The Creation Of A Contact Page Can Be A Blogger’s Greatest Asset

How far would you go to keep in touch with your readers? Some website administrators have included their phone numbers and their email addresses, so their readers can contact them if they would like to ask them a question or to have a certain issue resolved; I think that is a wonderful idea.

In regards to email addresses, I think that a separate email address (not the one that you used to set up your WordPress account), should be the one to use for liaising with your readers; here is the reason why: the email address that one uses to set up their WordPress account, is the one that receives all of your WordPress notifications; it lets you know who liked which post and it also informs you of who followed your blog. If you are like me, you probably receive countless notifications on a daily basis and a person’s email can get lost among all those notifications. It is also a little difficult to scroll down all of those notifications until you find an actual email from someone. If you only have one email account, I would advise that you create another for this purpose. For example, if your blog is called: Poetic Justice, you can create an email in the lines of: poeticjustice@outlook.com; this would make things a lot easier for you, because that email account was specifically created for the purpose of communicating with your readers.

Cellular phones are also a great way to keep in touch with your readers; they can either call you or send you a text message.

In regards to cellular phones, there are a lot of cheap ones on the market. You can purchase one that works on a prepaid plan; there is no need to take out one that works on a monthly billing cycle; unless you believe that is the better way to go.

Remember, that the sole purpose of that cellular phone is to receive calls from your WordPress readers; so you really wouldn’t be using it unless you are answering calls from your readers. Or, you have chosen to return missed calls from your readers.

If you wish to take things a little further, you could even include your Skype and Google Plus contact information.

For the record, you are not obligated to go this way. But, including your contact information on your blog gives it a nice profession touch.

The Issue Of The Deactivation Of The Comment Feature

For quite sometime, I have noticed that there are a handful of bloggers on WordPress who chose to disable their comment feature; while there are countless reasons on their behalf for doing this, I would like to know their reasons for choosing to go down this figurative path.

I am sure that there were times when you encountered an article that you really loved and you wanted to share your LOVE and appreciation by commenting; then the harsh reality slaps you in the face — the website administrator disabled their comment feature and as a result of that, you had no choice but to keep your comment to yourself.

I could only speculate by saying that those bloggers were probably proverbially burnt in the past. For example: if their blog is a controversial one, they probably received a large number of hate-filled comments.

Or, the website administrator is so busy that they do not have the available time to respond to comments.

What are your views on this?

I would also like to hear the viewpoints of those who disabled their comment feature. I am eager to learn their true reasons behind their decision.

Just Pondering Part 411

I like the idea that people went out of their way to share my blog on their Twitter and Google Plus accounts. But, what about Facebook and Pinterest? Is my blog so unsuitable that it cannot be shared on Facebook and on Pinterest?

Now, I know for a fact that not everyone on WordPress would have a Facebook or a Pinterest account; but I believe that there are a large number of people on WordPress who are Facebook and Pinterest account holders.

I am also curious as to why my blog is shared mostly via Twitter and Google Plus and not via the rest of the other social networks.

So far, the only people who share my work on Facebook are my very own Facebook friends and it is rarely shared outside of that circle.

In the near future, things could change. More people may get the inspiration to share my blog via their Facebook and Pinterest accounts.

Related article:

•It Is Okay For You To Share And Reblog Articles That You Encountered On My Website

 

Is Akismet Sleeping On The Job?

For the past few days, I have noticed that a lot of spam slipped through the spam filter.

Is spam getting more innovative? Or, does Akismet need updating?

Many of us agree that spam is annoying (And WordPress is aware of our concerns. Maybe, the WordPress engineers need to send a memo to the Akismet engineers, letting them know that their spam filter isn’t working the way it used to).

Have you noticed the same thing? Or, am I the only one who is experiencing this strange ordeal?

Should I Give Google Blogger A Second Chance?

Many of you are fully aware that I was once part of the Google Blogger community (Although some people have had success with this blog site, it was never my figurative cup of tea).

Now, I have chosen to ask this question since I have friends on WordPress who also blog on Google Blogger.

According to Alexa, Google Blogger is the second highest ranking blog site; which is trailing behind WordPress, the highest ranking blog site in the blogosphere.

One of my pet peeves is that Google Blogger isn’t as community oriented as WordPress and finding blogs on Google Blogger by categories is quite a bothersome task; they don’t have the convenient Reader feature like WordPress.

However, Google Blogger gives you more freedom to experiment with templates (On WordPress, we call them, Themes). If a person on Google Blogger is not too pleased with the selection of templates available, they are free to upload their own.

A blogger on WordPress doesn’t have those options available to them; it can only be done if they are hosting their blog independently and they have chosen to utilize the WordPress software with the various plugins, etcetera.

Now, it would be nonsensical of me to rejoin Google Blogger only to leave them again.

For the record, I am not abandoning WordPress. I am merely thinking about setting up another blog on a different blog site.

Just Pondering Part 409

Would you recommend WordPress to a friend that is interested in creating their own blog? I know that I would!

For starters, WordPress is the number one blog site on the planet. It is community oriented and it is a wonderful place to blog.

I would also recommend some blogs on WordPress for them to visit — the kind that would motivate them and keep them inspired.

I know for a fact that once they are bitten by the WordPress bug, they are going to have a very high level of fun that they never thought was possible.

Just Pondering Part 408

Life is so unique — unique in the sense that the more we learn, is the more questions seem to arise from within us (Well, that is all part of human nature).

I had a major question that I thought was answered a long time ago; but then, things pop up that makes one revisit issues that they thought was resolved.

Many of us heard that the blog site owns the rights for the blogger’s content (It may sound a bit preposterous, but it was something I had to look into — something that I thought I already had an answer to, but now I am a little unsure about the matter).

Many reliable sources told me, that the only people who have rights to a blogger’s content is the blogger (After all, there are laws put into place to protect one’s intellectual property and the content belongs to the blogger whether they have a copyright or not).

A few people in the blogosphere said that the blog site owns all of our material.

Now, which source of information do you believe?

Anyway, those who adhere to the belief that the blog site has all the rights to our material, recommended that we spend our money in creating a self-hosted blog (Now, this sort of thing entails a significant amount of cash if you truly want to do it the right way and a lot of technical know-how).

Or, maybe we really have nothing to worry about and it doesn’t really matter if we use a blog site for our work or to host our blog independently.

What are your views on this?

Would WordPress Go All Out Of Their Way To Keep Us?

We know how our insurance companies and our internet and telephone providers operate. If we were to tell them that we are severing our ties with them, they would probably want to know why and try to throw in some extra deals or amend or current package so that they can keep us as one of their customers.

Although, I am using WordPress for free, I still see them as a blogging entity that provides countless bloggers with a lovely service — one where they have allowed us to post our various articles.

Not everyone is pleased with WordPress, there are some who actually went back to Google Blogger — the place that they were blogging before they came over to WordPress.

I believe that WordPress monitors our posts (Well, they would have to be checking out the various posts from bloggers within their community. How else would they locate those who they would like to add in their Freshly Pressed collection? I doubt that they write the names of various blogs and place them into a hat and they ask their staff-members to randomly choose one from within the hat).

WordPress is aware of everything that goes on within their community — nothing is a secret. After all, we are using their platform to blog. So, why is it that when a disgruntled blogger threatens to jump off of the proverbial WordPress ship, no one from their administration enquires about the reason for the blogger wanting to depart?

I believe that if the administrators of WordPress were aware of such issues, they could probably resolve the abandonment issue and also gain feedback from those people, so they can improve their blog site.

Branching Out

Recently, I thought about being a guest blogger or an additional website administrator for someone who would like to have another writer on their team; I think that this is a much better idea than establishing a new blog from scratch on another blog site.

I will continue to play around with the ideas in my head.

The irony is: I am the type of person who would actually set up a new blog on another blog site and in addition to that, be a guest blogger on someone’s blog and also be an additional website administrator for another blog (Hmmm. Maybe, I am a bit too adventurous).

However, I think that I would sleep on my decision and pay close attention to how I feel about this idea of mine later.

Just Pondering Part 407

Do you post to please others? Or, do you post to please you first?

Hey, it’s your blog and you have every right to post the things that matter to you. There is really no need to sellout on your values. Other people might want you to take a different direction where your posting is concerned; many believe that people are not really interested in our thoughts and that we should write about the lives of celebrities (Those people are wrong, because not everyone is interested in the glamour and the glitter and the celebrity gossip. However, if you wish to go into that direction, it is all fine by me, because it’s your blog and as I have said, you have every right to do anything that you want with it — it is your responsibility and not mine).

On many occasions, I have encountered many articles that I was in full disagreement with. I never once said to the website administrator, “How the hell can you post a thing like that?”

I believe in freedom of speech and that all bloggers have the right to post anything that they want; provided that what they posted was not in violation of the blog site’s Terms of Service.

I like writing the things that are on my mind and at times it gets on the nerves of certain people. But, that doesn’t stop me from writing and it shouldn’t.

When it comes to blogging anything on Renard Moreau Presents, I am my own boss! So, in the future, don’t even think about telling me what I shouldn’t post.

No one has the right to place a figurative lid on your mouth since no one likes being censored.

You post what you want and I will post what I want; it is that simple!