Photography: Fort Under Fire by sonnysaguil

If you want to gain some level of popularity and visibility for your site, one inevitable side-effect of that popularity will be nasty, mindless criticism.

In fact, I would suggest that the only thing that might save you from criticism is obscurity — and that is, of course, a big price to pay.

Many of us have been unconstructively criticized during our time publishing for the web. We may have been targeted by a personal attack, or perhaps our writing was called ‘rubbish’ (or something more impolite) without reason, or our body of work labeled worthless without explanation. In other cases, reasons are given, yet they are so out of step with rationality that they can hardly be believed.

In this post, I want to talk about criticism. I want to differentiate between the constructive and unconstructive kind, and suggest ways of dealing with the latter, because it may have happened to you in the past, and will undoubtedly happen again in future. Read More…

Photography: Sunrise by d’n'c

Most hard questions have simple answers. The hard part is in the doing.

The question: how can I lose weight? can be answered truthfully in one sentence: eat three modest, healthy meals each day (and no more), and make exercising a habit.

But that isn’t good enough. It’s the how that gets us. It’s not enough to say what we have to do. We need to know how to do it.

As bloggers and webmasters, we want most or all of these things: more visitors, more subscribers, more comments, more money, more inbound links, and more people saying good things about us. Our wants aren’t in question. It’s the how that gets us. It’s the how that has us reading a dozen blogs a day, trying to find the answer (or at least a little piece of it).

You can stop searching, for now. The answer is in this post. Read More…

Photography: Tunnel [Cheonggyecheon / Seoul] by d’n'c

Regular readers will know that Skelliewag runs no ads or affiliate links. I’ve never made a cent of direct income from this site, but I have lost money as a direct result of it. The money I lose each month is a modest double-digit sum: something I have no regrets or anxieties about.

There are countless blogs and websites devoted to making money online, yet it seems strange to me that there are no sites devoted to doing the opposite: losing money online, and doing it proudly.

In this post, I want to outline 8 ways you can begin to see that losing money online isn’t all bad. In fact, it might not be given the credit it deserves. Read More…

Photography by fabbio

I doubt there are any dedicated bloggers, webmasters, or web 2.0 users who feel they have enough time to do everything they want to do online.

The recent proliferation of lifehacks and productivity tips reflect this. It’s a reaction to a climate where web users have more tasks and less time than ever before.

These tasks can be divided into two types: proactive and reactive.

Proactive tasks involve action that originates from you. Reactive tasks are actions in response to the actions of another.

In this post, I’m going to discuss why web 2.0 marks the ascendancy of reactive tasks, how this is damaging our productivity, and what we can do about it. Read More…

Photography: Different Shadows by gizax

From birth to death, in so many places — at school, at work, in the street — we’re told that to be different is wrong. It’s no surprise, then, that many of us are afraid to be different when it comes to writing web content. Most fall into one of two approaches when undertaking the difficult task of picking a niche.

1. A-List by numbers. This usually involves picking a member of the web content A-list and trying to provide the same content for the same people.

2. Difference is impossible. When you’re creating web content on topics no-one else is writing on then it’s impossible to be different, because there’s nothing to differentiate yourself from!

In this post I want to outline the pitfalls of both approaches and describe two approaches to picking a niche I see as being most likely to lead to success. Read More…

Photography: Trapeze by Hillary H

Advice on ways to make money through your website or blog is monopolized by webmasters talking to webmasters, bloggers talking to bloggers.

One vital part of the equation is often ignored, and that’s the perspective of the target - the readers whose clicks are generating money for others. It’s impossible to browse the web and not be exposed to ad-supported content. Monetization is aimed at all of us.

In this article I want to look at monetization from the perspective of the reader: what works, what doesn’t, what annoys me, what makes me want to click an ad. My thoughts are divided into two areas: tricks, and trust. Read More…