I feel like a Blogging father… wait I’m already one!

Thanks one and all for the words of encouragement and the derivative posts you wrote.

I’ll contact each of you after Gen Con so we can discuss making this into an E-book and becoming published authors.

http://exchangeofrealities.today.com/2008/08/03/the-language-of-dice/

Speaking of which, does anyone other than me find the one-letter difference between my screenname and that of the writer of the other article linked in the edit amusing?

Ravyns last blog post..The Language of Dice

MadBrewLabss last blog post..Web Design Principles & Pitfalls

Storytellers last blog post..The Good, The Bad, and The Neutral

Speaking of which…

Donny_the_DMs last blog post..Tales from behind the woodshed…part I

But seriously, check out how many people actually click through those other links on your sidebar. It’s sobering. Using CommentLuv is a MUCH better solution as that puts the links straight into eyeline of your comment readers.

But if sidebars work for you, great!

@ Gregor: Don’t sweat Greywulf, he’s got weird ideas that somehow work for him…

Plus, he’s blogging on some strange wiki software…

I agree that a sidebar is a good navigational tool… that’s why I’m trying to increase readability by posting links to my best series on the sidebar.

First, count me as another who started a blog because of this series.

I want to respond to something Greywulf said, though:
Readers don’t use sidebars – they’re a convenience for you – so keep ‘em simple and out of the way. Consider ditching the sidebar completely

I may be a new blogger, but I’m a reader with close to 40 rss feeds linked in my Firefox toolbar and I think this is terrible advice. I found a lot of those blogs after you enabled CommentLuv, and the ones without archive links in the sidebar never failed to annoy me. When I find a new blog the first thing I want to do is scan over the (preferably complete) archives in some summarized manner so I can see how long the blog has been around, how frequent the posts are, and whether the blogger has been consistently writing about subjects of interest to me or if their “Playing D&D4e with my kids” post is buried in a bunch of ramblings about PTA meetings and runny noses.

Gregor LeBlaques last blog post..If a medium size minotaur knocks over a large dragon, is it silly, cool or both?

@Ravyn: Thanks for your post, I’ll put a link to it in mine in the next minute

@Matthew: Thanks for the kudos. Don’t sweat the “added value”, you’re not blogging about Britney Spear’s latest gaffe so chances are you are adding value to the web.

@Karsten: Team blogging is a great Slump/burnout deterrent. Look at the Gnome Stew crowd, this is some great team GM blog.

@Greywulf: Ohhhh that’s why there’s so many guys obsessed with Rouge! I was wondering what all that makeup talk was about?

Good tips my man!

Go to sleep chanting “Content is King, Content is King, Content is King”. Wake up chanting it too. If you spend 4 hours every week trying to create the perfect theme for your blog, but only make one blogpost in all that time You Have Failed. Your posts must come first, every single time.

Write for yourself, but choose a theme for your audience. If you’re posting about stuff you enjoy, you’ll keep posting, write more, and write better. Be enthusiastic. Pick a theme that’s clean and simple. Readers don’t use sidebars – they’re a convenience for you – so keep ‘em simple and out of the way. Consider ditching the sidebar completely as this gives more screen estate for what’s important – the Content!

Think about your RSS feed. It’s important as that’s what draws your existing readers back to the fold. Put your entire post in the RSS and they won’t click through as they’ve already got your words. If your number of pageviews doesn’t matter then that’s great, but if you’re sweating over Google Analytics every day you’re not doing yourself any favours. If your RSS feed is just the title then you’ve better make sure your title is GREAT! A good compromise is title+teaser (perhaps the first paragraph of your post). Find out what your blogging software can do to control the RSS, and find the best balance for you.

On the subject of RSS – if you make a blogpost that’s just a list of interesting links then your readers using RSS will click through to those links directly from the RSS; they won’t go to your blog first, /then/ click. Again, if you’re interesting in number of pageviews it’s a Failed Post. Put more effort in to make your own posts valuable (so other folks link to you!), fold those links into what you have to say or write another post soon afterwards.

Don’t sweat about how often you blog. Find a rhythm that suits you, and be flexible. Life > blogging. If you don’t blog for a few days your visitors will tail off, but they’ll return when you do. Don’t worry about it.

Blog tactically. Use words that you know your fanbase will use when searching Google. Blog about current events, use the correct terms for the game, and (sneaky alert!) occasionally drop in mis-spellings to pick up the mis-spellers of the world. For example, I picked up a lot of traffic from typing Figthers instead of Fighters in one post about D&D. Go figure.

Write about all your interests. It’s your blog, and you’re unique. There’s bound to be other D&D bicyicle enthusiasts out there.

OK. I’m done. Need more coffee

Karstens last blog post..Martial Arts