Research Keywords

Keywords matter not just in your post, but in your headline as well. More importantly, you need to know exactly which keywords to use. There are a number of websites that will allow you to compare keywords to see which words are searched for most often. By choosing the most searched for term, you can ensure that your information is easy for searchers to find.

Shoot for Short and Sweet

A blog headline does not have to be long and drawn out. In fact, long headlines can hurt how you rank on many popular search engines. For example, Google only allows 65 characters in the headline. This means you need for your title to be direct and to the point. A title such as, “The Long Billowing Winds of the Nightly Midnight Runs of Flemish Rabbits” is way too long and a bit too artsy. Instead, the title should read, “Flemish Rabbits’ Midnight Runs”.

Place Important Keywords First

Not only should your title be short and direct, but your most important keyword should be as close to the first word in the title as possible. In the example listed above there were ten words listed before the important key phrase, Flemish rabbits. The keyword/topic of your post should be easy to spot and take center stage.

Create Interest

The title, “About Rabbits” may be informative, but it lacks appeal. The reader may even ask, “What kind of rabbits?” The title may also be so vague that it’s hard to find in a search engine. Instead, you need to create interest. A much more appropriate title would be, “Flemish Rabbit Information Sheet”. Not only is the title easier for searchers to find, but they know this is the information they’ve been looking for.

Keep Your Headline Relevant

There are a lot of hot keywords at any given moment, but you should never use these words just to attract readers. For example, don’t put the name of a popular TV star in your title when the post is about rabbits, unless the star has something to do with rabbits. For example, do not use the title, “Lindsay Lohan and Flemish Rabbits” when your post had nothing to do with the star.

It may seem intimidating at first, or unimportant, but awesome blog headlines can attract readers to your blog. A great headline can also ensure that your post ranks well on search engines. Remember to research keywords, keep your headlines short, use important keywords first, create interest and to keep your headline relevant.

One of the biggest culprits when developing content for web sites and blogs is not making your content scannable. What does this mean? The tendency of web site readers is to scan to the left, where more information is located. In fact, the common movement of the eye is F-shaped. By employing a weak title, the first two to three words in the title won’t contain any kind of information or keywords that will compel the reader to click on the link. Even though scannability is something that is also important with the body text, it is of greater significance when thinking of a title for your post. Titles should always be within context.

Consider the title as microcontent – small bits of information that already give users a general idea of what the article or blog post will be. By treating your titles like this, users won’t have a problem determining what the article is about and won’t hesitate to click on the link to read it further. Treating titles like microcontent also has another use – it gives you a better representation when the links appear in search engines, RSS feeds and other venues that are link-generated

This is one of the most horrifying comment areas out there:

Now that’s a long scroll. This isn’t from a product landing page or a shopping site with pages upon pages of “special” offers. This is a blog, for crying out loud!

Let’s assume for a second that only the top box (which is the actual comment form) exists and focus on that. It’s just too busy! My eyes were all over the place with the sprawling combination of boxes and text.

I know it takes effort to align form elements. (Or not, since this particular site uses tables to do that.) But it would be much easier on the eye if all the input fields appeared in a linear fashion, one after the other, to minimize the confusion.

Linear is not always necessary, but always keep forms as simple as possible, if you can help it. Take a cue from Smileycat’s comment form design showcase and note how functional and uncluttered those forms are.

Okay, so you get through the ordeal of leaving a comment, but this blog says you’re not done yet! It continues to nag you with the “Blog this at your site” and the “Tell a friend” sections. It doesn’t help that the lack of comments subconsciously discourages the reader from actually commenting. Even if there are any comments, those two extra panels have already separated the reader from the “leave a comment zone” since the comment box is now too far away.

The Share This button is certainly more desirable, both in form and function, than these bulky boxes. If you don’t think a button will cut it, what about collapsible panels with JavaScript?

Since the comment form above belongs to a blog in a blog network, many more readers will be turned off and confused by this comment form on several different blogs. It’s not too difficult to elminate this usability problem: Don’t complicate the process. Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t look desperate. Just let them comment.

WordPress is, as mentioned above, an open source application which means that it does not require any licensed version to be purchased. This further means that anyone can download the application and can start using it. The best part is that WordPress allows a programmer to create webpages with just a few clicks. Also, several online books and video tutorials are available for the application which a programmer can go through and become an expert on WordPress. Unlike various other closed source web development applications, WordPress has several pre-designed templates which can be downloaded and applied in order to prepare a website or a web page even sooner.

If a person wants to launch his own website he can Google out some renowned web hosting service providers which provide the facility of instant domain search and also allow their clients to create web page with a single click.

Before we take a look at the answers, let us make one thing clear: it is one thing for people to leave comments expressing their disagreement with what you said; it is another thing for people to leave negative comments which are not at all constructive. Needless to say, it is the second kind that we are talking about in this post.

So, what do you do when you see those kinds of comments in your blog? You have two simple choices: to reply or to ignore.

Reply.

If you do decide to reply, you can do so via the comments section or via private message or e-mail. Whichever mode you choose, it is important to bear in mind that you should never rise to the bait. Oftentimes, people who leave “destructive” comments are merely trying to get your goat anyway. Nothing will come out of replying in a similar fashion. The best thing you can do is to reply in a civil, even friendly, manner. You might be surprised at how a little kindness can go a long way! Here’s a nice guest post over at Problogger to help you more with this tactic.

Ignore.

Alternatively, you can choose to simply ignore the comment. Even better, if the comment is really bad and not constructive in the least bit, hit that delete button! You do not want your other readers to feel put off because of someone who feels like trolling your blog, do you?

Time for your input – what do you do when you get these kinds of comments?

Photo via yoshiffles

Take a look at your average listing of posts, usually your front page but it could also be a category page or an archive. Post after post after post after post. Boring? Might be. Long? In most cases, yes. Too long? Yep, I’d say so.

I believe in using read more functionality, in other words, in just displaying some of the content (if the post is a semi-long or long one) in post listings. If you display a 20 paragraphs long post after a 30 paragraphs long post, but before a 50 paragraphs long post, then you have a very ugly page.

By using read more functionality, available in any good blogging software, you can show as much content as you like in your listings, and it shouldn’t be too much.

Take a look at Wisdump, for instance. You’ll find a Read the rest of this entry link on most of the posts I’ve written, only very short ones get published in its whole in the listing. Even less gets published on my blog, rethord.com, but the principle is the same – the only thing that varies is the font size, and that means I’ll have to make the read more break earlier.

If you’re a WordPress user you might be tempted to use the_excerpt, which publishes what you put in the optional excerpt box, or cuts your posts for you. That’s fine for long listings, but if you want an attractive front page, for instance, you want full control, and that means you’ll have to use the optional excerpt box on every post, otherwise it might look like crap since you can’t control where the post will get cut in a per-post basis.

Today’s homework is to take a look at your post listing. Do you have long post after long post after long post? Then reconsider, because it doesn’t look good, and it doesn’t offer the reader a decent overview.

The lack of read more in the blogosphere is both a usability and a design problem. It’s not practical to present big chunks of content in lists, and it looks like shit. That’s the bad part.

The good part is that you can fix it on your end, right away. So please do.

Tumblr is no longer just the home of reblogged pictures, quotes, music, videos, and journal entries of friends you follow; it’s also gaining favor with the more discerning content creators in the design and technology circles, turning it into a truly professional publishing platform. This phenomenon is thanks to its relatively easy customization while keeping its interface decidedly simple.

My question is, if Tumblr’s audience is becoming more mature, should it shift from its dead-simple appeal and grow up too? David Yeiser prefers its current approach:

What’s neat about Tumblr is it’s not only a great publishing platform but a great tool for content consumption. [...] as self-publishing has changed to shorter forms and varied media the traditional feed reader has become obsolete. I shouldn’t have to click a title of a post to read a quote. [...] I think the way Tumblr aggregates and displays blog posts is the future of feed readers. Though I’m not aware of any standalone readers that take this approach.

Personally, I disagree. I follow a lot of people (and non-people) on Tumblr, producing remarkably varied content genres (e.g. XKCD Explained, 53 Weeks of UX, Sweet Home Style) with no way of filtering which ones I’d like to view at a time. Infinite scrolling in the dashboard can only take you so far in browsing ease.

Unwieldy content consumption is a familiar problem experienced on Twitter and Facebook, and by people who want more options, more control. Except there are now methods of dealing them on those sites. It’s even a big business for third party companies. On Tumblr, that remains to be seen.

Dashboard filtering options would be a welcome addition to the site. The reason is that “following” is a one-size-fits-all option when the truth is we need many.

And there lies the rub with a hosted platform, as well as platform that caters to simplicity first and foremost. Notice that as the concept of feed reading, trackbacking, and commenting are abstracted, if not replaced with Tumblr’s own conventions of dashboard reading, reblogging, liking, answering, one is forced to adhere to a closed set of standards inside its community. For a community that’s got such a wealth of content, consuming and sharing and communicating through that content but with limiting, non-standard methods is a turn off. If I link to a Tumblr post from a non-Tumblr site, will the owner of that tumblelog even know that I did?

Again, all of this wouldn’t be so bad if there were more options available, even as premium features. Right now, there aren’t.

What should Tumblr do? Should it go the WordPress.org and Identi.ca route and provide an open, self-hosted platform? Should it take some notes from the old-but-still-strong LiveJournal? (In some ways their user bases are the same.) Should it push its API more aggressively? Should we just wait and see what they’re up to, or accept that it’s really just a different culture from what we’re accustomed to?

As someone who’s enjoyed a lot of great content on Tumblr and is tempted to migrate her personal blog over there, there are a glaring number of things holding me back.

The praise given by Business Week on the homepage reveals the competition Baby Websites is up against: .Mac. Sure, one can compare it to the rest of the blog software out there, but Baby Websites and .Mac pride themselves in more user-friendly interfaces and easier customization for a price.

But that’s where the similarities end. The design of Baby Websites is Squarespace’s arrow that aims squarely at the target market. For once, the design of an Apple product looks like an afterthought! After you have seen Baby Websites, the .Mac website will look only satisfactory especially since it inherited its look from the rest of Apple.com.

Of course, it’s the inside that counts. And Apple’s consistency with its subsites is no small feat. But you cannot discount the effects of pretty packaging. Apple knows that well. But good design is not just about making beautiful things. It’s also about purpose.

If I am a mother looking for a publishing solution for my baby’s website, which site will I seal the deal with? I would definitely prefer a product that shows exactly what it can do upfront. More moms will go, “I want to make a site that looks like that!” rather than examine all the pretty icons, specs, or videos one by one.

The .Mac page looks a bit too overwhelming for blogging newbies. Sure, it has great graphics and its features are neatly arranged in a grid, but that’s it. It’s just sitting pretty like that. Again, it now looks mediocre because exactly because it’s following a design convention it wasn’t meant to follow if it was supposed to appeal to its audience.

The first time I saw Squarespace I was enamored by it. Since then, I often find myself surprised whenever I discover a blog hosted on Squarespace for the simple reason that it looks different from the themes on the more popular blogging systems. Even the custom-designed ones seemed to carry the same airy, whitespace-filled aesthetic the default templates have. I believe a baby website is the perfect place to transfer that aesthetic, and Squarespace is an expert at it.

It’s interesting to note how these standardized icons emerged. The OPML, geotag, and open share icons all base their design on the feed icon. They each consist of a white symbol on a square box with rounded corners. The boxes have a subtle diagonal gradient and an inner border which gives a slightly beveled effect.

Feed Icon

The feed icon was introduced to us by Mozilla and is used for syndicated feeds in either RSS or Atom. You can instantly infer that it stands for a signal being beamed to the rest of the world. This icon is so popular that it has been transformed in so many ways to match websites and tastes. (It’s even been turned into a real-life pillow!) But now matter how many bells and whistles designers add onto it, the icon is a much more comforting sight than other buttons and chicklets labeled XML, RSS, Atom, My Yahoo!, Bloglines, or whatnot. Icons say so much more than words than obscure acronyms—which ordinary Internet users don’t even understand. They don’t need to!

Visit the feed icon page.

OPML Icon

Related to feeds is OPML, which is an XML format for outlines. Its popular use right now is listing a group of feeds. Think feed reader reading lists and blogrolls. They can easily be shared with the OPML document format. Compared to the feed icon, the OPML icons is not as meaningful, but it’s still catchy especially since it looks like an “O”.

Visit the OPML icon page.

Geotag Icon

Geotagging is basically adding geographical information to certain content, such as photos, through a link. The geotag icon is a pushpin on a globe, which stands for pointing out a certain location in the world. It’s a really good symbol (though if you read Jeremy Keith’s tweet you might think differently from now on). It’s just that the globe looks too small for the pushpin.

Visit the Geotag icon page.

Open Share Icon

You might have heard about the Share Icon, which came from Alex King’s excellent plugin, ShareThis. We’ve talked about the service here on Wisdump not too long ago, but there’s been a controversy surrounding the use of the share icon itself. Thus, the Open Share Icon Project was formed to address such limitations.

The open share icon shows a hand passing an object to another hand. It also looks like an eye. This is much more descriptive than the share icon, which is a node branching out into two like a binary tree, if you’re familiar with Computer Science, and feels too tech-y for the mainstream crowd. A star could have been an easy choice for an icon, since it’s used in both Internet Explorer and Flock to denote “favorites” or bookmarks, but the act of sharing isn’t conveyed with it.

Visit the Open Share Icon page.

More Standard Icons?

Are there any more standard icons out there? The Microformats project has put together several icons that can be used for such. Semantic Web, anyone?

What sort of actions and content on the web actually need icons like these? File uploads and downloads? Email addresses? Tags? Asking these questions makes me want to discover what the next generation of web technologies will give us. It could be something we haven’t even imagined before.

Steal These Icons

If these icons aren’t used, they’re all for naught. We all want some consistency on the web, especially it’s made of tons of information constantly being created each second. Especially when the technologies that provide this information are still very new. Using these icons means turning data into more meaningful and properly labeled content we can all identify and understand more easily.

I’ve done some minor fixes to the design, adding some icons to the sidebar. The cache might make it look a bit funky for a bit, both browser (Ctrl+F5 for Windows users, Command+R for Mac people), and server caching. Live with it, I’ve had to during this whole process.

The Wisdump redesign is my last effort here at Wisdump. Tomorrow, April 1st (which it might already be where you are in the world, perhaps), Ia Lucero will take the helm here at Wisdump. Treat her nicely.

I’d like to thank you all for being such good sports, no matter if you’ve agreed with me or not. There’s been some nice discussions, a few heated ones, a couple of douche bags, and so on. As can be expected online. No hard feelings, actually, just warm fuzzy ones. I’ve had fun.

So thank you for reading Wisdump during my time here.

Where am I off to then? Well, it’s a secret so I can’t tell you that I’ll be taking the helm over at The Blog Herald come tomorrow…

Keeping quiet sucks, so I won’t anymore.

She’s all yours, Ia!