Blogivists HQ

Firestats was “so so,” but it didn’t quite do the trick and was a bit outdated. Because of this, we’ve gone ahead and installed Statpress on all Blogivists Blogs.

To view your statpress results and options, simply login to your blog’s dashboard and look at the lower left in the dashboard sidebar. Expand the Statpress window and choose overview for the stats, options for the options menu.

You can still use your own stat tracker, of course, but this one is readily available in the dashboard and easy to read.

Enjoy!

-Eric Odom

A blogroll is a list of blogs, typically located on a blog’s sidebar, that reads as a list of recommendations to outside readers. The list of links demonstrates a blogger’s interests, affiliations, and – moreover – connections.

Having a blogroll effectively tells your readers, “Hey! Here are some blogs that I like. Maybe you will too.” Furthermore, it communicates to those bloggers you put on your blogroll, “I really dig your site and think it’s worth mentioning to my readers.”

Found yourself on someone else’s blogroll? It’s definitely not something to take lightly; in fact, consider it a sign of respect and think about adding them to yours.

First Things First: Displaying Your Blogroll

In order to make your blogroll functional, you have to first add the “Links” widget. To do that:

1. Go to “Design”.
2. Click on the “Widgits” tab.
3. “Add ” the “Links” widgit (located on the left-hand side of the page underneath “Available Widgets”).

Good. Now the links you add will actually show up on your blogroll…

Adding Links

…so let’s do just that:

1. Go to “Write”.
2. Click on the “Links” tab.
3. Under “Name”, type the name of the blog or site.
4. Under “Web Address”, type the URL of the blog or site.
5. Click on “Save”.

Check out the video below if you’re still having trouble:

Adding Categories

Eventually your links may become too varied in scope. Say, for instance, you have a wiki (i.e. Ballotpedia) or a news sites (i.e. Drudge) on your blogroll. Those don’t exactly constitute blogs; so, you may want to separate them with categories.

1. While adding a new link, click on “Add New Category” (located underneath “Categories”).
2. Type in your new category. Your new link will be automatically be checked (and thereby, added to the category).
3. Save the link.

You can also categorize old links.

1. Go to “Manage”.
2. Go to the “Links” tab.
3. Go to the link you want to categorize and click on it.
4. Follow the same process as above, remembering to “Save”.

To see the last two processes, click on the video below:

Categories are a great way to sort your blog posts. They are umbrella terms that particular posts are thrown into in order for you (and your readers) to quickly pull up content limited to a certain topic. Clicking on a particular category will retrieve all the blog posts classified within that category. It is worth mentioning that, if a reader is unable to determine a blog’s different beats, he or she can quickly figure it out by glancing at the categories.

Adding categories to a new post

• While writing a new blog post, you will notice the “Categories” box, directly below the “Tags” box which is directly below your content.
• To add a new category, simply click “Add New Category”, typing in the name of the category and then clicking on “Add”. If you want the new category to be a subcategory of a parent category, use the drop-down menu before clicking “add”.
• To put a post under an existing category, simply check the box of the appropriate category. (Multiple categorization is totally legit so check as many boxes as you like).

Adding categories to old posts

If you wish to go back and place old posts in categories, you don’t need a time machine.

• From your Control Panel, click “Manage” and then “Posts”.
• There, you’ll see all your old posts and the categories each is in.
• Click on the title of the post you want recategorized.
• Scroll down past your content and the “Tags” box unto the “Categories” box.
• Check off, or add, the categories and click “Save”.
• Lastly, brag to your friends about not needing a time machine!

You can be as straight forward or as unique as you want with your categories. For example, Mark Block takes the more traditional approach using general political terms (i.e. “voter fraud”, “global warming”, Wisconsin politics”) while Liberty Girl has a more informal, emotive way (i.e. “lame!”, “shut the eff up”) of categorizing posts.

Hey. Just because we encourage organization, doesn’t mean we encourage conformity. Remember: you aren’t just a blogger, you’re a Blogivist!

UPDATE: I thought I’d add a little how-to on adding the “Categories” Widget…

Adding the “Categories” Widget

There is a widget that will display all your categories in a neat little section, so readers can 1. see all your categories and 2. easily pull up all the posts within a particular category.

• Click on the “Design” tab.
• From there, click on the “Widgets” option.
• Under the list of “Available Widgets” (left-hand side of the page), find “Categories” and click “Add”.
• Be sure to “Save Changes” (right-hand side of the page).

Now when you view your blog, you’ll see a widget titled “Categories” with all your categories listed (and linked) below…making your blog hyper-organized! Alright!

Here’s video to show you the – so to speak – categorical how:

Tags aren’t everything when it comes to conquering Google but – hey – without them, you’d be lucky to find your blog on Google at all. So if you aren’t using ‘em already, begin this second!

What are they?
Tags are the organizing mechanism of the blogosphere (and, really, the internet for that matter). They are specific keywords or phrases that accompany each blog post, thereby enabling keyword-based search and retrieval. By making information-searches much more accurate and useful, tags help in getting people to your blog.

What do they look like?
To give an example, a blog post on the 2008 presidential election might include “John McCain”, “Barack Obama”, “Bob Barr”, “electoral college” and other specific keywords that reflect the content and ideas of the post.

Why are they important?
Using tags is the easiest and most effective way to make your posts SEO-friendly. SE-what? Search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines, like Google, rank web pages according to relevance and popularity (along with a few other factors). If you don’t tag your posts, Google has little to work with in terms of determining relevance, and thereby, no way of connecting potential readers with your posts.

Thus, conclude that tags are necessary. Posts that are tagged will perform much better on Google than those that are not; posts that are tagged will bring in visitors who didn’t even know your blog existed! Wazoo!

How to do it?

1. After writing your totally awesome post, scroll just beneath the text box to the “Tags” field.
2. Simply type in a tag and press “enter”. And another! Then another! And another! And another!
3. If you want to delete a tag, simply click the gray “x” to the left of a particular keyword.
4. Once your post is complete, click on the publish button and revel in the improved SEO and ensuing web traffic!

As if those directions weren’t simple enough, here’s a tutorial:

This week’s tip goes beyond mere blogging and into the world of online social networking. You know…Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Ning, Twitter (a personal favorite), Plurk, etc.

Coming from one of our own, Jenn’s Other Blog tells you – in four easy steps – how to get popular in the Web 2.0 world:

1. Choose a name.

This is the name you’re going to use everywhere online, so choose wisely. You can use your own name, of course, but if you have safety and privacy concerns, you may want to choose a pseudonym. I recommend choosing a name that sounds like a real name (i.e., has a first and last name, like “Jenn Sierra”), so that you’ll also be able to use it on sites like Facebook and Linked-In. Alternatively, some social networkers choose a name that reflects their online interests or political stance (e.g., Foeammer, or bamapachyderm)…

2. Get a free e-mail account using your new name.

This can be done through a plethora of e-mail services like g-mail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.. Don’t use your internet service provider (like AOL, or Cox), because if you change providers, you’ll lose your e-mail address. Begin developing a list of contacts and networking with those contacts by e-mail whenever possible.

3. Choose an avatar.

This is the little picture that will be beside your username nearly everywhere. Choose one you like…it should be a square, and save it to your harddrive or photosharing site in a few different sizes, from 50×50 pixels to about 400×400 pixels.

4. Join social networking sites, using your new e-mail address, avatar, and name.

On the more established networks like Facebook and StumblUpon, use the friend-finder feature which checks your e-mail address books for friends that are already using the social networking sites. This helps you develop a friends-list quickly…

Join networks as you discover them. You will be more active on some networks than others. On some, you’ll simply be reserving your username, but on a few, you’ll be actively developing online networking relationships by participating in voting on articles and especially in the discussions.

As Jenn states, “there you go – you have a Web 2.0 presence. Take care of it.” Firstly though, USE IT! Hopefully, for liberty. To see the post in its entirety, click here.