BuzzFEST #4: Cityslicker Mom

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In my series of 30 Blogbuzzes, we’ve reached number 4! And I’m delighted to welcome City Slicker Mom to stand up and take a bow. As you can see, the graphic is quite big, bold and colorful! Sure to attract enough attention from visitors and encourage them to find out what’s going on…

cityslicker

City Slicker Mom only started blogging in May, a little over five months ago. In that time, she has already achieved a blog of PR4 which in these difficult PR times, when more prominent blogs haven’t achieved any PR is pretty amazing. I think I’m going to have take some lessons from her! So, please write an article on what you did to get PR4! There are lots of bloggers who would love to know!

Her blog covers a number of areas that are likely to prove popular such as Promote Your Blog, Mommy, Reviews, Dieting, and Success Stories. Some suggestions to think about, though these are just my opinions!

  • How about registering your own domain name? It might be difficult to give up your PR4 ranking for a new domain, but the benefits could be worthwhile, especially with Argus coming.
  • Also, be careful about using too many ‘free’ articles – you may find that they do not provide unique content at all. One article I found from your website was used on over 200 other websites.
  • Busy Your sidebars: Some of your sidebars seem uneven! The left sidebar has only a few elements, while the right sidebar is very busy. Perhaps you could balance, or remove the left one, or add Google Ads and a few more things of interest.

Looking forward to seeing how your blog progresses, and what traffic levels you can generate! If you can get a PR4, then getting better traffic shouldn’t be a problem! Good luck, and let me know how things go.

If you’d like a blogbuzz, like CitySlicker Mom’s, then hop on over to buzz your BlogFest, read the instructions, and sign up today. There are only 24 buzzes to go, and 19 days! So hurry!

Tips: How many posts on your blog’s frontpage?

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5

Over the months since I started blogging this blog, I’ve tried a number of different variations of the front page: columns on the left or the right, one column (or two or three or more), many themes, images, etc. but I didn’t pay much attention to one question: How many posts should you have on your frontpage?

It’s a central question: have too few and you risk new readers clicking away when they find nothing of interest within their first glimpses; have too many, and you risk confusion, slow download times, and mental overload. So what is the right number for your front page?

This also begs another related question: should you publish whole posts on the front page or should you just show excerpts to attract attention, so that readers have to click through to the actual page? If so, perhaps that number of excerpts can be greater than if full posts were used.

The default setting in WP is 10 which you can access in your WordPress Dashboard under Options >>> Reading under the section ‘Blog Pages’ pictured here:

readingoptions

So how many posts should you set? Let’s deal with some popular blogs to see what number these popular bloggers are comfortable with:

  1. John Chow dot com: John has only 5 posts displayed, but each post is fully readable. Additionally, his posts are tending to be quite long.
  2. Naturally, JohnCow also features 5 full posts in the same format.
  3. CashQuests dot com: Currently is displaying 11 posts but all are excerpted. She features one article at the top that may be a recent article. In the main area, she shows 10 general posts.
  4. ProBlogger: Darren’s blog is features 8 excerpted posts, one video, and a long list of popular posts.
  5. AndyBeard: Again it’s 10 posts, but they’re all excerpted.
  6. GeniusTypes: He has 16 posts, but all excerpted.
  7. NetBusinessBlog: There are 10 full posts on the frontpage.
  8. Blueprint for Financial Prosperity: He has 7 full articles.
  9. Beyond the Rhetoric: He has got 6 full posts of moderate or greater length.
  10. the.[ED]ition: Ed has 5 full-length posts on his front page.

Calculator’s out: the average seems to be about 8 posts per frontpage. If you’re setting up your blog for the first time, then the default might be fine. I’m shooting for between 3 and 5 on my own page because it’s quicker to scan, and identify posts of interest. But that might be too few.

There seems to be some loose connection between increasing the number of posts and using excerpts, but the data set is really too small to draw any actual conclusions… I did check other prominent bloggers, but since there are thousands of blogs, why not do your own check, and let me know the results in the comments! That’d be interesting.

Lumix, Models and My first photographs…

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4

Having purchased a new camera, I was honored to take pictures of my first model… At least, he sat still during the session.

lumix

OK. Yes, it’s ‘Orange Bear’… OK. It’s difficult to find good models at 1:00am. But I would like to share my first photograph with my readership!

Orange Bear

On a more serious note, I’ve found a good review of the Lumix I bought. It says a lot of interesting things:

Plus points: Good wide angle lens, small form, don’t need to reset the time every time I change the battery (bad, Kokak, BAD!). Overall, its interface is much quicker to get to know than my previous cameras, and some of the quirks of the Kodak are gone: themes (who cares!), sound themes (why?), and it starts *very* fast and quietly.

I haven’t found any negative points yet, but I’m sure I will. No camera will be perfect.