I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Resolution 1: Redesign… but not too often.
I know that WeblogLabs has just been redesigned, but now that I’ve been using it, I’ve realized what changes I need to make to it. I’ve already started on a new WordPress theme that promises to be bigger and better and easier to read- and should be launching it very soon. I love putting fresh faces on my blogs, but I’ll try not to do it too often- giving myself more time for…

Resolution 2: Blog smarter, blog meaningfully, blog with love.
No more namby-pamby posts. I will strive to write useful, meaningful posts, so that nobody’s time is a-wasted. And speaking of wasting time…

Resolution 3: Prune my RSS feeds.
I’m subscribed to about 300 feeds right now. Can you imagine how much time I spend reading them? I’ll try to get them down to about 100.

Resolution 4: Get to know my readers and visitors better.
You, you, dear reader, are the lifeblood of this blog. I’m so grateful whenever any of you comes to visit, drops an entrecard, or subscribes to my feed or newsletter. I will make better use of entrecard, blogcatalog, mybloglog, blogrush- all the lovely blogging tools I have at my disposal- and try to meet more of you in the coming year!

Resolution 5: Kiss my husband more often.
Okay, he made me put this one! But seriously, I need to remember to just stop blogging sometimes, and get up and give my husband a kiss.

What are your blogging resolutions this year?

In case you’re wondering, yes, I have every book on the list. What can I say? I’m a booklover and a blogger!

I used PopShops to build the bookstore, so my affiliate links are embedded right in there. If you decide to buy through me, thank you very much! Visit my Blogger’s Bookstore ».

Dude, what’s your blogspot?

I’ve actually heard people refer to their blogs as their “blogspots”. Using whatever.blogspot.com was very smart of Blogger. It is, indeed, the “spot” where your blog resides… your “blogspot”.

The Power of Gooooogle

Since Google acquired Blogger, things have only gotten rosier over there. I use Google’s products a lot, and whether I’m checking my gmail, using their image search, or obsessing over my stats in Analytics, I keep on running into invitations to Blogger. Ah, to be owned by Google.

It’s Called Blogger

This might be the best thing about it. If you want to blog, and be a blogger… go to Blogger. It’s self-explanatory. I’ve had to explain to clients what WordPress and Movable Type are, but never Blogger.

Keeping it Simple is Not So Stupid

In fact, it’s brilliant. Blogger is simple to set up, and simple to use. You can be up and running as a bonafide “member of the blogosphere” in less than 10 minutes. And in an already overcrowded blogosphere, that’s a good thing. It’s because of this simplicity, this ease of use, that so many of us got started blogging on Blogger- and why so many are still using it.

You can read more on this from Scrivs (whose post contains enough links to keep you busy reading for a couple of hours), or see a list of all the PageRank drops over at Daily Blog Tips.

The question is, of course, whether you should care. Sure, it’s nice to see your PageRank bar all filled up, but does it matter to your readers? Does it mean that your content is less valuable?

If you were one of the bloggers hurt by the recent PageRank downgrade- or if you’re worried about it happening to you in the future- I suggest reading this article: Selling Text Link Ads and Google Penalization by Robin Good. Pay attention, especially, to her final recommendations:

1) If Google traffic is important to you avoid using text links.

2) If you have used text links before or are using them now consider seriously dropping them before Google catches you. Getting back in is not easy, fast or assured.

3) If you have used text links before or are using them now and have decided to drop them altogether as I have done do submit a “reinclusion request” by utilizing the dedicated form inside the Google Webmaster Tools main page.

4) If you don’t want to play by Google rules, have a site that doesn’t depend on Google for traffic and you have the time and skills to hack your contebnt pages the way you want, make sure your text links are completely invisible as such to anyone, don’t talk about them and do not make your site URL visibile on text link auction sites and databases. That is, if you do it, you better not tell anyone and make a very fine job of this.

5) If you like Google and want its search engine to work better, do not cheat the system. Those like you who do honest content writing work have all to gain from this.

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