Are you still struggling to get your first blog off the ground? Check out this awesome video made by Darren Rowse of Problogger.net. He visited the Blog World Expo and interviewed some of the top bloggers on the web and asked them to share their #1 blog tip for beginners!
Serious writers and bloggers using the Wordpress platform know exactly how important it is to have a well-maintained blog. In order to achieve this, we add tons of plugins to our Wordpress blogs. Plugins are designed to enhance the way a blog performs and I, personally, think there are a few no writer should go without.
The first is the Akismet plugin. Akismet was designed to act as a spam filter, but it’s much more sophisticated than allowing Wordpress to do this alone. Akismet will catch comment spam and if you mark a comment as spam once the program will automatically filter spam from the same source in the future. The coolest thing about Akismet is that it automatically installs with Wordpress, so all you have to do is activate it. …Continue Reading 3 Wordpress Plugins Every Blogger Needs
Darren Rowse at ProBlogger has been one of my favorite bloggers for quite some time now. He regularly gives incredible tips and tricks to his reader and his blog and website are full of powerful and useful information. That’s why I was so excited to find that he is preparing to run his “31 Days to a Better Blog” project again this year. …Continue Reading Building a Better Blog
When we first start out blogging we sometimes feel as though we need to show our audience how smart we are - as if it will build our credibility. The problem is that we end up sacrificing simplicity for some type of complex writing format that no one really cares about.
The key to successul blogging is writing simple blog posts. This means using simple words and short sentences. Check out this video for some tips on how you can simplify your blogging process and still write great posts. You’ll soon find the task of blogging to be much simpler than you once thought!
From time to time you’re going to find yourself with a bit more work than you can handle. That or you’re going to find that you have a special project that’s been sitting on your desk for days (or weeks, or months) that you somehow haven’t made the time to finish. Sometimes these projects take backseat to money-making ventures and other times they could BE money makers if you’d just take the time to work them out.
So what happens when you’re too busy to get your work done? You may need to find areas in your business in which you need to cut back for a while. Some people, for example, find it necessary to put their personal blogs on hold. …Continue Reading Taking a Break from Blogging
I love writing, but I can admit that I’m not the most tech-saavy individual on earth. I can follow a good set of instructions and learn how to complete almost any task, but when left to figure it out on my own am prone to - well - disaster.
The other day I read an awesome post by blogger Amanda Fazani from Blogger Buster (albiet, the post was on Blogging Tips) about adding a welcome message to your blog. There are dozens of blogs today that have welcome messages in boxes above the first post. They state what the blog is about and thank readers for stopping by, but they aren’t part of any one post - they’re completely separate.
Here’s a quick reminder for those of you who are new to writing and blogging. If you are anything like I was, I know that when you sign up for services you do not read the entire Terms of Service document before clicking the little checkbox that says that you’ve read it while creating your account. Just give me the account already, right?
Don’t be embarassed. It’s human nature.
This usually doesn’t cause problems, but if you’re running Google AdSense on your blog it just might. Here’s why.
Back in early 2008 (I believe), Google made some major changes to their Terms of Service. One of the changes mandated that users running AdSense on their websites and blogs include a privacy policy detailing the fact that third party advertisers may use cookies and other tracking methods in their marketing. I really doesn’t have much to do with your page itself, but with what happens when users click on advertisements in your blog.
There are quite a few different niches you can find yourself working in as a freelance writer. Some choose to focus on feature magazine articles, some publish ebooks, and others prefer blogging. Others incorporate blogging with whatever else they choose to write.
I won’t go into the details surrounding why a person might blog in conjunction with another project - that’s a conversation for another day. I would, however, like to talk about some of the things you should include in each blog post in order to make sure it’s the best that it can be.
Here’s a quick tip for some of the more experience bloggers in the audience. Chances are you get up every morning, check your comments, and then dreadfully click on the Akismet Spam folder in an attempt to make sure no real comments ended up in your spam box.
What you’ll begin to notice, over time, is that most of your spam comments are coming from the same IP address. You’ll eventually wish these spammers couldn’t leave you a message at all, and that’s the problem the WP-Ban Wordpress Plugin solves.
Happy New Year! It is now 2009 (watch out when writing those checks) and I have a question. Does your WordPress website show your copyright as 2008 or 2009?
Copyright itself can be a tricky subject. While the newest copyright laws say that an item is copyrighted upon creation (whether registered or not), it’s still important to make sure that your property (intellectual included) is protected against theft.