Category: Wordpress Articles

Do you care about your blog’s traffic? Some people don’t really care about traffic, they just write about what they are feeling. They are happy to just have friends and family find their blog. There is nothing wrong with that. For other people traffic is king. Some people use blog to make money through ads or affiliate offers. Other people use it to build a brand and direct traffic to their money sites. In either of the latter scenarios, traffic is important. If traffic is that important to your site then you have to monitor it. There are a lot of free options out there to monitor traffic. The problem is that people get way too wrapped up in these. If you care about traffic and want to monitor it, then avoid these mistakes:

1. A visible counter: These used to be found on a lot of sites, there is a reason they aren’t anymore. They are lame. Counters on your website are just too old fashioned. No one really cares how many people have been to your site, except you. Besides being cheesy, they are also completely useless and usually inaccurate. There are a lot of options that let you monitor traffic behind the scenes, so stick to them.

2. Living and Dying by Alexa Rank: Alexa is a website that ranks other sites based on traffic. People new to blogging love to watch their site rise on the Alexa rankings. I used to be one of these people until I realized how useless it really is. First off, Alexa only counts when someone with the Alexa toolbar comes to your site. So sites that attract webmasters and technical people will have better results than a site that doesn’t attract people likely to have the toolbar. For example, I had a general interest blog that got about 13k hits per month. My friend had a blog that attracted more techy people and got about 3k hits per month. Even though he had 10k less visitors per month than me, his Alexa ranking was hundreds of thousands better than mine.

You can easily tweak your ranking too. Just install the Alexa toolbar and surf your own site. I installed it last night, and checked out my site a couple times, I woke up this morning having gained 6 thousand spots on Alexa. That was with NO effort either.

3. Stat Addiction: This happened to me and it was worse than crack. I had to wean myself off of checking my stats to curb the withdrawal symptoms. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but it can be quite addictive. I had three traffic monitors on my site at one time. I had Google Analytics, StatCounter and Woopra all on one site. Besides negatively effecting my load times there is no need for this.

There is no real benefit to monitor your traffic every 10 minutes. I can understand checking it after a new post or something. That way you can monitor how effective the post was. Besides that though, you need to chill out on the traffic monitoring. It is a huge time sink. I was checking my stats 10x a day, taking 5 minutes to do so each time. That is almost an hour of wasted time. I could have created two high quality blog posts in that time. I could have created dozens of backlinks to my site. I could have promoted my blog through social media. I could have done anything more productive than staring at my traffic stats! My suggestion is to check your stats at the start of the day each day, and maybe at the end of the day as well. That way you can still monitor the effectiveness of your content, but you won’t waste hours a week doing it.

Monitoring traffic is important for most blog owners. We all want traffic right? With that said, make sure you avoid the above mistakes. Don’t get swept up in the traffic monitoring hurricane. Traffic is important, but it will come whether you monitor it or not.

This is a quick, 11-step WordPress set up guide. This article won’t teach you how to completely create your site but it is a good reminder of the simple starting steps everyone should take when they begin their WordPress journey.

1. Install WordPress: This is pretty self explanatory. The first step should be to install WordPress on your host. WordPress has a great guide to follow so this shouldn’t hold you up. Some webhosts even have something called Fantastico, if your hosts does you are in luck! Fantastico will install WordPress automatically for you.

2. Login to your new site: Again self explanatory. The way I usually access my WordPress site is by adding a /wp-admin after my domain name in my web browsers address bar.

3. Make sure your email addresses are set: This is important because this is where you will get your updates and password if you ever lose it. There are two places to make sure your password is set. The first spot is in Settings->General. The other spot is in your Users menu – you will want to ensure your Admin email is correct.

4. Change your permalinks: I suggest this to all clients. In your Settings menu there is a Permalinks section. Open that menu and then choose your new style of permalinks. For the ultimate in clean URLs I suggest choosing custom structure and inserting the following string: /%postname%/. This will make the title of your posts be the web address.

5. Add your title and tagline: In General Settings once again add the name and tag line of your blog. The name is anything you want – keyword rich is best. The tagline is your site’s description.

6. Choose your theme: If you want to use a theme (you do) you can find a wide variety to choose by using your WordPress back office itself. Just navigate to Appearance->Themes and then use the tools they have to search for a theme. Once you find one to your liking download and activate it.

7. Install your plugins: Any plugins that you wish to add, do so now. Plugins are very flexible so you can add more later on if you discover one you need. Install whatever plugins you think you need. I would suggest that you definitely include All-in-One SEO and XML Google Sitemaps. They will both help with your SEO and each has fantastic support if you need to know more. I would also suggest Askimet but it comes installed already.

8. Activate Akismet: I think this should be done as soon as possible. Askimet is a great spam blocking plugin that ensures your site isn’t full of spam comments. As soon as you start adding content you will notice the spam beginning. Askimet has a huge database of comment spam so it can usually pick up and block any on your site. If it does make a mistake then you can manually override it for a particular comment and it will actually learn from that. The one caveat to this is you have to get a WordPress API key. To get that API key you have to sign up for a free account on wordpress.com. Not a big deal, but an extra step you might not be aware of.

9. Check your privacy: In your Settings menu there is a Privacy heading. Click it and make sure your blog is visible to everyone. If it isn’t, Google will not index any of your content!

10. Add your widgets: Under Appearance there will be a Widgets menu. You can use this to add functionality to your WordPress site using the sidebars. If you chose a widget ready theme (most are) you will have one or two sidebars (or more) on your site. In the widgets menu the sidebar will show up and you can drag and drop “widgets” into it. These widgets can be things like a search bar, an archive, a calendar, a recent posts list or a text/html box that you can put just about anything in. There are even more widgets than that available. There are even downloadable ones if the standard ones don’t do everything you need.

11. Create content: Now you can create some content! You can add pictures, galleries of those pictures, an about page etc… You can also start making posts – remember to create categories to keep them organized. Take advantage of the tag feature as that will come in handy when you have hundereds of posts. It helps with searches on your site as well.

That is the bare minimum to get started with WordPress. You will have to learn a lot more but when you do, you will be happy you made the move to WordPress. Happy blogging!

I would never claim that blogging could cure depression. Depression is a serious issue and should be dealt with by a doctor. That said, are there any therapeutic benefits to blogging? I think there are. If you have been feeling down or overwhelmed then starting a blog might be just the thing to let you channel your frustrations. A blog allows you to release your emotions, interact with other people and it can be a consistent and stable factor in a hectic world. I believe the following three benefits are proof that a blog can be therapeutic.

1. Release of Emotions: Everyone says you shouldn’t bottle up your feelings. Some people have no problem releasing their emotions while other people have a tough time talking about their issues. A blog allows someone to release all of their emotions through their daily posts. You can get a lot off your chest in a blog post. Most importantly for some people, you can do this anonymously. This is a big plus for some people. If you are suffering from some negative thoughts, or anger then it might be easier for you to express that knowing you are anonymous. A blog offers people the perfect forum to share their thoughts and release any pent up emotions that might be harmful for them to keep inside.

2. Social Interaction: Of course nothing beats getting out and meeting people, we all know this. The problem is that not everyone is a social butterfly. They might naturally be shy people who would rather stay in, or they might have an issue that makes face to face social interaction stressful. Blogging and micro-blogging allow people to interact with other people online. It doesn’t beat the real thing but it is a start. Interaction can come from people contacting you based on your story or from comments to your blog. One of the great things is when you share a personal story and you get a comment from someone going through similar things. A blog allows anyone to interact with other people, and is a great tool when trying to reach people with similar interests or problems.

3. Consistency and Stability: This might be an overlooked value when it comes to blogs, but I think it is important. Some people live in a chaotic world that helps keep them feeling the way they do. A blog offers some consistency and stability. The blog is always there, stays pretty much the same and just waits for you to post. There are no demands or pressure. You have a blog that is always there and ready for you. It is also great to have that routine for people. A blog could be something that people look forward too each day. Outside of technical difficulties, it isn’t likely to let a person down.

I am not a doctor and I would never claim that a blog is a cure for any level of depression. That said I am a blogger, and I do have some insight into that world. I think I can safely say that blogs do have some therapeutic properties. If you are looking for stability, social interaction or a way to release your pent up feelings, then try out blogging. It doesn’t cure problems, but it might help you cope.

WordPress offers a lot of advantages when it comes to web publishing. There are a lot of reasons people use WordPress. One of the easiest to use functions of WordPress are widgets. Most WordPress themes come with “widget ready” sidebars. From the back office of WordPress you can drag and drop widgets into your sidebars. Widgets can add such things to your site as:

Calendar

Search

Recent Posts

Categories

Text/HTML

The above list is only touching on the functionality you can add with Widgets. If you want to take it to the next level you can also add widgets that don’t come standard with your WordPress install.

I will share 3 that I have found very handy. Most of these widgets are added by using plugins.

1. Video Widget – This plugin will add a video widget that you can add to your sidebar. It will allow you to choose from over 25 video services. You can control video size within the widget. With this widget you only have to add the video ID as well – no embed code. Lastly, this widget will also allow you to add a list of videos that will be randomly chosen for your visitor.

2. Sexy Bookmarks Sidebar Widget – A quick note first, this plugin works with the original Sexy Bookmarks plugin so you will need that installed for this to work. It is a great and unique social media sharing plugin that you will find handy even if you don’t want this widget. The widget itself will allow you to add Sexy Bookmarks to your sidebar. This widget looks great and should lead to more social media submissions for your site.

3. Flickr Widget – Flickr is one of the best and easiest ways to both store and share your images. With this plugin you will get a Flickr widget that will display your latest Flickr images in your sidebar. The widget will display up to 10 photos from a Flickr photostream.

These 3 widgets are a drop in the bucket compared to all of the widgets available out there. If you want to add something to your sidebar and can’t figure it out – check out the WordPress plugins, they may have an add on widget that will give you exactly what you need.

One last suggestion: Please don’t pack your sidebar so full of widgets it stretches out the screen. it looks sloppy and unprofessional, not to mention people usually don’t scroll beneath your content to see your sidebar so it is wasted.

When used properly widgets can be a powerful addition to your WordPress site.

If you are looking for a unique and easy way to interact with your extended family then WordPress is the ultimate solution. Creating an online family newsletter is a great way to keep your relatives up to date on your life. If you are considering doing a family newsletter, check out four reasons why WordPress is the perfect platform…

1. Price – WordPress is free, you can even use their WordPress.com service to host your site for free. You also don’t have to pay any money to design your family website. WordPress has thousands of free themes that will change the whole design of your site with the click of a button.

2. Dynamic Nature – WordPress is the ultimate tool to post dynamic content. What that means is it is made for publishing time sensitive content that is continually being updated. Out of the box with no settings tweaked WordPress will naturally publish your content by date, with the freshest news displayed.

3. Easy Picture Galleries – WordPress makes it so simple to upload a picture. You just click one button and you can add a picture to your latest news posts. Take it one step further though and upload a number of pictures. WordPress has a built in gallery feature that will allow you to share all your Christmas pictures in one post. They will appear in a nice grid formation as thumbnails that expand when clicked.

4. Add Authors – You can easily add other authors to your WordPress powered site. Why is this important? Well imagine you and your family live in NY, but your brother and his family live in LA. You can add your brother as an author and he will be able to add his own family updates and pictures. You can add as many family members as you want as well. WordPress will also show which author wrote what, so you won’t get confused on updates.

These four reasons alone should be enough to show you that WordPress is the best way to deal with family updates and/or newsletters. The ability to add content constantly, have it organized and include picture galleries means that your family newsletter will never be looked at as boring again.

WordPress is a one of the internet’s most popular web publishing platforms. One of the biggest reasons for this are the themes. With WordPress themes you can instantly change the style and look of your website, with literally a click of a button. Another great feature is that many of these themes can be found for free. If you have been using WordPress you have probably done many Google searches for free themes. They are out there and in some cases they are fabulous. What about paid themes though? Have you ever thought of paying for a theme? Would you? I think in the right case, a paid theme makes a lot of sense. What are the benefits? Well here are just a couple…

1. Support: When you are paying for a good WordPress theme you are also paying for support. Any reputable dealer of WP themes will offer support, and most likely in the form of a forum. If you have any issues with your paid theme you can check out the forum and by either searching or asking you will get an answer. The support team will be able to troubleshoot any problems you have with the theme. They will be able to diagnose any plugin conflicts. They may even help you with some custom coding. On a premium theme forum I belonged to, the mods would even give me the exact code I needed to customize my site. You will not get any or much support with a free theme. Certainly not at the level described earlier. For the most part you are on your own. The time saved on troubleshooting alone will be worth the added price in no time.

2. Under The Hood Features: A lot of free themes look great, but they lack the under the hood features of paid themes. Most paid themes will add a settings panel in your WordPress back office that is unique to that theme. These control panels can make tasks like logo upload, favicon upload and other design features a snap. These admin areas will also help you control what is shown on your home page and in any featured posts areas. Sometimes you will even be able to change the color scheme of your premium theme from this area.

3. Removing Attribution: This might not be a huge deal for you, but if you are working for a client it might be to them. Almost all free WordPress themes require you to keep a credit or attribution to them in your footer. It isn’t a huge deal but it might mean your footer says something like; “Powered By Apple Green Designs” which is a link to the free theme home page. If you are designing a site for a client, they might not want that. In fact, even if it is your own site you might not want that. Paid themes will usually offer you the chance to get rid of the attribution. In fact some will have an option in their control panel so you can just click it off or replace it simply.

4. Subscription Opportunities: One last bonus I will mention is that many times theme developers will let you pay a cost to access all their premium themes. This way you have access to a lot of really well designed themes. These themes are often geared towards a different use too. There are themes for photographers, tube themes, eShops, real estate etc… Their will be a theme for just about any use you can think of, as well as a wide variety of style choices. These kind of packages are great for the home based web designer.

These four reasons alone might be enough for you to make the change to a paid theme. Free themes have come a long way and they offer some great features and design, but to really kick your site up a notch you might need to make the switch to a premium theme. When you want to take your WordPress site to the next level – think premium.

If you are a blogger and you want to do the best you can then this article will help you avoid five costly mistakes. No one is perfect but everyone should be able to cut down on the mistakes below. These are not accidents, they are willful transgressions that will hurt your bottom line. Clean up these mistakes and you will already be far ahead of the pack.

1. Not proof reading: A simple mistake but it can definitely make you look bad. Spellchecking is great, but you can’t rely on just that. You have to read your blog post 2 or 3 times to make sure you catch all your grammar mistakes. It might not seem like a big deal but here is one example of a mistake I have made. I wanted to write “now four styles to choose from” and I wrote “no four styles to choose from.” Spell check didn’t catch anything, but that one sentence means a big difference to the reader. If you want to take it to the next level, get someone else to proof read your blog post. They will catch things you miss every time.

2. Plagiarism/Spun Content/PLR: Alright if you have an adsense bait autoblog, ignore this mistake. Put up whatever crap you want. However, if you care about your personal brand and your blog, then at all costs avoid this type of content. Creating content can be a pain in the butt, but stealing someone else’s’ can hurt you dearly in the end. If you get caught (and you will) you lose all credibility instantly. The same thing goes for PLR content or articles you have spun. If you want to use these elsewhere to build backlinks OK, but keep them off your personal blog. It just looks tacky and people will notice.

3. Not being consistent: This might be the biggest mistake. If you are committing to running a blog then it is a commitment. Treat it as such. Don’t fire out 5 articles your first week then sit back and relax. You have to constantly create content in order to engage your visitors. Fresh content is also good in the eyes of Google. We don’t want to make the Google Gods angry do we?

4. Not marketing: I was guilty of this mistake. When I first started blogging I hid it from people! What the heck is the point of that? I posted away and hoped people came, but never worked at marketing it. I didn’t start to see success until I sent it out to my Facebook and Twitter lists. I began using Digg and Stumbleupon. I talked about it at social gatherings. I even got some business cards made up that had nothing but the URL of my blog. It began to work and I finally got to see some significant traffic. You can post all you want, but what use is it if no one sees it?

5. Not responding to comments: If you are lucky enough to get comments on your blog posts, then you should reply. For one it is the polite thing to do. Secondly it will engage web visitors and make them more likely to come back. Also people who haven’t commented will be more likely to comment if they see people getting responses. A blog full of active commenters is the start of a potential money making machine!

Cut out these five mistakes and you will definitely notice a traffic increase to your blog. You will also notice you have more interaction with your visitors and in the long run it will offer you more chances to monetize your site. If you have to only choose a couple from the list above, please post consistently and market yourself. Curing these two mistakes alone, will mean great things for your site.

If you have a blog it is a good idea to strategize a game plan. You need to think ahead about what issues you might face. If you are able to create content instantly, update often and properly market you blog then you have the right blogging strategies in place. Doing this will mean your blog has a chance to stand out from the pack.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Use Ideas Instantly – Whenever you have an idea use it instantly. This doesn’t seem like much of a strategy but it has helped me explode my blog traffic. There will be days when you can’t think of what to post at all. If you jump when you have an idea then you won’t have this worry. Be prepared to at least jot down any ideas that come to you. Carry a notepad, or an audio recorder to get your thoughts down as soon as you think of them. You don’t want to make a mental note, because those aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. You don’t have to post your ideas instantly, but keeping running notes about all your ideas will make content creation a snap.

2. Update Often – Oh great strategy right? Well it is actually. This might not seem like it has to be said but if you are starting to blog make sure you are consistent. There is nothing worse than a blog that is never updated. Those blogs have no real chance of building a fan base. Besides your live visitors, Google likes to see updated content as well. Updating your content might seem obvious but if that is the case why do so many people ignore it? Once you decide on blogging, one of your first strategies better be how to update regularly.

3. Spread The Word – This is a really important strategy that all good bloggers know. You have to actively market your blog online and offline. A lot of people start a blog and then post like a mad person, only to wonder why no one comes to their site. People have to know it exists. You have to combine online and offline marketing. First off, make sure your blog can be found and is optimized for search engines. Then make sure you share it everywhere you can online. This means social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. It also means social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon. As for offline, you can add your blog to any of your pre-existing marketing material, in fact I suggest you do. You can also create cheap offline marketing tools. I had business cards made up with only the url of my blog on it. I gave it to people I met when they asked how they could contact me. It cost me $25 bucks and I still get traffic from those cards circulating.

These above strategies have been used and proven to stimulate your blog traffic and overall exposure. If you act on your ideas right away, update often and market your blog offline AND online you will notice your traffic increase. You will also gain valuable backlinks and begin branding yourself as an expert. Who could ask for anything more?

Monetize Your Blog Today, It is Easier Than You Think

If you are looking at transforming your blog traffic into income then follow the five tips here and you will be able to instantly monetize your blog. If you can create a product, or display some ads, you should be able to start making money from all your efforts.

1. Products: Products are a great way to monetize your blog. If you have a loyal community they will be open to purchasing from you. You could easily use a site like CafePress to create just about any physical product you want. This is especially effective if your blog has morphed into it’s own brand.

Besides physical products you can also create your own eProducts. You could create your own eBook and sell it on your site. If it is enticing to your current web traffic you could sell hundreds of these books with little effort and marketing. Anything you can think of can be a product.

2. Lead Capture: This isn’t an instant monetization but it can have far reaching benefits. If you capture the emails of people who are visiting your site you will be building a “list”. You can keep a running dialogue with these people and when you do have an offer to sell, you will have a list of warm leads. What salesperson wouldn’t kill for that? You just need an autoresponder service (like Aweber) and an offer that people will want to give their email to get. Overkill the value here – offer something you feel like you should be charging for.

3. Members Area: If you have a ton of traffic you can also create a premium members area. This would be best for helpful blogs. If you had a blog about WordPress tips, you could keep your premium tips, advanced code, and offer support in a paid members area. If your blog is powered by WordPress (it should be) there are free plugins that will give you this capability.

4. Adsense: Adsense might not make you a rich man, but it can be a nice boost to your income. You can choose to display Google ads on your site and whenever they get clicked you get paid. Google ads will display ads based on your content and some content is worth more than others. One downside is you have to be really careful how you display your ads, because Google has strict requirements. You probably won’t make a killing, but a couple bucks a day (or more) is entirely possible. There are also a ton of other similar Pay Per Click advertising opportunities out there,just do a Google search to learn more.

5. Donation: I saved this to the end because I personally do not like it. If you want though you can easily add a donation box to your blog. These boxes usually have you the blog owner asking for a donation, or for your guests to buy you a beer, or coffee, or etc… Much like everything else, you can add this through a WordPress plugin. To me it seems kind of like electronic pan handling, but that is my own personal bias. If you offer a helpful blog, then asking for a donation may not be that bad.

There are many ways to monetize your blogs, and I just showed you five quick tips. if you put even a couple of these tips into place you will be ahead of most people. You spend your time blogging faithfully, it is time to get something back. Monetize your blog today and get what you deserve.

You have a small business, home business or hobby that you want to monetize. You want to build your online presence but have no start up cash. Do you give up? Hell, no. The web is so full of free options that you can build a new business website for free in less than half an hour. Taking it one step further you can build a trendy company blog in the same amount of time. That is right, you can have a company blog like all of the “big guys” in about the same time it takes you to shower in the morning. Don’t believe me? Well, try it.

You can easily start your business blog right now by following these few steps…

1. Sign up At WordPress.com – WordPress.com will offer you a free website built on the easily customizable WordPress platform. Visit the site and follow the instructions to get your initial site set up. All you will need is an email address. WordPress.com will even handle the hosting for you.

2. Choose A Theme – Using the back office of WordPress.com you can search for themes for your website. The theme will cover all of your major design details. You can search by a number of different parameters that will allow you to find the perfect theme for your business. If you have a logo there is sure to be a color scheme that matches.

3. Create Your Pages – In the back office of WordPress you should set up a couple static (not changing regularly) pages first off. You should add an about page that explains about your company. You should also add a products or services page that goes into what you offer. Lastly create a contact page so people can find out how to get a hold of you.

4. Add Content – Posts are different than pages, posts are content that you add on a regular basis. These posts can be how-to articles about your niche, industry news, insider information or just helpful tips. You will want to add information as often as possible. The more information and posts you have the more likely you will receive web traffic.

Four steps. That is it. You now have a fully functional business blog that can help you find prospects, leads and like minded individuals. Obviously each of those above steps are a little more detailed in practice than explained here. Also you can take this company blog much further with some education, but if all you want is a basic company blog then there you have it. All you have to give up, is about 20 minutes.