CovilleDesigns

11 Characteristics of Highly Influential Blogs

MikeCoville — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:04:20 +0000

I have found that it is important to learn from those that have found a way to be successful. This is not to say to copy what they are doing, but how they are doing. Lauren Hatch is a writer for Entrepreneur magazine and she summarizes a great article by Tamar Weinberg about creating a successful blog.

A blog is a wonderful way for you to keep your customer base informed on the topics you are an expert in or keep them updated to the services and products you offer.

Here is Lauren Hatch’s article with links to the original:

Copy the industry leaders and watch your follower base grow.

By Lauren Hatch | February 24, 2010

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/onlinemarketing/article205174.html

It seems everyone has a blog these days, and the plethora of information available can make it difficult to attract a solid group of readers.

But according to Tamar Weinberg at Techipedia, there are 11 characteristics of all highly influential blogs that will build your blog and its followers if you adopt them.

Consistency. Readers want lots of posts, and “neglected content may inadvertently translate to neglecting your readers too.”
Eloquence. Read a lot, write well and proofread. Weinberg’s favorite bloggers “always have something insightful to say,” and “their content exudes intelligence and occasional wit.”
Uniqueness. Channeling Darren Rowse, Weinberg argues that being unique “requires not doing what everyone else does.” I.e. don’t repeat the news with nothing new to offer.
Specific. Focus on a niche and master it.
Personal. Let readers get to know the person behind the screen. Write “personal stories as it relates to your mission in blogging,” Weinberg says.
Analytical. “People love data, and they love knowing how data can be aggregated to make conclusions. They love charts and graphics, and they love the findings that can be made from this data in aggregate,” Weinberg says. So give it to them.
Detail. Details take a regurgitated news story and make them your own. The more detail, the better.
Thought-Provoking. Leave your readers thinking about your post long after they click away.
Passion. If you are passionate about your blog, readers will notice.
Instructional. Teach your readers how to do something interesting and useful, and it will be impossible for them not to share.
Networked. Be active in your quest to attract readers. “In order for people to find you,” Weinberg says, “you need to be able to market your blog to them. How does one do this? Comment on other bloggers’ posts consistently. Send tweets out to the bloggers with your own commentary.”

Web Site Hosting

MikeCoville — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:39:57 +0000

The first step in getting your company on the World Wide Web is to select a company to create your web site. The second step is to determine where your web site will be hosted. We hope that you would choose CovilleDesigns as the designer of your web site and now you can let CovilleDesigns host your site.

In order for your site to be accessible to everyone else, you need to have a host server to store your web site. There are many features to look for when choosing a host but there are a couple of key ones.

Server capacity. This is the amount of space you are allowed to use on the host hard drive.
Bandwidth. This determines how much information you are able to send to your visitors from the server.
Email accounts.
MySQL Databases. These are used to expand the features of your web site.
cPanel administration. cPanel has become the standard for the interface you use to manage your host account.

At CovilleDesigns we provide the most competitive standards for a fair price. For more information on CovilleDesign hosting plans you can go here.

Joomla!

MikeCoville — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:55:16 +0000

Let me tell you about one of the most exciting pieces of software I have ever come across. Joomla has allowed web developers to create beautiful web sites with lots of functionality and dynamic content. On the other hand Joomla allows anyone to be able to manage all that content and function with little or no programming experience.

Joomla is a CMS, what is that? CMS stands for Content Management System. A CMS is a program that is loaded on your web server, dynamically displays content and add/remove content from one administrators screen.

All though there are several CMSs out there I have found Joomla to be my favorite for two reasons.

First reason is the large amount of extensions available for it. Joomla has a very active community of programmers that are creating new add ons for it all the time. These extensions are then used to give your web site additional functions or different ways to display content. Extensions can be anything from a complete eCommerce function to adding a daily Garfield comic to your site. Other CMSs have the same ability but I have found that the amount and the diversity of extensions on Joomla can not be matched.

The second reason is the themes. Joomla gives designers the ability to create beautiful templates that can be applied to Joomla sites easily. Joomla gives us the tools to place images and colors in anyplace that is needed to make a theme for your website that is eye popping. Some of the features of Joomla allows these themes to be customized to your sites desired presentation, whither that is a blog, a corporate information site or a sales generating eCommerce site.

As you can see there is a lot to love about Joomla. I am excited to have found Joomla and look forward to seeing what it will allow me to do in the future. As always, if you would like to have Joomla set up for your web site send me an email and I would be happy to make that happen.

Till next time, have fun!

Mike Coville

Hello world!

MikeCoville — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:28:02 +0000

Welcome to the blog portion of the CovilleDesigns web site. I am having a lot of fun with all the new ways that I can make use of the internet to communicate and to let people know about the things I am involved with. I plan to use this blog to keep everyone informed on whats going on with CovilleDesigns and give you upcoming previews of new products and services we will be offering here.

Do you know what the best part of a blog is? You get to comment. I want to hear from you. Is there a new web product your interested in learning more about? Let me know here. Is there a service we provide that you want to know more about? Ask and I will do my best to tell you all about it.

So welcome aboard the CovilleDesigns journey across the World Wide Web, I hope you will have as much fun I am having.