More FAQ from that "Comments Awaiting Moderation" page that I didn't realize Blogspot had...
One note about the way Blogspot handles comments, generally. If you have a Blogspot blog, Google will automatically link us up when you comment. If you don't, Google will lose all your contact information. If you have a Google account but it doesn't show your home page or e-mail address, I have no way to reply to you.
As I scroll through dozens of the "Hello, I enjoyed this post" kind of thing that does have real meaning for bloggers when it comes from readers we know, but Google is not making it possible for me to guess how many of the bland niceties are coming from friends (even from The Nephews at school) and how many are coming from spammers whose links Google is losing. It's fairly obvious that most of the flattery is coming from spammers, with tip-offs like thanks for saying something the post didn't say; the "Thank you for this, nice post" tells me nothing at all.
Here are the other FAQ:
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Hi! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I genuinely enjoy reading your posts. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same subjects? Thanks a ton!
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Most people who post this question are pretty blatantly hoping to get free publicity for their sites, and for a person to try to exploit a web site as small and underfunded as this one says something about the quality of that person's web site. One non-spammy version of the question appeared on a post about survival foods. I've written an e-book on the general topic of wild food to eat in camp, and what I said in that book is that, for detailed information, you need local sources. (Also mentioned in the series of three posts about my "Survival Food Weekend.") Euell Gibbons' four books are the reference guide for North Americans but even between Pennsylvania, where he did most of his foraging, and Virginia, where I do mine, there are some differences. On the World Wide Web, survival and wild food sites have suffered from the mere fact of being worldwide. Your state university may (or may not) have developed a site for edible wild plants; photos may (or may not) be more helpful to you than the line drawings in Gibbons' books. There's now a Peterson's Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants that contains all the really useful updates to Gibbons' books, the explanations of why some wild plants that won't kill you are still not very good food choices. That one I can recommend.
Click here if the photo doesn't link: https://amzn.to/2JvU7eI
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Hello! Do you know if they make any plugins to help with Search Engine Optimization? I'm trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I'm not seeing very good results. If you know of any please share. Thank you!
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There are subscription-only sites that will help you find highly discoverable keywords. Some of them are quite sophisticated at finding lots of related keywords. However, it's still up to you to write credible content about your keywords and, for maximum discoverability, build your site's credibility with an expert author, editor, or co-author.
The cheap'n'easy way to do SEO is available to everybody: Pick a topic. (Your favorite search engine may even show you a list of the top ten trending topics, free of charge.) Say your primary keyword is, as I did in my SEO cat post, "Samantha" (or whatever name your pet answers to). Type "Samantha" into the search bar. Now the search engine will offer a selection of phrases to help narrow your search--when I was doing the SEO cat post, they included some irrelevant ones (last names of celebrities whose given name is Samantha) and some usable ones ("Samantha...wedding," "Samantha...band," "Samantha...album," "Samantha...IMDB," etc.). If most of the phrases the search engine offers are irrelevant to what you want to write, try a different primary keyword. When you get a reasonable number of relevant phrases, construct your post in such a way as to work in all those relevant secondary search terms.
If you do this with your pet's name, of course, you'll get a parody piece, because people searching for Samantha Akkineni or Samantha Lee will be using "Lee" or "Akkineni" as secondary keywords, so a post that's only about your cat won't get high traffic.
However, if you've chosen a serious topic, using secondary keywords can be a good way to focus a long informative post and also generate traffic to your business. If you sell birthstone jewelry, you might start with the primary keyword "birthstones." Goodsearch offers "birthstones by month, birthstone colors, birthstone charts, birthstone rings, birthstone necklace, birthstone jewelry, birthstones for December..." Those are good titles for a series of posts, to which some additions will be obvious. You can refine the search further, either doing your own research at different search engines or using one of the subscription services, to generate additional keywords you want to work into each post.
In a short post (fewer than 1000 words) you don't want readers to complain that every third word is "birthstones," so if the post were "Birthstones by Month" you'd want to avoid typing "birthstones" more than twice in the main post, and just work in all the important words from your list--"month," "colors," "charts," and so on. In a longer post you could work a different keyword phrase into each paragraph.
Still, if you are just an ordinary person who likes fitting pretty stones into bits of precious metal, this will leave your site below the top tier on search engines today. By now the Internet is pretty full of content and the search engines can afford to be choosy, so they are. Top search engine rankings go to academic sites, so even if your jewelry business has a good series of posts about the geological processes that make gemstones special, it'll still rank below anything officially recognized academics have posted on the subject--yes, most likely including Wikipedia, since Wikipedia's serious science posts tend to be written and edited by serious scientists.
Business blogs just automatically rate lower than academic sites, even if they deliver the same information. Life is not fair. As a reader I'm more likely to look for free flower pictures at Wikipedia than I am at a florist's business blog. Google assumes that most people are like me in this way. Deal with it.
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Have you ever considered publishing an e-book or guest authoring on other websites?
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Considered it? Done it. Often. If you're interested, please e-mail me.
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Hi there, I want to subscribe for this web site to get latest updates, thus where can i do it please help.
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Unlike Word Press, Blogspot doesn't e-mail posts to readers. If you use Blogspot or a similar hosted web site, you may have the option to set up a list of blogs/sites you follow and see new posts here in your "reading list."
If you're a mostly offline person who's discovered this site on your monthly Internet day (I love readers like that), you can send your mail drop address and ask to receive printouts for $1 per post plus the cost of mailing.
I am not currently producing a regular Glyphosate Awareness Newsletter, because Carey Gillam is doing a very nice one.
Finally, a question that's popped up enough times to make me wonder what's going on, but I don't mind answering the question:
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First of all I want to say excellent blog! I had a quick question that I'd like to ask if you do not mind. I was curious to find out how you center yourself and clear your head before writing. I have had difficulty clearing my thoughts in getting my ideas out there. I truly do take pleasure in writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes tend to be lost just trying to figure out how to begin. Any suggestions or hints? Thanks!
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As is obvious to the literary types who disdain blogs, blogging is the way many of us clear our heads before writing more focussed, profitable assignments...Generally, though, I think the best way for writers to clear our heads before writing is a good brisk walk. Two miles is an optimal distance, and while the dreaded coronavirus is keeping me out of town I'm having to look for ways to get my daily steps.
And...if I hadn't found this one in among so many comments that had nothing to do with reality, so many evaluations of "this manual" attached to a silly pet post and so on, I wouldn't have laughed, but I did. Possibly you will too...
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The other day, while I was at work, my sister stole my apple ipad and tested to see if it can survive a 40 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!
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Being unfamiliar with the iPad but having survived almost daily episodes where this laptop, the Dell Inspiron whose official individual nickname is POG (Piece Of Garbage), makes me think about non-writing uses for a POG, I cackled out loud.
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