Online Communities | Articles

How long should a blog post be?

Aiming for quality over quantity is all well and good but when it comes to blogging some readers will expect both quality and quantity in equal measure. How long should your blog posts be in order to satisfy your readers?

Be more productive by recognising the blogging seesaw

Recognise the blogging seesaw and you’ll be a far more productive blogger. Use the time you spend at the top of the seesaw productively and it will see you through the times when you feel you have hit the bottom.

Decide who you are before you start blogging

You need to determine how you wish to be perceived before you can become an effective blogger and communicator otherwise you risk sending confused messages and will struggle to build a relationship with your readers.

Five tips every blogger needs to consider

The explosion in the number of blogs doesn’t seem to be slowing down, and I doubt it will for quite some time. With so many blogs out there, many bloggers will find it a struggle to get their voice heard. In this article, I will offer five basic tips that every blogger should consider.
1 - [...]

The best online community: A forum or a blog?

So you have a great idea for a new community, and the subject of your community is something you are passionate about. Your next decision is what kind of community your new site will be: a forum or a blog?
A forum as an online community
For most of us, when we think ‘online community’, we immediately [...]

Give me 5 minutes and I’ll show you innovation

I have written before about the importance of making your community different from the competition. If your community offers nothing new, how can you expect people to take the time to register and get involved? People will not submit comments to a blog that posts articles on subjects that everyone is else writing about. People [...]

Should you add a forum to your blog?

I have been seeing many blog owners of late publicly debating whether to add additional community features such as forums to boost their site’s popularity and value proposition. In this article I will write about the potential pitfalls of adding a forum to a blog and tell you why you should only take the plunge [...]

Top 5 blog usability tips

I have only been running this blog for a short time - I made my first ever post on 3rd March 2007. During this time however, I have learnt a lot - both as a writer and as a blog reader.
I have found myself becoming increasingly frustrated of late with usability issues on some blogs [...]

Sending welcome messages to new members

The personal touch can make a new member of your community feel truly valued. If they feel valued, they are more likely to be a regular contributor and add value to your site.
One way of making a member feel valued as an individual is through the use of welcome messages.
Using welcome messages on a forum

If [...]

Posting low quality blog articles on weekends

There are a huge number of blogs dedicated to the subject of blogging. Many of these bloggers argue that posting high quality blog articles on a weekend is a waste of time as their audience will often be reduced and therefore their articles will receive less exposure and attention compared to those posted during the [...]

Online communities: What is content?

Regular readers of this blog will know how I often talk about the importance of creating content on your site if your online community is to succeed - this is particularly important during those early days when you are trying to get your community off the ground.
Build it and they will come
This is one saying [...]

Personal advice - Abusive members

Biddy from TameBay.com left a comment requesting a regular ‘Ask Martin’ feature on this blog whereby readers can ask for my advice/opinion on issues specific to them. I think this is a good idea, and am willing to give it a try.
For this article, I will address Biddy’s specific request. If you would like to [...]

Why I avoid blog link exchanges

In the time that I have been running this blog, I have been approached by a few bloggers requesting link exchanges. I turned them down for the reasons I will outline in this article.
My blog’s design
This blog was specifically designed to be minimalist. I am a great fan of minimalism on the web, and feel [...]

Always enable comments on your blog

I have been reading a few different blogs and forums lately and was surprised that many of them recommend new blogs disable the ‘add comments’ feature. Their argument is that enabling comments only for them not to be used damages your blog as it makes it obvious that you have a low number of visitors.
Disabling [...]

Get free traffic for your blog

Getting Free Traffic & Exposure For Your Blog
It is no good having a blog if nobody is reading it! It would be like talking to yourself, but without the odd looks from passers-by.
Here are some steps I took in order to attract traffic to this blog without spending a penny on advertising:
Add Content
There is [...]

Make your blog link love compatible

Community Spark is now ‘Link Love Compatible’. I have installed a plugin to prevent your URL from being marked as ‘no follow’ when you comment. Therefore, every comment you now make which includes your URL will be counted by the search engines as a real link.
Why is this included by default in WordPress?
The default inclusion [...]

The dangers of using other blogs for inspiration

Blogs are just as much online communities as forums are. Whilst with a blog the author makes much of the content, really good blogs involve interaction through the comments feature. In this post I want to write about the dangers of using other blogs for inspiration for your own articles.
If you are committed to your [...]

Recommended web development blogs

On top of administering this blog and my websites, I frequently visit a number of other web development / business related blogs and thought I would share a couple of them with you here.
Recommended blog # 1 - TylerCruz.com
I found this blog many months ago and enjoyed reading Tyler’s posts on how his life has [...]