Create An Online Community – MyBlogLog

The internet today is all about communities of people interested in the same things talking to one another, sharing ideas and opinions, discussing options. One of the best ways to bring traffic to your blog and become an expert in your niche area is to build your own online blog community (and join others). Find out who is reading your blog and talk to them.

Creating Your Own Community

One way to do this is to create your own community at MyBlogLog. You get a free Yahoo ID, decide on a name for your community, a purpose, enter info about yourself, a photo or icon to represent yourself and download special widgets and buttons which you can display on your blog to encourage people to join. Buttons are similar to the one above and the widget (which you can see in my sidebar shows the members of your community or people who have been visiting your blog and even their faces or choosen icons). People who join your community can post messages which eventually turn into a conversation.

Joining a Community

You can join my blog community by clicking on the button above and following the prompts or go directly to MyBlogLog and click on communities to see what else is out there. Once you join, your face appears on the communities page and on the member box on their blog. The best thing is about this is that other members or visitors to the community can click on your face or on a message you have left and be taken to your blog or website.

I look forward to seeing you. – Jo

More information on MyBlogLog

Create a custom Favourites icon

A Favicon is such a little thing (16 x 16 pixels to be exact) but having one on your website/blog really makes you feel like you’re moving up in the world. A favicon is the little icon which appears next to your website title on the menu bar in Internet Explorer/Firefox etc. It also appears next to your website title in the Favourites menu if someone saves your site to their favourites.

By creating a custom favicon of your own using your logo or part of your logo, you both reinforce your brand and make your website stand out amongst the sea of Internet Explorer blue ‘e’ icons which most websites feature by default. Note the tiny black circle with the green ‘W’ next to my website address at the top of this page. Now save this website to your favourites and see what happens….

How to Create Your Own Favicon

1. Decide what image you’d like to use. It is going to be really small so you may want to use only part of your logo. You want it to be clear whether it’s an image or a letter. (See my best favicons list below for ideas)
2. Go to http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/ to create your Favicon.
3. Upload your image and create favicon
4. Using an ftp program (see my post on ftp of you don’t have it already) upload your new favicon called favicon.ico to your main website directory.
5. Insert the code below in the head section of your main index page (homepage).
6. <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”/favicon.ico” mce_href=”/favicon.ico” />
7. It took a couple of days for my new favicon to appear online so just keep checking.

My Favourite Favicons

• http://www.springwidgets.com/
• http://www.clipart.com/en/
• http://createpdf.adobe.com/
• http://www.shopnewzealand.co.nz/
• http://www.nhf.org.nz/

NOTE: I originally read about favicons on the Java Script Kit website.