50 Lifestyle Blogs to Draw Inspiration From

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Lifestyle blogs come in all shapes and sizes. They’re written by people who want to share aspects of their lives and passions with others. To find ones that you enjoy, consider reading about topics that interest you, choosing authors that you relate to, and following ones that update regularly. That way, you’re not always visiting blogs that aren’t posting new content. The best lifestyle blogs are ones that add something to your life — no matter how well written something is, it might not capture you if the topic isn’t something that makes an impression. [Read more…]

7 Must-Read Blogs for College Students

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College is an exciting time in one’s life. It’s a period for self-discovery and to carve a path in their lives based on what course they’re taking up. People in college should expect to go through ups and downs since they’re supposed to commit mistakes and gain wins throughout their time there.

It’s going to be a challenging and stressful experience for some as they will be taken out of their comfort zones and find out who they are. Despite these things, there is beauty in being a college student, which is why you as a college student must do whatever it takes to finish your degree and start your adult life at an advantage.

To help you overcome the rigors associated with college life below is a short list of blogs for college students that you must read. It contains blogs that cover different topics related to making the most out of your college experience.

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9 Great but Lesser-Known Blogs to Follow in 2016 for Marketing Insights and Inspiration

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If you are looking for any sort of information nowadays, the first place you will be looking for is the Internet. And it’s really easy to see why, because in addition to the convenience and the speed, the wealth and sheer volume of information online is more than reason enough.

However, because there is so much stuff out there, it also means there is a lot of filler and a lot of junk on any topic, so it can be a bit of challenge to sift through all of that information, especially if you are looking for something really specific.

Blogging and Content Marketing: What is the Relationship?

It is no different when it comes to digital marketing, as marketing blogs are a dime a dozen. Of course, more experienced users know where to look, but if you are just starting out, it can be difficult to find the right sort of information. [Read more…]

Is the Death of Google Reader Bad for Blogs?

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Google Reader

Throughout history, things come and go. What was once at the very top, ends up being replaced. When was the last time you made a call from a corded phone? How about listened to the radio? When did you read a newspaper last? The world is constantly evolving, and what’s the norm now may not be so five or 10 years from now.

On July 1, Google Reader saw its demise. Easily one of the most popular RSS readers on the planet, Google claimed declining usage was a factor in their decision to shut it down. Back in March when an announcement was made, bloggers and readers were extremely vocal. Most were very upset, and thought it was an incredibly stupid move on Google’s part.

However, the tech giant has a lot of products and services under its belt. For any business, you need to stay focused, and keep the money rolling in. Unfortunately, Reader simply wasn’t part of a focus anymore. With the shut down, many bloggers started to question what it meant for the industry. Was this the start of a major shift? Are blogs going by the wayside? [Read more…]

Use Social Media – Effectively

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With social media, everyone wants to know that what they are saying is having an impact on other people. Getting traffic that responds to your posts is extremely exciting, and keeping them coming back is even better. Here are some simple tips you can use to increase your social media traffic and success.

Be Real

It is not necessary to put on a front and pretend to be something you are not. Online, sooner or later, someone who knows the real you will blow your cover, and the response will be devastating. Besides, it’s also easier to keep up with the right personality if there are no pretenses. People can tell when you are being real or not. [Read more…]

Effective Guerilla Link Building Strategies

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There are many strategies that are effective in achieving the goal of increasing a blog or website’s page rank in search engines. A high page ranking means you’ll get more visits to your website, which is what all blog or website owners want. Among the many strategies that you can use, link building remains one of the most effective strategies.

There are many ways of implementing a good link building strategy for your website or blog. One of the more effective ways of doing this is by using certain guerilla tactics that will generate the links that you need. For example, a popular guerilla link building tactic is to write link bait articles. These are articles that have a compelling content that other sites will want to link to it. It could be a controversial topic or a polarizing opinion. [Read more…]

Then and Now: What Your Favorite Blogs Looked Like in Their Infancy

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As we all know, every blog has a beginning. The beauty of the web is that websites can be stored in a permanent cache; effectively taking a virtual snapshot of the way the blog exists at that moment in time and storing it for later retrieval. Wouldn’t it be neat if you could go back in time and see what certain blogs looked like then? Well, it turns out you can. Archive.org has a public cache that stores snapshots of websites at regular intervals. It is called the Wayback Machine, and works just like a regular search engine; I tapped into it to bring you some blog history. You punch in the URL of the blog/site you want to look up, and they show you what dates they have stored in their database. The tool is not flawless, and many searches turn up corrupted pages or missing images, but it is really cool nonetheless.   I did quite a bit of poking around on the database, and here are some of the snapshots I found:

The Blogs I Looked Up

From left to right, down the list in order, the blogs covered were Blog Herald, Boing Boing, Copyblogger, Engadget, John Chow, and Problogger. The thumbnails are in sequential order, so that you see the earliest snapshot of the blog to the most recent. To view each snapshot, just click on the thumbnail to load the full-size version of it. If you roll the mouse over each thumbnail, it will tell you what blog the snapshot is from and which date as well. This project was a lot of fun, and I could have gone on forever with it.

One thing that we can all take away from this example is the amazing amount of hard work and dedication the owners of these blogs have committed to their sites. We sometimes forget that everyone has a starting point, and everyone at one time was a nobody. Even Google. Now, I am gonna bet that after you read this post, you are going to head over to the Wayback Machine and start looking up all kinds of sites! Go for it.

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The Blurring Line Between Blogs and Forums

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What separates a blog and a forum? It’s not as simple of an answer as it was just a few years ago.

Forums have long been making use of RSS feeds and some have even adopted more blog-like layouts. Now many forum applications have begun sending pingbacks and trackbacks to articles linked in posts, an activity that began and, previously was limited to, blogs.

However, blogs have also begun to become more and more forum-like. Though comments have always been a major part of blogging, many are also encouraging original submissions. They are also placing a heavier emphasis on comments and services such as Disqus and Intense Debate provide greater commenter identity and cross-site accounts.

In short, where forums have been pulling from the playbook of blogs in their newest features, blogs have been gradually becoming more community-oriented, turning away from the author-oriented approach they are often associated with.

This has had the effect of blurring the lines between the two and confusing many who are building new sites.

To help make sense of it, I decided to turn to my long-time friend, podcast co-host and all-around community expert Patrick O’Keefe in hopes he could provide some insights into their similarities and differences as well as help sites decide which format is right for them. [Read more…]