PAUL MERRILL
This one’s for self-hosted WordPress users only. (Apologies to the rest of my readers.)
Ever since I started using WordPress for this blog in February 2009, I have been unable to automatically upgrade my WordPress software. (Manual upgrades worked – but they were a pain.) Then I switched to a real theme by WooThemes. Volia! The upgrade worked ultra-fast and with great perfection!
So if you are facing that problem, just change your theme to a more professionally coded theme.
There are two directions people go with their blogs – having dates with their posts and not having dates. I vote yes for putting the date with your post. Reasons?
1. It shows your readers that you are staying current with your blog.
2. It gives your readers a frame of reference for when the material was created. This is important for determining if the information might be relevant. In many fields these days, the latest information is vital. (This is true for social media, the area I work in.)
The other argument is that “my information is timeless”. That may be true – but your readers would like to know when you thought that particular thought. Maybe you have changed your thinking since then! (Not many people take time to go back to update all of their posts.)
If you are giving timeless information – and it’s valuable – just post it again, in a different way. Readers are smart enough to search your blog for that topic, if they liked what you had to say.
Finally, sometimes I actually will leave a blog when the blog is giving technical information and there is not date with the post.
First, this post is only slightly related to yesterday’s post. And it’s much lighter!
I was highly amused at this post (not linked to protect the identity of the author).
The author clearly was not listening to his own advice.
As a parent, I often fall into the trap of, “Do as I say, not as I do.” So I’m guilty too – but at least you don’t have to put up with very many words in my blog.
I monitor Google Alerts as part of my job. It’s a great tool – and the price is right (free!).
Due to evil spammers, I have been getting a lot of useless links – like the one I’ve highlighted in the bottom snapshot. That linked to a spammy link-bait site. All they got from me was a click – and in this case, not even that!
Top snapshot? I use Lijit to track stats for my blog (one of about three tools). But those four digit results always come up on the list of searches that brought people to my blog. Totally useless. I typed “2017″ into the Lijit search field on my blog – and it brought up one of my posts. (Because of a WordPress glitch, I currently cannot name posts by anything relating to their name.)
Since I took that screen snapshot, I contacted Lijit. Their suggestion may work. (Time will tell.) But 404 errors resulted from each filter entry.
And “cute little boys in church”? That’s creepy! Nothing like that has ever been on my blog. (As soon as I hit “publish” it will, though.)
I guess my frustration is that in the days of tools being totally analogue (hammer, nails, etc.) – results were easier to obtain. However, thumbs may have been more bruised than they are today!
So, I always hit “Most Recent” whenever I go to Facebook. The other option (unfortunately the default) seems to let Facebook pick what it thinks is most important for me to see. I’d rather see what was posted most recently.
Anyone out there prefer the “View News Feed” setting? Why?
Chris Brogan and I first met when I was in Africa. We “met” through the wonderful world of blogging. I was working as a manager at a non-profit organization whose Africa headquarters were in Nairobi, Kenya. I found Chris’s blog through another long-forgotten social media authority. Chris’s blog quickly made it to the top of my daily must-read list. His easy-going manner, wide knowledge of many topics and above all, humility, drew me in. He has the ability to relate with a large number of people and make them feel like they have value. Rare indeed.
Chris found me through our mutual friend Jon Swanson. I was blogging about the quirkiness of life in the frenzied city of Nairobi. Chris enjoyed my perspectives and appreciated some of the work we went there to accomplish.
How did Chris change my life? He introduced me to the world of social media. I realized that I enjoyed that world! Management was not my cup of tea – at least when it involved directly managing 15 people, none of whom were Americans. (Cultural gaps were magnified in ways that I never expected.) So when our tour of duty was up, we returned home to Colorado – and social media became part of my job mix. Thank you Chris!
Disclosure: a small part of why I wrote this post is that I’m entering this post to try to win a free trip to #SOBCon2010 (the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference in Chicago). I met Chris and Jon face-to-face at SOBCon 2009. I must say that more people than Chris changed my life as a result of the 2009 conference.