Blogger of the month is our new initiative to encourage good blogging standards and help new bloggers improve their blogging skills.
Starting this month, things will be changed for DW guest bloggers forever!
First, the story so far…
More than a year ago back Devils Workshop opened for guest bloggers, with a difference. Unlike many other blogs where you submit your posts as guest only, Devils Workshop offered dedicate login to all guest authors treating them as co-bloggers, making sure they get proper credit and exposure for their work! One step ahead, we appreciated your efforts and opened revenue sharing program so that you can get paid for your posts transparently.
Even though revenue sharing took away all the focus, main motive behind community blogging was to create a system where experienced editors like Swati and Deepak can spend time on improving blogging skills of new bloggers. But with volume of guest posts Devils Workshop receives, managing things manually was too painful.
Thanks to our coder Radhe, who created a new plugin for wordpress MU, which makes things easier for our editors’ team. They can find info about you easily, communicate with you in single click and most importantly can rate posts using different parameters.
The plugin is right now under testing cycle but it will take care of old posts as well. Hopefully, our editors will get a chance to use it by tomorrow. As this plugin interface will be accessible to editors and admins only, we have decided to give you a sneak preview of how things will look like. Below is a box added on post-editor screen (available to editor team only).
Enough about plugin for now. Lets move to main course! 🙂
Bloggers of The Month…
As you can see above all guest posts will get rating. Editors will give points based on many factors.
- English – be kind enough to run spell-check atleast. Use windows live editor for blogging. 😉
- Presentation – Use headers like h2/h3 to highlight sections of your articles. Add screenshots wherever possible! Break posts in small paragraphs. Things like this will be considered.
- Ethics – Spend some-time on linking back to other sources you may use in post. Do not excessively promote anything particularly. We hate links that open in new tab or window. Do not force or irritate visitors!
- Tools – Use blogging tools that generate nice markups and respect web-standards. We recommend using online wordpress post editor or windows live editor. Never use Microsoft word!
Post Topic
This is one factor that will be considered most. A user posting a tutorial or nice post like posts in ‘featured’ category will definitely gets more points. Do not look at my announcement posts in featured category. 😉
Important thing to consider is that, write quality article! One article like this will definitely get more points than 10 news or review posts. So spend time on writing good quality and original article. Let me repeat.. Original articles please! 🙂
Actually there is nothing wrong in covering news as long as you add your analytical views to it. Lazy people copying news with copied screenshots will not get any points!
Comments and accountability!
Many time we notice people just come on DW to write one guest post and get a backlink to their blog! Well, we do not have problem with giving link juice and whatever else we can give to our fellow bloggers but what hurt us that some guest bloggers do not answers comments and queries asked by visitors.
So we made our ranking algorithm consider accountability while answering comments. So always answer a question asked on your post. If you don’t know the answer, let your visitor know. Don’t keep them waiting!
Reward…
In addition to direct revenue from ads running on your posts, you can win $100 monthly prize! We are planning to add more rewards and prizes.
Apart from consistent ad revenue and chance to win big monthly prize, most importantly, you will get free suggestions & feedback about your blogging skills. This will help you in long run! 🙂
We have more exciting plans but we will unveil them on right time! 😉
For time being, if you haven’t joined DW as blogger join it and start posting.
Those who are already in, don’t forget to update your profile!
Your profile Link: http://rtblogs.com/wp-admin/profile.php (use your DW login name and password when prompted)
P.S. This month we will be celebrating 3rd anniversary of DW. Stay tuned for more surprises throughout the month! 😉
Link: Join Devils Workshop
17 Comments
Nice concept dude..its gonna pump in more innovation into DW for sure! The best thing is that you haven’t overlooked bloggers’ interest by giving the right platform to improve their work to higher standards and giving away monetary incentives every now and then, really impressive!
“Blogger of The Month” seems like a nice thing. Please consider the following points in this post.
The writer writes: “create a system where experienced editors like Swati and Deepak can spend time on improving blogging skills of new bloggers”
I’ve been seeing the posts of one of the editors mentioned since last three days. They are either jokes (like some promotion or help-manual of some service or software without enough try-out by the writer), or, whenever somewhat thoughtful, a manipulation and mix-up of the recent articles from reputable sites (mostly from PC World with which the writer is possibly subscribed to receive daily emails). And that writer will improve the blogging skills of new bloggers? Nice!
The writer writes: “We hate links that open in new tab or window.”
It’s not a bad thing to post links that open in new tab or window, and there’s nothing to hate in it! Consider a post suggesting a comparison between two products which have been specified on different web pages. Would you like to click the Back and Forward buttons again and again (possibly reloading the pages every time)? Won’t it be much easier to view them sid-by-side by clicking on their respective tabs or pages? Opening the pages in separate tabs or windows can also be a substitute for framed pages wherein the left frame displays the index and the right one shows the content. So, whenever convenient, the option of opening pages in separate tabs or windows ought to be exercised.
The writer writes: “Never use Microsoft word!”
Why not? Is it the personal bias of the writer (supposedly a good blogger)? If not, may we know the reason? Word is the accepted standard in corporate environment with no capable replacement so far. Bashing a superior product without telling a single reason is not something that deserves applause.
Thanks for taking your time!
@Ajay
First, let me answer your questions…
#1. This is already answered by Swati. Check comments on this post again. Don’t you know that you can subscribe to comments reply by email???
#2. Yes, we are against links that forces new window on users. An average person knows how to open a link in new tab/windows, so they like to do that as per their will. If you don’t know this, just Google it.
#3. About Microsoft Word… Its not bashing. Windows Live Writer we strongly encourage is made for blogging. And its by your dear Microsoft only. 🙂
I really don’t think you have knowledge of web standards or know importance of clean markup.
Anyway try opening a MS word file in notepad and you will see plenty of propriety CSS classes, HTML tags & comments which are meaningless outside Microsoft Word application. There is a site dedicated to fix bad markup Microsoft Word creates. Don’t forget to check their about page.
Now let me tell you few more things….
First make a habit of reading entire post. Atleast name of the author so that you can use actual name rather than “the writer”.
Second if you don’t like a blog start reading another. We don’t offer paid subscriptions, so we don’t owe any refunds to you! 😛
Anniversary again 🙂
That’s a very good initiative Rahul, hope to see more research posts and tutorials in coming future.
All the best bro, you are climbing two steps continuously along with the anniversary… Good going 🙂
And all the best to all authors and contributors to win their $100 🙂
Hey great initiative Rahul and another anniversary for DW. Seems like we can expect lots of surprises this month 🙂
Rahul rtblogs login link is automatically redireting to WItcrumbs login page.
Thanks Rahul bro for everything you offer here am really happy to hear about this offer hope for the best ahead
“Now let me tell you few more things….
First make a habit of reading entire post. Atleast name of the author so that you can use actual name rather than “the writer”.
Second if you don’t like a blog start reading another. We don’t offer paid subscriptions, so we don’t owe any refunds to you!”
….That’s the attitude that Differs Rahul form other bloggers and DW from other blogs.
He is practical and thats the best part about him.
DW Rocks! Keep it up
This definitely encourage guest bloggers in devilswokshop.
This is a great concept. But you should add traffic criteria for the blogger rating also. The post that brings in x amount of traffic will get y points or something like that.. ?
Bloggers would also be interested in knowing how are they actually fairing in SEO basics and this may shoot up their enthusiasm.
just my 2 cents
Thanks all for suggestions and appreciation. 🙂
This is first month. We will be adding much more excitement to this concept in coming days.
We will be considering traffic (as suggested by Himanshu), as well as comments too!
Thanks all. 🙂