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Wordle Shows Us What's What

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Got a lot of choices online these days? Yes, quite a few blogs have popped up. Every company, newspaper, TV station and radio channel has a website. Or two.

So we have to find ways to know what's what with all these sites. Wordle to the rescue.

I love a good visual, and with Wordle, the picture you get is worth 1,000 words. Still, 100 words will do. At wordle.com you can enter a URL and the elves behind the scenes will create a flashy word collage of recent  keywords on that site. 

We can learn a lot from those word collages. Using Wordle can help us review our own sites and those we are curious about. Here's my (very) short list of ways to use Wordle to conquer the web:

• Wordle Your Blog: To make sure you blog is what you want, make a Wordle pic of your blog's URL. I just did my Posterous blog, Eric's Preposterous, and thought it looked pretty cool. I'm all about learning and growing, so I am glad to see "learn" writ large.

• Wordle Sites You Admire: I already like Presentation Zen, so I am not surprised I like the Wordle. Really, it had me at "book" in large green font.

• Wordle New Sites on Your Radar: Let Wordle crawl the site and make you a word picture that can give you a sense of what's what with a new site. I StumbledUpon a blog post I liked at Maximum PC. So I sic Wordle on the site and see that Rick Astley was recently a topic, and that's all I needed to bookmark the site.

One last overt recommendation: Wordle, Wordle, Wordle!

Technorati Steps It Up

via technorati.com

In the third of our comprehensive five-day series detailing the the blogosphere, we share facts on tools and devices bloggers use to create their blogs, how they bring in traffic, and which types of blogs are updated the most frequently.

via technorati.com

Technorati has been busy lately. You'll see the work on their homepage. The new look celebrates their brand. Check out the "Top Blogs" section with the top 5 risers and fallers--a daily tally of which blogs hold the most authority. That tally puts a little excitement into the day to day battle to be the top blog.

Technorati is also in the middle of a five day explosion of blog information, sharing, and tips. I'm talking about their 2009 State of the Blogoshpere. SOTB is a who's who of blogging in 2009. Whether you are a fan of Michael Arrington, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin or the many other writers Technorati features in articles and interviews this week, you can still learn a lot from what they write and say.

Image by pellesten via Flickr

Personally, I've become a fan of Steve Rubel. In his interview, Rubel answers questions about moving his blog to Posterous and talks about our "attention crash" due to the brevity and pace of Twitter. Rubel also talks about a balance between his job and his blog--a topic important to me and many of the bloggers I talk to, tweet with, or read.

As for reading this week. Get to Technorati. In addition to the State of the Blogosphere, be sure to read about their recent changes--especially to how they calculate authority...for your blog!

The How To Blog of How To Blogs

Lately, many bloggers with questions about making their blogs better have come to me. And I like it. But I'm not exactly the guru of all things blog. Yet.

I am a teacher, trainer, speaker and elearning designer--maybe that's why people think I know what is going on and how to make a blog blogtastic. Here is what I can do for now: get the best of the best of the "how-to" blogs and aggregate them here, in one easy to find location.

The advice in these blogs can help your blog top to bottom. Be ready to publish:

• Titles that get clicks
• Content that gets read
• Posts that get comments

Click the pictures of excellent how-to blog posts to find quick advice on key topics:

• Creating Great Blog Headers and Titles
• Blog Content Readers Love
• Improving Engagement on Your Blog
• Learning Blog Tips for Stephen King
• Blogging Like Mashable

From copyblogger.com

From ClickNewz

From Blog for Profit

From HowToMakeMyBlog

From HowToMakeMyBlog

These last two come from Marko Saric's HowToMakeMyBlog, which is dedicated to blog advice. The best advice, though, is to write well. Saric has an excellent article on style that every blogger needs to read:

• "10 Elements of Style of Blog Post Writing"

One last thing -- besides "how-to" blogs, I'm looking for some up-and-coming blogs from newer bloggers to read. Who knows one or two I can check out? Please type the URLs in a comment!

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