Web Dev Notes

Creating a successful blog is actually a very easy task! You don’t need years of training to learn how to do it, in fact, you really don’t need much training at all beyond the initial setup. The trick to blogging is not that it is hard to do, but that it requires lots of work to do it good! If you don’t do it good, readers will not read your blog!

That’s one of the great new things about how 451 Press is setup! Previously, all writers had to pump out a post/day which often lead to some poorly written posts on some days. We were all guilty of it at one point or another! Unfortunately, these types of posts could easily put off readers and cause them to stop visiting your blog or to unsubscribe from your feed. The new focus on 451 Press blogs is on content, and the obligation to post daily is no longer there. Of course, if you want to be successful, you still need to post daily! However, you should not force out a post at the expense of quality to meet the daily goal!

more funny pictures

A while back I wrote a post titled, “Secrets to Writing a Successful Blog Revealed“. That article examines the most popular blogs on 451 Press at the time and tries to figure out what the heck they are doing to make their blog so successful! If you check out those blogs you will see that the trick really is all about good content! Don’t just write to blurb out a few paragraphs and call it a blog… Write about something and research it! Add a relevant picture or video to your post to make it even more interesting! Most importantly, Don’t be lazy, reach for glory!

Every now and then you will find yourself face to face with writers block. Writers block can destroy your blog! It is the kryptonite sent from the evil depths of the universe to destroy you. If you don’t have quality new content on a regular basis, your regular visitors will hitch a ride to another blog in your niche and may never return! You can’t let that happen… Maybe Clark Kent can’t save you from kryptonite, but Super Squirrel sure can!

How can this furry little creature save you? It’s very simple! When facing writers block, take a break to look for inspiration. For myself, this furry little creature inspires me. He is a symbol of the great powers that can be hidden within even the smallest of things. If he is ready to fight evil, then surely I can think of a new blog post…

If the Super Squirrel doesn’t help you, go read another blog written by someone you respect or admire. See if any of the topics being discussed are something you can write about as well. Get involved with commenting on other sites because the conversations you have with other people can inspire new blog posts as well. If you answer a question to a comment, maybe that question can be an entire topic worth discussing!

Finally, don’t be afraid to team up with someone else for a post! Sometimes working with the purrfect partner can help inspire a whole new category of posts that can be mutually beneficial to all sites involved! Getting links from another website is essential to surviving in the blog world because if you can’t generate traffic to your blog, you will end up going into depression because nobody reads your website!

I now have proof that links can revive the dead! You all remember Arnold right? No… ? Well, Arnold was the good lad who wrote for WebDevNotes before my grand arrival! Unfortunately, Arnold was attacked by a gopher and assumed dead until yesterday when I made a startling discovery! Arnold is alive and well, or possibly haunting my blog thanks to the breath of live bestowed upon him by a link!

Every now and then I make my readers ask themselves an important question; WHAT THE HECK IS HE TALKING ABOUT? Well let me explain…

With the exception of the famously inexplicable phpBB post by Arnold which constantly generates traffic, the rest of his articles have been buried worse than a SEO article on Digg.

So, imagine my surprise when suddenly a post by Arnold titled, “IE7 Internet Explorer 7″ made it’s way to the near top of my most visited pages thus far for August! I know there is no way Internet Explorer is getting any more popular, so that cannot explain the sudden surge in page views. Ghosts are usually the next best logical solution for the inexplicable, but in this particular case I think it is safe to blame a bug…!

The bug responsible for the sudden rise in popularity of a post I won’t even dare link to again in this post is the one I have named “Channelcyclopsis”. Channelcyclopsis is a rare bug that occasionally attacks the “Hot off the Press” and “New Media, Web 2.0 Channel Posts” menus on the right-hand side of the site. During the latests Channelcyclopsis attack, these menus went bonkers! For a while they displayed broken links, then later showed the same very very old posts after 451 Press technicians set mouse traps to catch the villain bug but only managed to snap off one of it’s seven tails.

Thankfully a round of pesticide spraying later wounded the bug whom reportedly ran off into the depths of our servers hopefully never to be seen again. Hmmm.. that reminds me of The Pesticide Paradox!

Well anyways, during the Channelcyclopsis attack, Arnolds post was shown as a link in the “New Media, Web 2.0 Channel Posts” menu for about one week. During this time, people clicked and the once upon a time dead article rose to the top of the charts! That my friends is the power of the link! Even with a topic as unpopular as Internet Explorer, the post was able to have another moment of fame and glory on Web Dev Notes.

Can you harness the power of the link? If so, use it for good, not evil like Channelcyclopsis, whom forced us to read about IE7!

I read a great article today by Jane Copeland titled, “When to Respond to Criticism and When to Keep Quiet“. While I’ve never had the problem on this website, I’ve often found myself facing situations where I must deal with criticisms on the BattleCity Classic forums, a game where I am an administrator and developer. Handling such situations properly can be crucial to the success of the project and to avoiding long and painful flame wars.

The greatest problem I have with respect to this is that I all too often would rather try to win an argument instead of walking away from it. At the same time, I want to please everyone, so that they are all happy and play my game! However, there are those times when someone is just being critical for the sake of causing trouble and arguing with the person is completely pointless. It is important to know when you should just keep quiet and ignore someone and when you should respond to what is being said.

Jane suggests only responding to criticism under the following circumstances:

- The criticism is founded on actual evidence
- The poster claims his comments (not posting anonymously)
- The commenter is not a troll

After recently being involved in a rather ugly argument with an individual regarding fact less claims and extreme generalizations, I only wish I had seen this post earlier! I often find myself entering arguments to clear up lies that people are spreading or to give the truth to a post that is a random criticism that contains no facts. As Jane suggests, this leaves me stuck in arguments, which I feel forced to continue in order to then win the point. What I should do instead is just ignore the post completely and perhaps make my own later on to provide my community with the information that is accurate. This way, the lies can be ignored and the truth made available without having to have an argument at all.

I do already avoid dealing with anonymous posters but sometimes let trolls get on my nerves which again is definitely a mistake. If someone has a reputation for stirring up trouble, posting lies, starting flames, just ignore them completely and spend your time discussing with those people who will appreciate it.

Following Jane’s advice is guaranteed to save me a lot of stress in the future! You should follow it to. Focus on making positive posts and try to stay away from the negativity! Most importantly, if a post upset you and you really want to reply, DO NOT do so right away. Wait a few hours or even sleep on it before posting. You’ll always be happier you did.