There are so many blog metrics tools around it can be hard to know which ones are best and how to use them. Here are three quick and dirty measurements that will often give you a good indication of your sites development.

Nothing succeeds like success and success can often be measured in popularity. Blog metrics could be just a simple measure of your popularity.

Is your traffic growing?
A simple tool like a site meter will tell you if your site is growing in popularity. They are not always accurate but as we are only after a rough indication, they will suffice. Your site may provide stats in the form of AWstats or similar. A steady growth in traffic indicates an increase in exposure.

Is your readership growing?
In contrast to visitors, this measures the number of subscribers you have to your RSS feeds. Is this number growing, falling or stagnant. A growth in numbers indicates a growth in interest either from your visitors, or from splogs looking to re-publish your content.

Are the frequency and quality of your comments growing?
As you gain more authority and your readership grows you should start to notice a distinct increase in the quality of the comments left on your posts. The number of comments should start to increase as well. There will always be certain topics that attract more comments than others, however the quality of the actual comment should become more focused and of more use to other readers. This acts bait to bring in more commenter’s .

These are very simple measurements. However if you can start to see a growth trend in all of these areas then perhaps it may be worth the effort of getting a more advanced blog metrics measurement tool - and learning how to use it.

In the short term, blog metrics does not need to be complicated. The three areas I have pointed out can be measured with a glance on a daily basis and will provide the basic information needed to determine growth. Blog metrics - who needs the complicated data?

One mistake that businesses make when starting a blog is to use a free theme rather than getting a customized blog design. Some times, when you use a free theme you are getting what you paid for.

Free themes are often written by amateur writers and while they often look good, that is all they are good for. When using a free theme you need to run several checks. The first and most important check is via any of the tools that let you look at your site as the search engine spider sees it. Many themes have code errors in the blog design which prevent your pages from being fully read and indexed correctly.

Other free themes may have links to dubious sites, or at the very least, sites that you may not wish to link to. These links often appear in the footer, one area that some search engines treat with suspicion. You can easily check for these by using your browsers view code option. Scroll through to the footer to see whether or not there are any strange links. If there are then ditch the theme and find another blog design.

Free themes are just that, free. Create a blog using a theme custom designed by a reputable designer and they will do their best to ensure the code flows smoothly and the blog design delivers everything that you need from it. After all, they are professionals and their income relies on delivering quality products - there name is on the blog design.

If you do decide to go with an off the shelf theme, pay the few extra dollars to have it customized to your needs. Run the two checks I have suggested to ensure that everything flows and can be read by the search engines and that no strange links are included. Your blog design delivers the first impression to your visitors, and first impressions count.

Most people don’t look too closely at their domain names. If they did they would probably think twice before registering them. Then again, what a great marketing idea. Find a great domain name that has more than one meaning to it.

A post by Jared Stenze at webupon.com lists a group of domain names that have double readings and certainly look interesting.

Just to give you a taste:

Choose Spain dot com becomes Chooses Pain dot com - (choosespain dot com)

Teachers Talk dot com becomes Teacher Stalk dot com - (teacherstalk dot com)

Therapist Finder dot com becomes The Rapist Finder dot com - (therapistfinder dot com)

Find the right word combination and you could have a very novel domain name. Find the wrong combination and it could prove to be very embarrassing. Blogging tips are everywhere but it is not often you come across one that encourages double readings (meanings) for domain names.

Blog marketing can be interesting particularly as we humans are a strange race. If there is a road accident, we cannot help but slow down and take a look. When it comes to many of the social sites, the same can be true. When a topic becomes popular, people will have a look, even if the subject matter doesn’t particularly interest them.

The best place to undertake any blog marketing campaign is when you have a crowd gathered. Sometimes you need to be a little like a hot dog vendor who always seems to know where a crowd is going to develop.

Perhaps your blog marketing hasn’t reached that stage, however you certainly don’t want to be marketing to an empty room. Being able to get into any of the social sites and read where the trends are going, what topics are heating up and which ones are cooling off can be a worthwhile art to learn. Being able to place yourself so that you capitalize on any opportunities is an even harder art to master.

Master these two areas of social bookmarking and you will find that blog marketing through social sites is much easier and the results more than worth the effort.

And with WordPress there is always more. One of the reasons that WordPress remains as the number one blog software platform is due to the fact that it stays up to date and constantly releases fixes to any known problems.

WordPress 2.5.1 has been released to block a possible security breach and patch 70 (yes 70) known bugs. These bugs include:

[sourced from WordPress.org]

• Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
• Better performance for those who have many categories
• Media Uploader fixes
• An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
• Widget Administration fixes
• Various usability improvements
• Layout fixes for IE

Depending on your installation, you may be able to upgrade through your web host particularly if you are using cPanel. If not, you will need to download the upgrade and install it manually. Full instructions are available with the download.

In today’s mult-media world your blog content needs to include more than just the written word.  First it was pictures and images followed by podcasts that took the blogging world by storm, at least in certain circles. Now people looking for videos to satisfy their online needs.

Along the way there was a brief flirt with live feeds which are still popular with some online sales  sites however as a general blogging experience, it has not taken off. Gone are days of pages full of rich content, at least, written content. It seems that visitors to blogs have moved beyond the information gathering stage and are now looking to be entertained at the same time. If your blog content does not entertain, the visitor will move on.

Inserting graphics and videos has never been easier particularly if you use WordPress and you have upgraded to the latest 2.5 version. You can easily insert a video or graphic into your blog content with a few simple clicks of the mouse.

Add to this the wealth of videos and images available through sites such as YouTube and there should be no reason why your site should remain bland. Your blog content is no longer about what you say - it is all about how you say it. Perhaps I should be throwing in a few videos of my own here.

Feedburner is a handy service that enables users to subscribe to your posts through either an email or RSS client. Did you know that could also get your RSS feed turned into an audio podcast. Not by Feedburner, but my a new site that is still in beta, but working reasonably well.

Don’t get to excited. Like all computer generated voices, it leaves a lot to be desired, however to have your Feedburner posts automatically converted to a podcast does save time and makes for interesting reading.

The site, Dixero, is currently free to use. There is no information available as to whether they will charge into the future, however, free is free and the end result is not too bad. The written word is not meant to be read out aloud, that is why public speakers often hire speech writers so that the text is written as it is spoke. Feedburner feeds are the written word so the podcast does sound a little stilted.

As with all computer generated voices (you have a choice of three voices), there is little in the way of inflection or emphasis. Pronunciation is good and the finished product a true reflection of the Feedburner feed - to true, the podcast includes everything from your feed including any advertisements.

If you don’t have the time to create your own podcast, give Dixero a go and see how it converts your feed. You are not restricted to Feedburner feeds, you can grab a feed from any site and have it converted to a podcast. You can also download the MP3 version of your Feedburner feed. An interesting tool if you do not have the time to create your own podcast.

Are you proactive, interactive, reactive or just totally inactive when it comes to working with your blog and website services provider? It takes all kinds to make the world go around, or so they say, but as a service provider it can be rather frustrating when it comes to dealing with clients.

The inactive client I can deal with. If I don’t hear from the I assume I am doing the job ok and keep going. However, you are the client. Do you check and see whether or not I am providing you with the service you want? If you are paying good money for a blog and website service provider, you should.

Each client type does have a positive and negative aspect to them. I don’t mind a reactive website owners. As a blog and website provider I provide a service and as it is their site, if I make a mistake like spelling or grammar they need to contact me to let me know so that I can correct the problem.

Interactive owners are great. Every step is discussed, they show an interest in what is happening and rather than being reactive, they work together with their blog and website services provider to fix any problems and look at ways to prevent them happening into the future.

The owner that does worry me at times is the proactive owner. Generally speaking, proactive is good. Working together and finding problems before they happen makes for a much smoother relationship. However, when an error is made, a proactive owner is quite likely to jump in and try and fix the problem themselves. This is fine if they know what they are doing, it is when they don’t know what they are doing that worries most blog and website services providers. Fixing the problems they have created can often be a nightmare.

Are you a blog or web site owner that uses a blog and websites services provider? What is your owner type - tell me its not proactive -please!

The dust has now settled on the new WordPress 2.5 release and there has been much written about the blog software platforms new release. As with most things that go through change, there are those who absolutely hate it and there are those who love it - there are not many taking the center path.

It is very different and change always takes awhile to get used to. WordPress has been the most popular blog software platform for many years now. It has however had several drawbacks. One of the drawbacks has been the extremely slow admin speed. This has improved marginally as the reliance on Java has been reduced. The reduction in Java has resulted in many of the features undergoing radical changes.

The most notable changes are in the widgets area and in the time stamp functions. The widget re-arrangement just takes a little getting used. It does feel strange when, in this day and age when drag-n-drop is commonplace, that this function has been removed. A little patience and the new setup is manageable. As a blog software platform one of WordPress’ most useful functions for me has always been the time stamp feature. This enable you to change the time and date to create a future post.

The time stamp feature is not so obvious now. It is hidden with a little ‘edit’ link next to the time and date in the write screen. Again, once you find it and get used to it - no problems. Most of the other changes work and work well particularly the easy update of plugins. Any plugin registered through WordPress.com can quickly be updated through a single click in the plugin screen. This is a big time saver for all bloggers using WordPress as their blog software platform.

The bottom line, WordPress 2.5 is marginally faster. The change is so radical that it probably should have been a 3.0 release - WordPress has its own numbering system 0 the rationale known to only a few. As a blog platform it has little in the way of competition and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

One prime area that can influence your blog SEO is in your comments. This area is often forgotten when it comes to boosting the number of keywords on your page.

The comments sections provides many benefits for blog owners. Its primary function is to provide a communication pathway for your visitors. This communication pathway is two way. Your visitors can leave comments, make observations, leave hints and ask questions. However, I wonder how many blog owners respond to these comments and respond in a manner that boosts their blog SEO.

If you do respond to your comments, do you do so using keywords associated to the page. So long as you do carefully and you don’t look like you are spamming your own comments, dropping the occasional keyword into your comments may make good blog SEO sense.

It must be remembered that comments contain indexable data so why not use them to increase the keyword use in your blog SEO program.

If you rely on Google for your blogging income then you should be relatively happy with the release of the latest Google revenue statistics. They release has certainly brought to light a couple of interesting facts. I guess the major one is that The big G is not on deaths door - at least not yet.

One of the most interesting facts to come out of these statistics is the grown in ‘Text Link’ income. Text Links now account for 33% of Google’s Adwords program. The other news from these figures is the reduction of actual clicks without the reduction of income. Google’s moves to remove poor performing advertisers are paying off with publishers now receiving slightly more with less clicks.

If you like to incorporate Text Links then you may be interested in the new reporting feature that Google has introduced. This enable you to separate Text Links from other data.

[source - Google]As of today, we’ve enhanced your reports so that you can view the performance of link units separately from your other AdSense for content units. Even better, the link unit-specific reports contain more information about your link units.

It seems all is not lost with Google. For now, your blogging income is safe and you can even seriously consider adding Text Links as a viable addition.

There are a lot of blog directories around now and there are several services that can assist you to get blog listed on these directories. Some provide automatic submissions, some allow for semi-automatic and others manual submission. The question I pose today, should use submit your blog using an automatic blog directories submission service?

I will answer this first by providing a brief review of each type of submission.

Manual submission

Manual submission, as the name suggests, are where you submit your blog details one by one. By submitting your blog to individual blog directories, you can ensure it is submitted into the corect category using individual tags related to the site, the category and of course your blog. You are able to submit to all directories, even those with captcha type requirements.

• Upside: accurate category submission
• Downside: slow process as each submission is done one by one

Semi Automatic Submission

When you select a semi-automatic service, you generally select a category and any tags. The service submits the information to a variety of blog directories. You need to either confirm the submission by entering captcha info or by clicking on the final submit button.

• Upside: you have some control of category and it is relatively quick
• Downside: you may find your blog listed in categories that are unsuitable or in directories that spam email back - you often have limited control as to the directories you blog is submitted to

Automatic Submission

Automatic submission does the complete job. Tell it which category and which tags and the service will go and submit your blog to as many blog directories as it can.

• Upside: speed. Your blog could be submitted to a hundred or more directories in minutes.
• Downside: you have no control as to which blog directories your blog is submitted to. Many of the top directories are excluded as they use captcha or similar to prevent spamming

The choice is yours. Automatic submission is fast but with speed, you lose quality. Manual submissions enable you to select your directory of choice and fine tune the submission. Manual also enables you to submit your blog to the better quality blog directories. I prefer manual - but then, I am told I am a control freak.

“You say that having a blog can increase traffic to my website but first I have to increase traffic to my blog, right. Cut through all the baloney and give one good blogging tip that will help me increase my traffic on my blog.”

I received this in an email a couple of days ago and it is becoming apparent that many users are turning away from posts that have a lot of tips. Post such as ‘ten blogging tips to …….’ or ‘50 sites to…..’ are too much. It is a sign of the times. People want instant information, they don’t want to wade through long lists to find what they need. In fact it seems they want us to do the job for them. Give me one good blogging tip that I can go and put into place now and I will be happy.

When you get a specific question it is easy to provide the information. Without specifics however, where do you start. Blogging tips are everywhere but for many users, that is all they see: a list. Many blogs do not provide any substance to the list items leaving the reader to wonder what each item is.

If you are going to have a list, say a list of plugins, don’t just list them by name. If necessary, reduce the number of items in the list but include a good review of each item in the list. In this day and age, blogging tips that are made up of simple lists will no longer cut it - readers are after substance - a little depth - but delivered in an easily to scan way.

Oh - and to the answer the opening line - one good blogging tip to increase traffic - provide great content that your readers find valuable and worth talking about to others.

You never know when your going to write a killer post that hits the front page of Digg. Can you imagine all that traffic? Is your server up to it, or your blog software for that matter? WP Super Cache is one of the best blog plugins for protecting your site from that super hit.

WP Super Cache does everything that WP Cache does but it goes that one step further and serves up static HTML files rather than loading the PHP scripts. PHP is memory and server load heavy so if your server is even slightly underpowered, a jump in traffic could cause server issues winding up with your site being suspended for a short period of time.

Loading static HTML files is not server friendly, it is also browser friendly. Pages load much faster, particularly those with graphics. A faster page load creates a much smoother experience for your visitors, this is particularly handy if your page is a little sluggish.

If you are expecting a huge flood of traffic, you can go in and use the ‘lock down’ option which will force all page views to come from the cache and not from running the PHP script.

Whilst WP Super Cache is one of those blog plugins that helps to keep your blog running smoothly, nothing beats having a good reliable web host to start with. This plugin will not prevent a problem if you are using a slow ill-equiped host to manage your web site.