Comments for Weekly Geeks 2009-38: Better, Stronger, Faster

Weekly Geeks 2009-38: Better, Stronger, Faster: 10/03/09

Take a look at your blog as if you were someone who has never seen a blog before. Imagine they are looking for something specific. Could they find it? Could they find YOU again? Be able to contact you? Would they understand your jargon?

With these questions in mind, start making your blog more reader friendly. You can do as much as upload a new template to adding a subscription button. Here are some ideas:

• Add meta tags to help people find your blog.
• Add a RSS feed button.
  
• Add a contact page.
  
• Make sure as many people as possible can comment on your posts.
  
• Make your blog searchable.
  
• Check your links.
  
• Explain your rating system, if you have one.
  
• Create a glossary if you use a lot of blogger acronyms ie- BBAW, BTT, ARC.

These are just suggestions. There are probably a million more. Check out Blogging Tips on the Book Blogger's Ning for more ideas and advice.

Let me start by saying I don't like jargon. Every profession, hobby, sport, what have you, has its own jargon. I know it's not going anywhere anytime soon. I try to avoid jargon here unless it has become part of every day speech. For example: "blog" and "blogosphere" are both jargon. By the time I had turned my website into a blog the terminology had already gelled.

Properly speaking though, most blogs are dynamic sites with a database to keep track of the posts, comments, tags, images and other peripherals. They are searchable and extendible. They are also prone to hacking, comment spam and crashes that can wipe out data.

When I "converted" my site to a blog my site was already seven years old. I built this site in 1997 and I had already amassed a large bunch of content. Rather than install blogging software I just started writing posts. In the beginning I didn't even have comments. I wasn't even sure what I would blog about. Book blogging didn't become my focus until I was on maternity leave with my second child.

Since I began "blogging" in February 2004, I have added features like an RSS feed (which I hand code since I'm not using software to parse all my posts), comments, Technorati tags, permalinks and a list of all my books by author and title.

At the start of 2009 I realized my old way of doing permalinks had some serious flaws. So in January I started doing them a better way and ever since then I have been retrofitting my blog in my spare time. I am almost finished putting the correct file structure in place. When I have it built I will then have to through my author and title lists to fix the links there. The way I'm doing it though won't affect bookmarks but will make things easier for people looking for specific reviews or posts.

The other thing I want to do is further divide my book review lists up by genres. I have the pages built but I don't want to make this feature public until I have the permalinks fixed.

Where am I on the Weekly Geeks checklist?

1. Meta tags: Thankfully I've been using meta tags from the very beginning. I am refining my tags as I go through the retrofit but they aren't a big concern right now.
2. RSS Feed Button: I've had one since I started offering the feed. It's in the sidebar on every page of the blog. You'll also see it in the address window of every blog post.
3. Contact Page: My contact form is the third link down on the navigation bar of every page.
4. Comments: My comment form doesn't require a log-in or captchas. Everything though goes into moderation. If it's a comment from a real person and is on topic I will get it posted to the site and I will reply to it. If you leave an email address, I will email you my reply.
5. Make the Blog Searchable: Right now I'm using the "Book Blogs Search Engine" which is a Google widget designed by another book blogger. My blog is one of the sources for the search results. It's not a perfect solution but it's adequate.
6. Check the Links: I use Google's webmaster tools to check my links at least once a month. Despite my blog's age and the many redesigns it's been through I have very few broken links.
7. Explain the Rating System: I don't rate books on this blog. I do rate them on Goodreads and Bookcrossing and I use those sites' guidelines when I assign ratings.
8. Create a Glossary: I try to keep this blog jargon free. I spell out all acronyms at least once in a post.

So now I leave it up to you. What should I be doing better? What does this blog need?

weekly geeks

Comments (16)

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Comment #1: Saturday, October, 3, 2009 at 21:17:32

Kerrie

I admire your ability & know-how in being able to create your blog from scratch. It has been interesting to trawl around to see how different people have responded to this week's task. Your blog has a nice clean feel about it.

Comment #2: Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 20:03:34

Pusreboots

Thanks! I feel like I'm doing constant maintenance on the blog. As soon as I finish one project it's time to start another. I'm not sure I'll ever be fully satisfied with it.

Comment #3: Saturday, October, 3, 2009 at 21:23:41

Chris@bookarama

Hmm, looks like you've covered everything I could think of.

Comment #4: Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 20:07:25

Pussreboots

Thanks. I guess that's a good thing. I always feel like something is missing.

Comment #5: Saturday, October, 3, 2009 at 21:34:03

gautami tripathy

I like your blog. Easily read. Easily accessible.

Comment #6: Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 20:11:41

Pussreboots

Thank you for the kind words about my blog!

Comment #7: Sunday, October, 4, 2009 at 01:00:34

Kay

Wow.

I just had to leave a comment to tell you how impressed I am at your hand coding the RSS feed, and, of course, the fact that you created your blog from scratch.

I myself have wanted to do that (read: own blogging engine) at one time or another but always got cold feet because it seemed like such a huge task. :)

Like the others have also said, your blog looks absolutely great, with all the whitespace and delimiting lines, just how I'd love to have on my own if I could be bothered to actually create a theme of my own (but even this seems like quite a task so I keep postponing it).

I'd be curious to hear more about the permalinks. I don't intend to criticize you or anything (God forbid, I really like what you did here) but the current approach to them is that they should be as close to the title of the post as possible (for extra SEO). I am a bit curious about what is your current system for them and why you chose it to be so. If you don't mind my asking, of course.

Comment #8: Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 22:10:54

Pussreboots

Thanks! My permalink structure has gone through many versions. At first I didn't have any. Then I did them by dates but that got too confusing really fast. So I switched to titles but as anchors instead of as separate pages. While the anchored links all one page were easy for me, they created load time nightmares for my readers in remote locations or on dial up. Thus I switched to my current set up.

I try to keep the titles (especially for book reviews) as close to the post title as possible. To keep the links a manageable length, I drop the short words (a, the, of). My SEO is pretty good (the advantage to having a 12 year old website).

I suggest you dabble with CSS. There are lots of tutorials out there. Make a copy of your blog's CSS file. Give it a new name and start changing different settings while keeping the style names the same. Then grab a copy of your home page, save it to your computer and change the CSS file link to your new version to see what changes you've made. That way you can learn a new skill and possibly create a new theme.

Comment #9: Sunday, October, 4, 2009 at 03:37:13

sarahloldfield

That is really impressive. Maintaining such huge quantities of content must be a daunting task, but the feel of your blog is calm, not chaotic!

Comment #10: Monday, October 5, 2009 at 23:54:42

Pussreboots

It is a sometimes daunting task to manage this blog but it's a fun hobby. I'm glad you find it calm.

Comment #11: Sunday, October, 4, 2009 at 12:49:09

Care

I am impressed, awed and intimidated by your mad skillz! Awesome really. I'm actually wondering if I've been *here* to your blog or if I have only visited the LiveJournal pieces. See? I'm not even sure I make sense but this page DOES look lovely. And isn't Fyrefly's Book Blog Search THE BEST?

Comment #12: Monday, October 5, 2009 at 23:59:41

Pussreboots

Aw shucks! I am on LiveJournal but the blog here on pair.com has been my online home since 1997. Thank you for reminding me that Fyrefly is behind the book blog search. I had completely blanked on the name!

Comment #13: Sunday, October, 4, 2009 at 17:22:43

anothercookiecrumbles

I love your blog - always have. Lots of white space, neat, and uncluttered.

I didn't know about google's broken links thing-a-do. I really should have a glance at that, as I found a couple of broken links t'other day on my blog, and was not happy at all.

Comment #14: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 00:04:45

Pussreboots

The link check tool is part of Google's Webmaster tools. You can get to it through your iGoogle account. If you don't have one, it is easy to set up.

Comment #15: Thursday, October, 8, 2009 at 08:22:34

Gnoe

Thanks for the Google webmaster tools tip.. ;) I'll check that out sometime!

I am really amazed that you do so much by hand. My website sort of died a long time ago because it was too much work :\

Now for your question: I hope you won't be upset with me but I find your 'boxy lay-out' a bit restless. It's all the lines I guess, next to a lot of text. But I seem to stand alone in this since others find lots of space to rest their eyes on on your blog ;) So never mind me! ;)

Comment #16: Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 13:18:54

Pussreboots

I'm not entirely happy with my current style either. Before I can change it though, I have to finish my retrofit. If I started mucking with how the blog looks now the archive would look like a train wreck.