De-cluttering Your Blogs Sidebar

Build A Better Blog Day 3

Today's tip is short and sweet. If your blog has a sidebar (and most do), now is the time to do some trimming. As people build their blog they acquire links, badges, scripts and many other items that over time slow down the rendering of your blog. Remember graphics and scripts take time to send from your web server to a visitors browser.

A good way to see how your blog is performing would be to view it in several different browsers. Since most people only have one, maybe two browsers installed on their computer, asking for help from your readers is a great way to accomplish this. You could also use speed services such as iWebTool's Website Speed Test. Putting my domain in the box, digitalthom.com, shows the site loads in 2.7 seconds. Now that may sound fast, but in my opinion, its really not. I'd love to have something in under a second.

The moral of the story here is thin is in. If your site loads quickly you will keep your visitors longer. If there are significant delays they will move on. You only have a few seconds. Evaluate all of your blog "bling". If it's necessary, fine, if not, see if there are other ways of displaying the information or remove it all together. Good luck.

ProBlogger's day three post: Search for and Join a Forum

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Giving Props to my Peeps

This weeks Prop goes out to a Twitter friend Jim Long. It's one thing to see news on the Internet, on the radio or TV. It's a whole different experience when you read about it through the eyes of the man who is capturing it on Video.

Jim Long is a cameraman for NBC News. Since I started following what Jim had to say on Twitter, I've come to learn just how important Jim and skills are to the news he reports. I've also gotten an inside seat as news is happening. For instance, one Sunday when Jim was shooting a news program, he was sending us behind the scenes activities you would never see on camera. Don't get me wrong, Jim doesn't disclose anything that he shouldn't, he has great integrity.

Visit Jim's web site and if you are on Twitter, you can follow him there too.

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Tell Me What You Are All About

Build A Better Blog Day 2

My suggestion for today is to create an About page that actually has content and tells me what your blog is all about. The only thing you really have to decide is how personal you get.

1. Tell me a little about yourself, something that we can connect with.

2. Tell me why you are writing the blog.

3. Give me links to other blogs or sites you maintain.

4. If you belong to Social Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, give me the links so we can connect.

5. Give me a list of your favorite web sites and blogs.

6. Give me some way to contact you whether it be a separate Contact Me page or simply an email address. I remember not too long ago a reader commented on my blog that I had no way of being contacted and he wanted to know if I could give him an email address. That was a pretty rude awakening thinking how much potential business I may have lost because I didn't have a way for readers to contact me.

An About Me page is a good place for you to tell me your story. Here are a few links to About Me pages I like

Chris Brogan

CC Chapman

The ultimate About Me page is Robert Scoble's WikiPedia page

And here is Thom Allen's About Me page

Now I'm asking each of you to comment with the link to your About Me page. Go ahead, do it.

Here is a link to ProBlogger.net's day two post: Run a First Time Reader Audit on Your Blog

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ProBloggers Birthday Bash and $54,000 in prizes

Yes, you read that right, $54,000 in prizes are being given away for ProBlogger's Birthday Bash. Personally I'm excited at the chance to win 2 20" LG USB Monitors. Hey, what have I got to lose.

Darren does a great job of generating traffic to his site, and giving his sponsors more traffic too. I've followed Darren and ProBlogger for a while and I don't think I know anyone better at showing their readers how to make a living by blogging. He walks the walk. If you've ever wanted to see a blog that makes money and isn't just a bunch of lists and links to other sites, add ProBlogger to your feed reader.

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Build A Better Blog In 31 Days

In August Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net ran a series of articles called 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. He encouraged readers to implement his tips and also submit their own. I've never taken on a project as aggressive as this. I'm trying to learn more about successful blogging techniques and I want to learn from others. So while I'm implementing Darren's tips, I'll be presenting my own.
Here is ProBlogger's day one tip: Email a New Reader of Your Blog

My day one tip is this; reduce, if not cut out, your blogroll. Most of you may tell me I'm insane and that's ok, but have you looked at your blogroll lately? I try and click on blogroll links when I'm visiting a website. The site owner must have felt at one time the link was important to them and they wanted to share it. But all too often the links are dead or go to a site I'm sure wasn't intended.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what the value of a blogroll is anymore. I would rather cut out the blogroll, write blog posts about really cool sites I find, and create a category of BlogRoll. Then if someone is interested in seeing your blogroll, they only need to click on the category and start reading. Plus, link backs in a blog post get more mileage than a static link in your sidebar. That's what I'm doing for day one, ditching the blogroll.

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