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The Wakish Wonderz Header. I didn’t know Bubble Boy left his ball out in parks while renting it out to a cursive letter W!

(Skip to the end of the post for a short synopsis)

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Wakish Wonderz (Sounds like some sort of candy company. The “z” at the end really seals the deal. +1 point) is a blog about everything, apparently. That was made clear to me by the mission statement written at the top of every page of his blog (which, combined with the header, takes up pretty much all of the space above the fold. +1 point for that!).

“UNCOURAGING” CONTENT
The actual blog content is hidden under two lines of text ad and “Ten Recent Posts” and “Top Ten Posts” lists. After scrolling for what seemed like ages (1.554 seconds, actually), I finally reached his actual content. His most recent post was about how one of his articles got selected for a blog carnival. Apparently, it was very “uncouraging” (+1 point!) for him. I’m not quite sure what this means, but perhaps it signifies that his courage was taken away. I believe the Lion in Oz was in the same situation.

GRUMBLES ABOUT GRAMMAR
The rest of the posts range from things like writing GP essays (in one of the steps he mentions masterfully using a chosen language. This was accompanied by various grammatical/spelling errors [+1 point] [uncapitalized English, tense changes, etc. etc.] but HEY! This is Web 2.0! No one cares anymore. Right?) to hookah. While these two topics seem unrelated, I believe they could easily be combined for interesting results.

STOP! WIDGET TIME.
In addition to this content, his sidebar is packed with useless widgets (+1 point). He has:

• A little box with various fancy SEO terms and rankings (what the hell is AUV?)
• A map of where his visitors come from
• A total visitor count
• An e-gold sign up button (???)

SOMETHING THAT SHOULDN’T EVEN MATTER
And, finally, he has quite an odd little thing on his footer: “customized by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _”. I’d love to meet _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (he makes great cluttered designs, apparently), but the link just leads to the main page. This confused me (+1 point)

Oh, and I also have to include this little tidbit in my review. For some sort of diabolical reason that Wakish has developed.

Wakish Wonderz welcomes discussion about writing on any topic. Get a FREE linkback from his PR4 blog by simply reviewing his blog now!

IN SHORT,
Blah blah blah. Anyway, here’s the final tally of points…

1. The name of the blog sounds like a candy company.
2. Bad usage of above-the-fold space.
3. “Uncouraging” content.
4. Spellcheck anyone?
5. Useless widgets.
6. Odd “_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _” thing.

Which, if you can count/read, is 6! Wakish Wonderz receives six on the Blog Badness meter! His blog is just beginning to get to the stages of Bad Bloggerdom. If he can continue raising his score, then he may very well be featured in the soon-to-come Blog Badly Hall of Fame. Until then, here’s a fancy graphic to make everything better

This has been a Bad Blog Review. Want a review of your blog? Just contact me at moneymoose.com@gmail.com or use the contact form. All I ask is some recognition for it. Click here for more details.

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

 DISCONTINUED… for now.

Do you have a blog? If so, it is most likely horrendous. Want a detailed critique of it? Of course you do! You’ll even get a nice graphic detailing just how bad your blog is - perhaps even a space in the soon-to-come Blog Badly Hall of Fame.

The points system will work as follows: anything I find bad will add 1 to your point counter. There is no limit to how many points you can get. At the end, I’ll tally up your score. Each point = one thumb down.

If you want me to review your blog, then leave a comment or contact me using the handy dandy form on my contact page! Or just e-mail moneymoose.com@gmail.com, whatever works for you. All I ask in return is that you give some mention of my review. A simple link at the end of a post saying “Blog Badly reviewed me!” is more than enough. Expect the first review shortly!

Posted by Max Miroff | 8 Comments »

To publicize your glorious blog statistics, you’d normally have to go to about six different websites and embed their widgets onto your blog. Now, with Popuri, you can display your blogs popularity on Google, Alexa, Yahoo, and Technorati in a convenient web 2.0 format! Here’s an example below

WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Perhaps you want people to know how popular your blog is. Perhaps you like shiny objects and logos. Perhaps you like meaningless widgets. PopUri fulfills all of those conditions. Have a try yourself.

Posted by Max Miroff | 1 Comment »

This will be part of a recurring series. Look out for the next tip whenever I feel like it!

Tired of all those people telling you the same old things about marketing your blog? Feel like commenting on other blogs and using social media just isn’t enough? You may be suffering from a condition called noninovativconformitationivitis. It’s the 93rd bigger killer of blogs, actually. Anywho…

Try new and improved UIFBMT! And no, it’s not a sandwich at your local sub store; it’s unique, innovative, and effective blog marketing techniques.

All you’ll need for our first tip is the following:

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Remember all of those fun fights you had with staplers? All fun and games until a staple gets lodged into someones spinal cord!

1. Take the piece of paper and scrawl your blog URL onto it (it is a known fact that bloggers scrawl. Prolonged use of keyboard has eliminated all need for handheld writing instruments. If you cannot write whatsoever, then print out your blog URL. Blog Badly accommodates!)
2. Bring your stapler and blog URL to a heavily populated area where there are large crowds. Walk around inconspiciously (wearing a black trenchcoat, of course. To conceal the stapler and URL).
3. Pick someone from the crowd who you want as a visitor. This is a very challenging and selective process, so I suggest you use the “my mother told me who was the very best one and you are not it” method of elimination instead of the plain “catch a tiger by the toe.”
4. Staple your blog URL to their back.
5. Run.

Congratulations! You’ve got a visitor and a FREE lawsuit against you! What a bonus!

Posted by Max Miroff | No Comments »

Every professional blogger tells you that having unique content and design on your blog will draw many visitors in. Uniqueness seems to be a popular topic. Here’s what you really need to know about being a blogging maverick.

CONFORMING IS AN ACTIVITY MANY CAN ENJOY
Why do people conform? Is it because the ideal they believe in is so stupid that it needs more people to support it? No! People conform because its the best thing to do. Take a look at all of those rocks in the picture above. All of those nice, idyllic grey rocks lying peacefully on the rolling waves of a tranquil beach… and then…

BAM

A maverick rock (maverock? rockamiv?) colored yellow. The odd one in the bunch. Or, out of the bunch, rather. I’m pretty sure he was excluded from the rock activities by the other rocks. Exciting, fun activities like… uh… well… being rock-y and stuff. Maybe getting skipped about the waves a bit (and drowning. Minor consequence). The other rocks are all grey because being grey is what’s in. Apparently, being yellow is what’s out.

Lets get off of that tangent, though. People don’t generally follow stupid ideas en masse. Just think about all of those quality decent bearable make money online blogs. There are more money making blogs out there than any other kind. Why is this so? Because it’s a great topic that always sometimes makes money!

CONFORMING: EVERYONE’S DOING IT

Want to conform to Blog Badly’s standards? Here’s a simple paragraph format for you to use!

A TITLE THAT ATTEMPTS TO BE HUMOROUS
Cookie-cutter introduction sentence that details on why this technique is horrible and should never be attempted by sane individuals. Additional supporting fact along with a clever reference to something you’ve never heard of and thus you don’t feel is very clever at all. Play on words that doesn’t support the topic at all. Ironic comment that shows this blog employing the very techniques it discourages. Additional exuberant comment with exclamation point at the end! Repetition of the first sentence. Ending statement that leaves you wondering what the hell you just read.

Posted by Max Miroff | No Comments »

When people look at your blog, they want to see something that appeals - something that looks nice. Pictures are an essential part of this, but it’s important to know how to effectively utilize them.

CHOOSING IMAGES

PICK ANY PICTURE - it doesn’t have to relate to the content whatsoever. Say you’re writing about something that’s not very exciting; extreme snowboarding, for example. Which of the below pictures would you choose?

OR

The correct answer is the picture of the camel. Why, you ask? Well, it’s more exciting. The snow in the snowboarding picture evokes coldness. As we all know, cold temperatures cause molecules to slow down and become less excited. This is not the desired effect you are looking for. The camel, on the other hand, spits globs of saliva at people. What could possibly be better than your reader envisioning this happening to them?

ALWAYS USE PICTURES
No matter how small a section is, pictures will always make it better. They’re just that good.

PICTURE ALIGNMENT
When you’re blogging, there are lots of complicated buttons that look like this:
These, apparently, control the alignment of your blog images (right, left, center, conservative, liberal, chaotic evil, etc). What works for me is selecting the one that seems most attractive at the time. Feeling like compromise? Click the center alignment button! Is your seat broken and leaning towards the left? Pick the right option to get some equilibrium into your life! As you can see, endless possibilities are available (three, actually).

A FINAL NOTE ON BLOG IMAGES
If you pick good pictures, then your readers will be distracted from how dull your writing is. This is an added bonus.

Posted by Max Miroff | 1 Comment »

There has recently been a Google Pagerank update. What does this mean for you, you ask? Excellent question!

WHAT IS PAGERANK
Pagerank is what Google uses to secure its control over the internet and subsequently the world. It determines the ranking of pages in search results (higher ranking pageranks come up higher in search engine ranking position [SERP]) and since 7/5 of people use Google as their search browser, if you get a high PR you’ll often get more traffic.

LOVE BIG BROTHER AND BIG BROTHER WILL LOVE YOU (AFTER STRIPPING YOU OF YOUR RIGHTS, FREEDOMS, AND POSSIBLY CLOTHES)

I called Google Big Brother. How clever is that?

Anyway, Google punishes those who do not follow their rules by lowering their pagerank. Here’s a simple list of things that you should definitely do to make your SERP’s ungood (more Orwellian references. Orwellian is a fancy word and thus you should nod knowingly and comment about it).

1. Make your site a link farm. Exchange links with whoever, whenever. E-mail people that don’t even have websites and ask for link exchanges.
2. Link to gambling sites. Google loves those because they start with a “g” in their name as well.
3. Sell links on your blog. Does “links” have a “g” in it? No? Well, do it anyway. Just because.
4. Oh, sell posts too. Yeah. For the same reasons as number three.
5. Don’t update your site or put any content on it. This both saves you from any criticism (you can’t comment on nothing… right? Right.) and usefulness.

And there you have it. There are more ways for the Thought Police (Are you starting to see a pattern? Because you shouldn’t. The Thought Police will get suspicious) to come get you, and there will be more postings about them shortly. Unless they catch me first. I’m going to go dim the telescreen.

Posted by Max Miroff | 2 Comments »

When readers visit your blog, they’re often intrigued as to who the brilliant(?) writer is. Knowing your identity really brings them closer to the content and it’s easier for them to relate to you.

(IN)EFFECTIVE “ABOUT” TECHNIQUES

1. Pick a popular figure - any popular figure - and pretend to be them. Misspell a few letters in their name to avoid possible criminal charges (John C[h]ow) and you’re good to go. You’ll instantly gain their popularity!
2. Don’t include contact information. You will get spam messages and people trying to help improve your blog. Your blog, as you know, is perfect as is and no feedback can possibly help improve it
3. Embellish your accomplishments. Does your blog only get 5 visitors per day? That doesn’t seem like a huge amount at all! Multiplying your actual visitor count by 100 will make it seem much more impressive.
4. Include plenty of useless personal information. Do you have two cats named Colonel Sanders and McLovin? Share it! Did your goldfish die when you were ten? Did you find a nickel on the floor? Everyone cares about these minute things and they truly connect you to your readers.

And most of all, remember this: you can be whoever you want to be on the Internet. Use this to your advantage.

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

(Image Credit: MarCom Professional)

Having trouble exploiting social networking sites? Can’t think of content the masses will enjoy? Try these simple formulas to get on the front pages of Digg, Reddit - you name it!

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

You put a lot of sweat, hard work, tears (don’t be shy to admit it), and coffee into your blog - wouldn’t you hate it if someone just stole all of your content and put it onto their blog without your permission nor a link back to you (if you do like that kind of stuff happening to you, feel free to leave a link to your blog in the comments!)

Sadly, this act of e-burglary occurs daily in the form of splogs (spam blogs) and other such unsuccessful blog dystopia’s. Splogs don’t often have readers (seeing as how a typical post would look somewhat like this:

“Blog Badly has made a great post on splogs, kittens, keywords, and random things that don’t relate at all to the actual post but since I’m a splog I don’t care about my description. Here’s an excerpt:

‘…typical post would look somewhat like… blogging badly… data entry…”

READ MORE HERE“

If you’re looking at this and thinking, “Hey, this looks kind of like my blog!” then congratulations, you don’t need to read this blog any more. You’ve pretty much reached the epitome of blogging badly.

BUT MAX, I’M NOT GOOD AT WRITING MY OWN CONTENT!
A career in data entry may be right for you!

GREAT THINGS (DON’T) HAPPEN WHEN YOU STEAL CONTENT
When you take things that aren’t yours (see: steal) in real life, what happens? Even those unfamiliar to their countries legal system generally know of a place called jail (where you will go) and a thing called money (which you will have to pay).

Stealing things in the blogging world isn’t much different. Whether it be images or content, it’s not a good idea to take it without permission because:

1. The owner of the blog/website you’re taking it from will find out
2. You’ll lose all of your credibility
3. Your readers will hate you

IN SHORT…
Coming up with your own content is your best bet. Quoting a paragraph or two with proper crediting is generally acceptable and most people don’t mind you taking an image (if you link back to them). If someone asks you to take something of theirs down, do it.

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »