May 3, 2009
Photograph by Valsilvae 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... Read more
May 2, 2009
WordPress doesn't just publish the all-posts feed: in fact, it automatically publishes feeds to just about everything on your blog. Below are a few examples; I've included both the URL and the code to automatically generate the relevent link; after all, the feed's no use if your readers can't find it. URLs given assume you've set up pretty permalinks in Settings > Reading. Edit the bits in... Read more
December 2, 2008
One of the really nice things about how WordPress handles discussion of your blog posts, is the ability to take the conversation beyond just your own blog. Pingbacks mean that you can track who's talking about you on their own blogs, automatically:Sharon writes a blog postTracey writes a blog post linking to Sharon's postthe blog software leaves a link ("pingback") to Tracey's post automatically... Read more
December 2, 2008
"Recent comments" are an essential addition to the sidebar of just about every blog. They tell your visitors that they're important, and I know from experience that many people will come back to your blog to read new comments, even if there are no new posts. If you're blogging for business, they tell your customers that you trust and respect them enough to let them leave feedback right there on... Read more