I was about to write a how-to post on trackbacks when I remembered that Susan of 5MinutesforMom.com had written a great post a while back.

What is a trackback?
A Trackback is like a remote comment.

It simply allows you to comment about another blog on your own blog and then the software lets the other blog know you’ve referenced it.

Why should you use trackbacks?

A trackback is good for both blogs. You want to use them and you want other people to use them.

The trackback allows you to continue a discussion from another blog on your own blog.

read more…

Since she’s already done all the hard work, I’ll point you there, trackback to her, and let you read her post.

I will, however, take a few seconds to say that finding a year old post and linking to it would have been very difficult to do if not for Janice and Susan having a search bar on their site. I can not tell you how many times, in two years of blogging, I’ve thought about linking to a fellow blogger’s post only to not be able to find it. I’m a pretty patient person but after searching for a post for say half an hour or so, even I give up.

Please, please, please make sure that you have a search bar somewhere in your sidebar. If you don’t have one available to you through widgets, may I suggest the Family-Friendly Custom Search Engine? You may be missing out on links and not even know it.

Updated: The Family-Friendly network has Moved to http://b-nn.com/index.php/ffnetwork-info/

I love this new option for displaying the Family-Friendly Blogroll. I haven’t added it to the JOIN page yet. I’ll do that as soon as I get a chance. I wanted to make it available now though to those who are interested. I’m guessing that a few of you will really like it.

This is what it will look like in your sidebar:

Join The Family-Friendly Network

Like it? Thought so.

This is the code you’ll need:

It should resize to fit any sidebar perfectly. Hopefully!

1) Writing! with Exclamation! Points! !
We see this a lot. Beginning bloggers are really excited about what they’re doing, and their enthusiasm generally leads to overemphasis of their first blog posts. We teach in the class that exclamation points, italics, bold, and font color and size changes are not allowed for three months. Your writing should convey enthusiasm without the use of crutches, and like pounding your shoe on the table to make a point, exclamation points usually mean you have weak writing (ed. Writing sentences that need exclamation points, but leaving them out - while clever - is lazy writing with bad punctuation. But nice try).

2) The Obligatory Get Back to Writing For Myself Post:
This is more of a social blog problem. When you build up a small audience, it’s customary in about the third of fourth month to despair that your writing has gone from self-exploration to shameless pandering to your audience. Most bloggers (myself included), have written the oh-so-silly “I feel like I’m writing for the audience instead of myself” blogpost. Usually some of your readers come to your comments and tell you how great you are, or give you advice on how to write. It’s really sad. Like a cry for help (Bonus fact: Some bloggers learn that the only way to get comments is to write such a post. That clearly is a cry for help).

3) Excessive Use of Pictures and Videos:
Pictures and video are great, and it’s wonderful that we have the ability to mashup our media, but sometimes, we use pictures and video to make up for a lack of writing. Once is okay, but when you start posting content just to pretend that you haven’t really fallen off the blogwagon, it’s time to write post number 4:

I found a new blog called brandstorming. The above three blogging mistakes are from his list of six total. I found myself nodding as I read his list. Go here to read his post in it’s entirety. Good stuff!