Blogivists HQ

It’s obvious that a lot of changes are happening around Blogivists.com. We’ve upgraded our software, coded in a ton of new features, cleaned up the old themes and upgraded the existing themes.

We’re also building a new support system that we hope will help deal with any major issues as they arise. This new system will be in place by New Years Day of 2010.

One of the new functions we haven’t talked much about is our upcoming premium services. As you might imagine, running this website is not cheap for us, but we work hard to keep it free for you. Of course, we can’t do this forever without building in alternatives that can bring in revenue needed to operate the site. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, I admit… I’m kind of excited about this poll. Not just because the poll is about the upgraded software we’re running, but also because I get to announce a new global plugin that will help you host polls on your blog as well.

That’s right… we now have the PollDaddy Plugin running on all Blogivists blogs. What this means is that once you set up a free Poll Daddy account, you’ll be able to easily post Poll Daddy polls in your blog posts.

Instructions:
Once you set up your free Poll Daddy account, find the button that allows you to create a new poll. Poll Daddy will walk you through the simple steps and options on setting up your poll. Once you save all of the settings for the poll, you’ll be taken to a page with some code for the poll.

Ignore the code that you’re presented with, and in the right sidebar you’ll see a box for “Wordpress Blogs”. Click on that box.

The next page presents you with three options. You want the option that says “I host my own WordPress blog (version 2.5 or higher)”. When you click that option, you’ll be given a short strip of code. Copy that and paste it into your blog post.

Save… publish… and vote!

With that said… please vote in this poll.

[polldaddy poll="1343719"]

Say what? Blogivists is asking bloggers not to blog?!

I know, the exact opposite of what we push day-in and day-out.

For a good reason: Blogivists is moving from one server to another, and, as is the case with server-moves, there is the potentiality of data loss if users attempt to blog during the transition. Meaning… that 1am post you’ll spend the better part of your Friday night putting up? – gone, for naught.

So, why the server-move, right? Good question. Consider it a major tune-up. It’ll increase the stability and accessibility of the site. And that’s a good, no – great thing!

So the short end of it is: DON’T BLOG at any point during the move, beginning Friday (1/23) at 10pm CST and ending Saturday (1/24) at 10pm CST.

Yes, a full 24 hours. Instead, watch a movie, read a book, or go out with your friends.

We’ll see you back here Saturday night!

If you’ve ever been to the blogivists.com homepage, you’ve probably noticed the “editor’s choice” section on the left-hand column. In the past, it’s operated in a somewhat unruly fashion – days w/o a pick, superfluous links, and at some point there were even non-blogivist posts on there. Yikes…

Well, we’ve finally gotten our act together – roles defined, coding fixed. So, what is it?

Simply put, “editor’s choice” highlights exceptional content within the blogivists.com community. It’s done once a day at the end of the day, everyday.

The criteria we look for?

• Structure
  • Posts written in a reader-friendly format (as opposed to the ominous block of text) sit well with us. Pictures and video a bonus.
• Content
  • Original content beats recycled. Substantiated content beats unverified. Original substantiated content wins all.
• Personality
  • This isn’t a wonky policy paper; it’s a blog. Be punchy, witty, sarcastic and personable. Use humor and irony. Ultimately, it’s all whatever. Just be yourself.
• Message
  • This is a blogging community for conservatives and libertarians. If your post doesn’t reflect those values, it probably won’t get picked.

Now, this isn’t an exact science. You may, after all, have all four components and still not get picked; no guarantees. But chances are that if are somewhat mindful of them, you’ll find yourself up there…yes, in the limelight.

And oh man. The perks, the benefits. Take it from someone who knows – it’s like another world once you’ve become this “editor’s choice”. Haha. Blog on!

Why links are valuable

Links are the currency of the internet. If you link to another website, you are telling your readers that you think this other website is interesting or valuable. You’re also giving your reader an easy way to verify the accuracy of that claim. It makes substantiation simple.

Bloggers love getting links from other websites…so much so that the phenomenon has its own terminology called “link love”.

Why the obsession with links?

Search engines evaluate websites on how many incoming links each website has. Everything else being equal, Google believes that a website with 100 incoming links is more important and valuable than a website with 50 incoming links and will rank its articles that much higher in its search results.

How to create a link in a blog post

Wordpress-the blogging platform Blogivists uses-makes creating a link within blog posts a snap! When you’re writing a post, do the following:

• Highlight a word or two that represents the link.
• Click on the “link” icon, which-appropriately-looks like a chain link.
• Then, enter the link’s complete URL in the pop-up box.
• Click “Insert”.

How to create a link in a comment

For the most part, the same simple process is not doable in comment boxes. In order to have words linked here, we’ll need to know a little html.

• Type “<a href=”.
• Immediately following the equal sign, enter the complete URL to which you would like to link, surrounded by quote marks.
• Enter “>” immediately following the URL surrounded by quotes.
• Type the words you want linked in the exact way you want them to appear. (The words you type here are known as the “anchor text”.)
• Then, type “</a>” after the anchor text.
• Finish up your comment and click on “Submit Comment”.

FYI

Lastly, keep in mind though that is not considered polite to add a link in a comment box unless you are positive it is relevant and helpful to the particular post. Otherwise, it is thought of as link-spamming.

So, now that you know, go out there and spread some love…link love, that is!

UPDATE: Video tutorial with the above processes follows: