by BP Guest Blogger on May 16th, 2012
Writers block: This happens more frequently than I am remotely comfortable with. The time when you find SEO copywriting the easiest is when you first start your career in this field. Your whole life up until that point is full of stories, events, insights; things that you feel have enough value to be of public interest. A lot like the embryonic stages of a relationship. Everyone has lots to share and catch up on in the honeymoon period but when that period expires, you move into the comfort zone whereby little communication is expended or even needed. With SEO copywriting, communication is always needed. It is the only fundamental rule of SEO copywriting! What can you do to keep your experiential outlook refreshed, and in turn, publishing kick-ass content? Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
by Jonathan Bailey on May 16th, 2012
When I first started blogging way back in 2005, I had a lot of great people giving me wonderful advice. There are many people to whom I am deeply indebted for their guidance, help and criticism. Without them, I doubt I’d have been able to do a quarter of the things that I have.
However, there were also a few people who gave me what would turn out to be terrible advice. Advice that, if I had listened to it, might have prevented me from as much as getting started, much less, make blogging a major part of my career.
So what were those nearly-disastrous pieces of advice? Well, there’s too many to count but a few have stood out over the years for just how wrong they turned out to be.
Best of all, they’re also pieces of advice just about any other blogger should work to avoid, especially if they know the truth. Read More
Categories: Blogging Sense
by Amanda DiSilvestro on May 16th, 2012
For those who are new to owning a website, it can be tough to find the right web hosting provider. There are tons of different features a web hosting provider can offer, but it’s tough to know exactly what all of these features mean. For this reason, many hopeful website owners skim down a list of “top rated” web hosting providers and look at the price and the number of stars that each was awarded. This is an easy way to quickly assess a web hosting provider without having to go into in-depth research about all of the different features. Most of these features a basic blog owner wouldn’t need to know anyways, right?
The truth is, choosing a web hosting provider based on price and where it ranks according to a certain site isn’t a good idea. Many first-time website owners assume that it is the design and the content that will help a website sink or swim, and while these aspects are extremely important, the right web hosting provider should be added to that list. In other words, opting for an inexpensive web hosting provider could very well cause your site to fail.
Top Reasons Not to Go Cheap When Choosing Web Hosting Providers
Consider below some of the things that can go wrong if you choose web hosting providers solely based on price alone:
1. Bad Customer Service – If you’re new to owning a website, you are absolutely going to have questions and problems with your website. Many website owners are either great writers or great designers, but not all are IT experts. This makes customer service very important. If you get hit with some sort of spam and your hosting provider isn’t going to help, your website could be finished until you spend a lot of money to hire a real professional.
2. Lengthy Downtime – A cheap web host may not have backup servers if the server hosting your website goes down. If your website is down, even for a short period of time, you could very well lose a large number of visitors that won’t come back. Try and make sure you find a web host that offers 99.9% uptime.
3. Missing Updates – It is vital that a web hosting provider can keep up with software changes. Missing any updates could cause your website to be lost completely, and unfortunately it’s very easy for a web host to miss this important aspect of web hosting.
4. Limited Bandwidth – Although cheap web hosts may say that they offer unlimited bandwidth, this doesn’t mean that they have to be telling the truth. Lying about “unlimited hosting” is also fairly common, so make sure you get real feedback from real people if this was going to be a selling point for you.
It’s also important to realize that just because a web host is on the expensive side does not mean that it is great quality. On that same note, just because a web host is inexpensive does not mean that it is poor quality. Finding the right web hosting providers takes a lot of research, and you should find that only those that come at a cost can actually deliver.
Do you have any experiences with cheap web hosting providers? Let us know in the comments!
Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to web design companies. She writes for an online resource that gives advice to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business directory, Business.com.
Categories: Blogging Tips
by BP Guest Blogger on May 15th, 2012
Blogging is one of the hottest activities in the internet. It is the most prominent reason why people go online.
In this article, we will tackle some questions that you need to ask yourself before you start blogging.
1. What do you really want to do?
Before you start setting up your blog, it will be essential for you to ponder on several matters first before pushing through with it. Ask yourself the primary reason or motivation behind your desire to establish your own blog. Is it just a spur of the moment idea? Or, do you really want to achieve something concrete through your blog?
A lot of interested bloggers want to enter the world of blogging simply because they want to be part of the blogging hype. Similar to fly-by-night business operations, these kinds of bloggers typically don’t last for more than two months. On the other hand, the more serious aspiring bloggers have a very strong motivation at the back of their heads. The top two motivations are usually money and education; and these reasons are usually more than enough for them to come up with a real blog. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
by BP Guest Blogger on May 14th, 2012
No website actually wants to offer its visitors a 404 page. After all, it means that there is an error and a page cannot be reached. It looks unprofessional, it is a hassle for the site owner to fix and is an annoyance for visitors that might lead to them not returning.
Unfortunately, there is no way to really prevent it from ever happening. Errors occur, URLs are typed incorrectly or links become broken or outdated. Sometimes there is an issue with the server that will take time to fix. It is just a part of having an Internet site that cannot be avoided.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do everything you can to improve both your frequency of 404 page necessity and the page itself. Here are five tips on how to improve your WordPress error page as well as five tools to keep your visitors from encountering them as often. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
by Noemi on May 11th, 2012
Hi, everyone! It’s that time of the week again, so here are the highlights from the Job Board. I hope you find a gig that suits you.
Have an awesome weekend ahead!
Do you have the time to churn out at least two blog posts a week about wellness? Add one press release to that, and you can go ahead and apply for this work at home position. It pays pretty well!
Read More
Categories: Jobs
by BP Guest Blogger on May 7th, 2012
Here is a word of warning. If you are a person that like to use exclamation marks a lot then you won’t appreciate this post where I am lambasting that action. It is a grammatical pet peeve of mine. Traditionally, exclamation marks are used to indicate strong feeling but exclamation marks have been frequently open to abuse.
Here are some common examples of the misuse of exclamation marks: Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
by Noemi on May 4th, 2012
Good morning, everyone! How is the weather in your part of the world? The summer heat finally gave way to a bit of rain this morning, and I am thankful for it! I hope that you are enjoying your Friday morning.
Here are the highlights from this week’s Job Board.
Do you know your Spanish? And I mean street Spanish – slang. If you do, and you have no problems with “dirty” words, then check out this telecommute position.
Read More
Categories: Jobs
by Jonathan Bailey on May 2nd, 2012
If you’re a movie buff, you’ve probably sat down and watched at least a few bad movies.
But as tempting as it is to try and forget the bad movies, they often times offer important lessons that we can carry into other areas, including blogging. Thus, it’s important to take a moment and study them, look at why they were bad and what, if anything, could have been done to fix them.
Why is it that one multi-million dollar film created by industry veterans can be torture to sit through but a low-budget feature from an unknown can inspire, terrify or incite laughter? Why is it that movies we think should be bad, including b movies and silly comedies, can be so entertaining while movies that aim for something higher can often be so difficult to sit through?
While much of what movies you do and do not enjoy will come down to personal taste, there are some lessons that are more or less universal and they can be easily applied to blogging. With that in mind, here are just five of those lessons and what they mean for you. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
by Amanda DiSilvestro on May 2nd, 2012
Many bloggers are asked to focus on search engine optimization (SEO) so that an article that the blogger wrote will rank well on a Google results page. As a blogger myself, I know that WordPress often makes it pretty easy to “get through” SEO—there is a space for Meta keywords, a space for tags, and a space for Meta description. Bloggers can easily just fill in these spaces and continue onto the next project.
However, there is actually quite a bit of SEO information available that could really help bloggers. If bloggers really understood SEO, they would better understand:
- Topics that have the opportunity to rank well on Google. This will help a blogger’s writing gain more exposure.
- The meaning of Meta data and how Google uses Meta data. Understanding this information will help again improve the SEO and overall visibility of an article.
- Any changes that are occurring with Google algorithms. These updates often change a website’s approach to content (usually for the better).
- Bloggers are more marketable if they really understand SEO.
I have found that the easiest way for a blogger to learn more about SEO and stay current in the SEO sphere is by doing what he/she does best—reading different blogs. Below is a list of my favorite SEO blogs (in no particular order) that could really help educate a blogger about the more advanced aspects of SEO:
Read More
Categories: General
Overcome Writers Block and Be Amazing With Words!
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