Nominated for a SEMMY Award
Hyperlocal Blogger has two articles nominated in the Blogs & Blogging category of the 2010 SEMMY Awards. The nominated articles are:
Judges will now decide if either article is good enough to be a finalist. If so, I’ll be posting again next week asking for your votes. 
If you’re not familiar with the SEMMYs, they’re an annual awards for online marketing content. Disclosure: I created the awards three years ago. I did not, however, nominate my own articles for inclusion. One or two of the other seven nominating judges must’ve put mine on the list.
Most Popular Posts of 2009
At the end of each year, I like to dig through my blog stats to see what happened and why over the past 12 months. I wrote a really long, navel-gazing post on my SEO blog, but I’ll spare you that here on Hyperlocal Blogger.
Instead, how about a look at the top 5 blog posts published in 2009? Here you go:
- (Now) 40 Local Blog Directories
- Pros & Cons: Big City Blogging vs. Small Town Blogging
- How To Find Free Photos for Your Local Blog
- How to Create a Local Newswire for your Blog
- 5 Ways to Grow a Local Blog
That last one is a guest post, so I’ll use this opportunity to remind you that I’m interested in publishing more guest posts in 2010, so contact me if you’re interested.
I should add, too, that several of the most popular posts of 2009 were written in 2008. All of the articles in the Starting a Hyperlocal Blog series continue to get a lot of traffic long after they were posted.
The thing that excites me the most about where this blog is right now is the number of active commenters. When I invited everyone to talk about your local blog, we had close to 40 comments. And there are plenty of other posts that hit double figures in comments. Thank you for your contributions here — as a group we all make each other better local bloggers.
All the best for you and your blog in 2010!
Seeking Guest Blog Posts
Hey gang — one of my goals for HyperlocalBlogger.com in 2010 is to seek and accept more guest posts from people like you. I’ve published a few guest posts already, and they were all very well-received, so I’d like to make that more of an emphasis in the coming year.
If you’re interested in sharing a guest post here on HLB, please contact me with your idea and let me know when you think you’ll be able to send it. The tagline I use here is “Tips & Discussion for Local Bloggers,” so any idea that fits under that theme will probably be welcome.
I think we all get smarter by hearing about the experiences of others who work and play in the local blogging space. Whether you’re a local blogger, someone who provides services for local bloggers, a traditional journalist who has thoughts about local blogging … or whatever! … I want to hear from you. You’ll get some exposure for your ideas, not to mention a link or two that might lead to some new traffic (and help with your SEO).
Give it some thought and drop me a line with your ideas. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Tell Us About Your Hyperlocal Blog
We seem to be growing a nice little community of hyperlocal bloggers/web site owners here, so I thought it might be good to have a wide-open post where you get to introduce yourself and tell us as much as you want about your local blog/web site.
So how about doing that in the comments. Include links if you want (I’ll have to manually approve those comments, though) and just let us know who you are, where you are, tell us about your local blog, why you started it, ask each other questions if you see something interesting, etc. Think of it as an online mixer kind of thing.
Comments are open.
Do local bloggers need insurance?
The Online News Association is running a survey for the next few days to find out if there’s a need for online journalists (which would include some hyperlocal bloggers) to have insurance:
“With the growth of independent news outlets, bloggers and media entrepreneurship, the need for affordable, reliable coverage has expanded exponentially.
As a result, the Online News Association, in partnership with AXIS Pro (formerly Media/Professional Insurance), is surveying digital journalists to gauge the need for low-cost Media Liability Insurance coverage, which includes libel, defamation, copyright and other publishing torts.
If ONA determines enough need and interest, we will work with AXIS Pro to provide a program tailored for digital journalists under the ONA name.”
You can take the survey here. CyberJournalist says it’s open until this Friday, October 16.
And I’m curious to hear from you local bloggers: Do you have insurance against libel, defamation, etc.? If not, have you given it any thought in the past?
Blogging will (continue to) be light
It’s been too long since I’ve posted here, and now it’s probably gonna be a little while longer. I’m more than swamped at the moment, and things will likely remain slow/stagnant here on HLB for the next week or two at least. My apologies….
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