allow you to do this as you would in real life. Let me introduce Penzu, a great solution if you want to keep an online diary. Springnote is geared toward collaboration, but in theory it can be used to make notes for yourself. Penzu is the exact opposite, it is specifically tuned to individual needs, but some sharing is available.
As I started to catch up with more “modern” methods of blogging (so long, Blogger.com!), I realized that I was sadly behind the times when it came to my blogger’s toolbox. Sure, the default Wordpress interface is clean, unimposing, and easy to deal with, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I needed a Swiss Army knife of a blog app, stat!
Since I’m a die-hard Firefox user, I headed over to the Firefox addons site to find a worthy candidate. A quick search turned up a few possibilities, the top two being ScribeFire and Deepest Sender. A quick look at the download stats: 1.6 million vs. 57,000 and I had a pretty good idea which one was going to win.
If I could name one Microsoft application which has met with the near unanimous approval of the tech crowd then it’s Windows Live Writer. I can only speak for myself, but I know a lot of bloggers who wouldn’t be able to live without this handy piece of software… and now it has just got even better.
Shankar has previously discussed this subject but the latest Windows Live Writer code drop has been released as a technical preview and so I think it’s as good a time as any to go through a few more of the things you do with Writer and describing the changes in this build.
In my last article, I talked about how you can use NicEdit to add RichText WYSIWYG functionality to your blog comments. Well today I want to talk about a Wordpress plugin that I found which adds a bit of extra personalization when someone leaves a comment on one of your posts. It is called MyAvatars.
MyAvatars was designed by an Italian developer and works using Yahoo-owned MyBlogLog. It simply shows the blog commenter’s MyBlogLog (MBL) avatar next to their comment.
“Only two lines of javascript and what a difference it makes!” That was my conclusion after trying out NicEdit on my personal blog - a script that puts RichText WYSIWYG functionality into a blog’s comment section.
As any blogger will tell you, the comments section of the blog is pretty much the life-blood of the site. The blog community revolves around the comments section. Discussions, arguments and relationships revolve around the comments section. Spammers go wild in the comments section! I spend a good part of my day in the comment moderation section of Make Use Of making sure everyone behaves themselves and that the Viagra & male organ enhancement salesmen take their business elsewhere.
On this week’s Make Use Of podcast I am talking to Karl Gechlik, a Make Use Of writer and the guy behind Ask The Admin. We managed to cover subjects such as Windows Vista, LocatePC, Google Maps and blog commenting.
If you look underneath the show notes on this page, you will see a little media player where you can listen to the podcast right here on the site. Or if you prefer, you can right-click on the “audio MP3″ logo and save the MP3 file to your computer for listening on your MP3 player or iPod.
We all know that selecting the right keywords is an important prerequisite for a good search engine visibility of a blog/website. There are many keyword tools available online, some of them being completely free and some are paid but offer a free edition with a few features.
We decided to list the best of the free tools which can help you research different keywords specific to your site and optimize the site.
1: Google Adwords Research Tool
Although this tool is primarily meant for Adwords bidders, this is also widely used by webmasters and publishers to measure the popularity of different keywords based on their Google search volume.
Be it your desktop, a post to your blog or your homepage banner, the right image can help bring your point across, make it stand out and shine or simply look very cool.
What does royalty free mean in the first place?
Simply put, you don’t have to pay royalties or license fees for using the material. It doesn’t necessarily mean the material is completely free, in most cases you will still need to pay a small initial fee to obtain the image, icon or sound. Then however, you can use it in any way the end user license agreement allows you to, meaning no further license fees will have to be paid.
Have you ever wanted to easily restrict content access on your site to registered users? Normally, you would use a content management platform that lets you do so, but what if what you’re using doesn’t have said feature (which is the case in most general page builders and blogging platforms)?
Well, QuickInsert is a simple-to-use free tool that lets you create content on your site with a user community using only one line of code.
As bloggers, it’s important for you to recognize your readers and be able to interact with them and take their suggestions. In fact, putting them in the spotlight helps you gain loyalty and fandom.
You should be able to receive suggestions for blog posts and questions on some issues from your blog’s readers. However, a new service from Paul Stamatiou called Skribit takes reader participation to a whole new level.
What does Skribit do?
So, you have finished building your first Wordpress blog. Then what? Besides posting, you’ll want to expand the capabilities of the blog by installing some plugins.
Then comes the second question; which plugins exactly? There are literally thousands of Wordpress plugins available out there. Too many options. Everybody has different preferences, different needs. Not to mention that Wordpress users tend to be happy-go-experimenty-want-to-try-them-all kinda people.
So, which one?
Well, there is one plugin that you must install first before you install any other plugins. It’s called Plugin Central (download it here).
The reason is simple; this plugin will enable you to install every other plugin easily via the web interface. No more meddling with FTP clients, no more memorizing logins and passwords to the FTP account.
While there are many web analytics tools out there, the website statistics (metrics) that they reveal are pretty standard across all the tools. But just what do all these hundreds of web metrics and terms exactly mean and what should you do with them? They can be pretty confusing! So this post is for those of you who want a quick primer on these website metrics, and to help you understand which ones are most useful for analyzing and improving your blogs or websites. Anyway… I think I hear the class bell… lets get started!
I’ve been sampling a new mobilization service called MoFuse lately and I have to admit, this web application is awesome. If you ever wanted to create a mobile version of your site, MoFuse is exactly what you’ve been looking for. Using MoFuse’s grow page, you can easily create a mobile version of any web site in a matter of seconds. And I mean literally seconds.
Travis has already introduced Windows Live Writer to Make Use Of readers so I just thought I would tell everyone about some features that can be turned on, some settings that can be configured so that you can make use of Windows Live Writer better.
One thing that I missed a lot on Windows Live Writer (WLW) is a spell checker. But when Travis told me that there was a spell checker inbuilt and only that it needed to be turned on, I was overjoyed. Here’s how you can turn it on:
First of all, thanks for all the kind words regarding my first web analytics post here last week! I started with the basics last time. This time I am going to be discussing all the free web analytics tools out there and yes, believe it or not, just because they are free, doesn’t mean they aren’t any good - you can get some great results using these.
I will walk you through the free basic tools that are essential to tracking your basic visitor stats, and then some more unusual, advanced tools that help you analyze your websites for free. So this post is really ideal for any wannabe web analysts out there who have a limited budget (i.e. zero).
I often get a lot of emails and instant messages from people looking to start their own blogs. Typically the questions run along the lines of “how do I get started?” and “how do I get my blog noticed?”. Well folks, it isn’t as difficult as you might think. Starting a blog is extremely easy. Getting it noticed though is something else entirely.
I’m excited to write my first post for MakeUseOf.com. I am a passionate web analyst with many years experience analyzing and improving websites. For my first post, I am going to start with the web analytics basics, great for newcomers to web analytics - 7 Reasons Why Your Website Won’t Last Without Analytics. This will hopefully make you realize how important web analytics are to your website! So, without further ado…
First of all, what are Wordpress quicktags? You can see them in the picture below, they are the bits of code you can insert when you use the code interface in your Wordpress editor.
The reason they are so useful is that they allow you to insert start and end tags in a unique and easy way. Start writing and when you need the tag (i.e. bold, list etc.) click on its button and the start tag will be pasted. When you are ready to end the tag, just click on the same button and you will paste the end tag.
Undeniably RSS is one of the best things that has happened to the web after email. Not only has it made browsing a lot more productive, convenient, fun … you name it, but it has also introduced a number of new ways to interact with content that we could never have imagined before. While you’re most probably already familiar with the idea of RSS feeds and Feedreader (No? See this video) , there are several other ways you can make use of feeds.
MakeUseOf guest author Adam Hirsch covered Windows Live Writer back in August when it was still in beta, but still a good application with promise.
Now it’s out, and Windows Live Writer is a great application with millions of users using it as their desktop blog publisher of choice.
Currently, Writer works with most of the major blog providers out there. Including but not limited to Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Movable Type, etc. It really only takes a few seconds to get started thanks to Writer’s built-in automatic configuration that sets up your application, syncs your categories and downloads your blog’s template files so that you can see what your blog post will truly look like.
If you’ve got the desire to master the English language, the web is one of the best resources that’s available to you. Knowing the right sites and devoting some time, you can easily take the way you read, speak, and write English to the next level. Even if you’re a native speaker, it doesn’t hurt to improve your grammar every now and then. New words are being invented all the time courtesy of the Web, a prime example being “to google” for something. 
Here, I have listed the resources I have used in the past, and those I’m currently using, for your own benefit.