Blog Reviews went through some minor updates. First of all, sidebar was changed. Now you can see me better :). No more AdSense in the sidebar. Secondly, past reviews were updated, mainly previews. Reviews seem to look better this way. Also some minor editing and SEO took place here and there.

Promised blog reviews are coming tomorrow. Sorry for delay.

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Blog Search, I am really excited about this one! From now on there is no need to use general search to find great information about blogging. Search best blogs for top quality articles on blogging with just one click using custom Blog Search. Just use the search box below (or in the top right corner of any page in this blog). All credits go to Google.

You can add Blog Search to your Google Homepage. Just click the button below.

Why would you want yo use this alternative Blog Search instead of a general Google search? Because all the sources used in this search are manually selected. You will get only top quality content, produced by experts in blogging.

Currently Blog Search is performed on the following blogs (listed chronologically):

http://www.alistercameron.com/
http://www.wordtracker.com/blog/
http://blogforfunandprofit.blogware.com/blog
http://bloggerdesign.com/
http://performancing.com/
http://www.doshdosh.com/
http://chitika.com/blog/
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/
http://www.johnchow.com/
http://www.chrisg.com
http://www.copyblogger.com/
http://analytics.blogspot.com/
http://adsense.blogspot.com/
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
http://www.shoemoney.com/
http://www.netbusinessblog.com/
http://www.problogger.net/

I selected these particular blogs for several reasons. First one is great content. You just cannot beat that one. Second — all those sites have nice design. I hate to make you spend time on the sites with utterly poor design even if its content is good, so I left out some of the sites with really poor design.

If you know of other quality resources please leave a note with the URL in the comments.

Those of you who are deep into SEM (Search Engine Marketing) might want to check out Alister Cameron’s SEM Blog Search based on Lee Odden’s list of Search Engine Marketing Blogs.

Its time for another interview. Today I am presenting Matt Coddington, person behind NetBusinessBlog, that became successful in a course of only couple months. Matt is 22 years old. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina where he is attending the University of South Carolina.

You became a celebrity almost over night. Was that the original plan?
I’m not so sure I became a celebrity (even an e-celebrity) but I do acknowledge that my name is much more known now than before I started the blog. Honestly I never expected the blog to grow as fast as it did although I certainly imagined it. I saw what others were doing and even though there is a lot of great information being given out I thought I had a lot I could contribute myself. One of my slogans is that I’m not an expert at anything, so don’t confuse me with those “gurus” but what I do offer is the knowledge I’ve accrued over the last 7 years. So overall I just wanted the blog to be a place where I could share with others what took me so long to learn and hopefully show some people how to make their living online.

How much do you earn now from blogging? Do you have any goal for this year?
Blogging is still an extremely small portion of my income. Most of my money is still generated through web development. The total amount I do make from blogging, however, is around $1500 at the moment. I expect that number to go up quite a bit when I get a public PR (I think it’s arbitrary, but advertisers rely on it for whatever reason). My goal for the end of this year is to become a problogger. I’d like to spend all of my online time blogging. I still do enjoy development, but I like blogging so much more and would love it if it became my job.

You work as web-designer. Is design really important for blogs?
In my opinion every serious blogger should at one point hire a designer to give his or her blog a unique look and feel not because design is essential to blogging (after all, content is king right?) but because it’s much much much easier to pull visitors into your blog and keep them there when you have an attractive and intuitive design.

What do you think about people using ready to go themes (templates)?
I think they’re fine, but if anyone wants to really be taken serious they need to eventually get a real design. Of course there are plenty of instances where one doesn’t need a custom design (Matt Cutts, John Chow, etc) but in these instances there is usually something going on at the blog that transcends all of the rules that us everyday bloggers would benefit from following. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever thought of asking top-notch celebrities like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears to promote your blog? Perhaps you did, but you were shy to ask. Well, I have some good news for you. They can help you promote your blog without even knowing it. And you know what? Your blog does not have to be even close to celebrities or gossip theme…

Before I go on, I need to clarify something. I am NOT fond of Paris Hilton, or Britney Spears, or any other celebrity. I do not follow news on what is going on with them. I never listened to their music. I even hate to use real Paris Hilton’s pic in this post.

The reason I picked up these particular names, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, is that there is a lot of buzz around them all the time. As seen from Mike Perry’s post, Kate Middleton, former Prince William’s girl friend, is a good one too. Read the rest of this entry »

I always treasure others opinion about what I am doing. Opinions are very educational, and give some insight on what can be done to improve things.

I am not huru or an expert in design or blogging. However I have been around for some time already, and I believe I can contribute to others work by providing an honest opinion.

The reason I am doing this give-away is very simple. For me, as professional web-designer, it is so painful to see blogs with great content, but with an utterly poor design or terrible usability. Blog owners may say, that they like it this way (thats what many of my clients say). Many treat their websites just like their home, where they do whatever they want. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as your site is just a homepage that will be seen by relatives and friends only. If it something beyond that, personal preferences should not be as strong. You will want to have a website, that others will like. Thats when others opinion is crucial.

How will this give-away work? You can leave a request for review in the comment section of this post. Please provide blogs URL, your name and the purpose of your blog. Feel free to ask particular questions. Also do state clearly whether you want my review of your blog to be published on Blog Reviews. By default I assume that you want it to be public.

I am open to review blogs in any language. However if it not English, there will be no feedback on the content, just design.

Please do not ask to review blogs without individual content, as well as blogs that promote nudity, sex or violence. Politics is not a matter of great interest either. Other than that, any blogs deserving public attention are welcomed.

Reviews are free and no link back is required. I do not mind you linking back, though!

I am thinking to start with 3-4 reviews per week. Will see how it goes.

Keep updated by signing up for my RSS feed or email notifications.

I came across Fleck browsing referral reports for Blog Reviews. I got a dozen of clicks from Fleck in one day and went to check it out. Although Fleck has nothing to do with blogging directly, I decided to say a word about the service, because I found its concept really cool.

Fleck is a service for collaborative annotation of web pages. Simply speaking it allows to add notes to the website pages, and then share them with other people.

Here is an extract from TechCrunch.com word about Fleck:

The service is clearly in its infancy but could be just what some people are looking for. The basic idea is that one person can place notes on top of a web page and other people can view, change and add to those notes at any time. It’s got standard features like movable notes and bullet points, page histories and the ability to email a unique URL to an annotated page. The URLs are Fleck URLs, not the URL of the page you are annotating. The system is remarkably easy to use and relatively easy on the eyes.

Check out sample page of Blog Reviews with my notes with my notes on it.

For now Fleck is developing pretty slowly, so you can actually have your blog listed on the front page for several days. It will not drive tons of traffic of course, but might give you some additional exposure, which won’t hurt at all.

I like interviews. I like to do interviews, read interviews and be interviewed. I figured it will be worth while to do some interviews with accomplished probloggers. It is a great way to learn something new, discover great ideas, and start thinking outside the box. I really hope you like it.

I am starting the series with a little chat with Chris Garrett, professional blogger and online media consultant who helps people make the most out of the web.

Chris, could you please tell us a little about yourself?
I’m a blogging and Internet marketing consultant based in the UK. I help businesses and bloggers become more famous, focused and profitable. While I have been working in the Internet field since 1994, and blogged since 1998, in 2005 I launched my own company and started blogging full-time.

How and why did you start blogging?
Well it wasn’t called blogging when I started. My website reading habits revealed a number of websites that I visited daily had started writing daily journals or articles and I thought it would be fun for me to do the same thing. A lot was going on in my life at that point, had just got married, was trying for a baby, just changed job, moved house, the idea was to write a diary.

Why did you decide to do blogging full-time?
I had been working for other people at various marketing, advertising and new media agencies and decided that being an independent consultant and blogger was what I really wanted to do. Other people separate my blogging and marketing consultancy but in my mind they are facets of the same thing. Read the rest of this entry »