Archive for February, 2012
by Amanda DiSilvestro on February 29th, 2012
Whether you’re a new blogger or someone who has been at it for twenty years, it probably didn’t take long to come across someone who is just plain rude. They feel they need to attack your article for whatever reason, and they do it in a condescending way. I will never quite understand the need to be cruel when discussing an article, but it happens, and as a blogger it’s your job to deal with it.
Read More
Categories: Blogging Sense
Tags: Blog comments, blog enemies, rude bloggers
by BP Guest Blogger on February 27th, 2012
As a photographer who runs a stock photo agency, I often find myself helping other photographers understand web design basics and search engine optimization (SEO). While I believe SEO is important, I will contend that it should take a back seat to your user experience.
This article is aimed at photographers, yet it applies to any genre of website which desires high traffic, and high rankings in Google. Once you take care of SEO basics (your images are properly tagged, headings are used, keywords are part of your text, etc), the bulk of your effort should go toward creating an excellent user experience. Read More
Categories: Blogging Sense, Blogging Tips, Blogging Tools
Tags: seo, SEO site design, site design
by Noemi Tasarra-Twigg on February 24th, 2012
How’s it going? I don’t know about you, but I am welcoming this particular weekend with arms wide open! Before that, though, here are the highlights from this week’s Job Board.
Good luck!
If you’re have experience in writing test items in reading and science, this telecommute job is perfect for you. For science test item writers, make sure you mention the particular branch of science that you have experience with. Read More
Categories: Jobs
Tags: Blogging Jobs, social media jobs
by James Johnson on February 23rd, 2012
If there’s one qualm I have with the WordPress platform it’s the fact that changing my websites template from time to time leaves me with a broken site. In some cases I may have been using a template that doesn’t require me to use a “featured image” for front page display, in other cases certain plugins simply don’t work with my new template configuration.
My biggest qualm however comes from the way images are handled through the WordPress platform. Let me fill you in on this process, whenever you use a specific theme and upload a picture that photo is uploaded using all of the thumbnail sizes available for the template being used. For example if display pages require 300 x 250, 500 x 500 and 30 x 60 photos to be created that’s what you’ll receive.
Now let’s say you jump over to a new template and the thumbnail sizes require 250 x 250, 500 x 425 and 30 x 60. Two of your images will not show correctly (they will be too small to fill in available space).
That last statement is where the Ajax Thumnail Rebuild Plugin for WordPress comes into play. This plugin easily allows users to rebuild thumbnails from all of their pictures based on current theme requirements. Read More
Categories: WordPress Plugins
Tags: Ajax Thumbnail Rebuild, Fixing Wordpress Images, Wordpress Image Management
by Jonathan Bailey on February 22nd, 2012
Every blogger loves statistics. It’s nice to know how many people came to our sites, how they got there, what they read, how long they spent and where they went when they left.
It’s a comforting feeling knowing exactly what’s going on with your site and we even have services like Woopra and Google Analytics Realtime that can follow what’s going on with your site right now.
But as neat as all of that is, as anyone who uses two or more systems knows already, these stats are far from perfect. Simply put, there’s a lot of wiggle room when it comes to getting those numbers and, despite having over a decade to perfect and hone our stat-gathering abilities, we seem to actually be getting farther away from firm, consistent information.
How so? There are actually too many ways to count. But here are just five ways of the more important ways that the stats you’re looking at every day are becoming less and less accurate and, more importantly, what you can do about it (if anything). Read More
Categories: Blog Statistics
Tags: Analytics, google analytics, Statistics, unique visitors, visitors, woopra
by Amanda DiSilvestro on February 22nd, 2012
In general, I would say that most bloggers are technologically savvy. They usually love social media, love trying new plugins and designs for the blog, and of course love their smartphones. I know that I can see my emails and Facebook messages with the click of a button, I can let everyone know where I am through my Foursquare , and I get tweets in the form of a text message so I know exactly what someone is mentioning me through Twitter, and I can do all of this on my smartphone. Needless to say, it goes everywhere with me.
Read More
Categories: Blogger Tools
Tags: apps, iPhone s, s for bloggers
by James Johnson on February 21st, 2012
Racking up thousands of pageviews and unique visitors might make you feel as if your work is more valuable then it use to be, however in the eyes of advertisers a websites success is based on more than just the number of people it reaches. One of the most important factors is the amount of time users spend on your website, known as “time on site.”
While there are many ways you can increase your blogs “time on site” numbers the following three options are simple to implement and can be placed on many of your top posts.
1. Add Video In Proper Placement Settings
Video in and of itself will typically increase “time on site” numbers because users are forced to sit through a video to learn more about your post, however the placement of video can drastically increase the chance that users actually watch your videos.
I often notice that blog posts will show a video at the top of the post, while that placement might mean users will engage with the video immediately it also lends itself to users leaving after gaining knowledge of your topic via the video. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
Tags: Time On Site, User Engagement, wordpress
by BP Guest Blogger on February 20th, 2012
So when Google forgot it’s very own motto – yes, the motto that they came up with way before becoming an IPO – “Don’t be evil” – social networking sites besides Google have come out with a tool that should sure remind Google that it focus must remain on the user. So, the engineers of various networking sites came together in the last weekend of Jan, this new year, and devised a perfect solution: The “Focus On The User” tool. Read More
Categories: Blogging Sense, Blogging Tips
Tags: algorithms, google, search
by Noemi Tasarra-Twigg on February 17th, 2012
How did your week go? Did you have a grand time with your special someone to celebrate the Hallmark holiday this week? Or did you spend more time working and feeling more fulfilled? 
Here are the highlights from this week’s job board. I hope you get a gig and that you have a relaxing weekend!
Have you got a lot of imagination that allows you to write about a wide variety of topics? If so, and if you respect deadlines like nothing else, apply for this freelance writing job. Read More
Categories: Jobs
Tags: Blogging Jobs, copywriting jobs, journalism jobs
by James Johnson on February 16th, 2012
When placing social sharing buttons from various social networks on your website one of the biggest dangers is misplacement of those buttons. Some web designers argue that buttons at the top of each post will provide the most shares while other experts insist that directly after a posts content is best.
When I’m building websites I prefer to not leave the placement of social buttons to chance and I don’t like to place buttons in multiple positions because it can adversely affect pageload times. For that prefer to use the Sharebar plugin for WordPress which can be found at: wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharebar.
The plugin is extremely easy to install, simply search for “Sharebar” from the plugins screen in your WordPress administrator screen and the program will show up under the “settings” at which point you will see the following screen: Read More
Categories: WordPress Plugins
Tags: Sharebar, Sharebar Plugin, wordpress
9 Comments
