Blogs Articles
Wordpress Social Networking Plugins - ...ocial Web to your site? Show offyour Twitter and let your visitors submit your content to Digg. You can do most of that directly in your theme with ...
Wordpress SEO and Search Plugins - ...quo;ll be better optimized for search engines. A lot of people swear by it, and there’s no doubt that it will help, even if you just leave it ...
Show off Your Twitter for Wordpress - ..., app, community, or whatever has an RSS feed for you to play with, which means that a lot of the integration of these services you may want can...
Wordpress Hosted Comment Solutions - ...altogether. The former solution can mean anything from user grading of the comments to fetching the buzz from Twitter, while the latter means that y...
Latest "Blogs" Articles
Page# 1 2 (last added articles shown first)
Easy ways to track the performance of your blog (03/21/2011)
(...)
Unique visitors
Just like with pageviews, helps you track traffic over time.
Session duration
This lets you know whether visitors are fully reading an article or getting turned off before they get towards the end.
Traffic sources
Use this metric to find out where your blog visitors are coming from search engines (therefore, for which keywords), links using their company blogs, and so forth. (...)
Most bloggers forget about the relationship between PR and blogging (03/21/2011)
(...) When a blogger mentions your company or product, he also includes a link to a page on your website. (Ideally, some sort of specific website landing page.) Because links can be tracked, you now know how much traffic is driven with a given PR effort. (...)
Choosing and establishing a public face for your company (03/19/2011)
(...) They give great performance in the mush, and also the tread lasts 50% longer than other brands."
See what you get from the blog? Instead of boring facts and numbers, you get an individual experience. Aaron clearly is passionate about what he's doing and describes the new product in a way that standard copy just can't do. (...)
Choose how your blog should reside on the web (03/19/2011)
(...)
On the home page of your main website. In this instance, your blog doesn't have its own URL whatsoever; it exists as content on your site's home page.
There are benefits of each approach. (...)
Comparing blogging to social media (03/19/2011)
(...) But that movement doesn't apply to business and what I'd call professional blogs, which really can't be replicated via Facebook along with other social networking sites. Naturally, you can establish a Facebook presence, but that presence are few things like that which you get with a well-run blog. For businesses, then, social network marketing supplements and complements blog marketing. (...)
Buying blog placements and using a product placement service (03/19/2011)
(...) In return, the blogger gives you a plug.
Possibly the easiest way to pursue this is to sign up having a product placement network. They register a large number of independent bloggers and then try to match advertisers with the appropriate blogs. (...)
A blog has to be easy to read to attract more visitors (02/17/2011)
(...) However, elements that are easily scanned aren't always elements that give plenty of context! For instance, thanks to the bad practices employed by traditional press such as tabloids, there's often a focus on making headlines clever or scandalizing, as opposed to descriptive. This sort of practice seems intuitive to many beginning bloggers, but it won't help your readers at all.
Use headlines that describe the content for the reader and for search engines. (...)
Editing the blog posts of other writers (02/17/2011)
(...) Try to make what's already there as readable as possible, and don't cut things out until you can identify why it should go.
Read the article before you edit it.
If you don't, you could end up changing a sentence or cutting a piece of content that really should be there, but which you won't realize until you've finished reading the piece and have that "big picture" perspective. (...)
Two types of blog articles to increase traffic (02/17/2011)
(...) This is partly because it's incredibly effective when done properly, and partly because the new blogger thinks it's the easiest type of linkbait to benefit from.
The truth is that many list articles on the Internet don't succeed very well. That's not because the list post isn't effective – it truly is – but because it's approached as the "easy way" to get traffic and executed without much effort or consideration. (...)
The content you provide on your blog must be audience oriented (02/17/2011)
(...) Before RSS came along, post frequency was a really important issue. If you didn't update your site frequently enough, people would eventually give up on checking back for new content and you'd lose traffic like crazy. Now, RSS will let your readers know when new content is available without them having to take any action, which makes it easier to retain readers while publishing less. (...)
Blogging tips: Types of filler posts to consider (02/17/2011)
(...) Those of you who are not avid blog readers will have to forage for links.
Polls
The great thing about polls is that they provide you with information about your readers that you can use to come up with content that is more likely to appeal to them.
Ask the Readers
Ask the Readers are open-mic-style posts where you simply pose a question for your readers to answer in the comments. (...)
Headlines are very important in blog posts and articles (02/17/2011)
(...) You'll see things that might look a bit trashy, but which are hard to resist. What we're interested in here is finding formulas that work. In our women's magazine example, the formula would seem to be "How __ is Your __" on the surface. (...)
Style and tone are important for the success of your blog (02/17/2011)
(...)
They ensure that editors provide writers with feedback on all aspects of their work, including issues of style and tone.
What is Style?
Style pertains to the style of writing employed – active versus passive voice, American versus British English, and sometimes includes formatting instructions. Style is about the technical matters of language that must be attended to in order to ensure the publication's consistency. (...)
Basic techniques for generating traffic to your blog (02/17/2011)
(...) These techniques don't require any of the above points, except perhaps networking, but we'll discuss that in a moment.
Asking for inbound links
This simply means publishing great content and then reaching out to influential people who might be interested in that content. Here's the thing: all influential people are busy. (...)
Using social media to increase the popularity of your blog (02/17/2011)
(...)
Expand rour readership
If you're networking with the right people and publishing great content on your blog, undoubtedly a portion of your new contacts are going to check out your blog and become a reader.
There are a number of techniques people use to achieve this. The most common way is simply to share links to new posts on your blog as a status update or tweet. (...)
Tips to keep yourself looking professional online (02/17/2011)
(...) Use email and direct messages incredibly sparingly unless you have a friendly relationship with the recipient.
When using Facebook and playing with those silly apps, avoid the button that'll spam the app to all of your friends. People are okay with Facebook pages posting links sparingly, but don't use your status updates to spam links all over your friends' news feeds. (...)
Contextual advertising or buying ads directly: Ways to generate traffic to your site (02/17/2011)
(...) AdSense is the arm that deals with publishers, allowing them to implement the code that dynamically displays the ad and keep up to date with how much they're earning.
The most important thing you can do is proper keyword, no matter which service you go with. But regardless of the keywords you use to rank in the search engines, which keywords have the right balance of low cost, high visibility, and limited competition?
There are so many variations on the keywords that can be used in just about any field, so keyword research can take a lot of time. (...)
Giveaways are effective traffic enhancers (02/17/2011)
(...) If for example you create an email list where readers get a free e-book on blogging, you then know that those people are interested in blogging. You could then, for example, start sending them occasional emails with special offers for blogging products.
Using social media to spread the word
If you are delivering great value in a giveaway you'll want to spread the word. (...)
Leverage your assets and generate more traffic to your blog (02/17/2011)
(...) AppStorm on FreelanceSwitch because we know that freelancers are reasonably likely to be Mac users. But Web.AppStorm wasn't announced on AudioTuts+ because there's not a whole lot of crossover in the audience, and if there was, they would be readers of a few of the other sites in the Envato network where it was announced anyway. (...)
A SEO tip for bloggers is to avoid duplicate content (02/17/2011)
(...)
The best SEO is about conforming to the best practices of well-structured websites, and choosing your audience and topic wisely. Many people get caught up in SEO as some sort of magical pill that'll make your site instantly popular.
As with any field, your best bet will be to use a professional, but because so many people want magical results, the unscrupulous and unethical scammer is a mainstay of the search engine optimization industry. (...)
General tips on blog monetization which are easy to apply (02/17/2011)
(...) Often a combination of strategies is best.
For example, you might run advertising, occasionally make use of affiliate programs, sell a product such as a book tie-in, and maybe offer freelance services via the blog.
Make money with your blog
Making money with blogs is certainly possible, and if you're lucky it can even feel easy. (...)
Ways to sell advertising and solutions you should try (02/17/2011)
(...)
Display Ad Networks - There are a huge number of display ad networks around. These usually take applications to join and will have requirements on how much traffic and what spots you are selling. Famous networks include Casale, Burst, TechnoratiMedia, and TribalFusion. (...)
Types of premium content your blog readers might want (02/17/2011)
(...) You can offer all sorts of content behind the paid wall including video, audio, text, or even related downloads of tools and resources.
For example, a site about self improvement could have a premium area that offers extra video interviews with self improvement gurus, a downloadable calendar for planning improvement strategies, and some meditation music tracks.
You can also package in services into a premium content model. (...)
Successful blog business: Benefits of operating multiple blogs (02/17/2011)
(...)
Consider diversification
If you want to survive in the long term, then you should think about hedging your bets. This means looking out for opportunities to diversify. For example, adding new content types such as screencasts, expanding your topic area in case the broad niche declines in popularity, publishing content through new mediums, and so on. (...)
DNS and other domain terminology you need to know about (02/15/2011)
(...) Once you have these set, the hosting company can then set the actual IP address, and make any necessary changes when their internal set-up changes.
It can take a bit of time for records about your domain name location to spread around the world. This process is called delegation and can be the cause of some lag in setting up. (...)
Your blog design should carry through the branding tone set by the logo (02/15/2011)
(...) They may not be able to actually mesh different concepts together, but it will give them a feel for what is important to you. Likewise it will help you to start thinking about what constitutes a good site design.
Visual Precedence
Good designs will guide the user's eye through the page. (...)
Working with freelancers on your blog: Things to be aware of (02/15/2011)
(...) However, for day-to-day work like articles or editing a site, the contract will exist more to specify terms that you both agree to.
A contract should cover how much notice you need to provide to a long-term contractor if the work is finishing up, and vice versa if they are moving on. It might also state who owns the content that is created and what formats it is licensed for. (...)
Finding the right people for your blog business (02/15/2011)
(...) Explain what you require, what the site is for, what criteria would be helpful, and how they can apply. Job ads can be very formal and stuffy at times, and a clear job ad will help attract the right type of people.
If you are receiving a lot of applicants you can put in a "bozo filter" which is a simple test to check applicants have read the job ad. (...)
Blogging business: Working with remote staff (02/15/2011)
(...) Think through the job as if you were going to do it, and set parameters, provide background information, make sure they have the right resources, and set it all out in clear point form.
Friendliness
The great danger with email is that written communication is missing a lot of the context of speech. In other words, email can be misinterpreted. (...)
Issues to think about for your remote blogging staff (02/15/2011)
(...) Without a good password manager, it's all too tempting to use weak or repetitive passwords, which is an invitation for problems.
Email addresses
For positions such as the site editor, you may wish to create a single gmail (or similar) account that gets passed over with complete archives. This means that when one editor finishes and another starts, the new editor still has access to the archive of emails between the editor and writers, sponsors, and so on. (...)
Blogging business tips for working with writers and writer fees (02/15/2011)
(...) In some cases, working with a writer to develop an article can reap big rewards, particularly if it's a regular contributor who can put those lessons back into play.
On the other hand, if a writer or contributor isn't quite up to scratch, spending time can be more costly than finding a better writer. Discuss with your editor what their feel is about working with writers and what is an appropriate amount of backand- forth to develop a post. (...)
Blogging for money: Finding and working with a web designer (02/15/2011)
(...) Prepare a few openended questions and then just listen to what the reference has to say.
Get a written agreement
It's important to discuss and agree on terms about what the work includes and doesn't include. Ask about revisions and changes and how they work. (...)
Determine what blogging platform you will be working on (02/15/2011)
(...) It's exceedingly easy to use, is regularly updated, and has an enormous community of developers and designers making themes and plugins for it. If you are unsure of what platform to use, this is probably your safest choice.
One thing to know about WordPress if you are planning large scale development is that while quite a stable platform, many developers feel it's not very well built internally. (...)
Tips on finding and working with web developers (02/15/2011)
(...) By mentally walking through the site, you are effectively thinking of user scenarios, which are descriptions of how the system behaves.
Giving a whole sequence of user scenarios is in fact one way of briefing a developer. So for a membership site you might have one scenario for sign-up, one for adjusting a membership, and another for an administrative user logging in and editing a member's details. (...)
A serious blog project has to focus on a limited range of topics (02/14/2011)
(...)
It's easier to attract advertising
It's much easier to attract advertisers to a focused blog because the topic of your site defines your audience. For example, businesses selling financial advice are likely to see a blog about stock market tips as an attractive place to advertise given the clear overlap in audience, whereas they may be more hesitant if the audience match wasn't so clear because the stock market tips were mixed with posts about other topics.
In essence, the choice to focus is really about whether you aim to be a little fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a little pond. (...)
Look at the popularity of blog posts on a certain topic (02/14/2011)
(...)
Measuring Popularity through Social Media
Searching through sites like Digg, Reddit, Tweetmeme, and Delicious is a good way to gauge interest in a particular topic. If you find lots of posts that have appeared on the Digg and Reddit homepages that have accumulated a lot of Delicious bookmarks, or that have been tweeted a lot on Twitter, chances are good that the subject matter is in demand.
If you don't find much social media popularity, this could be simply to do with the audience group and how they use, or more precisely don't use, social media. (...)
Benefits of going into an underserved blog niche (02/14/2011)
(...)
In an under-served niche your strategy is centered around building and consolidating a readership that doesn't yet exist anywhere else. This can be challenging if the niche has only moderate potential, but if you stumble on a hit niche that hasn't been tapped, then growth can be explosive.. (...)
For a blog, a brand includes the name of the blog and its logo (02/14/2011)
(...)
Avoid mistakes
Why would anyone use all these products and services, or go to those events or read those blogs?
Because they've already connected with the TechCrunch brand and come to trust and know it. Make no mistake, branding can be very powerful, and it's important to take it seriously early on so you can build on your business later.. (...)
Enter page# 1 2 (last added articles shown first)