Links

WHY ARE LINKS IMPORTANT?

It's great if you're talking about another blogger to link to them. It enables your readers to visit their blog and see what you're talking about. This in turn gives that blogger new traffic.

For those who are seriously into increasing their blog traffic, there is another reason why linking is important. Links help to build technorati ranking as well as increasing a blogs position in search engines.

Links will also help those bloggers you've mentioned, find there way back to you.

So it's a win-win situation all round.

HOW DO YOU LINK?

Linking can be a bit overwhelming if you're just starting out in blogging. I know it took me a while to get my head around it. If you're using blogger you'll find a link button in the page you're using to compose your message.

When composing a message, you have a choice of 2 windows. One it called "compose" and the other is called "Edit HTML". Both give you the option of linking. If you link in the compose page, your link will often look much the same as the URL you've added to the box.

Here's an example of what it looks like: http://www.lighteningonline.com/

If you use the "Edit HTML" page to insert a link you'll find the link doesn't show in your page initially. That's because there is nothing inserted between these symbols >< . If you insert whatever text you'd like to appear in your post between those 2 symbols, your link will look more like this Lightening. As you can see it gives a much neater appearance to your blog post to do it this way.

Be mindful that this will insert the link at the bottom of your text. So if you've already written the post and come back to do the links later, you will need to cut and paste that link to the place within your post that you'd like it to appear.

If you're using wordpress, you need to type the text you want to appear, then highlight that text and click on the link icon. Once you've entered the URL into the box that appears, it will turn your highlighted text into a link. I've only just learnt how to do this in wordpress. :-)

IS THAT IT?

Well, I have just learnt that the text you use for your link can be important as well. If you're discussing a topic then it's better for both you and the website you're linking to, if you include related search words as part of your link.

As an example, when I was posting about homemade playdough and wanted to link to Kate's post about homemade playdough. Instead of making the link on the name "Kate", I made the link on the words Homemade Playdough.

I can't say that I'm 100% clear on how all this linking stuff works. If you'd like to know more though, you can read what Meg has to say about linking within posts.

ONE MORE THING

Have you claimed your blog in technorati yet? Even if you're not interested in getting involved in "top blogs" and so on, it's a nice thing to do to take a few moments to claim your blog so that any links you give another blogger can count for them. It is also an interesting way to find out who else might be talking about your blog. I have found some interesting blogs via technorati when they've mentioned me or added me to their blogroll without me actually realising. If you haven't already read it, you might be interested in my Technorati for Beginners post.

If you know anyone who is starting out in blogging or would like to know more about linking, please let them know about this post. I'm trying to keep things reasonably simple so that people like me can understand and follow them. :-)

Join "saving mum" for FREE in December

Well, it's always nice to get something for FREE and www.savingmum.com.au are offering FREE membership. According to Emma this offer applies for the month of December.

So pop on over there and sign up. I'm not all that familiar with their website yet but it's worth a look. It looks like it's aimed at parents of 0-6 year olds in particular. They even have a section for saving the planet (big tick from me on that one).

While some of the information is aimed at and relevant to parents, I think you'd find plenty for those who don't fit that criteria.

They also offer a free newsletter. I'm yet to recieve one yet so I can't comment on the quality but I figure while it's not costing anything, it might contain some gems of information worthy of reading. :-)

So, head on over there and take advantage of this special offer. I just checked and they are indeed offering this FREE for the month of December. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Don't forget to pop back here and let me and others know what you think of the site.

Favourite Blogposts This Week

Well, this week has been a rather busy one with setting up my new blog at Lightening Online. I've been used to using Blogger and the switch to Wordpress, while great, is taking some getting used to. :-)

But, I have still been out and about in Blogworld and once again have come across some wonderful posts.

Firstly, I HAVE to mention this post at On Blogging Australia. It's titled Lightening's Problogging Questions. How cool is that? I asked a heap of question and the author of that particular blog answered them all!!! See, I told you that the Blogworld was a nice place to be!

Rachelle at Seek First His Kingdom wrote a post about the Great Christmas Card Debate. It's well worth the read and I guess in some ways relates to the post HELP that I wrote recently where I was talking about the fact that we don't seem to take the time to connect with one another in a "physical" way, even by way of sending a card to let someone know we're thinking of them.

All For Women are having a "12 days of Christmas" giveaway at the moment with a new thing to be given away each day. I have to admit I'm a bit partial to a giveaway so I've been visiting often! ;-)

Well, I know there were lots of other great posts this week but I wasn't so great at making a note of them. Hopefully I'll do better next week! :-)

Lightening Online

Most of you who read this blog will already know that I have shifted my main blog to www.lighteningonline.com but I wanted to mention it here as well. I still intend to keep this blog as a little sideline of my thoughts and finds in the blogging world. :-) I hope you'll come and visit me at my newly moved blog, as well as continue to visit me here! :-)

Isn't the Blogosphere Such a Nice Place to Be?

I am constantly amazed by how kind and helpful bloggers are to people that they've only met through the blogworld. What a special place it is to be a part of. I'm so glad I started blogging and moving in blog-circles. I have learnt SO much, met some wonderful people and generally feel like I've improved my quality of life quite dramatically.

If you want to know anything about blogging, there are many wonderful blogs out there which provide some wonderfully useful information. Behind those blogs are some extremely kind and helpful people. To be honest, I expected the blog world to be just like the rest of life. Those at the top happily ignoring those of us at the bottom of the heap and socialising with the rest of the "elite".

Now maybe there are one or two bloggers that are like that - if there are, I'm yet to meet them but I'm still very much a new and tiny fish in this big blogpond.

For the most part, I've noticed that blogging seems to be more of a circle, rather than a hierarchy. How refreshing is that? Sure, there are the top blogging lists and they're always a great way to find new and interesting blogs. But so far it hasn't felt to me like I *have* to be on that list in order to be an integral part of the "blogosphere". I'm not somehow relegated to the less desirable lunch spot just because I'm nowhere near reaching the "top 100" or "top whatever". LOL.

I want to mention specifically a few bloggers whose blogs I have found helpful and who's writers I have found extremely approachable. Snoskred at Life in the Country, Meg at Dipping into the Blogpond and Andrew at On Blogging Australia.If you haven't already found these blogs for your self (and I know it took me a while before I came across some of them), it's well worth a visit and a look around.

Don't forget to say hi in their comments - we all know how much bloggers LOVE their comments. You can even say that Lightening sent you if you like. I know I always find it interesting to discover where people have come from and how they found me. :-)

You might have noticed I'm a bit light on posts this week. I've been working on a new project - to be unveiled very soon. :-) I have a couple of blog reviews in the pipeline and hope to post on those once I get this other "secret project" up and running. :-)

Help a Complete Stranger

Veronica over at Sleepless Nights has set up a fund to help a 13 year old friend of hers go on a school trip to Japan. Not just any trip, but one where the students had to earn a place to go. Only 10 students from her year level are able to go and she is one of them. What an honour and what an opportunity for her.

If you'd like to do something for someone you haven't met without expecting any return, this is a great opportunity. The trip is costing her $1600 plus spending money. All it would take is 1600 bloggers to donate $1 each. Or 320 bloggers (or blog readers) to donate $5 each. What's $5 these days? It won't even buy you coffee and cake (some places it won't even buy you one OR the other).

Let's show this young girl the power of the blogging world. Let's do this for no other reason than that we can! :-) Go on, make someone smile today!

Oh, and anyone that donates can place this lovely picture on their own blog:

In My Blogworld This Week......

Wow, there have been some awesome posts this week out in blogland! I just wanted to take the opportunity to share a few of them with you.

Emma at "Meanderings" wrote a great and thought-provoking post titled Taken for Granted . It's an area many of us could do with working on. I was going to include a quote here of part of her post but I think it really is best to visit and have a read of the whole thing yourself. Thanks Emma for your depth of thought and willingness to share with the rest of us. :-)

Frogdancer at "Dancing with Frogs" shared an idea she does with her boys at home in a post titled Our Books . It's a wonderful idea to help build family bonding (in between sibling wars of course) and self esteem. I love it so much that I intend on beginning the same idea in our family VERY SOON. Thanks Frogdancer for sharing such a special part of your family life together!

Ali at "Our Patch" wrote Alternative Gift Wrapping giving a great reminder at this time of year that we don't *have* to do things the way we've always done. Christmas can be a time of great wastage and it's good to stop and have a think about what we're doing and why and consider if there are alternatives out there.

Jon at "On Money Making" wrote an extremely touching and thought provoking post called The Forrest Gump Guide to Becoming a Gazillionaire. It took me by surprise that a post on how to make money actually brought a tear to my eye. What I think struck me the most was the level of integrity included in this post. Maybe I'm too cynical but I feel that a lot of people wanting to "make it to the top" are prepared to step on whoever it takes in order to get there. Whether or not you actually have any desire to become a "gazillionaire" (and personally I don't - I came across this site almost by accident), this post is well worth the read simply for the thought provoking and clever way it has been written. I guess it helps that I'm a personal fan of Forrest Gump - the ultimate in human integrity! :-)

I hope you enjoy reading these posts. I know I did!!! :-) I'm hoping to make this a weekly feature of "Lightening's Blogworld". Let me know if you find it useful or interesting.

Blog Competition

If you're interested in entering a blog competition, head over to
Stitch Pinkand enter their "Full of Hope" competition. Stitch Pink is a blog dedicated to helping raise awareness of Breast Cancer. And it's pink!!! :-) I love pink!

Bloglines

I mentioned Bloglines in my first post on this blog. Bloglines is just one of a number of readers that are available on the internet and are a great tool for blog readers.

I had never heard of such a thing all that long ago. To me a "reader" was something you have in the first few years of school when you're learning how to read. LOL.

Basically the idea of them is that you can list all of the blogs that you like to read and as a new post is put up on the blog, your reader indicates that the blog has a new post. You can then read through it and any other new posts, all from the same page. If you're like me and have many blogs you want to keep up with, it certainly is a good way to be able to read through many blogs quickly without needing to search through those who haven't yet posted.

I tried google reader first but was having trouble with it freezing up on me. I'm not really sure why. I gave up and started using bloglines and so far I'm finding bloglines much easier to navigate.

You'll notice some blogs have a "bloglines" button that you can click on to add that blog to your bloglines list. It's not hard to add blogs to your list yourself though. All you have to do is click "Add" in the bloglines window and then copy and paste the web address of the blog. Don't make the mistake I did though and think that you have then successfully added the blog to your bloglines page. LOL. There is one more page you have to go through. Some blogs have a number of feeds and you have to select one of these (don't ask me the difference - you'll have to ask someone who actually knows something about all this stuff to find that out LOL). In fact, just this morning I was reading about this in my blogreader - I decided it was all too complicated for me to worry about right now but if you want to know more about this from a bloggers point of view (more than a readers point of view) go and visit Dipping into the Blogpond.

If you want to add a "bloglines" button to your own blog, simply scroll down the left hand window until you find the list that is under your list of blogs. This is headed "additional features". You then click on "get a subscribe to bloglines button". For some of you, this will all sound very basic. But it took me AGES to find this. Then the next time I went looking for it, I knew I had struggled to find it the first time but couldn't remember WHERE it was so it took me AGES again. LOL. So I guess some of us need "basic". :-)

You can also Claim your own feed by clicking the options link. Above your list of blogs in your left hand window are the links for ADD, EDIT and OPTIONS. Once the "options" window opens in the right hand side, click on "publisher tools" and follow the prompts from there. Well, I'm assuming this option works for someone. For some reason, it refuses to recognise my blogs. *sigh* I think once you do that you have a few more options available to you in regard to your own blog feeds that are presented.

There are also some other great features of bloglines such as the ability to use search words to look for blogs covering particular topics of interest. You can also browse through a list of the most popular blogs. Like most places, it's easy to spend more time there than you intend. LOL.

There are a few downfalls of blog readers that I have noticed. One is that it can take a little while for a new post to be recognised by the reader. Generally this isn't too much of a problem though - unless you desperately want to be the first to read what that blogger has to say. LOL. Another one is that using readers means that your "visit" to the blog isn't recorded as a "visit" by the statcounter on the blog.

It can also make it easier not to bother commenting on a blog. The temptation to whizz through all of the blogs on your list and forget what you wanted to say in response is very real and it can take some discipline at first to get used to going to that blog and commenting before reading on. I think most bloggers *live* for their comments. It gives a good indication of whether or not you've created an interest in what you've said and adds a fantastic dimension to blogs that I don't think other areas of media necessarily provide. So if you're using a reader, don't forget to stop by the persons blog occasionally (or often) and leave a comment. :-)

To find bloglines go to bloglines homepage. When you get there you'll find a "sign up now" sign in the centre of the page. Click on that and it will take you through a very simple registration process and then away you go - start adding those blogs! :-)

If you use bloglines and have another feature you enjoy, drop by and add a comment to let others know about it.

Technorati For Beginners

Not all that long ago I had never heard of Technorati. I didn't know it existed and I had no idea what it was all about. I still have no idea what it is all about. LOL. So why am I writing a blog post about it?

Well, it does seem to matter to those who are very serious bloggers. By that I mean those who are working hard to increase their readerships, their rankings and anything else related to blogging that I also have no idea about.

When I began a separate blog for my blogroll, an anonymous commenter pointed out that in order for anyone to get any benefit from my blogroll, it was important that I claimed that blog through technorati.

So, for those of you who wish to remain "little fish" in the blogpond -I say "go for it". BUT, you might like to take the time to join technorati AND claim your blog so that when you add blogs to your blogroll or mention another blogger, it shows up there.

BUT, there's an even more FUN reason to "play" on the technorati site. It can tell you WHO is talking about your blog. If anyone else links to your blog, it will show up on your technorati page (if you click on the "Authority:whatever number you are" link under your blog it will take you to a page that lists all the places your blog has been mentioned (via a link).

Mostly you'll probably find your friends blogs and the blogs of those you read and interact with regularly. It can be an interesting way to find out who is reading your blog too. I have found the blogs of some of my readers who have perhaps mentioned me in their blogroll but I wasn't aware of that fact. In some cases, I wasn't even aware of the blog at all. I know I myself haven't gone around letting all the people on my blogroll know that I've added them there.

You may also come across some quite funny links. For instance, I discovered I had been linked to under a post titled "How Hair Transplant Surgery is Performed". LOL. I even went there and read the post and I still can't quite understand why I've been linked to. It had very little to do with hair transplant surgery and something to do with internet marketting of some description. Naturally, I'm not complaining about the link. The more links the better really. :-)

Technorati is also one of the reasons why it's nice to actually link to other bloggers when you're talking about them. I know, setting up links can be painful when you just want to run off a quick post. They're certainly not essential but they are a nice thing to do for other bloggers. Apart from helping readers of your blog to find the blog you are talking about - it does give bloggers other benefits (like helping their authority on Technorati).

Joining technorati is quite simple. Just go to www.technorati.com and then click on "join". Once you've done that you can go through the claim process for your blog. It's been a while since I joined but I'm pretty sure it guides you through the process when you first join. If you have any trouble, let me know and I'll see if I can help (be warned - my knowledge is rather limited).

I realise this is a very simplified post when it comes to explaining technorati. I guess I'm coming from the viewpoint that perhaps I'm not the only person who started blogging with barely a clue of what the blogworld really is all about. Sometimes I have found myself too overwhelmed reading the more "technical" or in-depth explanations of some of the blogging basics. So I'm hoping this is helpful to someone out there. :-)

Blog Review: OzStudentSaver

The title on this blog reads: "Extravagance on a Budget". Sounds rather promising. :-)

One of the things that really stood out to me was how clear and uncluttered this blog is. I love the choice of layout, especially the way the 3rd column has a slightly different colour background, allowing a differentiation between the 2 sidebars.

Another interesting element on this blog was a list of recent posts at the bottom of the page, with a partial feed for each one, allowing a new reader to quickly browse these posts and choose to read any that sound interesting or relevant to their own interests. A great idea for encouraging a new reader to browse past posts.

Clearly, the emphasis of the blog is that of finding ways to cut costs and live frugally - without necessarily feeling like you have to go without the things in life you love.

Currently the most common content is that of gardening with some lovely clear photo's of the bloggers own garden. I particularly like the photo's showing container gardening - making it clear that ANYONE can grow something themselves.

I also thought the Aldi product reviews were a fantastic idea for those who might be considering trying an Aldi store and uncertain as to the quality of their products. In fact, it's an idea I myself might "pinch" as part of my "reducing the grocery budget" series. :-) Not for Aldi as we don't get Aldi here but for the more common generic branded products that I use.


WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY IF THIS WERE MY BLOG?

* I found the use of a small heading and large advertisement in the header a little bit off-putting. I think it is something I would get used to but it drew my attention away from the blog and made it hard to quickly ascertain what I was looking at. My concern would be that a first time visitor might not take the time to move past that and move on quickly to another blog.

* At the moment the blog is a little light on content. Having been started in July, there are around 33 posts currently available to read. I prefer to read blogs with regularly updated information so wouldn't like to see any less than the 10 posts per month that seems to be the current level of posting. Some of the pages offered are currently blank and there is very little information in the blue coloured sidebar.

* I noticed a number of comments by readers had gone unacknowledged by the blogger. It may well be that they had been responded to privately or via the commenters own blog. I like to see the interaction between the blogger and the reader through the comments section of the blog so would prefer to see more comments made by the blogger.


OVERALL IMPRESSIONS AND RATING

While it is clear that this is a blog still in it's setting up stages, I think it holds a lot of promise as being a blog providing lots of information in a clear and relaxing manner. Overall I found it a joy to read.

Rating: I'm going to rate this blog a 3-star with the potential to become a 5-star blog!

You can find this blog here.


NOW IT'S YOUR TURN

This is my first blog review I've ever written. I'd really appreciate some feedback as to what people thought. Was it informative enough? Interesting enough? Accurate? Please let me know what you think. :-)

Starting Afresh

Well the best laid plans and all that guff..... I've decided to solve my comments problem the only way I know how. Start a new blog. LOL. This one does have comments enabled (well the other one did too, it just refused to acknowledge that fact).

Bear with me as it may take me a couple of days to get my blogroll listed here. *sigh* Yes, I'm SUPPOSED to be working on my nanowrimo novel!!!!! Or cleaning the house...... or something!!!!

Why start yet another blog? Well, I enjoy blogging and I enjoy reading people's blogs. Even more so, I enjoy people reading what I have to say. I know, it's an ego thing. I'll admit it. LOL. I've now been blogging at my original blog for twelve months and in that time I've learnt a lot and met a lot of wonderful people.

One of the struggles I've faced in my blogging journey is how to get noticed in such a HUGE blogworld. I really do feel like a teeny tiny fish swimming in a very big blogpond. So one of the things I'd like to do with this particular blog is write reviews on blogs. Not from an "expert" point of view but simply from a "reader" point of view.

If you would like me to write a review for your blog, please leave a comment. I'll be starting with those first and once I'm through those, I will begin doing "unauthorised" reviews as well. :-) My intention is to be honest in my opinions of each blog that I review without being brutal. :-)

What I can't believe is that this is my 3rd blog!!!! I was NEVER going to be one of those people with multiple blogs. LOL. Obviously I have a LOT more to say than I ever thought. However, because this is my 3rd blog and because blog reviews take some time to do properly, I don't intend to be posting to this blog every day. For that reason, I would recommend those of you interested in reading this blog on a regular basis add it to a reader of some kind. That way you'll know when a post has been written and save yourself frustration over having to visit multiple times before you actually come across something new to read. :-)

If you don't already have a reader, I like to use bloglines. You can subscribe to this blog in bloglines by clicking this button:



My apologies to those who have been caught up in the difficulties I've experienced in the past few days. Hopefully we'll be all set now. LOL. For those who were kind enough to respond to my poll on the other blog, do you mind terribly responding again here? Thank you.