You're going to want to subscribe to my RSS feed. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread - even better, in fact. You know you want to.

Take a look above. don’t those pop-ups just look wonderful? The beautiful, rich coloring and flashing images are sure to please anyone - what’s not to love? Pop-up advertising is one of the great American pastimes: you can’t go wrong.

FRUSTRATION WITH CONVENTION
Many well-known programs like Google Adsense pay you on how many clicks your ads get. As you know, no one even looks at ads anymore - they blend in like zebras with your site content. Many people, myself included, have often become frustrated with this performance based payout. I want all of my visitors to be little money making machines and that’s that. It is basically guaranteed that your visitors will see the pop-ups (unless they’re using ad blockers - we’ll get to that later) and thus they make more money.

WONT POP-UPS SCARE AWAY MY READERS?
Why are you even asking this? You want readers?

Anyway, pop-ups are universally loved. After all, they’re used on many popular websites and people still visit those. Just check out that picture. The person who took that screenshot had at least 16 popups opened; they must enjoy them!

WILL IT MAKE ME MONEY?
I’m glad you asked. Actually, I’m not (it makes me write more content), but I’m obliged to answer. In short, yes. Popups are great sources of revenue since you’re paid for every impression.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN POP-UPS
Looking for the perfect company amongst the multitudes that offer pop-up advertising can be quite a challenge - much like finding a needle in a haystack but without the dirt, sweat, or arm surgery when the pin is driven into your bone when another competitor “accidentally” bumps into you…

ANYWAY, I’m kidding about the toughness. There are about as many well-known companies as I can count on one hand.

Tribal Fusion: Tribal Fusion generally has very good rates and a pretty rockin’ name.

PayPopUp: PayPopUp pays for pop-ups (hence the name). Its logo also sort of looks like if the E*Trade logo got stretched out and inverted.

Adversal: Adversal offers up to $1.20 per 1,000 pageviews. Not only that, it’s advanced “technology will evade most pop-up blockers…” Allow your readers no quarter!

Casale Media: Casale Media is one of the most infamous of all CPM (cost per thousand) ad networks. I don’t quite understand if the Casale stands for anything, but it sounds like a mean casserole/ale hybrid.

There are a few more, I’m sure, and if you feel they deserve mention then just leave a comment!

THOSE PESKY POP-UP BLOCKERS
Pop-up blockers are pretty much used by everyone now. I’m not sure why (ads are an important part of a healthy diet), but there is no easy way to combat them. I suggest putting so many ads on your site that at least one of them will break through this ad barrier. Or it could just destroy your readers computer. Either way, this strategy works. You’ll be much more appreciated because, hey, pop-ups are fun for everyone!

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

Picking the font that’s right for your blog can be a daunting task. I mean, come on, just look at all of those fonts to the left. Seriously. Aren’t they scary? Especially Courier. It stares into my soul…

Lets get off of the topic of demonic fonts and back onto the process of choosing one:

FONT FALLACIES
Before we begin, it’s important to note a few things:

- Comic Sans is a GREAT font! Don’t listen to what everyone else says – they’re just jealous!

- Times New Roman, Verdana, and Arial are, in fact, not the only fonts out there.

- Using Wingdings is perfectly acceptable as long as you don’t expect people to read it.

FINDING FONTS
To find the perfect text type for you, you’re going to need to go through a very important series of steps that will culminate in glorious epiphany. Take some deep breaths, relax, dim the lights, and concentrate. Become one with your blog and th-

Hah. Who am I kidding. Getting a font is easy! Here are some simple steps that are sure to help you find the ideal font for your blog.

1. Picking a font is as simple as opening up Microsoft Word, clicking on the tab where it asks for font, closing your eyes, smiling, and clicking. Remember this
2. It is very important to consider font color when deciding upon one. Your text needs to either clash with your site theme so that it is painful to read OR blend in like a chameleon in a tub of chameleons. (more information about blog color here)
3. If all else fails, don’t go with the generic look of fonts like Times New Roman or Verdana - that’s just boring. Just because millions of people use them to great success doesn’t mean they’re anything special.

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

Does this image look familiar? It should, seeing as how it’s located a few inches away on your computer screen. What you’re looking at is not an unhappy traffic cone, orange space shuttle, or very shiny triangle - it’s the standard icon for an RSS (Really Simple Stupid Syndication) feed.

RSS FOR DUMMIES
When you think of “feed,” what are you reminded of? Using the magic of word definitions, what you’re probably thinking of right now is the consumption of food. Sadly, an RSS feed has absolutely nothing to do with eating (unless you’re reading a blog about food or you’ve decided to devour your computer).

So, what exactly is an RSS feed? Well, using the always true #1 internet source there is (Wikipedia), I found a definition:

“RSS…is used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.

WHO NEEDS FEEDS?
A feed is just another method to deliver your content to someone. It makes it easier for people to view your writing! Why would anyone want this? RSS feeds simply seem to have no purpose.

REVOLUTIONARY RSS REVELATION
A feed is kind of like a newspaper that gets delivered to you instantly whenever something new is posted up. I don’t get that kind of service even if I bribe the delivery boy! If you normally have to pay for a newspaper subscription, why not charge for an RSS subscription? The quick and easy delivery to someones feed reader must cost some sort of money. After all, it saves your readers a precious five seconds that they would normally spend navigating to your blog. If you add a simple option to subscribe to your RSS feed for a price, it’ll be much fairer for all the parties involved.

A CLOSING NOTICE
Did you enjoy this post? Did it float your boat/tickle your pickle/rhyme1 your rhyme2? Consider subscribing to the Blog Badly RSS feed. You’ll get all the fun of blogging without any of the actual knowledge!

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOG COLOR
Color is arguably one of the most important things in choosing a blog design that’s right for you (and wrong for you readers). Bloggers that attract lots of traffic often have colors that are very pleasing to the eye and a text color that is easy to read. This in turn means that to BLOG BADLY you have to pick the absolute worst color scheme you can. If your eyes aren’t tearing, it’s not bad enough.

BLOG COLOR CHECKLIST
Picking a color for your blog can be a daunting task. If you don’t know where to start, here’s a handy list that should get some ideas flowing:

• Do you colors match? You can check out this very (un)handy website for some horrendously perfect color combinations. If your colors look good together, you’re not doing it right.

• How bright or dark are your colors? Make sure that the scheme you choose features either very mellow colors (for example, black background and black text) or amazingly bright ones (yellow background and pink text with purple polka dots). Sometimes even a mix will work.

• How many colors do you use? You need to put in at least 10 completely different colors in your blog design. I’m not talking about navy blue and blue - I’m talking red and green. Extreme contrast is very important because it hurts the eyes when used in excess.

FINAL PRODUCT
I whipped up a quick color palette that you can use for your blog. It follows the guidelines reasonably well and I’d
rate its annoyance factor at a 7 out of 10.

IN CONCLUSION
Color is one of the most basic and simplest things to implement in a bad blog design. More about the layout and various other aspects of design will be covered shortly. Just remember: when people look at your blog it should appear to them that an art student spattered cans of paint randomly onto their monitors.

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »

If you haven’t heard of rssHugger then, well, I wouldn’t be surprised - it’s a fairly new RSS (really stupid [we’ll get into this later] syndication) aggregate that is supposed to increase feed readership and publicity.

WHAT IS IT
Imagine your feed. Imagine a website. Imagine your feed on this website. What you’ve just thought up of is the genius of rssHugger. Through the magical series of tubes we call the Internets, it grabs your feed and publishes it on its very own page at rsshugger.com/[yourfeed.com]

“rssHugger is a new website developed to help bloggers promote their blogs, and to help visitors discover new blogs that write about subjects that the readers are interested in. Through the power of the internet and viral marketing, rssHugger looks to bring blog writers and blog readers closer together”

WHATS IN IT FOR ME?
This is always an excellent question to ask in determining whether something is right for you. rssHugger promises to bring more visitors to your site and if that’s what floats your boat then hop on the Hugger train.

THOUGHTS
Blogs are supposed to be desolate wastelands much like the frigid tundras of Siberia (bears optionally included). This makes rssHugger a promotional tool and if you want to blog badly then promotional tools are big NO-NO’s.

Posted by Max Miroff | 1 Comment »

THE GREAT OPEN RANGES OF BOOKMARKING
Just take a look at all of the icons above - that great mosaic of social websites has nearly every bookmarking site available for you to use solely to give exposure to your sites. All of the above is prime internet space for your ventures. No matter what the theme of the site you’re going to submit it to, it’ll accept it. Trust me.

SHARING IS CARING
You’ve got a blog running and you want people to know about it. Why wouldn’t they - you’ve got content greater than that of any other website, right? While you keep telling yourself that, you should let others know about just how awesome you are. Open up Digg.com or one of its many clones, make an account, and prepare one of your pages for submission:

• Think of a list of keywords you think are popular - they should preferably not relate to the actual content but rather to what you think will attract the most views.
• Make your title and description as interesting as possible. Include lots of funky words that will be sure to incite controversy. Mention current politics. Claim that you have found a cure for cancer. Any of these are valid. After all, even if they click and it’s not what they want, internet users are too lazy to go back.
• Add a random humorous picture. Babies doing funny things or cute pets in adorable poses work well.

SUBMIT, DON’T COMMIT
Now that you’ve primed up your post, copy every detail to the clipboard so that you can rinse and repeat. Click the button and close the site - your work here is done. Your content, being awesome, will promote itself until it rises above and beyond and ascends to the front page on a gushing fountain of gratitude and praise from other users.

Posted by Max Miroff | 1 Comment »

BLOGS ABOUT BLOGGING ARE ALL THE SAME

We’ve all heard of Darren Rowse, John Chow, and those other blogging greats, right? Their success spawned off thousands upon thousands of imitation blogs that are all about how to make a good blog. There are so many people writing about blogging that there’s no real content coming out. In fact, I could give you over 85% of the knowledge contained in these blogs in a few short statements:

BLOGGING CHECKLIST

1. Write good content. Content is king. Blah blah blah writing blah blah good grammar blah blah
2. Participate endlessly in social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, etc.
3. Use good SEO practices like blah blah metatag this and blah blah download that.
4. Make your layout great and user friendly, blah blah, Web 2.0, blah
5. Use ads but not in excess.

There you have it. The condensed version of blogging online. Although Rowse occasionally has some excellent tips and every so often I come upon a piece of information on someones blog that I haven’t digested before, it eventually gets old.

Blog Badly hopes to change this monotone cycle by producing content that isn’t about how to make a better blog - it’s about how to make it worse (hence the title). By following the tips that are going to be mentioned here you’ll be able to create the absolute worst website on the internet. If, of course, you do the opposite you’ll have a utopian domain that will overwhelm its visitors with its greatness.

This will most likely be the only serious post on this blog - everything else will be filled with irony, satire, and fun. Blog Badly is written by Max Miroff, the current webmaster of MoneyMoose, and he’ll be your guide in degrading your blog to such a state that any visitors will fully understand the statement of “Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”

Prepare to forget everything you’ve known about blogging and embark on an epic journey of distaste, humor, and unknowledge*.

*noun - the exact opposite of knowledge. You’ll understand the full meaning of it after reading a few posts here.

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »