Alex Cristache, the mastermind behind Blogsessive.com and the QBKL Media design studio, has just release a free PDF eboook called “Corporate Blogging Guide”. This comprehensive collection of useful tips and back to the basic explanations of the whole blogging process is meant to help companies assess their need of a blog, draw some goals, come up with a blogging strategy, choose the best available tool and start reaching out to the blogging community.

All you have to do to get this business blogging ebook is to subscribe for free to Blogsessive’s RSS feed and you’ll spot the download link at the end of each article in the feed. If you’re already a Blogsessive RSS subscriber, you only need to click the link, it’s already there

Yours truly played a little but significant part in the process of getting the Corporate Blogging Guide published, meaning I helped Alex translate and did a bit of editing as well. So download it, read it and let Alex and I know what you think Oh, and happy blogging!

TV series are great! I love quite a few of them. But the major problem with them is that they are well, seasonal. While it’s fun to watch each episode, the long half-year (or longer) hault might be annoying, or just perfect for the audience to fall in love with another series. HBO’s True Blood already has a pretty hot spot to start it’s second season: summer of 2009, when most series I’m addicted to are long gone and fans are waiting for the autumn to come with new stories. But it’s been a while since the last episode and there’s a long wait till the summer.

So what can one do to keep fans close by, excited and crazy about your show? How about Twitter and blogs? There are quite a few Twitter accounts and blogs for the characters in the movie. Sookie is tweeting, Vampire Bill is too, and oldest and strongest vampire of the region, Eric Northman, is also tweeting quite fervently.

I have no idea if these accounts are indeed related to the True Blood cast, but if they’re not, those people should start asking why they didn’t think of it first.

Judging by the posts on these blogs and other from related characters, I believe they are not completely unrelated to the TV show. If you’re wondering why such a stunt has great results, it’s simple: we all think of the character name first, and the actual actor’s after. We all associate an actor or actress with the part we loved most. Of the top of my head, I’d think Alexis Bledel who’s always going to be Rory Gilmore and not the girl in Sin City.

And I cannot begin to tell you how much I want the new series to get here, seeing that the Sookie-Vampire Bill story is non-existent on Twitter and the blogs and has been replaced with a Sookie-Eric thing. Intrigued? You bet!

On the other hand, being identified with a part may harm a certain actor. Think Johnny Weissmuller and Tarzan for example. Plus there’s the risk of an actor leaving the cast, which would probably mean dead blog and twitter account. If HBO is really behind this, I am sure they have a good plan to manage issues and crisis that might occur!

Link posts come with a lot of blogs. Some are weekly, some are daily, some are simply once in a while. There are highly branded such posts, that we look forward to each week, such as Liz Strauss’ SOB Business Café, or the Coffee Break of Business and Blogging, written by Laura Spencer and Liz Fuller.

I’m also playing with my own link post and now that I figured which day is better, it is slowly becoming a never missed to-do to have my roundup on Mondays. But from a Marketing and PR specialist’s point of view, what’s behind a link post, why do we write them, what do they bring to us and how do we position ourselves as bloggers through them?

Recognizing Value

The first thing about a link post is some sort of humility, of admitting we’re only a part of the whole blogosphere and world. Yes, we bloggers are not all-knowing. We might have a niche, we might be writing about the world at large, the bottom line is we can’t cover everything. So by these posts, we give credit to all those writing excellent stories.

Don’t get me wrong, not having such a post does not mean the blogger in question think he or she is everything their readers need. Showing appreciation for others’ work is just a part of link love and it’s definitely not the only way to show it.

Benefits of Affiliation

You do not need to promote a brand to show affiliation. Choosing certain bloggers for your link posts will have the same effect. The choices are based on the blogs we read with a certain frequency, so the stories we pick are just part of our blogging background, not necessarily a complicated scheme to have readers associate our names with certain bloggers.

But if you’re writing for a technology blog, you might choose first class bloggers from that field; if what you’re mostly interested in is business, you’ll promote stories from that segment. Such a link post will have your blog affiliated with a certain niche, a certain quality standard and a certain ethics code that you sometimes adhere to without giving it much thought. It’s what feels right for you and for your readers.

One More Post to Add to Your Publishing Schedule

Anyone whose been blogging for a while knows reading blogs, news, reports and (e)books is an important part of your research. You can’t just go inventing new entries out of thin air. So putting together a list of interesting stories is something you do as you go, with no specific effort. On the other hand, link posts are not that hard to write, therefore make for a great way to add to your publishing routine. If you get 2 or 3 more posts written weekly, you’ll have quite a posting routine. All that’s left now is to make sure the quality is high enough to drive traffic your way.

The Back Scratching Aspect

Linking to others’ stories is a nice and not so selfless thing to do. So expecting to get something in return, more than what I’ve already described, might not be such a great idea. Not because it’s a bad thing, I’m not about judging correctness right now, but simply because it has good chances to fail. Yes, the blogger in question might stop by and comment, but he won’t do that on every post and will definitely not link to your blog just because you’ve promoted his or her story. They’ll keep visiting you for entirely different reasons.

All in All…

Link love posts are easy to write and come with quite a few benefits for the author. But as any other tip, they won’t be all you need to get others to see you as a top blogger and to show you all the love the blogosphere and other social media have known. You still need quality content, you’ll still to have lasting relationships with other bloggers, you’ll still need to be easy to find and have a neat design. So start working on it right now!

Guest post by Alex Cristache

Did you know that every second a new blog is published somewhere in the World? That’s 84,600 new blogs everyday! Some of them are personal blogs, others are targeted, niche blogs. If you are running a niche blog, just think about how many competitors add up each day, eager to overtake your position, authority and search engine rakings. It’s a tough world for a blogger and to insure your success you must take advantage of every “weapon” at your disposal. My weapon of choice for today is Blog Design.

No matter if you are running a personal or business (niche) blog, you should always keep in mind that your blog is who you are, it’s your profile on the internet and a mirror for yourself. It is said that you can’t find two identical people, so why should we find 2 identical blogs?

Blog writers allover the World, agree on one thing: Give your posts a personal touch; make your presence felt on your blog. The same rule applies when it comes to blog design. These days we have hundreds of resources at our disposal, most of them even free. We have free and premium themes, we have plugins and widgets and we have experts giving away free advice on their own blogs. What we don’t have is an excuse not to make a difference by using them!

While a designer will always choose to create a new theme for his blog, the rest of us will have to search for a premium theme that will best serve our interests, or get a free theme that would need to be customized for a better use. Premium themes usually come packed with almost every option that a professional blog would need, so I’m not going to talk about them. Instead, I’ll concentrate on things that need to be taken in consideration when creating a new theme, or customizing a free one.

Choosing the best resolution for you theme

At this time, there is no fixed resolution that can provide accessibility to 100% of your readers. It pretty much depends on your blog’s target and your statistics.
My preferred resolution for design is 1024×768, since it has become widely used, but still there are people using old monitors, or simply don’t need a higher resolution and are using still 800×600. Look at your statistics and compare the two. If the 800×600 users are only a small percentage of your total (mine is around 0.64%), you should definitely make use of more of your available space.

Also, when choosing the right layout resolution you should consider your blog’s structure: 2 columns or 3 columns. If you’re going for 2 columns, you could easily use 800×600, but if you’re choosing a 3 columns layout, you should give your content enough space to “breathe” by using a larger resolution, preferably 1024×768. Always, make sure to eliminate the scrollbar width from you layout’s width (~40 pixels).

Structure and layout

Before designing or choosing a free theme to customize, take a moment to think ahead. Consider you blog’s evolution, advertising needs, required sections etc. These are all important factors in your decision when choosing a 2 or 3 column design. If you’re running a news blog, a 3 column design would most probably serve your needs better. It provides enough space to list recent, popular and featured articles, archives and categories, authors, advertising zones, links and whatever you might want to add at a future time.

Another important thing to consider is your sidebar placement. As most of us are right-handed, and the website’s scrollbar is on the right side, I’ll almost always go for a right-aligned sidebar for navigation purposes, since it’s closer to the users’ action zone. Placing the sidebar on the left has its advantages too. There are many resources online that can confirm the fact that a website’s main heat zone is top to mid-top left. This means that your users will scan your blog starting there and loose interest while advancing to the right and further down to the bottom. Still, I’m choosing the right side, as the heat map is relevant only when providing good, interesting, content, and I’m still to see the internet user more interested on clicking links than reading a good article.

When using a 3 column theme, make sure that your main navigation items are place on the first sidebar, not the one on the right. This gives the low-resolution users the ability to further browse you blog.

Make use, but don’t abuse, the white space. Having a clear separation area between sections and between blog posts it’s extremely important, as it help users scan faster for the desired content. When fighting for a lower bounce rate, making sure your reader finds his way easily around your blog becomes a top priority! Consider at least a 20 to 30 pixels space between your sidebar(s) and the content, and between 2 successive blog posts.

Highly important items and sections

When building up traffic (visits), three factors are essential: the number of pages viewed per visit, the time spent on your site and the bounce rate. These factors can all be improved by providing your readers with means to continue their navigation on your blog.

Always consider having a list of recent and popular items displayed on your sidebar, or at the end of your article, when reading the full post.

Give your users the option to search for relevant content by placing a search box in a visible area in the upper part (above the fold) of your blog. While most blogs automatically place a link to your RSS feed, most of the time it’s placed at the end of your sidebar. Consider repositioning that link closer to the top, and also, adding an option of email subscription.

Place your blog’s categories in an easily accessible and visible area. It serves both as a way to further guide your readers and as a statement of what your blog is all about!

The tag cloud is a great section that can guide your readers through your blog’s most popular topics. Make sure you place it in a visible area, or create a separate page that includes the tag cloud, like I do on my website.

Through phrases in your post and links in your template, guide your readers to the comment section. It’s highly important to add interactivity to your blog. Debates can lead to new content ideas or you might even learn a few new things!

Final thoughts

While having a well designed and structured blog is not enough to ensure your online success, it can easily make a difference between two equivalent-content-quality blogs.
Think ahead, plan, make the right choices and you’ll have a better chance against the thousands of new blogs breathing down your neck every day!

Alex Cristache is 27 and has been working for top Romanian web design, development and consultancy companies for over 9 years. Quite impressive for his young age, don’t you agree?

He’s tried a lot up to now: web designer, senior web, print & logo designer, occasional copywriter, web & SEO consultant and project manager. Although he focuses on design, he’s also been working with PHP & MySQL on the side. He also fell in love with WordPress the moment it appeared on the market and changed our lives.

He currently blogs at Blogsessive.com and runs CREATIVEurope, a website bookmarking the best European creative portfolios available.

The moment you start getting more traffic on your blog, those harvesting it for their own petty interests will show up instantly: spam commentators and trackbacks of doubtful quality. While comment moderation is something most bloggers are paying attention to, as it is easy to implement and dedicated plugins make it a bliss, there’s a different story for trackbacks.

First because having your blog quoted on a different site generally means your writing is appreciated and spread among new readers. Most of the times it comes from blogs with common interests, from bloggers who just happened to run into your article and love it or from friends helping you out in your promoting endeavors. Plus, if it’s a quote and if it gives proper credit, there’s no harm done!

But there are two types of link-backs I’ve ran across that can harm a blog more than you can imagine. And there are two things you can look for when trying to prevent such mischievous usage of your content:

• what quote is really linked to your name or blog name
• what else the blogger posts on the page where you’re quoted

Why is this important, you might wonder? I’ll share my experiences with you to better explain my point.

Case 1: What was it that I wrote about again?

I do keep an eye on recent links to my blog. I think it’s nice to visit those reading my blog and to thank them for the link love. It’s also a good way to catch little thieves. So one day I wanted to get to know this blogger who had just linked to one of my posts. Imagine my surprise when I saw my blog was credited for an article that had nothing to do with me, while stating that someone.com had written my own post. The quote and link technically matched, but practically the wrong name was misleading. I googled that .com person to find out their content was stolen in the same manner and that they had written the post I was credited to. And this practice was repeated for all posts I found on that blog

I left a comment on the thief’s blog, asking to have my blog linked to the proper content. I also alerted a few other bloggers about what was happening. I deleted their trackback from the post in question, but I don’t think any of this stopped them from stealing content.

Case 2: Inappropriate content posted along with the excerpt and the trackback

I have been managing a niche security blog for a while now. One of my more popular articles was one day quoted by another blog. Looking at the blog link, I first thought it might be a legitimate blog, as it appeared to also be covering security, but from a different angle. But when I followed the link to read a few posts, I found some rather upsetting content. Before getting to the actual quote, I had to get through a dozen thumbnails of videos of people fighting. Judging by the snapshots, they looked pretty cruel. Not to mention that their headlines were racist.

While I can’t do much about them linking to my article, I can make sure I don’t send any traffic their way! But I still am bothered by the fact that posts I worked hard on are associated with amateur videos of people with extremely violent interests.

Why Does This Happen so Often?

Not all blogs use moderation for trackbacks. And if the number of such back links is high, they are harder to monitor. That means these leech-blogs have lots of incoming traffic. The only proper measure to take is to make sure we all double check trackbacks. If no traffic is heading their way, they will need to change tactics. I am not naive enough to believe they’d suddenly have principles and act on them. But I do think it will make it harder to take advantage of other’s efforts and reputation.

I am sure there are not the only two ways to harm blogs through trackbacks. Are there any resembling situation you’ve ran into and we should all be aware of? If so, feel free to share them here.