Whenever I begin to help a new student or client with blogging, I ask them to answer three really important questions:

1. What is the intent of your blog?
2. Who is your audience for your blog?
3. What is your authority in your blogging topic?

The authority question is almost always the hardest for people to answer. In other words, why would other people want to read what you have to say. I recognize that it can be an intimidating question to answer but it is a crucial one. Let’s get the intimidation part out of the way first.

Authority doesn’t necessarily mean a bunch of alphabet behind your name and titles. It does mean getting clear about your strengths  and your goals.  Here are some examples of authority:

• Experience in developing over 20 commercial web sites for a blog on web design
• Retired attorney for blog on estate planning
• Stay at home father of two for daddy blogging
• Breast cancer survivor and nurse for blog on healthy living
• Fantastic sense of humor for a blog on finding the humor in our lives
• Mushroom forager for 5 years and amateur chef for a blog on edible mushrooms
• 15 years of indulging in your love of hand crafts, a keen eye and a creative mind for a blog on crafting
• Passion for the environment, problem solving aptitude and creativity for a blog on recycling goods into crafts

As you can see from the examples above, authority can take many forms. Appropriate and effective authority will vary according to your blog intent and audience.

Once you have outlined your intent, audience and authority, how do evaluate the effectiveness of your authority? That was an interesting question posed by a young 17 year old guest blogger Lianne in her post Does your blog speak authoritatively? for Cats Who Blog. She answers with the following, for traditional blogs and for the micro-blog Twitter:

• Repeat Traffic
• Feed Subscriber count
• Social Media Followers
• Twitter Mention

Traffic and subscriber counts are traditional means of monitoring blog progress and impact but with the increasing importance of social media, those two factors are no longer sufficient to measure  your authority. Translate the word authority into trust.

How much do your readers trust you enough:

• to keep coming back?
• to follow you around so they don’t miss what you have to say?
• trust you enough to share what you say with others?

Cats Who Blog is a relatively new web site, an offshoot of Cats Who Code, one of my favored web development tip and tutorial web sites. I am verifying their authority because I subscribe to their feed, follow on Twitter and used one of their blog posts to anchor my own (called pingback). All of those things validate Jean-Baptiste Jung’s authority in creating those two blogs.

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In the spirit of full disclosure, I am writing this post to enter a contest sponsored by Cats Who Blog. I think contests can be an effective means of blog promotion and I applaud Cats Who Code for showing other bloggers the benefits of running a contest and offering Templatic premium themes as the prizes.

UPDATE:

Didn’t get registered before classes started? No worries! You can register late through 1/16. There is a $5 late registration fee and you must use this link to register.

What are your New Years’ resolutions? Is this the year that you are going to start that blog, build that web site or figure what in the heck Twitter is all about? If so, I have a class for you!

• Blogging Basics with WordPress
• Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune
• PHP 101 for Web Developers
• Advanced Dreamweaver
• Twitter for Business and Pleasure

Classrooms open this week and the first lessons will be posted on Saturday, January 9. Lessons are posted each week during the six-week course and you work at your own pace, at a time that is convenient for you. Instructor guidance and support is available via the class message boards. Classes are only $30 for students new to LVS Online and they are only $24 for returning students.

Registration deadline is January 6, 2010

Hope to see you in class!

I’ve been playing with words all my life, but no matter what genre I was engaged in, from limericks to legal thesis, there were always times of writer’s block.  Recently I began blogging and I found this phenomenon followed me there as well.  I’m honored that Bean has asked me to share about this issue, but frankly it’s most likely that she considers me an expert at drawing a blank.  I’m not sure what worked best for the college papers I wrote as that was long ago and the memory’s fading.  I just know that days would go by looking at the screen wondering “what now”.  Somehow I met all my deadlines, but that was then.  I also started a biography about a friend of mine, Midge who’d passed away many years ago only to encounter the same issue.  Then, at a conference near Durango this fall, Rhonda relayed information  that gave me an “aha” moment and broke that 10-year block.  She was talking about Historical Fiction and my brain went “aha”!  So although most of it will center around the antecdotes of her life, it will be historically accurate, but not exactly her life story. I may actually get that book done now.

In the Blogging Basics course there was instruction on this problem and several great links for ideas on combating the dilemma.  After reading the bulk of the articles on writers’ block for bloggers, I began perusing the internet and was instantly attracted to this article on Overcoming Writers’ Block because of the humor of the author.  Then, I began searching the whole website’s offerings and found a lot of informative and constructive help from clustering ideas to final completion and everything in between.  If you’re serious about honing your skills, it’s a super place to check out.

Who knew that physical exercise could be the first step to overcoming writer’s block?

Susie was a student in last session’s Blogging Basics course, she is now blogging about approaching life and art with a playful attitude at LafnPlayground.

I am working hard, revising the blogging classes for a new school year.  I am very excited about some of the new content planned for both the Blogging Basics and the Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune classes. The world is all a buzz about Twitter, so there will now be a brief introduction to Twitter in the Blogging Basics course. We will address how Twitter works with blogs to build an audience and contribute content. I have also added some new multimedia information into the Blogging Basics course, as many LVS bloggers are artistically inclined.

Last May, I incorporated some guest instructor content into the Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune course. We are taking it a step further this session, as at least one guest instructor will provide not only content but interaction on the class message board. Subscribe to the RSS feed or follow me on Twitter for details about guest instructors this session.

Welcome to the April 10, 2009 edition of lvs online students and alumni.

Ellen presents A Passion for Barbie – If I Knew Then What I Know Now posted at
Ellifolks – Bears, Critters, and Stuff.

Art

Valerie Beeby presents Inside Out or Outside In?
posted at Seeing Things.

Inspiration

Barbara Hartsook presents 10 Life-Lessons I Wish I’d Known Then
posted at Over Coffee….

Stories

Sliloh presents If I knew then? posted at Sliloh’s Rambles.

Jacqueline Harmon Butler presents Sardine Heaven – The Feast of St. Anthony (Portugal) – Stories – Jacqueline Harmon Butler – award-winning travel writer – JacquelineHarmonButler.com posted at Jacqueline Harmon Butler, saying, “I didn’t have much confidence in my cooking or writing skills growing up. It wasn’t until much later in life that I finally realized I had a whole lot of cooking and writing stories to share.”

Deb Hamele presents If I knew then posted at Blue Barn Farm Blog, saying, “Some musings about what I might have done differently if I knew then what I know now.”

Pete S. presents If I knew then?posted at
href=”http://pingingmyglass.wordpress.com”>Pinging My Water Glass, saying, “A letter to a kid who needed a few hints, from the benefit of a note of hindsight.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
LVS Online Students, Staff and Alumni Blog Carnival
using our
carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

lvs online students and alumni, blog carnival.

Deadline for the March 09  session LVS Blog carnival is fast approaching!  The deadline to submit your blog post is 4/8/09. This carnival is open to all LVS students, staff and alumni.

The theme this session is “If I knew then, what I know now…”. Your submission can be a new or previous blog post that tells us something that you learned the hard way or maybe just a lot later in life. Share your wisdom, your wit and/or your humor with us! Full details about this session’s blog carnival and submission instructions.

Want to get a sneak peek at one of this session’s submissions? Check out 10 Life Lessons.

To get a better sense of what the finished carnival will be like, check out last session’s blog carnival on Inspiration

I am excited to see what you submit!

Pingbacks, and the older form trackbacks, are a powerful blogging tool to build relationships and stimulate conversation in the blogosphere. When a blogger pings another blog, two things happen. Most importantly the blogger is extending a conversation between blogger and readers to become a conversation between blogs, bloggers and readers. Secondly, when a blogger pings a specific post on another blog, that blogger is giving credibility and authority to the other blogger. Basically a pingback is: “Hey, look what this person is saying. I may or not agree with what they are saying, but it is worth reading and talking about. What do you think?”

Pingbacks build relationships between bloggers

One of the first posts on this blog was about using contests for blog promotion and pinged back to a promotion by Rachelle Chase and Lorelle Van Fossen. Because of that pingback, Lorelle visited this blog and added to the conversation. In the year since that post, we have exchanged pingbacks on various topics where we wanted to expose our individual audience to each other’s point of view.  Now, we are beginning collaboration on a new project that we are very excited about. We nag and nurture each other in equal measure and she has definitely helped me out in times of need.  I have had the pleasure of meeting and interacting with a number of bloggers as the result of a pingback.

Pingbacks stimulate conversation

Blogs are basically a conversation initiated by the blogger.  When a blogger pingbacks a post of another blogger, they are extending the conversation further into the blogosphere. Instead of the conversation being limited to one blog, it has expanded to two or more blogs. Barb at Over Coffee was inspired by Liz Strauss’ post on visible authenticity to write her own post on being authentic and letting go the status quo. The ensuing comments bore testament to how the converation wove between the blogs.

Pingbacks add value and perspective

WordPress had a few glitches in the new auto-update feature for 2.7.1. I found some solutions in forums and blogs and tweaking  on my own.  I wrote a post on troubleshooting the initial upgrade, consolidating my findings and adding my own experiences. Other bloggers started pingbacking to that post as a service to their readers as they discussed their own experiences with the upgrade. Their readers benefited from their perspective AND my handy dandy troubleshooting guide.

Pingbacks expand your audience

The pingbacks to that troubleshooting post brought a much larger audience to my blog, making it the most popular posts on the blog. Writing a pingback on another blog can also increase the audience of your blog. This week, Viki in the Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune class, posted this on the class message board, I am reprinting it here with her permission to .

Bean, I wanted to tell you that I’ve gotten a good deal of exposure with my most recent post on upselling, which contains a pingback to a post on Michel and Sylvie Fortin’s web site . Michel himself tweeted my post(!) and is now following me on Twitter(!) and ever since then, I’ve gotten an outpouring of people following me on Twitter (more than 40 people in less than 24 hours!) Hopefully, some new blog subscribers, too. So pingbacks can be a very effective marketing tool, like you’ve been telling us all along, of course.

How to create a pingback

1. Make sure that your post has its own unique content and perspective. You can use the original blog post as inspiration for your post, a supporting document for your content or as an opposing view. Just copying content from another blog and giving credit via permalink just creates a blog echo and dilutes the amount of innovative and original content on the blog. Lorelle has declared this the Year of Original Content and explains why this is so important.
2. Include the link to a specific blog post, not the general blog URL when writing about the other blog post.

I am blessed with artists in my blogging classes and I believe that blogs can be a great way to inspire, share, teach and sell art.  Karol shares a lot of the inspiration behind her art, in her Folly beach post, she shows us the inspiration of the collage and her love of patterns. Pete is an artist of photography and conversation, he shares his artistry and techniques in Thinkin’ Spring. LVS Online is blessed with a number of art teachers. Dia, who teaches painting and abstract art, shares an example of student art from her abstract art class. Carla sells her exquisite custom clothing via her web site. You can see the artistry in her work in these custom leather pants.

In the above sample paragraph, my point is that art blogs can serve a variety of functions. I used pingbacks to current student blog posts to support my view on art blog functions.

Why doesn’t my pingback show on the other blog?

Three things need to happen for the pingback that you create on your blog to show up on the original blog.

1. You need to make your link to the other blog to a specific post, like http://lzydaz.com/getting-started/why-buy-name-brand-food-items/. It isn’t a permalink if you just link to the blog as a whole, like http://lzydaz.com
2. The other blogger needs to have permalinks enabled on their blog and their blog theme.
3. The blogger needs to approve your permalink, like they approve the comments on their blog.

How do I get other bloggers to pingback my blog?

The key is quality, original content. Create content on your blog that will inspire others. If you write or display thought provoking content, it is much more likely that another blogger will want to talk about it or share it with their own readers.

Summary

After a long day of blogging, you probably aren’t going to end up naked in a hot tub, like I did with the Fairy Blog Mother. It is likely that you will never meet face to face the bloggers that you ping back. That in no way diminishes the relationships incurred, the ideas inspired nor the conversations sparked when bloggers pingback.

When I was working on my new theme, it only had one sidebar. I added the second but then things didn’t seem to line up quite right in my widgets. With a little css styling though, I got them all looking good. First, in the widget, add:

<div class=”whatevernameyouwant”>Then all your code and the closing </div>

Then in your css file, I usually just put mine at the bottom, so I know what I’ve added, add this:

.whatevernameyouwant {

width: 150px;

margin: 2px auto;

margin-left: 9px;

padding: 1px;

text-align: center;

}

You can add whatever kinds of adjustments you want in there. The margin-left: 9px; was what centered this widget. Some of them took much more.

Also, you can change the width of widgets that don’t quite fit your sidebar. Many of them can be changed right in the widget code (see image). If not, add some code like above and set your width and height in the css.

If you have a widget that refuses to clear the one above it, you can try adding <p></p> around it. Or adding <div></div> around it, or around both widgets. Then there is the magical clear both which solves any number of clearing issues. That would go at the bottom of a widget like so: <div class=”cboth”></div> (nothing in between the <div></div>). In your css add this:

.cboth {

clear: both

}

Hope this helps, someday I might tackle the issue of actually making your widgets validate. I’m obsessive about valid code and was real surprised when I tackled my blog and found out how many plugins and widgets don’t validate!

An easy way to keep all your feeds in one place with easy access in Firefox, is to simply drag the tab up to your Bookmarks Toolbar. Then you are just a click away from them! I like Google Reader but in all honesty can’t compare it to others as I haven’t tried many.

The theme for this year’s SOBCon is “ROI on Relationships” and how it relates to the business blogger.  If you have your MBA, ROI is probably part of your everyday vocabulary. If you are a small business owner, the acronym ROI maybe new to you but the underlying concept of calculating the return on your investment of time, money and resources is not. It is a core business concept and one that helps determine your profitability.

When I talk to someone about starting a blog for their business, the savvy business owner often asks me:

• How much is it going to cost?
• What will it entail?
• How much time will it take?
• How will it impact my bottom line?

The first three questions relate to the investment and the last one relates to the return. All are important and valid questions but when it comes to blogging it can be difficult to quantify the direct impact on your bottom line.

Why?

Sure, you can track the traffic from your blog, you can monitor conversions and you can count the sales from your blog but that is only part of doing business. The strengths of blogging lies in the opportunities to initiate, develop and maintain relationships with your customers. The time and effort that you spend on your blog is rewarded with an informed and engaged customer base.

When evaluating the return on your investment into blogging, be sure to consider the impact of relationships fostered there.

1. The cost of finding a new customer and making a sale  versus making a sale to a return customer
2. Your advertising costs versus word of mouth promotion by your customers, be it via their own blog, the phone or over the garden fence
3. The influence a satisfied and engaged customer has with friends in making purchasing decisions
4. The value your customers attach to being heard and their issues addressed
5. The suggestions and inspirations for your business that come from your customers comments and interactions on your blog
6. The feedback from your customers to help you adjust your inventory and/or services to best meet their needs more efficiently
7. Cost savings in terms of money and reputation when you can quickly address problems with your product or business
8. The intrinsic value to your and your employees in actively engaging a satisfied clientele.

These are just an inkling of the ways that blogging, with a focus on customer relations, can impact your bottom line.

Want to know more about the potential of ROI in relationships for business bloggers? Well, so do I! This post is part of the #blogitearnit promotion at  Terry Starbucker’s site, one of the cofounders of SOBCon. You can join the conversation early and save $200 off your registration for SOBCon 09. Hope to see you there!