Kumail.H.T`s Blog » Blogging

The ultimate list of really amazing design related lists

kumailht — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:10:36 +0000

It is very common to see Top 10 this list, Top 10 that list, They all are very informative and heavy on content and give you the strongest urge to bookmark. These lists when combined form the epic bookmark so what are you waiting for, Ctrl + D to bookmark.

Next, I am planning on making a list of lists that list amazing lists confused? so am I. Well, I wont waste any more of your time, start surfing and bookmarking as this should take some time.

Typography

Free Fonts

Paid Fonts

30 Fonts That ALL Designers Must Know & Should Own

Other Resources

Icons

Free Icons

Resources

Textures

Free textures

Resources

Inspiration

Other Resources

WordPress

Tips & hacks

Plugins

Themes

Other Resources

Want to customize your own theme without learning php, here is what you always wanted

Content Management Systems

Other Resources

Design Education

10 Effective ways to set your blog apart from the rest

kumailht — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:16:03 +0000

Nowadays it takes more than just hard work for a blogger to stand out from the rest. As more and more bloggers crowded the blogsphere and write about the same topic, you need to be dissimilar and set your blog apart from the rest to success. While you had probably started a blog after reading Kumail’s post “All you need to know about starting a blog”, here’s a list of 10 crucial ways to build a successful blog and stand out from the rest.

1. Choose a memorable blog name

A blog name is where the readers start to know you. It should be catchy and be able to deliver the right blog image to your readers. A memorable blog name is also easier to be promoted via word of mouth.

2. Good blog design and layout

Visual impressions count. Web surfers, blog readers especially, are interested in websites with good layout and design. I understand that not everyone has the artistic touch to create an award-winning blog designs; but you should at least make sure your blog is well designed and user friendly with minimal clutter.

3. Write eye catching headlines

Aside from your blog’s visual design, the headline is always the first thing that gets your readers attention. A catchy headline attracts people to read further. Study shows that 80% of blog readers stop reading after the headline. So if you wish to make your blog stands out from the rest, polish your copy writing skills and write good headlines.

4. Reveal your personality

Revealing more about yourself and getting personal with your readers are always effective to expand your blog readership. When you get personal and let your users know who you are, they get the feeling of communicating with a human rather than their computer screen. They will be more likely to listen to you and react to your posts rather than skim through them, get the info and get out. Your readers are more likely to follow your blog (as well as recommending you to their friends) when they get to know you more in person.

The personal touch goes a long way in helping your blog even if you are a high profile blog with a corporate background. You could always give them a behind the scenes overview of your blog of twitter or communicate about issues related to your blog in the forum. What ever you do, make it personal but not too personal as too loose your readers interest. Get the right balance and you will feel the difference.

5. Be consistent

Think of a blog as you would think of a magazine – will you subscribe to a magazine because it is resourceful for just one month? No! To maintain and accumulate readership, you need to write consistently. When I say consistent, I am not only talking about the no. of articles per month, I also mean the quality of the articles that you publish. You have to keep up and maintain the quality.

6. Get your own domain and hosting

I couldn’t stress enough how important it is to host your blog on its own domain and hosting. It’s difficult to create an outstanding brand image for a blog with subdomain from Blogger.com or WordPress.com. A domain will cost you 9$ a year, thats 0.75$ a month, thats 0.025$ a day, thats 0.001$ an hours, I think you get my point or do I have to go further

It cost less than $5/month nowadays to own a shared hosting account and I am sure most bloggers can afford it. In case you need advice in term of which web host to go with, read my personal hosting reviews here. The least you can do is get a domain and let it be hosted on wordpress.com

7. Don’t just be about the money

Want your blog to stand out from the crowd? Then think about your readers before money.

Too many blogs are just about the money and little care about the readers. Many bloggers pile up advertisement and dishonest product reviews in their blog before they gain sufficient readership. When you put profits before the readers – you are actually chasing the readers away. So next time when you have a decision to make, ask ‘Will this benefits my readers?’ before asking ‘Will this bring in profit for me?’.

8. Express your opinion (even if it will create fights)

Sometimes, picking up a fight can be a good strategy to stand out from the rest. Understand that it’s o-k-a-y to have a stance against the crowd when you have a different opinion. You might get attacks for being different but controversy gets people talking and that’s a good thing for your blog publicity. It is your opinion and you have every right to express it.

9. Write link baiting blogpost

A link baiting blogpost is the kind of content that attracts attention and links. Link bait can be used as a powerful viral marketing strategy and you increase your blog SEO scores when readers link to you. One simple way to write link baiting blogpost is by compiling multiple resources into condensed, cumulative articles. Think about the articles you read in digg.com front page – 150 tools for…, 56 quick tips for a better…, 89 online resources to help you…, 23 ways to …, these are the best examples of link baiting blogposts.

10. Leverage images to add value to your blog

Graphics and images, when used strategically, are your best partner in pulling readers attention. No, it doesn’t mean that you should hang up 15 flashy gif files on every single blogpost. It means that images (photos, flow charts, comics, and graphs) should be used whenever it’s related to your blog content.

As the wise said: A picture is worth a thousand words – if your idea can be presented better in form of image, why not?

This guest post is brought to you by Jerry of Web Hosting Secret Revealed. Jerry inspects and reviews web hosting services based on his own usage experience, you can read more about his work at his blog.

Want to write a Guest post on my blog? shoot me an email at kumailht@gmail.com

Does wordpress need a better comment system

kumailht — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:05:07 +0000

The default comment system has a flaw, it does not encourage a new user to participate quickly and painlessly. Here is a comment system on the loose that is worth a look.

I recently installed the IntenseDebate plugin which enhances the WordPress comment system and found the features very interesting. IntenseDebate enhances and encourages conversations on your blog and build your reader community.The company behind WordPress Automattic had bought Intense debate a while ago and it is very likely that will be integrated with WordPress once it has reached its expectations. You can test the plugin below in the comments section, NO login required.

When a new user reaches a random blog and has a quick look at a bunch of comments and has to make a quick decision whether he wants to read further. Most users including me have a lot of blogs to read in their news reader which might be more interesting so chances are he will skip the comments to read the next post.

What I have noticed with the intense debate functionality is that it is very similar to the way the digg comments work and I have to say that the comments on digg engage a user in to spending more time on the comments page instead of skipping to the content. The reason this is true is that threaded comments allow discussions and voting allow the user to skip spam and worthless comments. This allows the attention deficit Internet users to quickly skim through the comments without wasting a lot of time.

How can they improve

Separate trackbacks from comments as most users are not interested in who is linking to the post and if they are, they can have a look at them separately. Keeping them together makes the interface look cluttered.
Keep it minimal on advertisements and clearly mention that login is not required to comment if it is disabled. Most advanced bloggers like taking full control of how their blog looks and subtle advertisements can scare them away.
It also displays when the comment was added, for example it might say 1 week ago. I think it would be better if it were displayed besides the name, for example >> Avatar >> Name >> 1 week ago. And linking it to the comment itself is not really needed and just complicates stuff.
Allow the admin to disable the login function easily. Most blogs don’t require the user to log in and this could drive away potential users as most users scan pages and a login button would just make them think that he might need to sign up.
Once it is ready for wide adoption they can integrate it into wordpress and improve the default system.

Final Thoughts

IntenseDebate looks very promising and has a bright future ahead. I really liked the comment system and also integrated it with my blog, you can check it out below. Do let me know what you think of it and what features or changed you would add.

If you liked this post you might want to subscribe or just check out a few similar posts.

All you need to know about starting a blog

kumailht — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:18:18 +0000

If you checked out some awesome blog and decided to start your own little blog, you are up for a challenge. If you are serious about making money you should be aware of the difficulties you will face. In this post I will take you through the experiences you will face as a blogger. If you want to blog for fun and experience, you don’t have much to worry about, and this tutorial can greatly help you.

Introduction

Blogging might be the hardest project you take on, It seems very easy to write down one or two posts a day, well its not.

Crafting a successful post needs a lot of hard work, strong concepts and good writing skills. If you are motivated you can learn all this in no time.

So you think you can take the pressure and responsibility of a blogger, you want the freedom of speech and fame is your second name. Lets begin

Principles of blogging

A few principles every blogger should stand by;

Patience - You will need patience when no one advertises on your blog or if no one comments on your blog. It will be compelling and easy to abandon your blog, you will need to think ahead and in the long term.
Consistency - There will be times when blogging will feel dull, you will want a break from the posting and you will dry out. You will stop posting for a while, but laziness will take over and your blog will become more useless. It is hard to keep going on a steady rate, which is significant to the success of the blog.
Creativity - Blogs are special, they are written by real people in the real world. They are unique in their own special way. If you are here to copy content to your blog, don’t bother as it will gain you nothing but insult.

Getting Started

Before you start you should decide :

What is your blog about – This will help you select an appropriate design and functionality relating to your audience.

How much content will you host – The amount of content decides what type of blog theme you will choose, we will come back to this later.

Your budget – if you want to blog professionally or you want to use your blog as your full time business, you will need to set aside a budget.

Free blogging – if you want to start a blog with no expense you will have to make a few sacrifices, you have lesser control over your blog and its functioning but on the upside you dont have to spend a penny.

Self hosted vs Freely hosted

When you start blogging you will have two choices:

Self hosted :

Pro’s

You have total control over plugin’s, themes, hacks, statistics.
You can expand your blog into a more professional one by simply upgrading your hosting plan to accommodate more traffic and redesign your own theme for uniqueness.
It gives the impression of a serious blogger as you are committed to it.
You will be more motivated towards blogging as you have invested your money and efforts which can be very helpful during those dry days.
You can advertise on your blog without any restrictions using your preferred service or using flat rates.

Con’s

You will need a budget of 6-10 $ a month or more depending on your blog.
You have to install the blogging software on your blog manually.
You have to manually update your blog as newer versions of the platform are released.
If you decide to abandon your blog, you will be charged for the remaining hosting and domain package.

Hosted with a blogging service

Pro’s

You do not have to worry about updating your blog or installing software.
No basic knowledge required other than creating posts.
Usually free and takes a few minutes to sign up and you are done.

Con’s

If you decide to advertise, you will have lesser options like Google adsense which are not worth your time.
You usually cannot create your own theme and you have to choose from a template.
It does not look professional and not suitable for a business or a professional blogger.

Using a blogging service

There are loads of services you could use, which are very user friendly and feature packed.

I would recommend using wordpress.com , its got a larger community and some exciting features like statistics.

the wordpress service provides 3gb free space and that’s more than enough, if you post a lot of images you can use image hosting services to host the pictures so you will hardly run out of space.

If you want to host your blog on a custom domain like yourblog.com, you will have buy the feature for an extra charge. [optional]

learn more about the features and premium features.

Although there are other services like blogger which allow you to use your own domain free of charge, WordPress.com is much better than blogger.

Self Hosted

if you want to blog professionally, self hosted is the best way to go.

Platform

The best blogging platform is wordpress without doubt with extensive support and flexibility. Although if you want to try something else out for some reason, smashing magazine has a great article about the different blogging platforms.

Hosting

This was the hardest part when i started out as all the options looked very convincing but they all charged for a whole year in advance. If you are just starting out you will want the ability to abandon your blog and cancel all the services in case of failure.

Godaddy – They charge for 2 months in advance which is better than paying for a whole year. At only 5$ a month, its easy to start your own blog. NOTE: IT HAS ONE OF THE WORST USER INTERFACE AND CAN BE VERY DIFFICULT FOR A NEWBIE TO FIND HIS WAY AROUND.

Dreamhost – This is probably the BEST host in town, its got a very neat web panel and one click installs. The customer support is swift and very helpful.

[use promotion code "KUMAILHT". This promo code adds 1 extra FREE lifetime domain registration to any plan signed up for with it!]

Installation

Download wordpress

WordPress in 5 minuites

The famous 5 minute install is a legend, and its TRUE.

Testing

Now you should be able to see your blog, the default theme is a blue and white one.

The first thing I did was to change my password.

Themes and Plugin’s

I am going to continue this post later on with the best Themes and Plugin’s for wordpress, but if you are anything like me and cant wait to go ahead with installing and customizing your blog, you should be able to get them from here.

Keep posting

There is not much to starting your own blog, the most important part is maintaining it by posting quality content regularly.