Community surgery: how to tackle the problems that could kill your blog | Talk About Local. Modern websites are not just a set of pages sent between computers and consumed by passive pairs of eyes. The best websites are living, breathing communities, full of ever-changing content and lively debate, witty exchanges and with a bustling calendar of real-life events. The problem, of course, with communities, is, we hate to say… people. Putting your flag in the virtual desert of your local area and inviting everyone around you to come and hang out is risky, but the effort brings great rewards. The anonymity-causes-idiocy problem Symptoms: An idiot is posting abuse Try these treatments: - switch on moderation so that posts need to be approved before they appear - add a note about acceptable behaviour at the top of the site (example) The Control problem Symptoms: you started off with a friendly community, but now everyone is whining and there’s a palpable air of tension in the forums and round the church tea.
Updates; thanks to those who commented below. What advice can you add? 21 Ways to Write Posts that Are Guaranteed to Grow Your Blog. Dig through the clutter: 40 must-reads for extraordinary bloggers - Blog tips from Dutch Problogger Ernst-Jan Pfauth. Don’t you get tired of all those boring “How to be a better writer?” -posts. It’s the same thing all over again, “Have a unique voice”, “Love your commenters”, etcetera, etcetera. To help us all out, I’ve dug through the clutter and selected 36 posts that can help you become an original and all-round problogger. And because vanity is a blogger’s right, I’ve also included four articles by my own hand. Themes are Development & Design, Workflow, Publishing, Inspiration and Comments. Development & Design 1. Every time when I adjust one of my blog’s design, I refer to the WordPress tricks from webdesigner Nick La. Visit the WebDesignerWall for WordPress tricks that spice up your blog 2. Same story here: this is also a good guide to the better WordPress code editing sessions.
Visit Smashing Magazine to maximize your blog with some nifty hacks 3. Some bloggers would argue that search engine optimization (SEO) deserves a special category. Visit Yoast to find a guide to excellent WordPress SEO 4.