I've been asked a couple of questions about the 'Top of the Berkshire Blogs' chart I compile. Hopefully this will provide some answers.
Blog rankings matter for the simple reason that they help bring you more visitors.
This works in two ways.
Firstly, links from other sites may drive traffic as readers click through and make a direct connection.
And secondly, search engines measure the weight and volume of links - which means with each new link your site receives the higher it will be placed in search engine queries for relevancy. And this indirectly drives traffic to your site too.
So my 'Top of the Berkshire Blogs' chart is good on a number of counts - it tracks the recent moves of local blogs up search engine rankings while helping drive members of the local network forwards in the wider online community, as well as being a fun way of gaining feedback about the performance of your site!
Now get ready for blast-off!
Saturday 14 November 2009
Thursday 12 November 2009
The Trouble With... Blogging
...is that it can really do your head in!
Well, not always, of course.
For my own part I've set myself a pretty mammoth task of writing a sort of local current affairs news journal for my Reading List, and it can often get a bit intense. So it's good to escape over here to organise a few thoughts with some discussion.
My methodology is to use the collection of local blogs I've found and use them as a sources of news, somewhere between a news agency and a news paper. It can often be a bit of a stretch to find the hook which binds all the sources together and create a narrative which readers may respond to, but when it works the effect is a fascinating insight into the life around us - and it often surprises me!
I have a few of basic types of blog posts which I use, so let me describe a couple of examples from this week.
The first is a basic 'event' story - as here: Geeks Get Organised. This takes a couple of different sources and respins their reactions to what happened, thereby showing what is happening in the wider context. So, for example, this story was about the growing use of social media and how increasing connections made by people through SM is creating a political constituency by moving people to support related issues.
But the second is a more tricky 'multi-event' story - as here: Issues Of Equality. This takes singular sources regarding different events and notes the similarity between them, and thereby attempting to show how the deeper issues affect everybody. Thus race, gender, age, income or anything can be means by which individuals or groups can be discriminated unfairly against.
The juxtaposition of generalised and more specific stories has an additional effect, creating a connection between the two of them and hinting at how the lessons learned in one area can be used positively by cross-fertilising other areas.
So in this instance the conclusion offered about the way to further equality is to enable greater communication between people who can be included among that group and enabling them to speak about the issues that matter to them.
This facet of the art of journalism is largely a matter of luck - and it can cause big headaches if you try to fit stories together too neatly.
So just occasionally more committed readers may notice I've gone AWOL for just long enough to gain a fresh perspective on how to edit everything together.
Well, not always, of course.
For my own part I've set myself a pretty mammoth task of writing a sort of local current affairs news journal for my Reading List, and it can often get a bit intense. So it's good to escape over here to organise a few thoughts with some discussion.
My methodology is to use the collection of local blogs I've found and use them as a sources of news, somewhere between a news agency and a news paper. It can often be a bit of a stretch to find the hook which binds all the sources together and create a narrative which readers may respond to, but when it works the effect is a fascinating insight into the life around us - and it often surprises me!
I have a few of basic types of blog posts which I use, so let me describe a couple of examples from this week.
The first is a basic 'event' story - as here: Geeks Get Organised. This takes a couple of different sources and respins their reactions to what happened, thereby showing what is happening in the wider context. So, for example, this story was about the growing use of social media and how increasing connections made by people through SM is creating a political constituency by moving people to support related issues.
But the second is a more tricky 'multi-event' story - as here: Issues Of Equality. This takes singular sources regarding different events and notes the similarity between them, and thereby attempting to show how the deeper issues affect everybody. Thus race, gender, age, income or anything can be means by which individuals or groups can be discriminated unfairly against.
The juxtaposition of generalised and more specific stories has an additional effect, creating a connection between the two of them and hinting at how the lessons learned in one area can be used positively by cross-fertilising other areas.
So in this instance the conclusion offered about the way to further equality is to enable greater communication between people who can be included among that group and enabling them to speak about the issues that matter to them.
This facet of the art of journalism is largely a matter of luck - and it can cause big headaches if you try to fit stories together too neatly.
So just occasionally more committed readers may notice I've gone AWOL for just long enough to gain a fresh perspective on how to edit everything together.
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