Google Reader is great. I use it every day, it brings me great content, and I comment regularly on posts from my RSS feeds. I only subscribe to about thirty feeds, but even then, if I don’t check up for a couple of days I’m going to have a bunch of articles to try and catch up on. Which means that there must be a tipping point when you just have too many feeds to monitor effectively.

You’re Limiting Your Commenting To A Fraction Of The Audience

There must be at least 200 million blogs around these days, probably more. I couldn’t find much data after 2008, but even then Technorati was tracking 112 million and the China Internet Network Information Center was tracking another 70 million just in their own country according to the Blog Herald!

Let’s be conservative and say that a tiny 0.1% of that 200 million are blogs about web design/freelancing/coding. That’s 200,000 blogs. Let’s go further, and say that three quarters of those blogs are inactive. So we’re down to 50,000 active blogs about web design and related subjects.

You’re a crazy tech news junkie, so you’re subscribed to 1,000 blogs via Google Reader. That’s far more than most, you’ve got your finger on the pulse. Say you’ve even found time to comment on most of those blogs at some point in the last year.

You’ve interacted with 2% of the total active blogs in your subject area.

You’re also always interacting with the same 2%. The blogs that you’re subscribed to. Sure, they may be the more active or more popular blogs, but it means that you’re never reacting to content on 98% of the web design blogs out there.

Google Reader Is Your Organized Approach, Take A Random Approach Too

We use Google Reader to organize the blogs we subscribe to. Subscription suggests that we’ve developed some kind of longer term interest in the content of that blog. We need to organize that content, particularly when we’re pulling in so much information from so many different feeds.

But we shouldn’t neglect the fact that there’s other good content out there. Content that we might be the first person to find, to comment on, to promote to others. We’re not going to find it through Google Reader. We’re not going to find it through Twitter either – ever noticed how 90% of the retweets you see are from blogs that you’re aware of already, even if you don’t subscribe?

Every couple of days I do a Google Blog Search for “web design”. It brings up a mixed bag of blog articles, from self promotion, to rubbish, to a few gems. And it’s the gems I’m looking for. They may not be from well known blogs, they may not be something I’ve ever seen before, and that’s great. I’m going to comment on them. I’m going to spread the word about the great content. It helps a blogger who might be struggling for a profile. It helps me, because I become a valuable visitor to that blogger; they’ll probably visit my site in return. It helps the community as a whole, because it means that we’re not just limiting ourselves to the same well known blogs for all our content.

Someone Else Will Do The Same For You

Those are my favourite kind of visitors. The ones who stumbled on my site completely randomly, and liked the content enough to stay for a while and make a comment. They weren’t directed there, my site wasn’t recommended, they were just surfing and they thought that my site, out of the billions on offer, was worth a few minutes of their time. How cool is that?

I believe that good things come back to reward you. So spend a little time taking a random approach to blog commenting, and find some blogs you (or anyone else) have never heard of. You’ll find some great content, and you might even make someone’s day.

Commenting On Big Blogs Feels Worthless

Most articles you read about improving your visibility online will point out the importance of regularly commenting on other blogs. It demonstrates that you’re adding value to the online community, it brings people back to your blog, and generally creates a good impression.

All of that’s true for small to medium sized blogs. I’m sure I’m the same as most, I feel great when people take the time to comment on my posts. I’ll make an effort to check out their blog if they have one, try to engage with them in return. I can do this because my comments come in small enough numbers that I can effectively respond to all of them.

That impact doesn’t seem to apply to larger blogs though. If a single article picks up a lot of comments in a short period of time, is the writer going to feel the same need to engage? Probably not. Even if they are going to make that time to engage, new readers don’t know that and may be discouraged from adding to a huge comment thread.

No Benefit Means No Motivation

I rarely comment “just because”. I’ll comment on a blog because I want the writer to know how much I appreciated their post. Or I’ll comment on a blog because I want to disagree with a point or engage in discussion.

If the article has lots of comments then I feel that the impact of anything I write in praise of the writer is going to be reduced. I’ll also feel that any points I made in criticism or in discussion are likely to be overlooked. Whether that’s true or not, if I feel that my comments provide no benefit either to the blog writer, myself or the general discussion, it’s natural to be less motivated to take the time to comment.

Just Say It

I write a lot about trusting your hunches when it comes to design, and going with gut instinct when it comes to design. Same applies for commenting on big blogs. If you have something to say, then say it. Don’t let yourself be demotivated because you think your comment will get lost in the crowd.

I used ProBlogger as an example because it’s a good demonstration of how feelings can be misleading. I’ve added comments to threads at ProBlogger even if 100 or more people had contributed before me. Those comments have still, sometimes, had an impact. Darren Rowse has responded to them, people have linked back to my site from them.

More surprisingly, those comments have had the same kind of impact as when I’ve been in the first two or three comments on articles in blogs of similar size (ProBlogger or otherwise).  If there are a lot of comments then people reading them are likely engaged in the conversation. Less people might read your individual comment than if you were first or second to respond, but more of those people are likely to be engaged with what you wrote.

Why The Hell Do You Have A Commenting Strategy Anyway?

If you’re just commenting to bring in traffic to your own site, then what’s the point. Even if you’re making sure to avoid just writing “great post”, you’re still only commenting for your own ends. You’re only really going to engage if you comment because you want to.

A commenting “strategy” should be no more than two things; find good blogs that post interesting articles, and make some time each day to read and comment. Don’t target specific blogs as “must comment”, don’t stop commenting on a blog because it doesn’t give you any traffic benefit.

Your comment is your own, and your contribution is unique. That doesn’t change whether you’re the only person commenting on a blog, or you’re the thousandth person to write something. If the article made you think of a comment, write it.

…no, wait. We *should* link to work that we think is awesome. Actually we link to work that we think is kinda good. See that big list of “great dark websites” that someone posted yesterday (it doesn’t matter who, someone definitely posted a list of great dark websites yesterday)? I’ll wager at least a dollar that most of those sites didn’t make the author sit back in amazement at the design. More likely they thought “yeah, that’s pretty decent, and I’ve got to pad this list out.”

The Easiest Kind Of Blog Post

Struggling for inspiration? Haven’t posted on your blog in a couple of days? Throw up a list. It’s easy, quick and often thoughtless but, hey, it’s content, right? You can bump it, stumble it, tweet it and because it’s easy to scan it’ll probably get shared around. You might even get some comments along the lines of “Great list, I really liked #3 in particular.” That’s interactive, isn’t it?

It’s not like you need to put any particular thought into it. A paragraph intro, a list of links, and maybe some screenshots. Done and out the door. So no surprise to see list posts being tweeted about on a daily basis. It’s a pity, because it is possible to post a worthwhile list of cool sites and great examples of web design, it’s just that most people don’t bother.

Do You Care About Your List?

If it’s just a bunch of links, I don’t even know what you think about the list. If I’m reading your blog it’s probably because I have some interest in your opinion. I suppose technically your opening “hey, these are cool” paragraph is an opinion, but I’m pretty sure you’re being lazy. I’m even more sure when I realize I’ve seen half your list posted on other blogs over the course of the last two weeks.

I want to know what you think about each item on your list. I’ll be more confident that you genuinely appreciate what you’re posting if you express an opinion about it. Doesn’t have to be much, just a paragraph or two about each item you post. Highlight why you chose that site to showcase, what’s great about it, what’s *original* about it, and maybe even some constructive criticism about what can be improved.

Could You Pretend To Be Original?

I’ve seen lists about dark sites, red sites, portfolio sites, blog sites. Half the time I’m looking at the same stuff, because I saw it on another list. I know that www.someurl.com is a good example of a pastel blue site, I’ve been told fifteen times this year.

Search for something that I haven’t seen before. Choose something that genuinely inspires you, not just a well put together design. A collection of stuff I’ve already seen isn’t particularly inspiring, nor does it suggest that you put much thought into it. When I see a list of great web design I want to see something that I wouldn’t have found otherwise, and something that I believe you really thought was something special.

Give me a short list of websites you loved, not a long list of websites you sorta liked.

Harder Work = Better Lists

It’s pretty simple. Stop looking at lists as the easy option. Yeah, I know that sometimes you just want to get that post out, and I’m not pretending I’ve always been perfect in following all my own advice. But I decided that the easy option just isn’t really worth it. If you don’t have that extra hour’s worth of time to dedicate to a real list post, then frankly, don’t bother posting today. I’m kinda bored of it.

Insights

Interlinking your own blog posts is really useful, not just for SEO purposes but because you’ll probably blog about the same kind of thing a lot. It’s a pain to link those posts though, because you have to find the relevant post, copy the URL and then go back to your editing window to add it to your text. It used to drive me crazy. Insights fixed it though, because it let me search my own blog directly from the post editor, so I can quickly find my other posts and insert links.

Insights does a bunch more as well. It’s like adding a great dedicated search bar to your WordPress admin section. While you’re writing a post you can find internal links, pictures, books, news, Wikipedia articles, or just search Google. Then you can just as quickly use the plugin to add links and images to your text. It’s absolutely invaluable.

pageMash

Take a look at the WordPress codex. There’s a lot of advice on how to tweak your template code to call or exclude specific pages from menus, how to administer sub-pages, etc. Good advice, but it’s all about coding and it’s not the most user friendly of options. pageMash renders a lot of the advice redundant by letting you do all this page administration from within your WordPress admin section.

Really simple. Install the plugin, and you can drag and drop your pages into the order you want (great for overriding the default order that WordPress places on pages). You can hide pages from the main menu, quickly see page IDs, and generally just create the page structure you want in a user friendly graphical interface.

Advanced Excerpt

Excerpts are really handy in WordPress. They’re great for listing search results or archival material, linking to posts from a front page, etc. They’re also not very flexible. The standard WordPress excerpt is a set number of characters, it strips HTML tags, and it uses carriage returns instead of the paragraph tag. We could really do with greater functionality.

…which we now have, with Advanced Excerpt. Great plugin that lets you choose which HTML tags each excerpt will keep, and which it will strip. It lets you define the number of characters in an excerpt. You can override the standard the_excerpt tag in your code, and also use the_advanced_excerpt to tweak things more directly (e.g. you can have different excerpts calling different numbers of characters – I do that on my blog index page).

A Personable Brand

Sweeping generalization: most people don’t look good, sound good or sound intelligent when they’re being filmed. Even if your subject matter is interesting, video blogs make it seem less so.

Very few people have a gift in front of the camera. The best come across as natural and engaging. Marc and David Perel of From the Couch have that gift. Their content is cool, but they also seem likeable guys themselves. You never feel they’re behaving artificially in front of the camera. As a result they’re memorable, and link that personable nature to their brand.

Dynamic Duos Are Better Than Stale Singles

One person talking directly to the camera is rarely entertaining. If you’re simply going to read out your content then you may as well write it instead. Think of television. How many shows are one person talking to camera all the time? I can’t think of any.

Look at morning shows around the world. The format is always the same – two presenters. Two presenters give a more dynamic result. David and Marc play off each other, interrupt each other, even get into arguments. The whole presentation seems far more natural, and more interesting because of that.

Organized With A Hint Of Anarchy

I don’t know how David and Marc put their show together, how much planning they do. My guess is that they have a basic idea and have some notes, but they don’t overplan. Overplanning any kind of presentation can make it seem too rehearsed. It’s the same reason why every book on public speaking says that you shouldn’t read text directly, because it won’t sound natural.

The opposite also holds true, if you try and speak without planning at all it’s going to be chaotic and sound dumb. You need to find a happy medium. Enough planning that the topic gets covered and you demonstrate that you know your stuff. Enough flexibility that your presentation sounds natural and unrehearsed.

So Video Blogs Are Still Rubbish?

I still don’t like them. I thought it was the medium. What From The Couch demonstrates is that it isn’t the medium, but the presentation. Video blogs shouldn’t be a replacement for what you could have just written down. They need to use the dynamic of live action, and natural human behaviour, to present information in a different way. Don’t read out a prepared text, don’t just present something on video because you can. Look at From The Couch, and realize that to make video blogging worthwhile you have to do something a little bit different.