Discussions
Taking Blogs To Dot Com....What do you think?
Posted by letitia1 • 10/08/07 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: fashion, independent publishing, indie, new blog, new media, redesign, relaunch
So as the trend goes this year, I have finally taken my blog to the .com world as many others are doing. I guess you could say it helps us New Media folks get taken more seriously. While others start blogs for free swag, I actually am an aspiring journalist and hope to take my blog to new heights. Most of you could care less about fashion, but please visit and tell me what you think. It isnt finished, but we launch next week. I will take all suggestions into account, as BlogCatalog has some of the most savvy intellectuals on the net!
Thanks
www.thelreport.net
User Comments
-
Hmmmm....
-
hey nice blog/site/com
...don't like the skeleton, looks like she won the sliming contests :-)
good luck with it -
hey nice blog/site/com
...don't like the skeleton, looks like she won the sliming contests :-)
good luck with it-
skeleton?
-
-
I like it a lot. I think if you look at the success of some of the bigger blogs like Perez Hilton and The Superficial, you can't argue with the fact that the blog as a commercial endeavor is not a unreasonable business model. I think that for this type of thing to really work, you have to have a lot of updates, all day long. This will lead to lots of page views, and thus lots of appeal to advertisers.
Good luck and keep us informed on how it goes!-
Wow thanks so much for your insight!
-
-
Fantastic looking blog!
It makes sense to move to your own domain if you are serious about blogging. Blogs hosted at blogspot are more in the personal realm. Having your own URL makes you look more serious in my book. Not only that, but you have back end access you can't get with blogger. Another thing is it's nice to have email addresses that reflect your very own domain. me@mywebsite.com looks a lot more professional than hotgrrl22@yahoo.com. Credibility is important if you're looking to promote and make money with your blog. IMHO.
Keep up the good work.-
N8 you are always a trusty BC friend with great advice. So nice to hear from you. I agree with the emails, one reason I love my new domain. Whats wierd is that New Media still isnt that accepted though. Wont believe how many times Im getting slammed by PR companies who are being ridiculously rude to us and think we are 'Go Fug Yourself' or something. Everyone is afraid of bad press I guess.... But isn't my existing content enough proof! Geez, blogs will never catch a break...
-
Well with PR for a new site your ranking is always going to be low that's to be expected ...it's a brand new website. I would suggest putting a redirect on your old website to your new site. In time you'll gain back your clout.
The important thing is to not get disappointed with your efforts. In time with solid content and attention to SEO you'll be back on top. It's always an uphill battle starting fresh. As for the PR companies I would hold off being too proactive at first until your new site starts getting indexed in the SE's. Also I would work on quality not quantity. By that I mean research sites you link to and try to get backlinks from other sites that have high PR's already. This will help get you a higher PR faster.
You've got a great looking site with solid content. Just give it some time. -
You are very right. You know, I was thinking already of the redirect. Just not sure how. I use bluehost, I saw the option, but I dont think I did it right so i will contact customer service. That will be crucial in getting my old devoted readers back, and all the marketing I put into the first one. Everyone in my path should definetly reroute. DesignSponge did it, and she has nothing to worry about, her site is great! www.designsponge.blogspot.com/
I really agree with the SEO, but what is SE? And yeah, page rank will take months, so maybe I shall take your advice about the PR. I'll start backlinking instead for now.
..... -
I don't have any experience with bluehost so I'm not really sure what type of access you have. As far as a redirect goes there are a couple different ways of doing this. The first would be to add the following strip of code to your meta tags.
< meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; url=http://www.example.com/" > - remove spaces
This will immediately shoot your viewer to your new website. A better way ,if this is a permanent move, would be a 301 redirect. For this you will need to edit your .htaccess file.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_redirection
Again I've never worked with bluehost. This may be something you need to ask them to do for you.
PR ranking does take a while but linking to other sites with high PR will get you going in the right direction.
SE is short for Search Engines -
Ahhh ok! But where do i find my meta tags? I hope you remember I am the damsel with no hmtl clue
-
Well again I don't know what kind of access you have to your html, but generally meta tags are located towards the top of your page.
Is bluehost a blogging platform or just a host? How are you editing your html now?
I would look for a header file. Header.php or something like that and see if there are any tags that start with meta. Click enter and put in that small strip of code in-line with the other metatags. Make sure to take out the spaces at the beginning and end. Save and upload.
Are you usning bluehost now as your host? Did you have a blogger site before?
I use wordpress. In my themes folder I have the various files that form my site. My meta tags live in header.php. -
Oh no, I'm sorry, should have been more clear before. My old blog is on blogger, so doesnt the tag go there? My new blog .com is with bluehost and I want to redirect all the blogger readers to the .com
So the meta tag on blogger is what I change right? -
Ok Letita,
I see where you're coming from now and the answer is really very simple. I do see this question a lot so I did a little delving into Blogger. Check this post out here.
How To Redirect Your Blogspot Blog to your Website
natebal.com/journal/?p=1045 -
Thanks so much N8! I'll check it out now...
-
It's so easy It'll take you 2 minutes to do. Since Google owns Blogger they understand the need to keep current with your viewers. They added a simple redirect form to fill out. This should seamless for your readers as well as the search engines.
Good luck. -
Yeah, got it! Thanks N8!
-
Hey N8 I have been having allot of problems since yesterday, nothing too major, but it set me back a little. Did you know blogger only lets you redirect the domain name once? So I had to delete like 5 of my blogs. But now when I get google organic visitors, it tells them the blog url no longer exists...Oh well, the 3 blogs I saved redirect, but for some reason my anylitics still says people are viewing stuff on my old blog...I will know by today!
-
-
Nice design but I don't like the font you used for the "The L Report" logo up top. It's too "old world" stylized for a blog about fashion and trends, in my humble opinion.-
Yeah, you may be right and allot of modern 'fashionistas' would agree, but it is a business fashion blog than anything else- with a newspaper theme no less. So we took our cue from the giant themselves- NY Times. I personally love it! Thanks for your opinion..
-
-
Yeah, the skeleton spoils the mood. -
Yeah, the skeleton spoils the mood.
-
lol, which one?
-
Pictures of Nicole Ritchie always do that. -
letitia
that is so funny -
The one without the flesh.
-
-
I think that it's nice to have the dot.com only for when You have to speak out the url. I started a www.squarespace.com blog for My girl who owns cleaning business. www.mycleaninggirls.squarespace.com This is how it came and now I can change it to the domain I have and remove the square space from the end.
will see how it goes with Square Space blog. -
Im staying at blogspot forever I think. I hate change. I hope people will take me serious. I do have a black background on my blogs at least! The serious color.-
lol, true, true
-
If You hated Change You would not be blogging. You would still be playing with a use less website.
I also like blogger but there is no ring on my finger when something is better It's better.It's also a matter of choice -
ok, and that is also true. good point tenshi
-
-
Congratulations on your new site! It looks great already.
I think that having your own domain is definitely better. Makes you more of a individual entity and you are starting your road to being your own brand in my mind. I like your design. Think it will hit your target users. And I think the skeleton is great! A fun touch.
Information architecture wise I think that you should look into some spacing issues with the font you are using on your ingress. It is really hard to read. I also think that you should choose a little less spacing under the bolded subtitles in the article and add a little spacing above it - to make the hierarchy right.
I think maybe that you would benefit also from weighting the sidebar elements a bit. Now it seems as if you think all of the elements are just as important, which then ends up with the reader not knowing what to look at first, second, third etc. Help me find what is most important (or what you want to sell the most...
Other - just as a comment. Beware of not making what is an interaction element into something that looks like an ad. You don't want to inhibit interaction. Go the other way around instead, try and make your ads look like integral parts of your site - like your interaction elements.-
This is great feedback, but I barely understood anything! lol. What in the world is ingress? You mentioned my font in the ingress is hard to read... And what subtitles are you speaking of? Also I dont know what you mean by weighting my sidebars? And lastly, I dont think the ads are inhibiting interaction, which did you see in particular? Thanks!
-
-
some months ago i went to dot Com/ Net/ Org and Info :-)
1millionlovemessages.com / .net/ .org and .info
Can it be more serious??? -
Hi letitia,
So you moved from Blogger to someone else - what happens if your readers go to the old blogger address, or did you have a domain before? It has an interesting look. I like it.-
If they go to the old blog address it redirects them!
-
-
Nice looking blog, I like it -
I've just recently changed over to the .com world. If anything it has increased my readership even though I'm still far below where I want it to be. I guess I should start rattling off some celebrity and band names. That'll definitely get a lot of exposure.
Feel free to check it out.
www.diaryofadoorman.com-
crpitt had a great idea for me..but my wife objected..
it was for me to dress wearing only a guitar.. -
Well, I'm pretty sure there might be a duel between you and the Naked Cowboy of Times Square if you tried taking away his thunder. Then again, he does wear underwear...
-
Add Your Comment
Login to leave a message.
