Really Nice Shot, If you were trying to NOT hit the target then you are the best I’ve ever seen.  If you were trying to hit the target then. YOU SUCK!.  The problem is if I asked Blogger’s what their Target is most won’t be able to come up with anything specific other than: “lot’s of traffic”.  But what exactly does that mean.

Traffic

There are 3 types of blog traffic Direct, Referral and Search Engine Traffic.

• Direct Traffic

Direct traffic is from someone, anyone typing in your web address into their browser and coming directly to your site, this also counts for those who have your site stored in the Bookmarks part of their browser.  This traffic is specific to you, these are you everyday readers, they come to your site “often” to check out what’s new and to catchup on what has been happening.

• Referral Traffic

Referral Traffic, comes from many sources, but the most common is any link on another site to your site.  There are multiple ways of getting referral traffic and that will be discussed in length in a follow up post, but for now, know that it could come from a comment you left that intrigued a reader, they liked it they clicked on your name in the comments, if you remembered to add the URL to your name so they could jump directly to your site.  They could have come from a link, such as a blogger mentioned you, and but a link to your site within a post, simply put, Referral Traffic comes from other bloggers or websites.

• Search Engine Traffic

This ones a little more difficult to explain, let’s use an example:  you go to Google and type in “Blog consultant” you then choose a site based upon the information given, most of the time the user is going to select out of the top 4-6 links, depending upon relevance.  Then the user comes to your site, they are looking for the specific search term they entered into the search engine.  If they find it right away they check it out, if they don’t they “bounce”.

What kind of traffic are you aiming for?

That is the problem,most bloggers are simply aiming for one type of traffic, referral, and while this is a good source for the short term if you don’t convert them into regular readers all of the work and effort has been wasted.

Check out this post if you liked this one

Drupal is an excellent content management system or focussed community management application that doesn’t really cut the mustard when it comes to providing multiple blogs. Technically perfect but is limited by a focus on the group rather than the individual. Worth a look as this might be what you’re after. Read the complete review.

Elgg is perhaps the most promising open source social networking application out there. Founded on a blogging principle and incorporating many more community and networking tools, it’s well worth a look and will be even more so by the time it hits 1.0. Read the complete review.

Manila has been ahead of the crowd for a long long time now. Problem is that it hasn’t moved much itself in that time and while the concept is brilliant, the execution is less so. Everyone should experience it, am not sure how much you’ll gain through using it though. Read the complete review.

Movable Type has a well deserved reputation as one of the best blogging tools available. Add to this corporate support and you’ll probably be happy you went down this route. However, with less momentum than it’s competitors, significant costs in starting up and a famously tricky technical composition it might pay off to take the small risk on an open source solution. Read the complete review.

WordPress Multi User (WPMU) is beginning to establish itself as the standard in multi user blogging. While many projects might prefer a more stable or community based solution for pure blogging with strong open source credentials and an exciting future ahead this may be the answer you’re looking for. Read the complete Review.

LifeType (formally pLog) is a clear, simple and effective open source multi user blogging tool. With an established community and stable build this should be in consideration whatever application of blogs you are considering. Read the complete review.

It’s funny, blogging as it comes to mind create opportunities and gives you the ability to create something of value. Darren Rouse over at ProBlogger has a post today that I wanted to take the time and mention because it is something that makes all the difference when it comes to blogging.

The thought of just cranking out an article is great when you have something to say, but if that is what you tried to do everyday, it is no wonder why so many give up, trying to crank out a blog post every day would eat you alive. So Darren shares some great things to think about as you “Craft” a post, rather than just “punch” one out.

Here is the list to consider:

Choosing a Topic – take a little extra time defining your topic and the post will flow better and you’ll develop something that matters to readers.

Your Post’s Title – perhaps the most crucial part of actually getting readers to start reading your post when they see it in an RSS reader or search engine results page.

The Opening Line – first impressions matter. Once you’ve got someone past your post’s title your opening line draws them deeper into your post.

Your ‘point/s’ - a post needs to have a point. If it’s just an intriguing title and opening you’ll get people to read – but if the post doesn’t ‘matter’ to them it’ll never get traction.

Call to Action – driving readers to do something cements a post in their mind and helps them to apply it and helps you to make a deeper connection with them.

Adding Depth – before publishing your post – ask yourself how you could add depth to it and make it even more useful and memorable to readers?

Quality Control and Polishing – small mistakes can be barriers to engagement for some readers. Spending time fixing errors and making a post ‘look’ good can take it to the next level.

Timing of Publishing Your Post – timing can be everything – strategic timing of posts can ensure the right people see it at the right time.

Promotion – having hit publish – don’t just leave it to chance that your post will be read by people. Giving it a few strategic ‘nudges’ can increase the exposure it gets exponentially.

Conversation – often the real action happens once your post is published and being interacted with by readers and other bloggers. Taking time to dialogue can be very fruitful.

Become a Craftsman

I have taken this to heart long ago, as it is easier to “Craft” a post, instead of trying to figure it out in 15 min. Too many times we as information providers want to create something, and in order to do so, we need to provide Value, or so enough you will have a little audience to provide you useless information to. So, That being said, you need to think of your self as a Craftsman, instead of just simply a blogger, while the idea of blogging is unique and has it’s place, such as this post, that was done after readying Darren’s post.

The majority of posts need to be Crafted and developed over a period of time, while it doesn’t make sense to take a month to write every post, and while some posts come directly from inspiration, and can be done quickly and give value, most are going to take time.

Develop a Blog not just a bunch of posts

Part of developing your blog should be the idea that it is more than just a blog it is a Blog, and has inherent value in it’s name, the site, the content, you as a contributor, etc, etc. You should keep in mind that if you ever hope to make any money from your blog you will have to create demand. Just as Problogger has done, can you think of a stronger Blogging brand? Other than BlogSavvy of course! You can’t ProBlogger has developed his entire business model into one large revenue stream. Think of the whole picture give you the sense that Blogging is more than just making posts.

Yes i’m being serious, shut up and blog, too often I hear people talk and talk and talk about how they wish the blogged or started a business, or went skydiving or whatever. The sad part is in 5 years from now they will still be talking about how they will or should do … insert your own unfulfilled promise here. Simply put talk is cheap, which is why most people do a lot of it, acomplishment has value, both of what you put in and what you get out. Ask anyone who has done something you admire if now that they look back on the journey to do this amazing thing, if the learned anything, chances are they will say somehting to the effect of more than I will ever know.

So Get Going

Now that we have an understanding that blogging will be tough, and that there will be work involved, how about you do some of that, yeah i mean work. It doens’t have to be 5 posts a day to start off with, it can be as simple as 1 post a month. Commit to something, anything and then keep your commitments. Most people fair not because they didn’t try, most people fail because they were commited to that failure was an acceptable outcome from the beginning. If that is your mind frame, please do you self a favor ad disreguard my advise, do not start blogging. To you: I say just sit right there on the couch.

What next?

What’s next you ask, it’s simple, commit yourself to “doing” and then DO. I know it sounds way too easy to simply be just that, but honestly it is that simple, yet most people will think I’m full of it and won’t do this simple thing that will essentially provide them all that they are wanting and then some, and to you who doubt, I wish you luck because luck is all your going to get.

Step 1 – First things first.

Chose a domain. This is going to be the most difficult part, as most assuredly the one you really want is already taken, so be creative, use part of the name and part of something else, one of my favorite company names is OGIO, short simply and until they chose it for their domainname it hadn’t been used before, so branding could be developed to create the brand, since there wasn’t one before. The other option is to purchase a domain that is for sale or you if you find that the domain name youreally, really want isn’t for sale you can always use whois to find out who owns it and contact the with an offer to purchase it.

Step 2 – Register your Domain

this one is simple, use BlueHost. I used Bluehost to register my first domain and currently

they are hosting 45 domains for me all with one account, and heres the great part they charge $6.95 per month and you get:

UNLIMITED Hosting Space (NEW!)
UNLIMITED File Transfer (NEW!)
Host UNLIMITED Domains!!!
2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
SSH (Secure Shell), SSL, FTP, Stats
CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
2000/2002 Front Page Extensions
Free Domain Forever!
Free Site Builder (NEW)
24/7 Superb/Responsive Sales/Support

So i have 45 domain names registered and hosted with one account so i pay just 6.95 per month! It can’t get any simpler than that.

Step 3 – Setting up WordPress

Now that you have found a domain name, registered it with Bluehost and have a Bluehost hosting account you are now ready to set up your WordPress blogging database. Why WordPress you ask? WordPress is simple to navigate, simple to operate and there are tons of free Themes out there to give you your style, and if you really want to brand your self have Blogsavvy help you to design a custom theme. Now login in to your Bluehost cpanel and scroll down to the bottom of the Bluehost cpanel and look for a program similar to the logo below.Click on it and once inside of the program you will see a just how simple it is to install your WordPress blogging software. Below is exactly what you should see, simply click the button, new installation and in 3 simple step it will setup your blog for you! It can’t get any simpler.

Short description: WordPress is a blogging software with a focus on ease of use, elegance, performance, and standards with a huge selection of themes and plugins.
Homepage: http://wordpress.org/

WordPress support forum
(We are not associated with the support forum)

New Installation (2.5.1)
Disk space required: 5.63 MB
Disk space available: 1535718.5 MB

Now you will set up which domain you want to install the database on, select your domain, leave the install in directory space blank, now you will create your administrator User name and Password, this will be your login info into WordPress, then give the Admin a nickname, and enter an email address, this one is used only for the Administrator of the blog, then click Install WordPress,

Install WordPress

The next screen will tell you where it is coing to install it and what the name of the database will be called. Simply click Finish Installation and your ready to begin blogging!

Install WordPress (2/3)

The MySQL database and MySQL user milliot1_wrdp6 will be created and used for this installation.

- You chose to install in the main directory of the domain gettomonkey.com.
- The access URL will be: http://gettomonkey.com/.

Click on Finish installation to continue.

Step 4 – Begin blogging

Now that your blog is set up go to http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin and you will see a screen similar to the one below:

Use you Administroator Username and Password and your done. Now take a look around and you will see that it is very user friendly and if you get brave write a post and send me a link to it in the comments and i’ll check it out.

Congratulations you are now blogging!

In my first ever post – four years ago this month – I wondered how I could provide this wonderful technology to teachers and learners. There was the visionary Manila (too hard – for me) and the ever present Blogger (too out of your control) but it wasn’t until WPMU came along that things started to click.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

However, there’s always been something missing from Edublogs – yes you can have student blogs at learnerblogs.org, uniblogs.org or eslblogs.org – but the problem with multi-user blogging is that it’s never been, well, multi-multi-user.

So – what now seems a loooong time ago I began work on what I present to you today, the ability for anyone to set-up, almost instantly their own fully featured educational blog hosting service, Edublogs in a box, Edublogs Premium.

And I have to say, I’m pretty excited

Each site has all the functionality – and a bit more (like complete privacy options) – that I have at Edublogs.

You can manage, create, design and run your own educational blogging site, fully hosted by us, for what I hope is a very very reasonable price (including free set-up to our first batch of clients too).

What’s even better in my book is that this will allow free education blogs at Edublogs to continue to grow and develop without advertising and with security. Schools and educators who want the extra functionality can grab themselves an Edublogs Premium account and this will support educators and schools who don’t need the full whack or can’t afford it.

Sounds pretty damn good to me.

I can’t begin to thank all of you who have used, promoted or supported first Incsub and then Edublogs down the track. Absolutely none of this would be possible without the plain bloody genius of Donncha O Caoimh, the selfless and brilliant members of the WPMU forums and the good folk at Automattic who have done so much to bring WPMU forward. To say I simply owe these people would be an enormous understatement!

So, here we go, wish me luck!

Blackboard beware… we’re coming after you

:

“Why pay at all when you can get everything that MovableType offers free of charge from pLog? Both applications have virtually the same basic features and personally, I think pLog is a lot easier to customize. pLog is ideal for anyone wanting to easily host a blogging community (with its summary.php page), and has added functionality for extras like podcasting built into the core.”

And that sums it up pretty well, it’s a straightforward, simple and effective system that certainly impresses. However, straightforward and simple really does mean that… and while for some people this might be a huge benefit, the comparatively small amount of development and community based around the tool means that there is by no means a plethora of plugins (read that as ‘no plugins’). You won’t be getting your hands on a WSYWIG editor of any description and while it has plenty of excellent templates I’m not sure if they’re particularly flexible in terms of providing multiple forms of representation through for different pages. Nonetheless it is being used very successfully by a number of organisations including Blogs @ Rice and the extremely successful (and place where I tested it out at ) Bloc de BalearWeb. Given this, the stable 1.01 release, and the ease of installation of the software for multiple blog use this is definitely one to have a run with at no cost to yourselves!

You should use assessment tasks that incorporate subversion – One of the worst things you can do is mandate posting on particular topics with particularly rigid frequency… you’ll over-assess & kill off exactly what blogs are good for: personal expression & exploration. By all means say that you’re expecting a post a week… or ever more, but let people approach this in ways that fit them and set tasks that allow for deviation and subversion. Never, ever, mention number of words!

You should use blogs for what they are good for – Blogs are by no means the answer to everything, they are very strong alternative communication tools but if you want to build quizzes, run polls, have near-synchronous conversation, do listserv-y kind of discussion or strictly manage just about anything then you’ll probably want to look at another tool. Use blogs to assist people to publish work, represent themselves online, interact with their peers as part of an organic community and manage their own digital content and identity.

Use proven and effective blogging tools – When you decide to set off on your blogging journey don’t, please don’t, do it with some ‘tacked on solution’ to a large and established Learning Management System. Blogs are just as complex as any other form of software and you want to get the tools off people who know what they’re doing. You probably wouldn’t pick up an office suite from Macromedia, would you… Look at all the options and chose a proven path, there are lots of them.

I thought I’d summarise a paper (Blogs @ Anywhere: High fidelity online communication) that I’m hoping to have accepted for ASCILITE 2005 here in two posts offering quick summaries of how I think you should & shouldn’t try to use blogs in education. If you’re into depth then you might prefer the paper, otherwise read on:

Never never approach blogs as discussion boards, listservs or learning management systems: Almost invariably the first thing people do when encountering new technologies is to try and get it to do what the technologies they are used to do and this is no exception when it comes to blogs.

Group blogs are a bad idea and don’t work: Sure there’s a place for collaborative/ group blogs but that place is not in education. Blogs work well for individuals… they are tools of centred communication and pretty far removed from community management systems like Drupal. Just don’t go there!

Don’t try and force blogging into something else: Blogging suits highly customisable, individual, owned and fiercely flexible tools like WordPress. You can try and fit blogs into other systems such as Moodle, Drupal or Tiki but you’re not going to do well because the entire centralised philosophy of these systems is utterly opposed to that of successful blogging platforms

Ignore RSS at your peril: Probably the biggest mistake that adopters tend to make is to ignore RSS or just through it a casting glance. The problem is that these people aren’t bloggers and just don’t understand. Without RSS blogs would pretty much just be extensions of geocities pages. Your learners are NEVER going to surf each others sites everyday and the majority of them won’t even go to that funky web-based aggregator you set-up.

Any more really bad ideas you could add?