Tag Archives: blog

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The Monday Question: Process!

Another Monday which of course means that is time to answer a new and fresh Monday Question. This week I am wondering about your creative process when it comes to your blog. What does your workflow look like? How do you come up with new ideas?

As you know I have a couple of fixed posts (currently on Monday and Friday). Those are posts I can create well in advance (if time allows of course) and for the Monday Question I try to have an evergrowing list of questions ready which I hope you will find interesting to think about. The “Many Faces of…” posts take quite a bit of time preparing, since I will have to go through a complete list of movies an actor or actress has been in and find pictures related to them. Then I have to properly cut them to make sure that the final collage looks good. I must admit that I would love to add the titles of the movie underneath each picture, but I simply do not have the time to do so. On the other days I have my reviews (at least 3 per week) and as you can see on the righthand side, I’ll let you know which ones you will be able to expect. I watch more movies than I review, so I will pick the ones which I think are interesting to write (or warn) about. For those upcoming reviews I will already find the pictures I want to use, format them and put them in a draft. So when do I prepare the actual reviews? My aim is always to prepare everything for the whole week on Sunday evening. This takes a whole evening, but at the end of the evening everything for the week will be ready and scheduled. This means that during the week I have time to spend on other things (reading and commenting on other blogs).
As for developing new ideas they usually come to me quite easily, but I don’t always act on them and give them time to develop. This goes for blogathons, but also new series. This gives time to perfect the idea and change things you initially thought were a good.

What’s your creative process when it comes to blogging?

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The Monday Question: Slogan!

Last week’s question about what makes your blog unique was a very popular one and one which seemed to be food for thought for some. It is the reason why I will ask a related question about your blog this week. As you can see up top, My Filmviews has a slogan. I have had it for quite a while and it boils down the essence of my blog. Although I’m thinking of rewriting it slightly I am quite happy with it, because every visitor can immediately see what this blog is all about.

If you site has (or would have) a slogan, what would it be?

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The Monday Question: Stand out!

If you have been blogging for a while, you there are thousands of fellow bloggers out there who are writing about the same subject you do, whether it’s about movies, taking pictures or anything else…a lot of people offer the same thing. And even though I’m sure you write because you just love doing it, you do not mind if more and more people find out about your blog and keep visiting you. It is always good to think about improving your blog (you can find some of my suggestion at the top) and do a bit of analysis. That is why this week’s question is:

What makes your blog stand out from others? Continue reading →

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The Monday Question: Platform!

This week’s Monday Question comes a bit late as today is a public holiday and I haven’t had any time this past weekend to spend time on putting up a question for you to answer. Still I know that you love answering them, so I couldn’t disappoint and skip a week. This weekend I was thinking about the platform on which people do their blogging. The two biggest ones are of course Blogger and WordPress. Personally I never did any investigation about which platform I should start blogging on and I happened to stumble on WordPress when I wanted to blog (can’t remember if someone suggested it or if it was the first thing which came up on Google). Since I have written various articles about blogging and the frustrations it can bring (about commenting and subscribing) I have seen what both platforms offer and prefer WordPress because of the commenting system and automatic email updates when there is a response. As a blogger I also like the “behind the scenes” WordPress interface, which is very clean and easy to navigate. Of course you might be blogging on Blogger and have preferences for that.

So this week’s question is: Which blogging platform do you use and why have you chosen this platform/do you prefer it?

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The Monday Question: Blog love!

I love to blog and seeing people read my blog, but I also think it is important to help other bloggers out, by suggesting their sites to you. It’s the reason I started the Moviesite Spotlight series, so if you are looking for some cool blogs to check out (and get to know the people who run them) click on through. I want to use this Monday Question for you to tell me and fellow commenters/readers about a specific movie blog (besides your own of course) we should be checking out. Personally I want to suggest MikesFilmTalk. Mike doesn’t only talk about movies, but also about other things, like the books he reads, personal issues and so much more. I always enjoy his work, so please do check out his blog.

Which movie blog should other bloggers check out immediately?

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The Monday Question: Google image search!

If you are a blogger you might occasionally glance at the statistics of your site. Even though most of us don’t blog just for the numbers, it’s always nice to see the number of views increasing as it means more people read about what you think is important. If you have been looking at your statistics of the past week you might have noticed a big drop in views which you might not have been able to explain. That reason is the new Google image search. Previously when people were searching for images (for example movie stills) they would see an overview of all images. When clicking on that image you would be redirected to the site which was hosting that image, which created views on your site.

The new implementation of the image search is different. If you do a search you will still see an overview of images, but when clicking on it the image immediately opens up on Google’s site, which means that there will be no visit to your blog. There are still options for the person searching to visit, but it takes an extra click. This also means less chance that they will stick around and click through to read other things you’ve written. I’ve noticed the drop in numbers and when I asked about it on Twitter, fellow bloggers also saw this happening.

You could say that less views because of “image searchers” is a good thing and I can agree with that. I personally always wished I could filter those out to get a more realistic image of actual visits, but not everyone is happy with the change as this post (thanks to Max from Impassioned Cinema for sharing it) clearly shows.

This week’s question:
Did you see a drop in the number of views your blog has been getting and what are your thoughts on it?

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The Monday Question: Writing!

Even though I really don’t consider myself a writer (more like someone who likes to be creative), I have been writing for this blog a couple of years now. I think everyone who is writing is always looking for ways to improve what he or she is publishing. Personally I think that no matter in which way you are being creative, it usually takes time to really get good at it. Of course this doesn’t only mean writing, but also reading work of others to see if there are things you can learn from. I once read it takes at least 1500 articles before you get really good at writing and although I don’t agree with it (some are just more talented than others) I do think pratice does make you better. This Monday Question is about writing:

What do you do to improve your writing and do you have any tips for others?