We are happy to present our fourth newsletter for April ‘09 and share with you everything that is going on at
BloggersBase, explain the new features, answer your questions, and provide useful tips to the
BloggersBase community.
In an effort to make
BloggerBase more user-friendly we have made a few improvements in the excerpt tab of the publishing wizard.
This tab is the second tab under the publishing wizard. It has come to our attention that people are skipping this tab when it comes to publishing their articles.
Using this tab can be very beneficial for the following reasons:
1. Formatting the excerpt in a unique way with an emphasis on adding and excerpt image is more appealing, especially when it appears on the main page.
2. It attracts more readers to the post and subsequently allows you to gain more exposure.
3. Writing a short description for the excerpt image assists SEO (Search Engine Optimization): It helps search engines to better understand the contextual meaning of the image and therefore increases the relevancy of your post in relevant searches.
4. In the upcoming weeks we are planning to add excerpts throughout the site to increase the discovery process. Leaving your posts with the default excerpts will make them less visible.
While uploading a photo into the excerpt tab of the publishing wizard it allows you to choose sections of the picture you want visible. Please note that the cropping area is square.
The final result of your excerpt will undeniably be more attractive and appealing to the readers.
Up until recently, users had to be signed in to BloggersBase in order to write comments, Thumbs up or down comments and to vote.
BloggersBase has implemented a new feature allowing users to use the above features anonymously.
To increase involvement of the many readers arriving to BloggersBase for the first time, we have enabled limited voting and commenting functionality.
Now you can invite your friends to try BloggersBase out even without registering.
Of course that comments will remain anonymous, providing less interaction and voting has heavy restrictions, but it will still enable others to see what we're about and decide to join afterwards.
In last month’s news letter we mentioned the new upcoming blogs section which features 16 upcoming blogs, in fields such as art, nature, self management and more. Two of our leading upcoming blogs are Criminology and Home Theater.
CriminologyCriminology is the social science approach to
crime as an individual and
social phenomenon.
Currently the posts in this blog consist of everything regarding the study of crime such as history, analysis, profiling and related materials.
One of our most prominent bloggers in this section is the user
gttlrs she has received some of the highest scores in this blog and we would like to congratulate her on doing a fantastic job.
You can visit
her personal blog.
Home Theatre
Home Theatre implies a real "cinema experience" and therefore a higher quality set of components than the average television provides. This blog consists of home theater products, services, reviews, personal experiences, HT PCs, DVD releases, news and reviews. One of top authors for this blog is
Adam Thursby and BloggersBase would like to congratulate him on receiving a Scribe blogger rank. If you want to read more of Adam’s posts visit his personal blog
Entertainment 2.0.
Top rated posts on BloggersBase:
Title and topic | Score | User | |
| 8.36 | |  |
|
| 8.27 | |  |
|
| 8.08 | |  |
|
Most commented on posts on BloggersBase:
Title and topic | Comments | User | |
| 57 | |  |
|
| 18 | |  |
|
| 18 | |  |
|
Most viewed posts on BloggersBase:
Title and topic | Views | User | |
| 3,566 | |  |
|
| 1,620 | |  |
|
| 1,472 | |  |
|
Most prolific bloggers:
1) | | 115 new posts | 2) | | 85 new posts | 3) | | 84 new posts |
24,288 page views | 9,769 page views | 19,355 page views |
Most active readers:
1) | | 658 comments | 2) | | 183 comments | 3) | | 90 comments |
490 ratings | 192 ratings | 290 ratings |
Q: I am a top blogger in one blog and I am able to publish all my posts in that blog as a regular Surface post. Why when I submitted a post into another blog did my post appear as a Nugget?
A: While you have high scores in a certain blog, in order to publish in a different one, you still need to go through the process of publishing a Nugget in the Goldmine and waiting for the high scores there to promote you to the Surface.
Q: How can I change my username on BloggersBase?
A: Currently this feature is not offered on BloggersBase so make sure when choosing your username choose carefully.
Q: I was informed that I lost my right to post on the Surface due to inactivity. I only stopped posting for one week, why have my posts been demoted?
A: Your previous posts have not been demoted and remain on the Surface. As you may know there are specific rules in the competition, each week there is a turnover - the bloggers who submitted the best Nuggets in the Goldmine are promoted to the Surface blog, taking the place of the least successful bloggers from the Surface. So each week some bloggers are demoted from the Surface - the ones with the lowest scores (or those who have no scores at all), making room for fresh talent. This ensures a couple of things – the readers of the blog constantly get quality posts, even if some bloggers are away; More people get a chance to get discovered and publish on the surface; If you are away for a longer period, you can return easily, but if you were to abandon your personal blog for a long time, you will probably have lost quite a few of your readers.
Q: Some of my earlier posts were not picked up by the RSS-In feature, why does this happen?
A: We have experienced some problems with this feature but it has now been resolved. You can use this great feature to ease your submitting process, making it almost automatic.
When you encounter stolen or offensive material on BloggersBase you might consider reporting this content to us.
Please note that there are different places to report different abused items.
1. Reporting a post: Please be sure to press the “Report this Content” icon directly underneath the article as seen here.
2. Reporting a comment on a post: Please be sure to press the “Report this Content” icon on the right side of the comment box as shown to the right.
Excerpt images allow you to be seen
Excerpt images are the images which are shown on the main page and the grouping page in next to the excerpt text, like is shown on the screenshot to the right. In case that you do not provide any excerpt image, the default one for the blog is chosen. Obviously, picking the unique excerpt image will make your post stand out, like the second post on the screenshot does. Hundreds of people visit our main page daily and catching the spotlight with a colorful excerpt image can boost readership numbers for you. In addition to being more reader friendly, posts with custom excerpt images can be more SEO friendly. It is confirmed that Google gives weight to the information gained from the image elements on the page. Therefore, providing the excerpt image proper name and description can increase the relevancy of your page for Internet search.
Apart from these reasons which should be sufficient enough for every blogger to take care of providing a custom excerpt image, the planned changes on BloggersBase will give the excerpt image a key role and neglecting this feature may have an adverse effect on the exposure to the readers. For example, posts with default excerpt image will not appear on ‘Related Posts’ and ‘Currently Hot on BloggersBase’ widgets, because excerpt images are expected to take a significant portion of space within those widgets. Of course, adding appealing and relevant excerpt images will greatly increase chances of a visitor opening your post when it’s appearing inside the widgets above.
Why should you stick to adding excerpt image now, even though the new features demanding it are still around the corner? Because it is not possible to alter the excerpt image of the already published post and it will be a shame not to appear in a featured widgets just because you hadn’t bothered with choosing an excerpt image prior to those widgets’ introduction.
For more detailed explanation regarding how to add the excerpt image, please refer to the ‘New Features’ section of this email.
Opening all comments with just one click
Our veteran readers who have encountered posts followed by dozens of comments must sometimes feel frustrated by being forced to click numerous ‘Show replies’ links just to follow one conversation which can easily get to tenth level of nested comments or more.
Well, it is time for all of you to rejoice, because recently introduced ‘Expand all comments’ button does exactly what you would expect of the button with such name to do – expands all the comments on the page. This button is located just above the comments themselves
Our featured user of the month April is
myqute, who has shown involvement in almost every aspect of BloggersBase for the past months, including writing. We are glad that
myqute agreed to grant us a short interview. Here it is:
Q: We see that you have almost 90 friends on BloggersBase, have you made any interesting connections with these users?
A: Yes, some of them became my Twitter buddies and we visit one another's blogs to comment and exchange information. I try to bring more Twitter friends to Bloggersbase although I don't think I have much success in it as @Oprah is too busy to notice me!
A few like InvestaMania are my buddies in the YouTube community although interaction is mostly within BB. I am still waiting for Prince Charming to come sweep me off my feet! Q: We see you have made many comments and reviews on people's posts. Which blog is your favorite and why?
A: I have too many favourites...and they are growing every week! Most of my BloggersBase fellow-bloggers express themselves very well and I enjoy learning from those who blog in the Politics and Opinions. It's impossible to call out to all my favourite bloggers so here are just a few of my “favs”:
FantasyArt - she showcases works of various artists very well and she is not doing it for profit, which is rare. Shari - she is one of my “fav”fellow-bloggers in the Health, Sports & Fitness category - may be because we share the same interests and values for modern healthcare. We both are fans of the same famous health advocate, Mike Adams (otherwise known as the HealthRanger). CaroleParker - another one of my fav. fellow-blogger. She blogs about using natural fruits and vegetables for diet and beauty face masks. She listens to your questions and is ever-responsive. A beauty expert! Kaytiiangel - she blogs about her diet adventures and offers an excellent insight to her parenting experiences and probably more in other categories. Very frank and heartwarming blog entries are what draw me to her. RamaRaoBobby - you can find Bob's (as I call him) entries in various categories. He started off in Bloggersbase giving lots of good computer and online URL tips. A man of immense knowledge in natural health too! Mashable - he blogs about Google and Twitter resources and tips (but not limited to those). Gttlrs and FNE are currently my “favs” for Criminology. You just have to read their entries and you will see why I am such a nut for crime non-fiction. CraziestGadgets is one of my “favs” in technology, Gadgets & Mobile. Although his entries are usually short, they are entertaining nonetheless because I am a Kawaii-lover!! And many more I can't call offhand! REALLY too many good bloggers to list (please do not bash me if you do not see your name mentioned - I am just lazy to add more content!!)
Robehren talks about his experience with BloggersBase and explains briefly how the site works and what are the advantages it offers to bloggers.
Blog To Great present the benefits BloggersBase has to offer to both readers and bloggers and give an overview of the competition mechanism of the site.
Kunal explains how to attract rating to your own blog and earn money with BloggersBase.
Help us spread the word about
BloggersBase and you could win monetary prizes! Simply
refer other bloggers by placing a link to
BloggersBase on your own site. To do this, choose one of the banners offered in the 'My Account' tab of your profile page and place it on your web page. Each time a blogger who registers by following your link wins the competition in one of the surface blogs a cash bonus will be added to your balance. You can track the number of referred users and your bonuses in the 'My Account' tab of your profile.
You can also invite friends to join by clicking "Invite" on your profile widget to the same effect!
If you wish to unsubscribe from our newsletter please update the ‘receive newsletter’ preference under the preferences tab in your profile.
The BloggersBase Team.
