If you read my blog, there is a good chance that you have a blog yourself, or that you’ll have one someday soon.  As you know, blogging is a lot more work than you might initially think.  One of these factors is the amount of time spent on commenting: approving comments, responding to comments, and commenting on other blogs.  What if they aren’t commenting on your blog, though? Here are some reasons that might shed some light on the subject:

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1 – You’re boring. Ok, maybe boring is a strong word, but if you are just putting something very general, late (we know who won the Superbowl by now, thanks), or beaten to death, don’t expect people to jump on board.

2 – You have no call to action. Consider adding the WWSGD plugin or ask people a question to leave in the comments.

3 – You’re greedy. Virtually any chance you get to link to others, you instead link either to yourself or worse yet, Wikipedia.  Linking to someone is not only generous but extremely relevant at the right time.  Not only that, but the blogger will get a pingback and quickly come back to your site, hopefully also to thank you

4 – You’re haphazard. People like rhythm.  When people expect you to post 5 times a week, once a week, whatever – at least they know what’s coming.  If you fall off with this momentum, loss of commenters is often to follow.

5 – People don’t comment anymore, anyway. The blog reading community has fallen off in my opinion in terms of leaving quality comments, but I wouldn’t put all the blame on their shoulders.  There are so many blogs out there, sometimes it is just easier to just retweet if you like a post rather than say something dumb like “great job!” Still, there is room for commenters – you just have to give the post your best shot (or at least the best that time will allow, please don’t stop blogging for 3 months to write your master thesis blog post )  and see the commenters come in.

6 – You’re slow in responding. Even if you do respond to comments, you’re doing it days and weeks later.

7 – Worse yet, you don’t respond. For shame.  People spend time to give you their 2 cents.  The least you can do is thank them.

8 – You aren’t making it easy enough. If you don’t do so already, make sure that you are giving people an option to subscribe to comments.  Don’t bother people with unnecessary logins and captchas.

9 – You don’t comment on people’s blogs. Social media has a bit of an emotional bank account.  People will remember when you comment and comment some more.  Please understand that I am not asking you to do this in a self-serving manner (though some do this), I’m asking you to consider spending time outside your blog and really getting involved in other sites.  You may work in social media, but when did it stop being fun? If you even hesitate in answering this question, start commenting more and rediscover yourself.

10 – You haven’t found your following…yet. If you are a new blog, it is very likely it will take you at least some time to build a brand for yourself.  While the case can be made  that people still do comment on popular blogs, many of the  comments that you see on “normal” blogs are spam-like, or to  put it nicely, people that are trying to get a link out of the  deal.  Eventually, people will start talking about you and your blog – if it is of interest.

Also, if you’ve never read Liz Strauss before, she has a classic post that’s still relevant from 2006 on the subject on why readers don’t leave comments, which by the way has 422 comments

I’ve been on the fence with comment systems for a while.  The list is numerous: Sezwho, Intense Debate, Disqus, Chat Catcher (well that’s just part of Wordpress I suppose),  Haloscan (for the old schoolers) and many more.

Today, I’ve decided on Echo by JS-Kit.  I’ve been watching it in the wild, most recently on 1938media.  I too, share Loren’s frustration with the social web – it becomes a lot to manage your conversations across all platforms.  Plus, it sucks when everyone is talking about your site off of your site.  Social profiles are great and enabling – however, it’s important to note that it still isn’t your site.

We’ll still be kicking the tires on Echo for the next few days, though early indications are that it’s a keeper.

(An article contribution by Chris Reynolds: an entrepreneur, fellow designer and developer at Web Hosting Search)

Ever heard of Wordpress.org? If you haven’t, I’ll be surprised. Wordpress’ blogging software has been downloaded over 6,000,000 times since the launch of version 1.5 in 2005, the first version in which Wordpress introduced the use of Themes. Fast-forward to 2009 and developing these themes has become the livelihood of many professional web designers. In other words, if you’re like most web designers and feeling the effects of the financial crisis, perhaps you should consider designing you very own Wordpress Premium Theme.

Around 90,000 Google searches are made every month for the term “Wordpress themes.” This has been a trend for the last three years and the hype over Wordpress doesn’t seem to be dwindling. However, something that has happened is the commercialization of the theme market. There are over 20 well-established designers working full-time to create and sell what are referred to as Premium Themes.

Designing and Selling Premium Themes

Though the commercial concept of premium themes opposes the Wordpress open source freeware philosophy, it has opened up a vast new market for web designers. Some of you may already have created a Wordpress theme without charging anyone for it. Ever since Wordpress went mainstream, web designers have frequently contributed with free themes, mostly to promote their skills and expand their portfolios. Designing premium themes, however, isn’t a huge step in the other direction.  You simply charge for your services, make the user interface more simple than the free themes available, and provide support/updates. People interested in purchasing premium themes aren’t usually interested in tinkering or learning to hack the layout. If I, as a blogger, purchase a premium theme, chances are I probably couldn’t design one myself.

Additional features that define premium themes are quality of design (aesthetics) and flexibility.  Professional web designers can charge their customers for a theme license only because they are providing a professional and high quality product. There will always be free Wordpress themes for you to choose from, but updates, tweak tips, and a community forum are all what you’ll receive when purchasing a premium theme from any of the web’s top providers. Here’s why you should consider developing your own theme:

• The Wordpress blogging platform is used by tens of millions of web denizens each day.

• It is an inspirational haven for any web designer to work with.

• The demand for unique and professional Wordpress themes today is higher than it has ever been. Just take a look at what they are doing over at Woo Themes and you’ll understand.

• Wordpress has become a trusted free CMS, thus more frequently used in serious website-projects where web design is gladly paid for (even the NYTimes utilizes Wordpress).

Creating a Premium Theme – CSS, templates and functions

Now that we have discussed some of the business advantages of designing Wordpress themes, let’s take a look at a few technical pros. Creating a Wordpress theme requires the standard CSS development and graphic design skills, but it also includes some PHP and XHTML/HTML programming. Not to worry, the Wordpress CMS uses a framework of three theme files. First there’s the standard CSS-stylesheet, style.css, that controls the look of the website. Then there are functions files, functions.php and template files.

If user interface is your thing and you’re not interested in becoming a developer – that’s fine – just connect with a PHP / Wordpress developer. You will be able to provide him designs that can be sliced up and made into Wordpress themes.
Finding a web developer with working knowledge of Wordpress programming won’t be hard anyway. You can even download an existing theme, install it and configure the stylesheet, functions files and template files directly from the WP-admin dashboard. One important step here is to make sure to change theme information in the stylesheet-file.

Below is an example of the first few lines of the stylesheet, including unique information for one particular theme. Wordpress does not tolerate or allow direct copying when creating your own theme.

/*
Theme Name: Rose
Theme URI: the-theme’s-homepage
Description: a-brief-description
Author: your-name
Author URI: your-URI
Template: use-this-to-define-a-parent-theme–optional
Version: a-number–optional
.
General comments/License Statement if any.
.
*/

For this trial and error approach, however, you’ll need a place to experiment online. Check out Wordpress hosting in order to set up a suitable hosting account.

For more technical information on creating your own Wordpress theme please take a look at Wordpress.org’s own Theme Development.

Last week’s Wordpress Wednesday about how to select a Wordpress contact form plugin seemed to generate a lot of good discussion, so let’s continue a bit on the same subject.  Since last week’s post, a recurring question I’ve been asked here and privately: What about contact form 7? (by Ideasilo)

First off: I didn’t intentionally leave out Contact Form 7, it’s just been a while since I found myself using it.  So, let’s have a look at what Contact Form 7 has to offer:

Pros: Very simple, can generate tags & CAPTCHA support (both of which are major limitations of Contact Form ][), I don't like how it is hidden in the manage menu though, really not standard for a plugin.   Great language support.  Ability to attach files (Wordpress 2.7+).   There's even a bit you can do with Akismet spam integration, though if you use CAPTCHA that's kind of unnecessary.

Cons: CformsII is much more full featured (think administration, multiple forms on one page, backup/restore, built in css "themes"), and it lacks the refer tracking of Enhanced Wordpress plugin.

So there you have it.  A bit better than the basic Contact Form ][, though my pick is still the Enhanced Wordpress plugin.

And stay tuned for next week's Wordpress Wednesday - we're going to tackle another most frequently asked question: what kind of commenting system should I use?

Related posts:

• How to Select a Wordpress Contact Form Plugin (nowsourcing.com)
• Fun with Wordpress (nowsourcing.com)

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Let me magically whisk you back to the days of grade school.  You could always depend lunch for the day, even if it were mystery meat Fridays.   Now that we’ve gone to a daily blogging schedule, I thought that it would be more helpful to all of you to tell you what’s expected in a more organized fashion:

Motivation Mondays – here you’ll see things to get your week started.  Think things like how to keep blogging momentum and other quick yet thoughtful posts.

Social Media Tuesdays – this will be the social media flavor of the day.  Current events, breaking news, that sort of thing.

Wordpress Wednesdays – since we’re such big fans of Wordpress, we’ll put our money where our mouth is and talk about some of the finer points of blogging, new Wordpress versions, hacks, plugins, themes, e-commerce, and just about anything else we can get Wordpress to do.

PPC Thursdays – Don will be rolling out some thought provoking PPC posts that may change the way you look at PPC. Just because social media is hot right now doesn’t mean you should discount your SEM strategy.

Follow Fridays – Our picks for the week on Twitter beyond the 140 characters.

What do you think of this? Too rigid? Just right? Let us know.

Related posts:

• Keep Your WordPress Blog Fresh With Content From Twitter and FriendFeed (mashable.com)
• Bringing Follow Fridays to LinkedIn (activerain.com)
• McKinsey, Twitter, Web 2.0 and Social Media (blogs.msdn.com)
• Beyond Twitter Search: How Are You Tracking #Mumbai? (mashable.com)

The new site here has been converted wholly into the new blog layout/format, so there is a single UI throughout the site.  Thanks to a little Wordpress fun, this was a pretty easy conversion.

So, SEO friends…what do you think about displaying your entire site within Wordpress? Do you prefer that over having several static pages outside Wordpress? I kind of liked the thought of keeping everything simple and controlled by one system, and just am redirecting the rest.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Do You Do When Good Plugin Behaves Badly? (howtospoter.com)
• Secrets of WordPress and SEO (apriltara.com)

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I’m a sucker for analogies.  Baseball analogies in particular.  Even if you don’t like baseball, you should appreciate this one: your blogging staff is like a pitching rotation.

For those of you that *gasp* don’t know baseball well enough to follow the analogy, let me explain.  A pitching rotation in baseball is a group of high stamina starting pitchers that will pitch every few days.

The point here is that no single pitcher has to pitch every single day so that they will get burned out.

As with blogging, if you personally were expected to blog daily along with your other duties and goals in life, you might find it challenging.  Having regular blog contributors help you tow the line that is your blog.  Regular business blogging has enough upside that it should be in your best interest for you to get yourself a pitching rotation if you do not already have one.

Here’s what I look for in firming up my blog pitching rotation:

Opposites attract. Not to say that the other writers need to be polar opposites in personality, though it definitely gives a blog good character to have multiple regular voices.

Editorial skills.  Unless you are employing an editor to oversee all posts, the writer should be able to hold their own with a professionally edited piece.  Nothing loses your audience like the you’re /  your and to / too nightmares and beyond.

They are social media users.  It certainly helps to have writers that are already immersed in social media, as they will then have a knack for how to cater to social news site goers.  Socialites to be are still ok, as you can show them the ninja arts, too.

They know how to blog.  Seems like a no-brainer at first, though there is a huge difference between an essay/book writer and a blogger. Bloggers know how to write for the web, find appropriate images, are masterful of internal and external linking, and know how to respond to comments.  This is a must.

They have time.  Good bloggers are in high demand – make sure that the blogger can keep up with the schedule that you agree on.

How do you keep your blog pitching rotation steady?

Related articles:

• SocialWhoIs.com – All About The Social Web (killerstartups.com)
• Helping Pitchers Succeed (stevenellis.com)
• Friday Poll: Do “Social Media Experts” Need A Blog? (rohitbhargava.typepad.com)

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A few days ago, you might have seen my claim that I would begin blogging daily.

I’ve been thinking that while this site is a great resource, many might miss it due to infrequent or unexpected updates.

Regardless of our past update frequency, blogging daily sounds like a tall order.  Here are some steps I plan to employ in order to keep daily weekday blogging (and quality) up to par:

1 – More regular writers. Having guest posters is fun and gives people some fresh ideas, though having regular contributors takes on a whole other voice to your blog.  Select these people wisely, as they should balance your normal tone.

2 – Nightblogging. I’ve just found it most effective to blog in the middle of the night.

3 – Assembly line method. One thing that has been particularly effective for me is what I’ll refer to here as assembly line blogging.  Literally, if you look at your blog post as pieces on an assembly line, they become easier, especially when you’re looking to keep up a frequent pace.

So let’s say I come up with a great idea to blog, but don’t have the time.  I quickly jot down the idea in notepad, or put in a draft in Wordpress, usually with a catchy title.  When time will allow, I will continue to develop the idea.  Unless it’s a pure research post, the last steps I will do will be adding links, images and video.  Give it a final edit, and the post is on its way.

4 – Delayed Publishing. Thanks to the beauty of Wordpress, we’re able to schedule posts to publish in the future.  While I might have some great ideas at 3am, it might not get the best exposure should I choose to publish at that time.  So I could publish at 6am and have the blog do the publishing work by itself – just in time for my morning coffee.  Does it really take that much time and work to publish a blog post? Of course not – it’s just nice to know that your post is on its way in a scheduled fashion.

5 -  Keeping Fresh. Nothing keeps you on your game like blogging on a daily basis.  Once you fall off your schedule, you may find yourself in a pattern of “paralysis through analysis.” I’ve fallen into this trap too before.  You haven’t blogged for what you think is far too long, so you over think and over analyze the “perfect post.” You sit on it for days, maybe even weeks.  Last I checked, nobody has won the Nobel Peace Prize for writing a blog post, so break your behavior here and publish already.  It’s a self-defeating behavior that doesn’t help you, and your audience would appreciate the updates.

6 – There are some things Twitter wasn’t made for. Yes, you heard me.  Twitter can’t make your coffee (though you can order coffee from it), and it can’t blog.  Not beyond 140 characters.  So this can lead to a lot of noise.  Also, you don’t “own” your Twitter blog and links are nofollow, so the more you Tweet, the more you’re actually working for Twitter.  Reclaim some of your blog power – your readers will thank you for the focus.

7 – Keep one step ahead of yourself. Try to keep at least one full post ahead of your writing.  If you can’t do that, at least have a few half written ones, ya slacker

I’m not asking you to blog daily…though I’m curious: what do you do to keep up your pace?

Ever since being immersed in microblogging – Twitter and to a lesser extent Plurk – I’ve noticed that I have been blogging way too infrequently.  That’s just not fair to the readers.  While I may have a good Tweet or two, what’s the chance that you caught it? You are probably more likely going to regularly visit my blog or RSS feed of the blog to capture the latest news here. (Yes, I know you can subscribe to one’s Tweets, but who really wants all the noise?)

That said, I’m going to try a one post per day (not counting the weekend) pace for a while.  This will allow me to elaborate beyond the sometimes too brief 140 characters, yet get to the point of a daily piece of wisdom.

As I mentioned on the new Collective Thoughts Twitter account: expect more.