Closed for a Holiday!
Mon, 23 July, 2007 – 10:00 pm
Dave and I are off to Scotland for a short break until the end of the week so I won't be posting here for the rest of the week. So instead I figured I'd give you all some food for thought over the posts that have impressed me the most this week.nnFirst up, Mark wrote about Guest Blogging and how he felt it was a waste of time. People go to your blog to read your content. Whilst guest posts don't bother me as such, I'll admit I don't tend to read them. All the sites I read are in my Google reader so if you post, or not, my reader will tell me so. I'm not wasting my time visiting a blogger's site and discovering they've not posted for the day, afterall I'm bad for going days or a week or two without posting! However that said, the guest poster is usually someone trying to get established and so I guess using your blog platform to try and gain new readers is a nice idea, so I have no issue either way. But I don't read them 
nnThen Gary posted about how friendly your blog is to your visitor, looking at the content of your actual site above the fold. Being on a large res I don't tend to think about things like that, and after his comments I've moved the sidebar on the right around to ensure my site content is at the top and more viewable. I guess visitors are coming here to see my stuff and not links to other sites, so they're still there just a little lower down. However, he was also talking about post content, and also about comments and your comments on replies made by your visitors. This is something that can really bug me at times, and to be honest it will often put me off reading a blog. If I leave a comment on a post, it's nice to get a reply back from the site owner. As a site owner, if you're not replying to your visitors comments then you're being a bit impolite. Okay if you get a fair few comments (and I'm talking 20-30 whilst you're sleeping!) then I can appreciate you can't answer every single one, but at least show you're active in the commenting section as well as the posting section. If someone's taken the time to write a decent comment, possibly offer their opinion or advice to accompany your post, then that person has contributed to your post, enriched it in some way and enriched your whole site, afterall content is what the spiders love. So just reply back! Even if it's a thanks, it's acknowledgement and you've got more chance of getting further comments. If I know a comment won't be responded to then I won't usually post it, afterall if you're not going to physically acknowledge my comment then you probably ignored it altogether.nnOops sorry I went off for a rant there!nnAnd finally Jason wrote this morning (or last night!) about Traditional Blogging and how videos and podcasts are not blogging. Have to admit I agree totally there. Only one blog I subscribe to uses videos on occasion, but after mentioning that a brief summary to accompany the video would help those of us who don't watch the video, the blogger has done this and that's cool to me.nnSo those are the 3 posts that have really stood out to me this week simply because, I've been thinking the same things (guys, get out of my head!!). Comments are off, I've commented on all these posts so I recommend you read the posts and comment there if you've got anything to contribute.nnI'll be back at the weekend with Shortbread and Whisky (a suntan is doubtful though) 
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