April … WhenThe Following Should Be Easy

       It's "ASK ARLEE" day at TOSSING IT OUT, but I was given one question that seemed better addressed at the A to Z Blog.   Since the question primarily concerns the WordPress blogging platform which I am not too familiar with, I turned to one of my A to Z Ambassadors who blogs at WordPress.  In this post Judy from Raising the Curtain will address the topic of following blogs.

Let's Be Friends

The start of the Challenge is just around the corner and you’re ready. Your posts are prepared or well under control and you can’t wait to start the interaction.  You start scoping out a few of the blogs in the Challenge sign up list, get excited when you find a few quality ones and decide to follow them so you can keep up with their Challenge posts.  But hang on, these blogs are on a different blogging platform to your own and despite searching high and low on the site you can’t locate an easy follow mechanism. So you leave feeling slightly dejected, promising faithfully to come back manually to the blog… and you never do.

Sounds familiar?

One of the cornerstones of the Challenge is interaction and you want to make it easy for your readers to follow you, no matter on what platform they blog. Don’t let that follow slip through your fingers, especially after you have done the hard part with quality content.

Following Blogger to Blogger is easy through Google Friends Connect and the internal blogger follow mechanism. Following WordPress to WordPress is also easy through the internal WordPress follow button.

But what about following WordPress to Blogger or Blogger to WordPress?

Here’s a few suggestionsthat might help you capture that inter-platform follow.

For Blogger Users:

1.       Make sure you have a prominent RSS feed subscription feed button. WordPress users can import your blog’s URL into their WordPress reader.

2.       Even through you may not like to receive blog posts by email, others might. It’s my preferred blog capturing mechanism and a lot of the time blogs don’t have an email subscription capability. You might want to consider adding that capability.

3.       As Google Friends Connect can no longer be accessed by WordPress.com users consider linking your blog to one or more alternative follow platforms, such as Networked Blogs (http://www.networkedblogs.com) or Linky Followers (http://www.linkyfollowers.com/login/default.aspx). Each of these sites acts as an intermediary between blogs and their followers, a sort of blog clearing house. Networked blogs has a Facebook interface and can also be linked to your blog’s Facebook page if you have one. If you decide to use one of these, make sure the platform’s follow badge is placed in a prominent position on your blog.

4.       An alternative to Google Friends Connect is Google +. If you have a Google + blog page or a personal page, make sure your Google + follow badges are placed on a prominent position on your blog and that your blog posts are posted to your Google + page.

For WordPress Users:

1.       All of the above applies to you too, except for Google Friends Connect which has now been discontinued and in any event the script was not permitted on WordPress.com.

2.       Make sure that you have the grey WordPress Follow Me button option turned on. It will allow readers to follow you through an email subscription no matter what page of your blog they are on. Mine appears at the bottom right of the screen and jumps around with each page.

The Challenge is a great opportunity to break out of the confines of your blogging platform and invite other bloggers into your world. You never know, they might even stay for dinner the follow.

Good luck to all the Challenge participants and may you all have a fulfilling and followsome April!

Judy

http://raisingthecurtain.net/

        Thank you, Judy!  Please be sure to stop by Judy's blog to visit, comment, and by all means follow.

         Are there any other follow methods that you might suggest?

This post entered by Arlee Bird 

Related articles

• WordPress Sidebar Etiquette
• Widget Logic: Conditional Widgets for WordPress
• How to create your own blog....

Quick Note to A-to-Z Participants

Hi there!

In order to insure that everyone gets to come along on equal footing during the A-to-Z Challenge, and to make sure you have someone specific to go to should you have any questions, each co-host is assigned a certain number of blogs to attend to.  Now, we all try to visit everyone, but this way, each person will get visited by at least one co-host and will be able to contact their co-host directly in case of questions.

We want to be sure you know who to go to, so you will receive a single email from your co-host at the beginning of the challenge.  It will just be an introduction and welcome, along with your co-host's contact information.

Your emails will be BCC'd, so your email will not be given out to your fellow participants.  Only your co-host will have that information.  In order to insure it doesn't turn into a spam-fest, be sure to reply only to the co-host if you have a question; don't hit "reply all."  However, do feel free to ask your co-host anything, and don't be afraid that you will be bothering us...you won't! 

Ultimately, we are here to support all of you.  This should be fun.  Yes, we're challenging ourselves, but if you take it too seriously, it just won't be fun at all.  Enjoy yourself, and ask your co-host if you have a question.  Let's make this the best A-to-Z yet!

May you find your Muse.

Shannon L.
The Warrior Muse

Spam Flattery and Mr. Anonymous Commenter

It starts out innocently enough. Spam Flattery delivers the line. It’s a simple, common, worn out line meant to make you smile and maybe even blush a little. You know the type. They’re the lines everybody uses when they want to flatter you just enough, that you become a tiny bit self-absorbed; those wonderful little things they say to make it easier to take advantage of you, without you even realizing what they’re doing.

You toss your hair back, smile at the screen in front of yourself, cock your head off to one side and read the most delightful comments posted on your blog for all to see. They’re shy, the poor devils. They always sign in as Mr. Anonymous; sometimes they leave their name at the end of the comment, along with a link so you can visit them in return.

Mr. Anonymous says things like, “Appreciate this post. Will try it out.” Or “I’m going to link this page and share it.” That always gets your attention, right? I mean, we bloggers live for page views, and people linking to your work is like finding gold at the end of the rainbow.

Except there isn’t a rainbow in sight, it hasn’t rained in days and that site they’re linking to is nothing more than an advertisement for Viagra, Accutane, hemorrhoid cures or some other product you don’t want to advertise in the comments on your blog.

Oh, they’re good, these unsolicited, sales marketing spammers! They’re really good! Check out this comment left on an unsuspecting, unprotected blog:

Ηello! Ι unԁerstand this iѕ somewhat off-topic however 
I had to ask. Does managing a well-estаblisheԁ wеbѕite 
like yourѕ rеquirе a lot of ωоrk?
I аm bгand new to running a blog but I do 
write in my diary on a daily basis. I'd like to start a blog so I can share my personal experience and feelings online. Please let me know if you have any kind of ideas or tips for brand new aspiring bloggers. Appreciate it!

They close by leaving a link to their website. (Funny. They don’t have a clue about blogging, but they’ve managed to build a website!)

Whatever you do, don’t click on the link!

These Mr. Anonymous commenters are masters of deception! They draw you in and spit you out. Picture cookies, lots of them and viruses – well, I wouldn’t be surprised! Spyware, malware, Trojans – both kinds I’m afraid.

Trust me, you’re going to be getting tons of comments once the A – Z Challenge begins next month. The last thing you need to worry about is sorting through and finding the ones from Mr. Anonymous, and wasting time trying to delete them all. Not to mention the unsuspecting bloggers who might actually click on the links provided!

Take a minute right now. Go into your blog settings and turn off “Anonymous Comments.” Make your visitors own their identity, claim their name and document their source before they can leave a comment on your blog. This is standard practice in the world of blogging anyway. It eliminates a major percentage of spam from ever getting through…unlike the dreaded captcha that does absolutely nothing to protect your blog from anonymous spammers, and only serves to frustrate anyone trying to leave a comment on your blog – except the anonymous spammer, that is. They’ll jump through all the hoops they need to, just to sell a product or leave a malicious link on your blog!

Photo credit:  The Emblem of Anonymous, Kephir at English Wikipedia, Public Domain; No Spam, indolences, Public Domain; Blog-commentskkkkk, Cortega9, Creative Commons Attribution

©2013 All Rights Reserved

Contributed by M.J Joachim, find her at Lots of Crochet Stitches by M.J Joachim