Respect: give it to get it

This is the third in a series of articles in which I hope to share with you my knowledge of how and why Technology Bloggers has been so successful, so fast. Learn more about this series by reading our Technology Bloggers success article.

I believe that respect is one of the most crucial things in blogging. If you are good to your readers, your readers will be good to you.


Respect - Give It To Get It

To build up a great community (like the one on this blog) you have to be a friendly author. Most of our authors, myself included, don’t just leave their article once it is written, they check back every few days and reply to comments.

But it’s not just about being a good commenter.

Being a dofollow blog is one of the main reasons for the success of this blog. People come here because they know they will be treated well.

You have heard it all before but I shall sumarise it again: if you read you benefit from out great content and the ability to comment and gain dofollow keyword rich links to your latest content; if you write you also have the ability to get dofollow keyword rich links links to your content in your article, and (if you are of author status or higher) you can get a link to your chosen site on the sidebar.

I believe that if you offer people fantastic content from a variety of different authors, as well as dofollow keyword rich links in comments, matched with great incentives to write, you have a recipe for success!

Not 100% convinced about dofollow? Well it is thought that it might lower your PageRank, especially on individual articles, and there are some rumors that it can harm you in the SERP’s, but from my personal experience, I believe that the benefits outweigh the costs.

Need some proof? Here are just a few great blogs which are very successful and are dofollow:

Check their traffic ranking. Notice anything? Dofollow blogs with great content, also the authors usually try to respond to any comments in need of a reply.

Are you a dofollow blog? If not why not? From my experience with Technology Bloggers and my own philosophy blog, dofollow is one way of succeeding in blogging.

Why does dofollow work?

I believe it all comes back down to respect, you are respecting your writers and readers, so in tern they respect you.

If you run a nofollow blog, try switching. Do it today and never look back 🙂

Back next Monday with the next in the series!

How your reputation as a blogger helps lead you to success

This is the first in a series of articles in which I hope to share with you my knowledge of how and why Technology Bloggers has been so successful, so fast. Learn more about this series by reading our Technology Bloggers success article.

When starting a blog, website or forum there are two ways you can do it. In the dark, or with a reputation. 99% of the time, it is better to start a site with a reputation, as I have found that your online history can significantly affect the success of your next blog.

History provides you with many things; especially experience, reputation and knowledge. When I founded Technology Bloggers I had already run a technology blog for almost two years. This had given me a lot of experience in the area, specifically things like where to get ideas from, keywords to use to help my articles get found in the SERP’s, how to write interesting tech posts (I hope!) and many other things.

Christopher Roberts Technology Blog had also given me a reputation. This reputation has been carried with me to Technology Bloggers, so people who liked my writing before are likely to have follow me – give me a shout out if you did 🙂

The reason that I said 99% of the time it’s better to start with a reputation, is because very few people manage to get themselves a bad reputation, sometimes unintentionally.

Tracks in the Snow

We will forever be known by the tracks we leave - our reputation

Apart from blogging, another way to build up a good reputation is as a commenter. I comment on loads of blogs, as I think comments are very important. If you have had me comment on your blog or have seen me comment on a blog, then you will probably know that I have a reputation for challenging the author, and sometimes writing almost article length comments.

Challenging the author gets you to know people better in the blogosphere as those sort of comments jump out at people much more than ones like “Great article, cheers!” do. Don’g get me wrong though, I only disagree if I don’t agree with the author. If I like your content I will congratulate you too!


Commenting also has another element. By placing your link on other peoples blogs you are getting some effectively free publicity. People read you comment, like your style, check out your blog. It’s that simple! Sometimes 😉

If you are new to blogging, don’t worry if you have no reputation, look for blogs that you enjoy reading, and ones which also write in your niche and comment on them, that should, in some way help to build up a good reputation for yourself – providing they are good comments.

I have been into blogging for just over two years now, but I have also built (and currently maintain) many websites; these have further advanced my reputation as a writer. Some people may not know me from my blog, but as the ‘maintenance man’ for the Royal Marines Association, City of Wolverhampton Branch’s website, for example.

My social blog and philosophy blog along with my website have also advanced my ‘audience base’ and they have hopefully also strengthened my reputation as a blogger.

By the time I started Technology Bloggers I had (and still have) a lot of powerful contacts within the tech blog industry. These people can be fantastic resources in times of crisis and trouble, one of the other reasons that I highly recommend interacting with other online.

Basically what I am trying to say is that it is actually years of building and preparation that is part of the reason why Technology Bloggers has been successful. If you are new to blogging you may find that it can be hard to start with, but by guest blogging, commenting and interacting with other bloggers, can get you there!

How to show more screen options in WordPress

I have noticed that most of the other authors on this blog have failed to write a short excerpt for their article. It’s usually really easy and takes seconds to think of a short phrase to sum up, or entice people into reading your article.

When Marc (from the 360 Blog) wrote his most recent article, I emailed him to ask him why he never filled in the excerpt field, as he is now eligible to apply for author status, but that requires each article to have an excerpt.

Marc emailed back and told me

“You mentioned that you would like a short excerpt written, but there wasn’t a place to do that.”

Out came my thinking cap!

I then realised that when I had started Technology Bloggers, when creating a new post, the excerpt field wasn’t showing ether. The trackback field didn’t show, nor did the discussion field etc.


Do you have problems with

  • Excerpt field not showing when creating a new WordPress post
  • Trackback field not showing when creating a new WordPress post
  • Discussion field not showing when creating a new WordPress post
  • As well as other custom fields not showing

well if so I have your solution!

Screen Options.

The 'Screen Options' button in the WordPress admin consoleYou see at the top right of the admin console there is your name, log out etc. well just below that you should see a tab that says help, and next to that a tab that says ‘Screen Options’.

Click ‘Screen Options’ and it will pull the tab down to revile loads of new fields which you can choose to show or not.

The WordPress 'Screen Options' for creating a post in the admin consoleLike to work light? You may just want the publish box and the article writing area. Prefer to go into detail? Tick/check the ‘Categories’, ‘Post Tags’, ‘Custom Fields’, ‘Send Trackbacks’ etc. boxes for a more advanced view!


Under ‘Screen Options’ you also have the option or changing the screen layout. You can decide how many columns your dashboard uses, to display your selected widgets. On the homepage of the dashboard you can split it down in 1,2,3 or even 4 (if you have a very wide screen) columns. On posts pages you can choose to split the view down to two columns, or just the one.

Ever asked yourself ‘how can I show more comments in the WordPress admin console?’, if so, ‘Screen Options’ could help here too. Just click it and you can show as many or as few comments as you like. I have it set so that the WordPress comments page shows 50 comments per page, although I sometimes change it 🙂

Good luck bloggers with using WordPress the way you like it!