Blog Entry

WordCamp 2007 Saturday

Out of seven talks on Saturday, I think the last talk by Matt Cutts on Whitehat SEO Tips for Bloggers was the best talk of the day. The talk was humorous, informative and very educational. I learned several things from his talk, and he also clarified many myths and misunderstandings that people have about Google.

One thing I learned is about MyBrand service offered by FeedBurner. I think it used to be a paid service but now it is free (correct me if I am wrong). Basically it let you host your feeds on your own domain name rather than feeds.feedburner.com. The service is kind of hard to find in FeedBurner’s site, but if you are interested log in FeedBurner, then click MyAccount link on the top-left corner, and you should be able to see MyBrand link in the sidebar on the left. You can learn more about MyBrand service there. Another thing I learned is the usefulness of Google’s Webmaster Tools. I never used it before, but after Matt’s talk I think I will start utilizing this tool.

There are other tips that Matt mentioned in his talk that are worth sharing, but unfortunately I did not take any note during the conference. However, Matt has promised that he will share his slides on his blog, so stay tuned and be sure to check out his slides once it is available. I will let you know as well when the slides become available.

Another talk worth mentioning is Lorelle‘s talk on Kick Ass Content Connections. Some people thought her talk was boring and even a bit offensive, since in the talk she shares blogging tips, which deals with how a person should blog. As a blogger, I think we are individualists, and often we hate to be told what to do and what not to do. So, before I go on, I admit frankly that I also felt a bit repulsed during her talk. However, I still think there are valuable points in her talk that are worth to ponder on.

Personally, I am guilty of many bad blogging habits that Lorelle mentioned, for instance, blog something merely to be the first, or blog with quotations and without anything new to contribute on the subject. I think in the future I need to avoid such blogging habits. I know it’s going to be hard, but I will try my best. If I do, at least I need to present something of my own, rather just being a repetition.

In addition, Lorelle’s talk really made me feel that as a blogger I am part of a community. Even though, we blog from a single perspective and single voice, but nonetheless we are contributing to a live and energetic community. When we blog responsibly on our blogs and when we leave insightful and constructive comments on others’ blog, we are contributing. Such perspective really widens my blogging horizon, I think it is something worth thinking of.

Finally, I want to thank Lorelle for her generosity. She is giving out to every attendee a free copy of her book, Blogging Tips. Thank you, Lorelle!

Live Notes: Kicking Ass Content Connections and Whitehat SEO Tips for Bloggers.

Lorelle made a PowerPoint slide show of her talk, take a look here.

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