by Jonathan Bailey on February 8th, 2012
WordPress, out of the box, is already a great content management system (CMS) and a great blogging platform. However, just like most Web browsers, the real power of WordPress isn’t unlocked until you start to add some plugins that help you customize and streamline your WordPress experience.
But while most WordPress users are well aware of Akismet, various caching plugins and other near-essential tools for blogging, over the years I’ve found a slew of lesser-known plugins that have become indespensible to me and my bloggging.
Though the full list could probably go on for quite some time, here is a list of five of the more important plugins I’ve run across and how they’ve helped to make me a better blogger over the years and are plugins I probably wouldn’t build a new site without. Read More
Categories: WordPress Plugins
by Amanda DiSilvestro on February 8th, 2012
Everyone knows that readers scroll down a blog until they find a title they like. I do it all the time, and why shouldn’t I? A title is supposed to let me know what the article is about, and I am not interested in spending my time reading a bunch of articles that don’t interest me. Ironically enough, this is the attitude that I as a blog editor try so hard to counteract. As a blog owner, you want every article to be of interest to someone who comes to your blog. You want them to see that catchy title and decide that the article is worthy of their precious time.
In other words, the title matters. The title is the first impression of the article. Think about how important it is to make a good first impression on a job interview, on a date, when someone pulls up to your house. It matters, and a title follows these same rules. The title of all your blog posts should do four things:
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Categories: Blogging Tips
by James Johnson on February 7th, 2012
Building a brand around your website isn’t a simple process, not only do you have to create amazing content that readers want to engage with, you have to work off-site to spread the word about that content in a manner that peaks the interest of readers.
Unfortunately many new bloggers and even some seasoned writers fail to properly use social media properly, destroying the work they put into their posts before they have a chance to go viral.
In this section we’ll examine some of the ways you can destroy your blog by become over zealous about the use of social media.
1. Destroying Your Facebook Engagement Score
I’ve written about Facebook engagement numbers in the past. Many bloggers love to throw up 5, 10 or even more posts on their Facebook wall each day without realizing that your posts display to a decreasing number of Facebook page fans if your past posts show no or very little interaction. For example if you have 1000 fans but only one person likes a post, shares it or comments on it your engagement for that post is just .1% which means Facebook will find your posts to be lacking in content readers want and will therefore only show your next Facebook post to a few of your 1000 fans (typically better then 1.5% engagement is best). To correct this problem you should create engagement statements or questions around only your best posts while pushing your readers to ask questions, leave statements and share those posts. As your engagement score increases the traffic you drive to your website will increase with it. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
by BP Guest Blogger on February 6th, 2012
Blogs are a dime a dozen. Seriously, take a few minutes to type “blog” in Google’s web search, and you will get an unbelievable number of results. Those are only the ones that have kept the keyword somewhere in their SEO results. There are millions of blogs, some successful and some not-so-successful. Some are based on images and others on writing. You will never be able to get a very good picture of just how many are out there, but the thought is a little overwhelming.
The best thing a blogger in today’s over-saturated market can do is carve out a nice, little piece of cyber space and keep it locked down. But it takes skill to do this and to build up a good number of loyal readers. Since it isn’t a matter of bringing in new traffic, but rather keeping the readership you have first and foremost.
You can do this with hard work, plenty of content and – most importantly – a lot of writing practice. Which is why you should practice being a blogger daily, keeping up with your posts and making sure you don’t fall behind.
But you have a busy life, and it might seem like an impossible task to blog every day. Use these helpful tips to pull it off. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
by James Junior on February 4th, 2012
More than five years ago, I was bit by the Autoblog bug. I don’t build them anymore, but I still build WordPress blogs in large numbers. One of my pet peeves when I was working with 100+ different blogs was that if I wanted to interlink them, or have the exact same links on the sidebar of each blog, I would have to add these links manually to each and every blog every time I built a new blog. For example, if I have 98 blogs, and I want every one of them to have a link to blog #99 that I just created, I would have to add that link to all 98 blogs manually. That is very time-consuming, so I knew there had to be a better way.
Of course, PHP can do just about anything if you know how to tell it to. I thought it would be awesome if I could have a shared links box on the sidebar of each WordPress blog, and have a form online that I could enter in the name and URL to each new blog as I built them, and then have PHP add that link to all 98 blogs instantly. Thankfully, I was able to set this up exactly how I needed it. This is what I am going to show you today, and you can use it however you see fit. One thing I want to remind you of is that even though I am using the shared content box for links, it technically can be used for anything, your imagination is the limit. Let’s get started.
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Categories: Blogging: How To, General, WordPress Hacks, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Tutorials
by Noemi on February 3rd, 2012
How did January go for you? Do you have new jobs to keep you busy? If you need more, take a look at this week’s job board highlights. Good luck!
If you are male, and you pay particular attention to how you dress, then this blogging job is for you. Essential Style for Men is looking for a fashion and style blogger who has a strong sense of style and can dish out practical advice. Read More
Categories: Jobs
by James Johnson on February 2nd, 2012
nRelate is yet another related posts plugin for WordPress, however unlike other related posts plugins the nRelate option allows for easier and more robust customization of output settings. From choosing relevancy types (low, medium, high) to deciding output placement (top or bottom of post) and image sizes the program is simple to use and highly effective.
You can start by downloading the nRelate plugin directly from your Admin plugin section with a simple “nRelate” search. The program is in active development and currently supported databases up to WordPress 3.3.1.
Once installed you will go to the nRelate tab on the left side of your administration screen and click on the “Dashboard” option which revealed this screen: Read More
Categories: WordPress Plugins
by Amanda DiSilvestro on February 1st, 2012
Many do not realize that there are two types of blogging: Blogging as a hobby, and blogging as a career. Aside from sharing the same name, these two types of blogging are quite different. They each require different skillsets and different mindsets. Unfortunately, many bloggers have the mentality that if they blog for fun then they can make blogging their career. While this is very true in many cases, this decision could go very wrong, very quickly.
Being a great writer and having experience writing for a blog is absolutely the foundation when hoping to start a career as a blogger. This, however, is not always enough. Maintaining a profitable blog is difficult work and requires constant upkeep. Below are some of the things that will change when you go from blogging for fun to blogging for a profit:
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Categories: Blogging Tips
by James Johnson on January 31st, 2012
As a visual person I like to create content on my websites that not only allows for a good read but also provides my readers with visual stimulation. However once my readers begin to engage with my content offsite I have found in the past that my content didn’t live up to expectations. To be honest I simply don’t have enough hours in the day to constantly tweak my social media sites to offer nice graphical interfaces.
That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when the team at InstaBG approached our team about a new program that allows users to automatically cull images from Instagram and feature them as Twitter backgrounds. The best part of the program? It can change your background daily based on the Instagram criteria you provide.
To start using InstaBG users simply click on the large “Sign in with Twitter Account” button that appears on the InstaBG.com front page.
Once you have authorized the account the following setup options will be shown:
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Categories: Blogging Tips
by James Johnson on January 31st, 2012
Back in the good old days when blogging first started all you needed to do was WRITE great content and you were set. These days however the web has come a long way, making it simple for bloggers to create dynamic content that can grab a users imagination both on-site and off-site.
Whether you’re writing a political blog, a blog about technology or managing a site about healthy eating these five types of content can help better engage your audience while providing more ways to reach new followers.
1. HD Video
I recently purchased a new HD (1080P) camcorder from Samsung for $250 and it’s the best investment I’ve made in years. These days readers want to put a face with content and if possible they want to see example for what you write about (sweeping landscapes for a travel blog, tech reviews for a technology website, etc). HD video allows users to become even more engaged since they are likely to watch your videos in full screen mode which means they are giving you their full attention.
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Categories: Blogging Tips
5 WordPress Plugins I Won’t Build a Blog Without
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