Tuesday 7 April 2015

Cute ponies for the bedroom and school

Haflinger horses cute foals rearing canvas printMonogram L Flexible Horse Personalised Sleeves For iPadsMonogram O Flexible Pony Personalised Courier Bag

Cute ponies for the bedroom and school

If you know a boy or girl who loves ponies then here's a collection that should give you some gift ideas.
Any boy or girl will love them - some for bedroom and some for school. Which of these would be best?

Click the image for more details and to buy. You'll also see more designs from the artist there.

ProBlogger FAQ: How Long Should Posts Be?

Blogging with purpose

original post »

Over the years I’ve been asked many questions about blogging, but I find there are a few that pop up more often than others. While blogging is different for everyone, I have found that the conclusions I’ve arrived at after all this time still hold true.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting my answers to the most frequently asked questions here at ProBlogger. If you have any you’d like me to answer, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

ProBlogger FAQ How long should posts be We go into the answers.

The biggest question I get asked though, is how long should a post be?

My answer to this is usually “write enough to be useful, and then stop”.

This, of course, means that a post can be any length, and I certainly don’t follow a set formula. You can be useful in 500 words, or you can be useful in 3000 – it all depends.

There has been talk recently about longer-form content and the way Google ranks it as opposed to the bite-size content usually recommended for time-poor readers. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, so it’s best to consider what the topic is, who your reader is, and how much you have to say about it.

Longer-form content

Search ranking

Regardless of the fact we post on a constantly-updated platform, there is still a need for in-depth analysis. Google itself came to the conclusion after a reader experiment that people are looking for both quick answers and to learn more broadly about the topics that interest them.

Long form also content keeps people on the site longer, which seems to be increasingly a factor in Facebook’s and Google’s algorithms and how they rank content. They factor that time spent on your site into their ranking strategy – how long it takes you to get back to Facebook or Google and interact. Did you flick back almost immediately after not finding what you wanted? Or did you spend a few minutes reading, therefore proving the content useful and as something you wanted to see?

CoSchedule recently conducted an experiment on longer-form content and how it was ranked in search results depending on word length. They mentioned the correlations companies like Moz and serpIQ have found between long-form content and search result placement, and also number of backlinks. Garrett at CoSchedule tested key words and found that the 500-word posts rarely ranked at all. He came to the conclusion that Google doesn’t prefer long-form content simply because it was longer, but that length was one of the indicators of quality (out of 200 ranking factors). The point was still to create great content, as Google values value over all.

Virality

In his experiment on QuickSprout, Neil Patel found that his posts that were longer than 1500 words garnered significantly more social shares than the posts that weren’t. Buzzsumo went on to analyze 100 million articles last year only to discover the same thing – the longer the content, the more shares it gets.

 Usefulness

There’s no doubt you can cover much more ground when it comes to long-form content, and the likelihood that you will be providing the answer the reader is looking for, or solving a pain point for them, is higher.

Longer, in-depth, useful articles are still some of the most popular on ProBlogger – posts like Can You Really Make Money Blogging [7 Things I Know about Making Money Blogging]How to Consistently Come Up with Great Post Ideas for Your Blog, and The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with the Amazon Affiliate Program (which is a whopper at 7683 words). They provide value because they answer just about any question anyone would have.

Short Form Content

I’ve experimented with both long and short-form content on ProBlogger, and have sometimes turned what could be an in-depth post into series of shorter posts instead.

The good thing about a series of posts on the one topic is that it creates anticipation. While it’s never been as successful for me (share-wise) as long-form content, it’s still useful. The best response I’ve seen to a series of posts I’ve done is when I first published 31 Days to Build a Better Blog – where, by posting something every day, I built a community of bloggers all taking small steps in a month to create more successful blogs.

How to Decide?

As I mentioned earlier, the length of your posts depend on various factors. There doesn’t seem to be a one-size-fits-all approach, and very much requires you take into account the topic, your blog, and it’s readers.

Benefits of long-form content:

  • Provides answers to questions
  • Is ranked higher in search results by Google
  • Get shared more
  • Asserts your authority (particularly the in-depth, heavily researched types)
  • Increases engagement
  • Increases the likelihood of quality backlinks
  • Provides value
  • Keeps readers on site
  • Easier to naturally use keywords more often
  • Convenient for readers – all answers in one go

Cons

  • It takes time and effort
  • People might not read as they don’t have the time as it comes through their newsfeed
  • People might save it to read later and then forget
  • It may overwhelm the reader

Benefits of short-form content

  • Easily digestible
  • Easily shared
  • Easily written
  • Helps you keep a consistent updating schedule

Cons

  • Might not be long enough to provide what the reader is looking for
  • Easy to read and forget
  • Could get lost in the busy internet crush
  • Doesn’t establish credibility the way a long-form post can

The idea is to weigh the pros and cons of each and come up with a formula that feels good to you.

Joe from The Write Practice breaks it down well in his post “How Long Should Your Posts Be? A Writer’s Guide” – giving common blog posts lengths and the best types of topics they’re suited to.

Neil Patel outlines the factors you need to take into account before deciding on post length in this post, but asserts that substance is the most basic consideration. “What are you trying to say? What’s the substance? If you can say it in 100 words, then you may want to do so. If it requires 2,000 words, that’s fine too,” he says.

It all comes down to content. Good, useful content that people enjoy reading. Write enough to be useful, then stop.

What are your thoughts? Have you seen short-form do well? Or are you more of a long-form writer? I’d love to hear in the comments.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

ProBlogger FAQ: How Long Should Posts Be?

Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

ProBlogger FAQ: How Long Should Posts Be?
 #bloggingtips 

A Sprawling New Cut Paper Bacterium by Rogan Brown

Fun and Random

Detail 5

Cut Microbe (2015 handcut paper)

Detail 1

Detail 3

Process 2

Artist Rogan Brown (previously) recently completed work on this new cut paper sculpture titled Cut Microbe. Four months in the making, the piece is a continuation of Brown’s exploration of the human biome and was inspired by the form of salmonella and ecoli bacteria (this 44″ sculpture is about half a million times bigger than the real thing). The sculpture will be on view this May as part of a commission by the Eden Project in the UK. You can see more of Rogan’s work on his website.

 
#funandrandom 
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A Black and Blue Life: A Coal Miner Becomes a Photographer of Exquisite Waves and Seascapes

Fun and Random

Convection - Ray Collins

Australian photographer Ray Collins first picked up a camera in 2007 and used it to photograph his friends surfing around his home after long shifts working in a nearby coal mine. His attention quickly shifted from his friends to patterns and forms he noticed in the waves. Collins, who is colorblind, was also drawn to the interplay of light and water, perhaps more attune to contrast than the nuance of color. He poetically refers to this switch from coal miner to fine art photographer as a balance between his “black life and blue life.”

The accolades, awards, and sponsorships have been heaped on Collins leading to the publication of his first book, Found at Sea, he also has a wide variety of prints on his website, and you can follow his photography day-to-day on Instagram. (via Laughing Squid)

Underwater - Ray Collins

Fury - Ray Collins

Ominous - Ray Collins

Beneath The Vortex - Ray Collins

Viscous - Ray Collins

Ripples - Ray Collins

Rainbow - Ray Collins

ray-11

Sunburst - Ray Collins

 
#funandrandom 
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