Triune Designs Blog: Web Design, Development, & Marketing

I attended CLT WordCamp this weekend in the grand old city of Charlotte. This was the Queen City’s first attempt at a blogger’s conference (at least to my knowledge) and the organizers did a great job. There were growth opportunities for the crusty blogging veterans and green newbies alike during our one-day conference.

The sessions were broken into three parts: utilizing technology in your blog, creating good content, and marketing your blog. I got a lot of information that will be useful in helping you to become a better blogger, but for now I will just give you some highlights from the conference.

Today’s wrap-up post focuses on the panel that discussed technology and design.

My thoughts are italicized following the review.

Technology & Design (Panelists: Brian Cary, Albert Banks, Mike Rundle, Jason Keath)

Valuable elements to include in your blog’s design:

• Recent comments – give your commenters their due
• Category counts – help your readers visualize what is going on in your blog
• Posting frequency
• Tags – semantic relationships are important
• Ping & Trackback ecosystem – who is linking to you

I like the idea about having your recent comments (or commenters) plugged into the design. I do not have my recent commenters on my main page, but this is a good idea and you can look for this addition in the near future.

Here is why giving your commenters a little attention is important. Commenters keep the conversation going on your blog. Without them your blog feels more like you are talking to the wall at the end of a cave. You only hear yourself and the echoes. No one wants that, so go out and give your commenters a little love.

Top ways to become a WordPress expert:

• Visit popular WordPress blogs
• Read through the tutorials
• Learn the terminology
• Setup your own blog
• Participate in the forums
• Install plug-ins
• Test and use various themes
• Create your own theme

I love WordPress and highly recommend it, but check out other bloggers regardless of what platform they use. There are so many talented bloggers out there that it is easy to find a few and begin your journey by following them. Try to learn from them and find out what makes them successful.

After beginning your blogging career by reading other people’s blogs then go out and start your own. In this case, one of the best ways to learn is to just go out and do it. You will be amazed at how much better you will become over the long term.

Throw me a bone here…
A good discussion took place concerning blog comments. A question arose about whether bloggers should delete, edit or just leave the comments as they are entered. (Spam did not count in the discussion.)

Someone in the crowd stated that a lawyer had told him “once you begin editing comments, then you are responsible for every piece of content on your entire blog, comments and all!! You can delete the comment, but never edit the comment” (paraphrased).

Wow, that is a pretty strong statement. Does anyone have any experience with this? Has anyone heard this advice before? Does anyone have any thoughts about that statement? A little help would be appreciated.

Image courtesy of bz3rk

Tags: Blogs, clt wordpress, cltwordpress