A link to this article just popped into my email inbox, subject line: Why single keywords are for losers. And before I'd even processed it, I got an icky feeling and then I got defensive. Before I'd even started reading, while I was still considering deleting the email unopened, my mind was running ahead, imagining reading some sneering "guru" who was going to tell me my hard worked-out strategy was wrong. It wasn't the words - though "loser" is never a good word - so much as the tone that set the expectation that I was about to be called stupid.

That's not a good feeling to give your readers and potential readers. Let's assume you have good advice to give: you have a choice - good advice + making your audience feel good, or good advice + making your audience feel stupid. Someone who's being called stupid is on the defensive, and someone who's on the defensive isn't open to hearing what you have to say, they're too busy defending themselves. So your good advice is going to fall on deaf ears, and that's a waste of everyone's time then.

Don't call your readers losers. They're reading you, after all.

No, not sex when you're married: I'm talking about blogging. And I'm guilty enough of the accidental blog hiatus myself. In fact, it seems to me that guilt is the primary emotion felt by those who haven't written in a while. "Oh, I should blog something," they tell me, "I feel bad I haven't written in so long."

Guilt is a pretty pointless emotion at the best of times, but with regard to blogging, it's just unnecessary. There isn't some Deity of Blogging who'll smite you with a copy of the Problogger book and cast you down to Blogspot if you haven't accessed your WordPress dashboard in a week. It's all a matter of getting into the habit again.

1. Make a committment
Don't just sit around, watching your page views and your RSS subscribers decline. Decide you're going to get going again. Decide you're going to write, and be specific: how often?
2. ...but not one you can't stick to
At this point, deciding you're going to write three posts a day is unrealistic. Make a committment you know you can stick to. One post a week, maybe. Increasing post frequency is easier later, when you're back in the habit of writing *something*.
3. Make a list
One of the biggest problems bloggers seem to have is feeling that they should be writing something, but having nothing particular to say. Create yourself a list of topics or titles, things you know you've got something to say about and that will be exciting to write.
4. Get some posts half-drafted
I love having a stock of posts mapped out, that can be finished off in less than an hour. It's been a life-saver for me when I'm writing on someone else's schedule, and really helps you keep going when you feel like your pen is broken and you'll never write so much as a cheque again. And working on more than one post at a time can help distract you: if *this* one isn't working, then *that* one might.
5. Don't, whatever you do, write an apology for not blogging
"Sorry I haven't blogged for a while but..." Yuck. My readers aren't sitting around wondering why I haven't written, and I'd hazard a quid or two that yours aren't either. If you're starting up your blog again, make sure you're saying something useful.

You will need: the WP Holding Page theme; the Theme Test Drive plugin, and of course a WP install.

Install and activate the above. Basically, we're going to use the theme to show everyone else a holding page, and the plugin to ensure that signed-in admins can see the new theme and content we're working on.

Change the WPHP options to show the holding page messages you want. The nice thing about this "theme" is that it doesn't show ANY WP posts, so if you're working on content, you can publish it and see what it looks like without anyone else being able to see it.

Now we need to make sure that you can see the "real" theme. From the dashboard, go to Appearance > Theme Test Drive Options, select the theme you want from the drop down menu and click "enable theme drive". From this point, you'll be able to see the theme you just picked, but anyone else just surfing in on your blog will see the holding page.

When you're happy your blog is ready to face the world, then click "disable theme drive" on the TTD Options page, enable the theme you really want to use from Appearance > Themes, and you're done.

Square

The most popular shape, and understandably so: it's the easiest to fit together into a block, and therefore probably to be recommended if you have a lot of sites to link. There should be something here to fit anyone's style.

• 14 lovely clear icons; taking requests for additions.
• 12 glossy icons in true Web 2.0 style, up to 256x256.
• 30 icons in my favourite set: gradients are interesting without distracting from the icon content. Perfection.
• 30 icons with a slightly metallic matte finish.
• 23 icons up to 256x256, in really fresh colours.
• 13 simple icons with square corners at 50x50.
• 65 icons in yummy wet colours: just lovely.
• 154 icons in lovely black and white: this could be the only set you ever need.
• Marcofolio's set of 25 stamps is a nicely informal take on the square shape.
• There are 65 icons in Studiom6's set , so many logos you won't see anywhere else.

Circular

• Gorgeously simple, 17 icons up to 128x128.
• 154 black-on-white icons up to 256x265. Just about everything you'll ever need.
• 12 "turned over edge" icons up to 128x128.
• 108 black and white round icons: just gorgeous.
• 25 slighly domed-effect icons, up to 256x256
• 19 wood-effect icons in 70x70 and 40x40; I don't normally like wood-effect on the net but these are quite cute.

Cubes

• 5 sites only; 3 versions of each one, but very, very nice.
• 6 sites might just be the ones you need, or inspire you to make your own.

Heart

• 22 heart-shaped icons: nice job that pushes the icons to their limit rather than tidying them up with white space.
• 12 glossy hearts: Web 2.0 graphics with a hearty twist.
• Chocolately heart goodness that might work with any luxury-based theme.

Alcoholism

What can I say: these icons refresh the parts others can't even reach.

• 26 pretty bottle tops from Tydlinka.
• 14 grungy bottle tops by Lenka Meleakova.
• Fancy a glass of Twitter or a pint of Facebook? Very innovative.
• If a tinny's more your style, here are 28 of them from Icontexto.

Stars

• 26 icons: though they tend to lose the logo - stars aren't very conducive to being anything other than stars - they could work well if you only want to use a couple together.

Free Shapes

• Juan Pablo Armstrong's 12 icon set has Colour Lovers and Deviant Art, and has strong cohesion while largely leaving the logos alone.

Hand-drawn

I'm surprised how much I like these: I thought that "hand-drawn website" thing had been and gone, but now I'm having sneaky ideas about a WordPress theme based around a hand-drawn Kubrick. If anyone can draw and fancies a collaboration on this, gimme a shout.

• Mfayaz's set has 22 icons - and seems to be taking requests for additions via comments. Stylistically they're a nice compromise between informal and non-scruffy.
• The G Force's set of 18 icons have super-saturated colour that oozes off the screen: more icons are promised.
• Janko's Handy Icons 2 pack has 21 square icons including PayPal and Skype in a painted finish.

So which do you pick?

You pick the ones you like, of course. But some more thoughts that might influence your liking:

• Square icons are nice if you're using a lot, because they fit together in a block.
• Non-standard shapes are always risky, and the further the graphic is from the standard logo, the greater the risk of it not being recognised.
• The more icons you're using, the more you need a standard shape - probably round or square.
• If you only have one or two icons, you can afford something more quirky that your readers have to give a second glance.

Micro-stock websites

Micro-stock sites typically sell smaller, lower-resolution images suitable for use on the internet for very low prices, though you may have to reconcile yourself to seeing the same image on other people's sites too.

photo credit: ssh

The likes of Crestock, Big Stock Photo, Dreamstime and istockphoto are a quick and easy way to find images to fit many subjects. For a dollar or two, you can buy professionally-shot high-quality pictures that are ready to drop straight into your posts.

The problem, of course, is that while a couple of dollars for a photograph isn't so bad as a one-off, if you're buying a picture or two for every blog post, it soon mounts up. Plus to get the best deals on most stock sites, you have to buy a large number of credits at one go: you might not want your hard-earned cash tied up in photograph futures. Fortunately, there are plenty of places to get free stock photography.

Where not to find free pictures: Google Image Search, Yahoo Images...

Don't be tempted to think that just because it's on the internet, it's free to re-use, or that people won't notice, or that if they do notice, there's nothing they can do about it. A couple of web designers of my acquaintance have had very hefty bills recently for unauthorised use of agency photographs, and on the flip-side, as someone who had an entire site of more than 600 images stolen wholesale and republished under someone else's © tag, I promise you there are things that can be done about it, and really, why be such a jerk?

So here are just some of the places that you can find great pictures to use legally.

Flickr

What could be easier: a great big site full of millions of photos, many of which are free to use. Photographers on Flickr can license their images for reuse (or not); to find those that are available for republication, use advanced search:

Check "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content" for images that you can publish on your own site: if you're running a commercial site or want to find images to use in your own art works, you'll need to use the additional filters too.

There are a number of plugins to allow WordPress and Flickr to interact, so that you can pull images from Flickr straight into WP's "add post" form. My favourite is PhotoDropper, largely because it has the option to sort results by "most interesting", so the first photos it shows you are normally the best (tip: increase the number of photos per page from the default 5 to 50 or so). PhotoDropper has the option to restrict results to photos available for commercial use, and will automatically label photos with attribution and a link to the photographer's Flickr page.

Alternatively, Flickr Photo Album has many useful features if you want mainly to use your own Flickr stream in WordPress.

photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a way to license your work to allow other people to reuse it without specifically having to ask permission. You might say that other people can use your photographs, so long as they don't alter them, or your music, so long as they link back to you, or your words, so long as they've still got your name on. There are a variety of licenses according to how much freedom you want to give other people.

Creative Commons search allows you to search CC-licensed material to use in your own works. It's a bit clunky right now, and seems to largely rely (for images) on Google, Yahoo and Flickr - but it might just turn up something you can't find elsewhere.

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons has more than 4 million images which have been licensed by their owners to be freely reused without individual permission. Attribution for the author and Wikimedia is probably required, but the terms for each image's licence are stated individually. Wikimedia can be a great source for images that just can't be found anywhere else: my picture of Mary Somerville for Ada Lovelace Day came from Wikimedia.

Free stock photography sites

There are dozens, if not hundreds of these, sometimes as a front door into paid-for media and sometimes just free. Here are just a few of the ones I've spotted: where I've included notes about terms, these are to the best of my knowledge correct at time of writing, but may change: please, please check before you take any pictures.

In many cases, even if an image is free for commercial use, it may not be free to resell or redistribute: so for example, a picture might be used on a company website or brochure, but not on t-shirts to be resold, or in website themes or another picture gallery. Again, read the terms before use.

• stock.xchng: simply, the best. 350,000 free stock pictures, free for commercial use (some photographers have additional terms, e.g. you have to notify them of use). Always worth checking this one before you pay for something!
• Amazing Textures: wood, brick, metal and so on: useful for backgrounds. Free for NC use; $20 subscription for commerical.
• ImageAfter: free for commercial use. Thumbnails are painfully small though.
• FreeFoto: more than 125,000 pictures, nicely organised. Free for commercial use with link back to site.
• Free Digital Photos.net: free for commercial use, option to buy hi-res version for print use. Small collection but good quality and particularly nice food section.
• Free-Photographs.net: free for NC use with attribution. Some good planes, trains and motorbikes.
• FreePhotos.com: free for commercial use with attribution and link back. Nice architecture section.
• FreeStockPhotos.com: free for commercial use with attribution. Particularly good Egypt, Israel and Near East sections.
• From Old Books: scanned images from old books. Some public domain, some copyright, some free for NC use. Lovely, lovely site.
• Morgue File: free for commercial use, to remix, without attribution. Great source for images for redistributed website themes, for example.
• NASA: free to use with attribution (how cool is that!)
• National Oceanic & Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA): free to use with attribution. Weather, coastlines, animals and (my favourite) treasures of the library.
• Photocase: download credits received in exchange for uploaded pictures, or can be purchased. Some quirky and unusual shots here.
• Pixel Perfect Digital: free for personal and commercial use. Large collection of textures.
• Search 4 Dinosaurs: pretty specialist, but great fun. Contact individual artists for permission to use images (they've always just said "yes" to my NC requests).
• Stockvault: free for NC use only, more than 13,000 photos.
• Woophy: pictures of "our world" (cityscapes, landmarks, geography) organised by clickable world map. Low-res images for NC use only.
• Visipix: "the biggest art museum in the world". Free with link back to author and Visipix. Has fine art as well as photos, but the ads get to be very intrusive.

And once you've got the perfect photo

if you need help adding images to your posts, check out Adding pictures to your blog posts.

It's the middle of the night; I should be asleep, but this post on TechCrunch (and a weirdly off-topic post it is too) has annoyed me. Neil Patel from Kissmetrics is writing about "growing your blog" by increasing reader engagement with your site.

The bit of his advice that really caught my eye was this:

Respond to every commenter – every time someone comments on your blog, you should respond to him or her.

Similar suggestions crop up pretty frequently in how-tos for increasing readership, increasing commenting, building community around your blog and so on. Which is why this - which started out as a comment on TechCrunch but grew beyond all reasonable comment length - feels like a really guilty confession:

I really hate blogs where the author responds to everything.

Not all comments need a response: not all comments expect a response. If I want to leave a meaningless but grateful comment like "nice post, thanks for writing", but I see that the author feels it necessary to thank me for thanking them, then I won't: I don't want to add unnecessarily to the burden of thankfulness. (I got made to write thank you letters after Christmas for years and years, and I'd never do that to anyone.)

Threads on which authors have said that they will respond to every. single. comment. are just painful to read. They end up with dozen of author-comments like "hey xxx thanks for commenting". And frequently, the author doesn't have time to respond in real time, so the conversation that's developed among the commenters is interrupted by the host going back to say "hey thanks for the comment" - or to post a response that's actually already been posted by another commenter.

Responding to every comment on your blog is like being the host at a party, and every time someone says something, saying "great point, Bob, thanks for contributing to my party". It's unnecessary. It's annoying. And ultimately, it kills conversation.

When your blog's new, of course you'll need to do some responding. The first couple of people who arrive at your party will need someone to make conversation with them, right? But once things have got going a little, it's time to step back and let the conversation do its own thing. You should be part of that too - but you're only one part of it, not some automatic thanking machine spewing out meaningless drivel every time someone types a word or two.

What do you think? Respond to everything, or not? Leave me a comment: I promise I won't thank you for writing it (unless you really want me to).