Before I give you the suggestions, identify what you would like to achieve and what the problems are right now. This will determine what sort of action to take.

Do:

Number 1: Submit your blog to www.boagworld.com/forum

This will allow real web designers to give you help on design, content, and spelling mistakes!
When submitting it there, put it in the Website Critique section and read the posting notes before you post anything.

Number 2: Make a viral video and post on Youtube

If you make a viral video you can bring more potential customers to view your work and you may get all over the world!

Number 3: Email advertising

Once you have a blog set up you can send emails out to your readers/subscribers and tell them what they will expect each month. You can include your video viral in emails. It is great to look professional so make your email stand out from the crowd. HTML emails are great, but provide a plain text email option too.

Number 4: RSS and Apps

If you want to you can learn how to make an app for your iPhone/iPod. This will let your audience read the blog without being stuck infront of a PC to read it! Also you may make a page on Facebook or any other social network to help your blog grow. And when you have that page you must engage with your fans/followers and post often, relevant content. No spamming though.

Number 5: Blog Awards

If your blog is good enough it may get onto other sites and win awards.

Dont:

Number 1: Pirate Content

Copying other sources word for word to make it look like your own is illegal and will not look good, so may damage your reputation. If you are going to copy then put what you want in quote marks (those are those things that look like a single/double speech mark).

Number 2: Don’t Spam

Spamming other blogs with your links will not look cool, and it is not clever either and will also damage your reputation. By all means post a link, but only one and make sure it is relevant to the blog that you are commenting on. Also on social sites spam may not be tolerated by people.

Number 3: Don’t Neglect

Once you have a blog, do not neglect it! Post things that you want people to read, but dont post till you have something worth while that people want to read. Read other magazines and articles telling you how to get the most out of your blog and treat your users with respect!

-

I’m sure there are things here I have forgotten to mention but if there is then I’m not perfect!
Please leave comments below and add any ideas that you wish!

Simple Jargon
Blog(n): Where you write your valuable information
Blogging(v): A way to convey thoughts and feelings to the world
Blogger(n)/Bloggers(plural n): Someone who writes content
Post: A single article on a blog

In this first part I cover essential tips for blogging, with my simple 4 part strategy known as EAPI.
In the second part I talk about WordPress and special features to make your blogging life more stress free.
Finally, in the third part I sympathise with bloggers and share ways to keep your blog stable and how to market your blog.

My simple system should get you well on your way to starting and maintaining a great blog: Remember – Experience Audience Point Inform

Blog To Share Experience

Blog on a topic you know about, and be sensible about the information you write. Explore and experiment with your blog content as putting the barriers up will stop exploration onto similar subjects. Keeping an open mind is great for blogging. Also, if readers understand what you are talking about you will gain respect and praise and maybe people will comment on your work. Research is key!

The phrase KISS will come in handy: Keep It Simple Stupid/Silly

Consider Your Audience

Be yourself and be chatty to make people feel at ease. Writing with passion will help your readers relax. If you need to be serious then this is also nice occasionally to keep the balance. Blogging for a teen audience is different to blogging for the older generation.

If your blog is for young people you can make the blog look funky and let your creativity flow. Older people may find that a blog with a hundred different colours is confusing. Avoid colour clashes with older audiences, instead go for subtle colours.

Keep To The Point

Keep each post short and to the point. If needed you can split the topic that you write about into multiple posts so you can post the rest another day. This prevents confused readers getting overloaded with information and navigating away from your site. This is mainly why I am splitting this blogging topic into 3 posts. Highlight key areas in BOLD to illustrate really important things.

Keep Audience Informed

Deciding to blog is a great thing and once you know what sort of atmosphere you want to create you are well on your way to success. However, blogs get forgotten if you haven’t written anything for a long time. Keep people up to date with news items and you will be popular and you may even see other bloggers write or talk about your work.

Escaping Bloggers Block

Keep a notepad handy to write post ideas in for later. This way you can jot down what interests you which will help posting when you lack content.
Look on other forums/blogs (search on Google) for advice and think about the future of your blog. This will help you to decide on the direction of future posting.

Good Luck!

BUT I AM BACK now with a few posts which I think that you will love!

Please see what I am getting up to by following GoldChoiceUK Twitterfeed

Ah, only kidding. I am not giving away food nor even talking about the classic Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich, but I am talking about cyber blog-food… SPAM.

As I go through my blog comments this is what I have been reading:

a) I am definitely bookmarking this site and sharing it with my friends
b) Very outstanding site
c) The message here is genuinely important
d) I will invite my friends
e) I usually don’t post in blogs but your blog forced me to, amazing work… beautiful
f) I am reading this article second time today
g) Keep up the good work
h) Look forward to read more from you in the future

Question is: Do I or do I not post them? I’d like to think that they were really thinking that my blog was amazing and had some genuinely important messages but I dont feel it is because the real people arent stepping forward…
I know spam means that it is usually bad, but at times like this when you see an excellent comment you want to post it because you like it when people like what you have said and understand your reasoning behind the article…

I’m not asking for sympathy or even a reason why this is happening. I think it is great my site is being found, but not if only by bots, droids, martians, dodos, daleks and anything else that is programmed by hackers etc. My blog is far from being a spam ground for the insects to feast on… It is however a haven for all the real people who wish to gain advice and knowledge on most easy to moderate web publishing/editing tools, and the tricks of the trade!

I have had this blog/site since July 2009 and I have had a mass of spam. Most of it being about things totally unrelated to this site. It has really annoyed me and I have enabled the necessary spam catcher, in my case Akismet, but not sure if I want to go the whole hog with a capture too. I would like something like I have seen on other blogs where there is a sum like 2+2 and you have to put 4 in the box… but would that turn posters away or would it make them feel safer because they knew the site was safe and capturing spammers?

I hope to have some ideas on this please, so feel free to comment. Bots comments of course will be EXTERMINATED!!

I thought of writing this post to tell people who are interested about making their own sites (or they can drop me a line to make one ) a few resources I keep to get inspiration and learn how to code.

1. My experience

I am not being big headed in any way at all but it is important because I feel that 1-to-1 teaching is great and there is someone there to ask if you have a problem.

2. Website building magazines/books (online and offline)

Online:
There are a range of books and websites to help out with long term design.
For online forum based knowledge I recommend Boagworld. The forum offers loads of things to get people started. There may be answers to your questions there. Also go and pick up a copy of Paul Boag’s book Website Owners Manual for further tips if you have already the HTML basics and you want to learn how to take your website/team to the next level. Why not have a listen to the Boagworld Podcast which often has a special guest they have interviewed.
If you are a young budding web designer check out Scrunchup. Their newly created online magazine recommends and delivers some of the tips from real web experts.

Offline:
For offline go to a local library and find the computing section. There is a selection of books to help first time website makers. – I have a book called Build Your Own Web Site (published 1998) that I learned the basics as kid nearly 10 years ago! I don’t know if it is still around but you may find a similar book that may help you get the very basics of what code actually looks like.
Failing that you can go and order one of the many Sitepoint books available. I haven’t myself read one or had one in my hand, however I love the range and I doubt that you won’t find what you are looking for.
In the way of magazines, there are a few but I picked up an issue of Web Designer Mag from WHSmith or buy a subscription from their site. I rate this publication as it has a CD/DVD of extras and the magazine itself has tutorials and general ‘webby’ stuff and goodness.

3. Use online tutorials
Some great tutorial/hands-on resources to help you get the best out of learning how to code.

a. W3Schools is a great ‘testing’ site with tutorials and ‘sandboxes’ to test your newly learned skills.
b. The W3 Consortium is the web standard site for web standards!

4. CSS Zen Garden for ideas and style

Lovely site that shows many designs by many people and is a great way to not only learn some HTML but go one better and learn CSS too. I rate this site highly.

5. Read blogs and other articles of interest
This is where I get to show off my good web friends! I have several sources that I look at regularly and some I have written for in the past.
a. Andy Kinsey has his blog called AK Designs, and regularly writes a great piece about SEO (Search Engine Optimistion). You will also find odd other things on his site that he has written about to express his enjoyment of a service/product in the hope that you too will find it useful.
b. Clair has knowledge of web design in the PHP area. She has a blog that she updates with all kinds of things including hardware tech and software. Some really nice articles that are easy to read and provide an insight to a techie’s life.
c. Jamie Knight is an autistic guy who I started to talk to on Boagworld Forum. Jamie has a great site of really useful web information and Tech stuff.

Finally use my website to gain knowledge and through the posts and tutorials. There is no substitute for just reading and finding all you can really learn.

6. Twitter
Twitter, we all know about, is a great tool for getting help with a coding problem. Go ask some of the top designers your questions and they will be pleased (I’m sure) to help you.

I hope that you have an insight into where you can go for tech and web related articles and help.

URL’s and resources in this post (order as discussed in the post):

GoldChoiceUK: www.goldchoiceuk.co.uk
Boagworld: www.boagworld.com
Scrunchup: www.scrunchup.com
Build Your Own Web Site: (ISBN: 07460 3293 5)
Sitepoint: www.sitepoint.com
Web Designer Mag: www.webdesignermag.co.uk
W3Schools: www.w3schools.com
W3 Consortium: www.w3.org
CSS Zen Garden: www.csszengarden.com
Andy Kinsey: www.andykinsey.co.uk
Clair: http://cds-world.co.uk/blog
Jamie Knight: http://www.jkg3.com

I have been a loyal Geocities (fan?) for 3 years, updating my website and changing the look etc, but now it is time to put it to bed to rest.

I had my first ever site on Geocities and I’m in some way sad to see it go. Why?

- It was the first website I ever had up. Without Geocities I would not have got this site that you are looking at right now.
- Following on… Geocities was a great starter package for me to get to know what a web server does and how to make sites… I could experiment with it and change the layout as much as I wanted.
- I had a way I could show my friends and family what I was doing with my time and show them my skills and what sort of things I was into.
- I had not got the money for a real address.

But why not also say some bad things about it? Why not?

- I couldnt connect Geocities free to a FTP client which made it useless if I wanted to upload multiple files in one go. I would have to select the files each individually.
- There were adverts.
- There wasnt enough customisation room / space for me to go put up something really snazzy.
- Having my e-mail address in the url stopped me from sharing the website with The Whole World. Thus only close friends and family I could allow to view it.

There may be more things but anyway I enjoyed using Geocities and hope that it has changed some peoples lives in the way it did mine!

So far we have looked at ways to get feedback and the feedback you may experience.

In this final part I would like to go through how you can approach changes and how to maintain a healthy site.

With all the feedback you have (if a large amount) it may be a good idea to put it into one document to pick over.

I submit my sites for review on Twitter as I have followers that specailise in design reading my feed there. The more places, and people, you submit the url to the more views you will get from different people thus helping your design skills.

My tip: The feedback I get I could do what I described above but in Windows Vista I like to use the Snipping Tool. With that I don’t have to worry about the ‘have I copied/pasted that’ problem because I’ll have the data in .jpg format. Then I can disregard all of the pointless comments. If they are major changes they will need to be done first. Small tweeks wont be as noticable so they can be done later on.

You may like to thank your friends for helping you as they are a good second-eye for spotting mistakes, and I know I miss them occasionally.

Finally when all the hard work is done you can relax and let visitors come to your page. However… one slight catch… to maintain a healthy site you should update it often. Maybe you could have a set day in the month where you check for broken links or you may want to add new features… all to keep people interested!

You could add:
A blog – assuming current site is only a showcase
A forum – depending on type of site
You come up with something more fantastic than I can? Tell Me!

I hope you have enjoyed my 3 part blog post topic- I hope to do one again sometime.

So now you have made your site and you have hopefully used a method of getting some feedback that I described in my last article.

Now I want to tell you about types of feedback and how you may view them.

I’ve already made a few sites and submitted them for public review. I was amazed by the views that people had of them. They did like them and a few were giving me quite a bit of useful info. For example on one site they mentioned how spacing could make it look better.

Just accepting feedback is good but if all you are getting is ‘your site is good/bad’ then maybe you need to select more carefully who exactly you show the site to and who you market it for. You may need to do major tweeking.

All the marketing can be decided before you make the site as long as you get it out there and show the world how good your new site is!

If you are being criticised then always have an open mind and be ready to make site changes. That will be covered in the third and final installment of this series.

With positive comments coming your way there is nothing to worry about and you can pat yourself on the back!
However dont get too down if you have negative comments because they may help you to become a better designer.
No responses lead to a feeling of rejection so choose tthe best feedback method for you!

In the final part: Making change

Getting website feedback is a tough job if it is one of the first websites you have designed. I learned all about this in the last few websites I have created, and even using my own site as a dummy to get feedback.

I think it is good to know when you are going wrong, or where you think the site could be improved or indeed the next one. Alas you won’t stop learning new and better techniques.

Making mistakes is good practice to improve on future sites. When you make your first site for a client mistakes can be solved then at the first website rather than the second, third, or tenth when it might have been made ‘wrong’ for years… When I say ‘wrong’, wrong in the sense of ‘it should not be done that way’ to ‘you shouldnt ever do it like that’. That is kind of a big extreme so learning from mistakes early on can be positive. Many different scales of mistakes can be made on these levels, so it is not surprising that the first time you test a site’s SEO that things go wrong. They may go wrong for the better, which is not a problem.

How to get feedback is the first point I want to make really clear. If you feel isolated and worried that you may be told that your site design sucks, (Video provided by Paul Boag of web design company Headscape) you may want to post your link over at The Boagworld Forum, where some lovely people will kindly look at your site and review it in the kindest possible way. You need to join Boagworld.com Forum before being able to post anything.

The other way to get attention is through Twitter.com by posting a tweet to some friends, or one in general for everyone. It’s up to you. However when I did that I got only 1 comment despite the fact I had many followers. You may need to think if this is how you want to get your link out there. Again a sign-up is required to post on Twitter.com.

Finally you may have your own site (or indeed know of another forum with a special area to leave web links), where you may decide to post a blog or something to mark the release/relaunch of a site.

So there are many ways to go about getting feedback, so don’t be put off by it. I think that it is very useful to have feedback that one day will prove very valuable to you.

In part two: types of feedback you may get.

This is the reason:
The position: in CSS will want one of 5 options.
They are absolute, fixed, inherit, relative or static.
I had been using the absolute one because I wanted it to stay in one place. In this case the middle. I used left: to define how far over I wanted it to go, and positioned it nicely with my 17" 1280×1024 resolution monitor.
Using position:absolute is wrong because people might be working with the site in a small window or their monitor might be a different resolution. For 800×600 viewers the site would be just useless!

Oh dear! That was very foolish I know. I was ending up going to other browsers (Internet Explorer 6, Firefox etc) and checking it and changing it to display correctly. That was pretty bad too as nothing ever was right.

I found a site called Web Generator, which looked pretty cool as it is a Web 2.0 utility.
I made a mock up with that and downloaded the HTML and CSS files for it.

In looking at the CSS, I found out that it wasn´t using ID for DIV layers but a class instead. I also noticed that it wasn´t using the frustrating position:absolute code, but the display:inline and float:left code. This worked for what I wanted to do.

Using a class for a DIV allows multiple DIV´s to be assigned to a single style, if you want it that is.
However ID (the individual DIV name), will only be useful for a single DIV as it works on name.