Wednesday 29 January 2014

Always Prefer Written Communications

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:29
When conducting business deals there’s always the possibility to grab the phone and call the other entity directly. It doesn’t involve the trouble of composing an email or a letter, and it will give you the answer or information you are looking for immediately.
So is communicating over the phone a good think? In my opinion, rarely.
Sure, the phone is useful when you just need to discuss details or get a quick piece of information. But when you are dealing with central aspects of the deal (i.e., specifications of the project, discussion about prices and costs, deadlines and so on), it is always a good idea to use written communications, be it email, fax or letters.
Why?
Because the exchanged messages will be permanently stored, and this might be your salvation if down the road there is some disagreement regarding any aspect of the deal.
I forgot this basic rule twice over the past couple of years. Basically I discussed some important project aspects over the phone, and months later when we disagreed I didn’t have anything to prove that conversation had taken place.
This Latin proverb sums it up: Verba volant, scripta manent (Spoken words fly, written words remain).
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Sunday 26 January 2014

Five Crucial HTML Tags Every Blogger Should Know

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:44
In today’s post, I’ll go through some simple HTML tags that every blogger should know about.
You can add extra information within some tags, too, as you’ll see in the examples – for instance if you want position an image centrally, or make a link open up in a new tab.
Keep in mind that you don’t need to type these tags when creating posts in WordPress: you can use the buttons in the visual editor instead. (Or you can copy your post in from Word, with formatting already in place.)

<p>

The <p> tag indicates a paragraph. Each paragraph needs to start with <p> and end with </p> so that your browser knows where to put the line breaks.
(HTML code doesn’t recognise spaces, except the space between two words.)
In WordPress, <p> tags are added automatically by your blog’s code and don’t appear in the Text editor. (You can also choose to add them automatically in widgets.)
If you go to a post on your blog and click “View source” in your browser, you’ll see the <p> and </p> wrapped around each paragraph:
HTML-code-showing-paragraphs

<h1>, <h2>, <h3> … and more

HTML has special tags for headers and subheaders, which are:
<h1> — the biggest, “Heading 1”
<h2> — the next biggest (this is what I’m using for subheadings in this post)
… and so on down to <h6>
Normally, you won’t use <h1> in your content as that’s used for the title of your blog post or page.
To use a header tag, simply wrap it around your subheading like this:
<h2>Your Next Steps</h2>

<a href> – Creates a Link

The “a href” tag creates a hyperlink. If a link ever goes awry, it’s useful to know what the code looks like so you can fix it.
Here’s a link and the code for it:
<a href="http://www.dailyblogtips.com">DailyBlogTips</a>
You can add extra features to your link. For instance:
<a href="http://www.dailyblogtips.com" target="_blank" 
title="This link opens in a new window/tab">DailyBlogTips</a>
This produces a link like this (hover your cursor over it to see the title):
If your link doesn’t work…
  • Check that you’ve used straight quotes not curly (smart) quotes.
  • Check that you haven’t missed one of the quotation marks.
  • Check that the URL starts with http://

<img> – shows an image

The “img” tag shows an image, like this one (me and my daughter Kitty on Christmas Eve):

In its simplest form, as for the image above, it looks like this:
<img src="http://www.dailyblogtips.com/wp-content/uploads/
Xmas-Eve.jpg"/>
You can add extras to your image too, e.g. title text (which appears when the user hovers over the image). If you want to center an image in WordPress, use class=aligncenter.
<img src="http://www.dailyblogtips.com/wp-content/uploads/
Xmas-Eve.jpg" class="aligncenter" title="Ali and her daughter 
Kitty on Christmas Eve"/>

Note: This tag is opened and closed in one. The forward slash at the very end of the tag closes it.

<ul>, <ol> and <li> – Creating Lists

Here’s an “unordered list” in HTML:
<ul><li>Bread</li>
<li>Milk</li>
<li>Carrots</li>
<li>Potatoes</li></ul>
This displays as:
  • Bread
  • Milk
  • Carrots
  • Potatoes
Note how each list item has <li> at the start and </li> at the end, and the whole list has <ul> at the start and </ul> at the end.
To use numbers instead of bullet points, simply switch the <ul> and </ul> for <ol> and </ol>. You’ll get an “ordered list” like this:
  1. Bread
  2. Milk
  3. Carrots
  4. Potatoes

Do you have a sixth essential tag to add – or other HTML tips to share? Let us know in the comments.
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Friday 24 January 2014

Careful with Guest Blogging for SEO Purposes Only

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 17:33
If you are doing guest blogging solely to acquire links, especially with optimized anchor texts, with the goal of improving your SEO and the search rankings of your pages, well, stop!
It’s has been rumored for a while that Google was starting to frown upon those practices, but now it’s confirmed, straight from the horse’s mouth.
Here’s a quotation from a post Matt Cutts wrote this week, titled The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO:
Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.
Back in the day, guest blogging used to be a respectable thing, much like getting a coveted, respected author to write the introduction of your book. It’s not that way any more.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see some sites actually getting penalized for this type of guest blogging in the future.
The post is quite long and has some videos too, so check it out.
That all being said, legitimate guest blogging where the main goal is to spread the word about your site or product and to reach a new audience is going to be fine according to Matt. Here’s what he wrote:
There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they’ll continue into the future. And there are absolutely some fantastic, high-quality guest bloggers out there.
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Tuesday 21 January 2014

How To Get A Logo For Your Site

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 17:44
Many people email me asking in what items they should invest money first for their blogs or websites. I usually reply stating that the domain/hosting package should always be the first priority. Once you have that covered, however, the logo becomes your next priority.
how-to-get-a-logoUsing a free WordPress theme is not an issue in the beginning, but you should get the logo as soon as possible, because it will increase the credibility of your website and start building your online brand.
And the good news is that getting a professional looking logo is not hard nor expensive these days. There are basically four methods you can use, and I explain them in this article: 4 Ways To Get A Logo For Your Website.
The only method I left out is using a logo maker software or online tool, but that is because I don’t think the results you get here are worth your time or money.
Anyway check out the article if you are looking to get a new logo for your site.
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Monday 20 January 2014

The Difference Between Traffic and Readers – and How to Know Which You Want

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 19:38
If you’ve been in the blogging world for any length of time (or even if you’re yet to start your blog), you’ll have heard some key terms being thrown around.
Two of the most popular aretraffic and readers.
Although you might think they mean pretty much the same thing (visitors to your blog), there’s a distinction between these.
Traffic includes people who visit your site for a couple of seconds then surf away. (If you’ve ever had a rush of traffic from StumbleUpon or another social site, you may well have seen this in action.)
Readers aren’t just visitors – they’re people who come back to your blog again and again. They might subscribe, leave comments, share your posts, and even buy from you … at which point they become customers.
blogging-traffic-or-readers
Image from Flickr by The Next Web

Traffic is Fleeting (Though May Be Impressive)

Of course traffic is important, but simply having a lot of monthly visitors isn’t usually enough for a successful blog. Even if you’re not interested in monetizing your blog at all, you probably still want a lasting audience rather than fleeting traffic.
There’s one case when traffic beats readers, though, and that’s you’re monetizing solely through ads.
If the point of your blog is to bring in advertising revenue, then you don’t really want loyal readers – you want lots of passing traffic, people who’ll click onto one of your posts, then click on an ad and leave.
This may also be the case if you’re an affiliate marketer – you could be looking for one-time visitors (e.g. to your review of a product). However, affiliate marketing can work fine with a small but loyal audience who trust your recommendations.
Don’t take this to mean that you can forget about traffic altogether. New visitors are important – some will stick around and become readers.

Readers Will Grow to Like and Trust You

If someone reads several of your posts, leaves a comment, and subscribes to your newsletter, it’s pretty clear that they’re interested in what you have to say. They’re a reader – not just a passing blip of traffic.
Readers will generally subscribe to your blog or newsletter, though some may choose to follow you instead through social media. They won’t necessarily read every word of every post, but they will stick around for weeks, months, or even years – so long as you keep delivering the high-quality content that they’ve come to expect from you.
A small, loyal group of readers may be all you need. For instance, you run a consulting business and only need two clients a month, then if you’re attracting the right audience (people with the means and inclination to pay you!) then you could do very well with a readership numbering in the hundreds.
Most bloggers will want more readers than this, of course – perhaps a few thousand. It can take years to get a blog to that point, though there’s a lot you can do to speed up the process. One great method is to guest posting on large blogs in your niche to bring in well-targeted traffic that’s likely to convert into readers.

Which is Better, Traffic or Readers?

Personally, I favour building a blog (and business) that revolves around loyal readers rather than lots of traffic.
There are a couple of key reasons for this:
  • If you rely mainly on search engine traffic, your business could take a huge knock if you get penalised by Google (whether fairly or not). This happened to Darren Rowse early in his blogging career.
  • It can take a lot of time to see even $100 from advertising revenue (you may have to put in months of work building your blog first – I know I did!) and many bloggers simply don’t have the time or resources for that.
Of course advertising is a perfectly valid form of monetization – we run ads on DailyBlogTips, and I have a few on my blog Aliventures. For me, though, it’s more rewarding (both financially and emotionally) to focus on readers and other ways of making money blogging.
If you’re looking to get more traffic and more readers, watch this space! We’ll be launching a new course in a couple of days with six weeks of text and video lessons to help you grow your blog faster than ever before.
Read More »

Saturday 18 January 2014

Nine Blogging Milestones to Celebrate

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:29
You probably have some big goals (or dreams) for your blog.
Maybe you’d love to make a living online. Perhaps you hope to attract a large audience, or you’re aiming to become well-known in your field.
These goals can sometimes seem a very long way off, though. For many bloggers, it takes months to start to get the results they’re hoping for.
Instead of looking far ahead to a distant goal, focus on some of the milestones you’ve already achieved, and the ones which are coming up.
I’ve listed the milestones in roughly the order you’re likely to achieve them, but no two blogs (and bloggers) are the same — so you might well find that you’ve skipped some or reached others in a different order.
blogging-milestones-thumbs-up

Milestone #1: Getting Your Blog Up and Running

Some people read about blogging, think about blogging, talk about blogging … but never get around to starting their blog.
The set-up stage can take a lot of time and thought — you may need to get your head around the techy side of things, or you might have tricky strategic decisions to make. If you’ve got yours online, that’s a great achievement.

Milestone #2: Publishing Your Second Post

Once your blog’s online, Post #1 is often not too tricky: you could, for instance, simply write a bit about the purpose of their blog and about who you are.
Post #2 is harder. I’ve seen a fair few blogs with just one post … ever. If you’ve got at least two posts on your blog, congratulations!

Milestone #3: Getting Your First Subscriber

You might get some initial traffic from Facebook friends or forum buddies, but it’s when you get your first subscriber that you know you’re on the right lines.
If someone’s signed up to follow your blog by RSS or email, it’s a safe bet that they liked what they saw. You’ve turned a casual visitor into a (hopefully) loyal reader.

Milestone #4: Getting Your First Tweet or Share

Once you have some readers, it’s only a matter of time before someone (other than you!) tweets one of your posts, or shares it on Facebook … or on LinkedIn, Google+, etc.
To reach this milestone a little sooner, make sure you have social sharing buttons on your posts. There are plenty of WordPress plugins that can do this. You may want to focus on one or two specific social networks, rather than providing dozens of buttons.

Milestone #5: Getting Your First Comment

In the early weeks of blogging, it might feel like you’re writing and writing … and no-one’s reading. Getting your first comment proves that at least one person is not only reading, they’re engaging.
If you’re struggling to get comments, check out some of the links (and some of the great comments) here: Seven Ways to Get More Comments on Your Blog.

Milestone #6: Getting Your First Link

The first time another blogger links to you is real proof you’re doing something right. It might be in their blogroll, in a weekly roundup post, or even in a post that tells their readers how much they’re enjoying your blog.
You might be tempted to hurry this one along with a link exchange (asking another blogger to link to your blog in return for a link to theirs). Keep in mind that Google may penalise you if you do this too much, plus link exchange requests can be irritating to other bloggers.

Milestone #7: Making Your First Dollar

Even if you’re not interested in making a living from your blogging, you might at least want to offset your hosting costs. The day you first make money from your blog — even if it’s just a dollar — is one to savour.
If you’re unsure how blogs make money, or if you’re looking for an easy-to-implement method, try our post Seven Ways Blogs Make Money — Which is Right For You?

Milestone #8: Writing Your First Post for Another Blog

There’s no rule saying that you have to guest post on other people’s blogs … but I’ve never met a successful blogger who hasn’t. Guest posts are a great way to get in front of a big audience, to build a relationship with well-known bloggers in your niche, and to get links.
You don’t need to have lots of readers in order to guest post (in fact, you can guest post even without a blog of your own). If you need a helping hand, read our Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your First Guest Post.

Milestone #9: Getting a “Thank You” Email from a Reader

Comments are great … but there’s something particularly special about receiving an email from a reader to thank you for you post.
Maybe you wrote something that helped them solve a tricky problem in their life. Maybe your words encouraged them during a tough time. Whatever the situation, you made a difference — and that’s something to be truly proud of.

What would your #10 be? And which of these milestones have you already reached? Let us know in the comments…
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Friday 17 January 2014

Business is a Marathon, Not A Sprint

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 19:01
Regardless of your niche and business model, you should always work with the long term in mind. Common sense you say? Not so much, as it’s easy to find people and companies around who forget that and focus on short term gains.
The latest case was the lyrics site RapGenius. It used to be one of the largest on the web, but a couple of weeks agoGoogle caught it with its hands on the cookie jar. Here is a quotation from the article:
Google hit back hard today after it learned lyrics site Rap Genius had been using dubious SEO tricks to attain top spots in search results. Now RapGenius.com doesn’t appear on the first page of results for a search of “Rap Genius,” and popular queries like “Jay-Z Holy Grail Lyrics” don’t bring up the startup like they used to.
For some days the site was completely gone from the search rankings. Now it’s back, but it lost a huge amount of traffic and search rankings.
The reason? The site was using several spammy strategies to gain links from other sites (you can read more about it in the link above).
What would lead a solid website like this one engage in such potentially harmful strategies? A desire for short term gains and profits, without weighting in the long term consequences.
Remember, business is a marathon, not a sprint.
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Thursday 16 January 2014

The Little Mistake That Could Cost You Loads of Free SEO Traffic

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 19:11
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this mistake. You might be making it without realising.
Sometimes it can cost you a couple of days’ traffic, sometimes a couple of weeks.
I even saw it cost one unfortunate business owner two months of free traffic, and several thousand pounds in revenue loss.
I’ve been an SEO consultant for seven years. I’ve SEO’d big brands and small one-man shops, and this little (but really harmful) mistake happens to the best of them. Thankfully, it’s very simple to fix.

When It Happens and How to Avoid It

Websites are most vulnerable to this traffic killer just after the release of a new design. That’s because the web designer will want to please the client by showing progress and getting feedback on different iterations.
Often, the web designer will create a subdomain for the new website like: newdesign.example.com. This creates a bit of an SEO problem. newdesign.example.com may get indexed by search engines, and this creates duplicate content which isn’t any good for SEO.
So, if the web designer is savvy, he’ll block access for the newdesign.example.com – by adding a robots.txt file. This is a two minute job, and will prevent search engines from accessing the new sub domain.
It’s a regular plain text file and will look like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
So far, so good.
Google’s web crawler is known as Googlebot and its job is to discover and index pages. It’s known as a user-agent. Before it can visit any webpage, it must visit the robots.txt file to learn what areas it can and can’t index. It follows these instruction to the letter.
In User-agent: *the * acts as a wildcard which means the following rule below it applies to all user-agents (including Googlebot).
In this case, the forward slash in, Disallow: / indicates that all the content on the new subdomain should not be crawled or indexed.
Now for the Little Mistake that has Big Consequences
Typically when new designs get signed-off, they are often behind schedule. So it’s usually a rush getting the new design live onto the main website (e.g. example.com).
The designer will then copy all the files from the development subdomain (e.g. newdesign.example.com), and typically this includes the robots.txt file:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
If the robots.txt file remains unchanged and goes live on the main site, it’s like traffic workman holding up a big red stop sign. During this time no (SEO) traffic will be allowed to go through. The stop sign only changes to green and welcomes Google back when the robots.txt returns to normal and the forward slash is removed, like this:
User-agent:
Disallow:
Really easy to fix but a really easy mistake to make too, wouldn’t you say?
From my experience this happens  5 to 10% of the time – but usually isn’t a big problem because it’s discovered within a day or so.
But for one client of mine, this had been going on for two months, meaning they missed out on bucket loads of cash. Needless to say, they were pretty mad with their web designer!
Why don’t you check your site right now? The robots.txt file always lives at the root of your website, like this:
The DailyBlogTips robots.txt disallows search engines access to two folders. This is intentional to ensure search engines don’t find and index technical pages within the folder.
And always remember, if you have a new website and you’ve used a designer or developer to help you, check the robots.txt file when the new design goes live.
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Wednesday 15 January 2014

Warning: Don’t Make This Stupid Website Security Mistake

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:40
One of my less than happy memories as a blogger is from a couple of years ago.
It started with an email from a kind reader. Sadly, it was the sort of email that no blogger wants to receive, titled “Chrome is warning people off your site.” The reader alerted me to a malware message appearing when he tried to visit my site Aliventures.
Not great news at any time … but I was right in the middle of running an ecourse on my site, and about to head off for a weekend conference.
After a long struggle to find out what was wrong and how to fix it, I learned that the malware had got in through an outdated plugin on an old website, running an old version of WordPress, that I’d not looked at in years.
And the reason the malware had infected my main site, Aliventures, was because I’d (unknowingly) made a really stupid mistake.
I kept all of my sites under a single FTP user account, with one username and password. I thought because the password was strong, and I was the only person who accessed the sites, this wouldn’t cause any problems.
Wrong. Once the malware got in, it could affect any of the sites under that user account – including sites I hosted for friends, family and even a few clients.
Thankfully, a great security company, Sucuri, cleaned up the mess. (I have a monthly subscription to their service now, just for peace of mind.)
I learned an important lesson – if you run multiple websites, don’t put them all under the same FTP account.
(Oh, and keep all your WordPress installations – including plugins! – up to date too.)
Have you ever faced a situation like this? What caused it, and what did you learn? Share your tips with us in the comments…
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Tuesday 14 January 2014

Google and the Future of Search

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:48
There’s a very interesting post on the official Google Blog today talking about the future of search and how Google is approaching it. It starts with Larry Page’s definition of the perfect search engine: “one that understands exactly what you mean and gives you exactly what you want.” It pretty much sums it up huh?
Here’s a quote from the article:
1. Understanding the world
In May we launched the Knowledge Graph, our database of more than 500 million real-world people, places and things with 3.5 billion attributes and connections among them. The feedback has been phenomenally positive and we want to extend this feature to people outside the U.S. So starting today, you’ll see Knowledge Graph results across every English-speaking country in the world. If you’re in Australia and search for [chiefs], you’ll get the rugby team–its players, results and history.
We’ll also use this intelligence to help you find the right result more quickly when your search may have different meanings. For example, if you search for [rio], you might be interested in the Brazilian city, the recent animated movie or the casino in Vegas. Thanks to the Knowledge Graph, we can now give you these different suggestions of real-world entities in the search box as you type.
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Monday 13 January 2014

6 Shortcuts for Writing, Editing and Publishing a Post in Record Time

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 17:05
Need to get a post out in a hurry? Or just want to be a more efficient writer?
These 6 shortcuts could potentially halve the time it takes you to write a post. (Let us know your results in the comments!)
I’ve chosen all these tips to be (a) straightforward and (b) suitable for both total beginners and more experienced bloggers.

Shortcut #1: Choose a Topic You Know Well

If you pick a post topic you know inside out, you can write your post with little or no additional research. You’ll also often find that the words flow more easily, as you’ll feel more confident.
(Sure, it’s good to branch out into new topics sometimes – but not when you’re in a hurry!)

Shortcut #2: Make a Plan First

Don’t jump straight into your post without planning. That’s like rushing into a race without knowing where the start and finish line are.
Take 3 – 5 minutes to make a plan: a list of key points to cover. It’ll keep you on track (and motivate you to carry on).

Shortcut #3: Forward, Not Backward

A while back, Daniel wrote a great post titled Never Hit the Backspace. When you’re writing, don’t stop to edit. That comes later.
If you have to quickly correct a typo or restart a sentence, I’ll let you get away with that … but don’t struggle over whole paragraphs. If you’re stuck, see the next shortcut!

Shortcut #4: Leave Blanks, Come Back and Edit

The previous section looked like this in my first draft:
shortcut-3-draft
(And that image just said [screenshot].)
If you  need a fact, statistic, post title, link, etc, just leave a placeholder and come back to it when you’re editing. It’s much quicker to get all these done at once, instead of constantly breaking the flow of your writing to look things up.

Shortcut #5: When in Doubt, Cut

Now you’re onto the editing – and you’ve come across a tricky sentence or two. You’re struggling to reword it to make it clearer or more compelling.
Stop. Don’t struggle. Just cut that sentence (or paragraph). Can you do without it? Then move on.
(If you really need it, try splitting it into shorter sentences.)

Shortcut #6: Keep the Formatting Simple

I’m a big fan of formatting – but you don’t need to spend half an hour perfecting every post you publish. Choose a less than perfect image (or none at all). Put in subheadings but leave out bold text.
(Plus, too much formatting – bold, italic and even coloured text everywhere – can look as offputting as none at all.)
That’s it – you’re done! Hit publish. If you need to, you can go back and tweak later.
Let me know how you got on in the comments.
Read More »

Sunday 12 January 2014

How to Get a Custom URL for Your Facebook Page in Five Easy Steps

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:32
Does your Facebook page’s URL look something like this?
www.facebook.com/My-Facebook-Page/303188632181849
By default, your Facebook page’s URL is made up of your page’s name plus a long number. If you want to put the URL on your business card, or spell it out over the phone, this is obviously not ideal.
The good news is that you can create a custom URL (sometimes called a “vanity URL”) with a username and no number, like this:
www.facebook.com/myfbpage
In the past, you needed 25 likes to do this, but you can now do this at any time – even when you’re setting up your page.
It only takes a couple of minutes to secure your custom URL, so do it today if at all possible: the longer you delay, the higher the chance that someone will take the username that you want!
1. Login to Facebook and go to your page. (You can find it in the left-hand column of your Facebook home page, under Pages.)
2. At the top of your admin panel, click “Edit page” and select “Update Page Info”, as shown in the screenshot below:
facebook-url-1
You’ll then see this at the top of the Page Info tab:
facebook-url-step-2
3. Under “Page Address”, click the “Enter a Facebook web address” link, then click the new link that appears – “Create a web address for this Page?”
4. Your page should be automatically selected from the drop-down menu. Enter the username you want and click “Check availability”. You’ll need to make sure your username fits Facebook’s guidelines.
facebook-url-step3
5. Make sure you’re happy with your username (and double-check the spelling) before confirming it. Once you’re sure you’re happy, click “Confirm”.
facebook-url-step-4
And that’s it! You should see this confirmation message:
facebook-url-step-5

Your old URL will redirect to the new one, so you don’t need to worry about updating your previous links.
Have you had a custom Facebook page URL for ages, or did this post prompt you to get yours? Let us know in the comments.
Read More »

Saturday 11 January 2014

WordPress 3.8 Released: Five Things You Need to Know

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:41
Last Thursday, December 12th, WordPress 3.8 was released – bringing a new default magazine-style theme (Twenty Fourteen) and a whole new look for your Dashboard.
Have you updated yet?
(If you’re not sure how, it’s easy: login to your Dashboard and there’ll be a link right at the top of every page of your dashboard.
It’s a good idea to backup your blog before updating, though problems are unlikely.)

#1: WordPress Now Works More Easily on Mobile Devices

We all access the internet in different ways. Smartphone, tablet, notebook, desktop — no matter what you use, WordPress will adapt and you’ll feel right at home. (WordPress 3.8 “Parker”, WordPress.org)
If you manage your blog from a phone or tablet, you should find that it’s now a fair bit easier, particularly when it comes to adding widgets (you can tap an Available widget then choose where to place it, rather than dragging it – this works on your computer too).
wordpress-3point8-widgets

#2: The Dashboard Has a Fresh New Design

Thankfully, everything’s still in the same place – but the WordPress dashboard has undergone a total redesign.
Here’s how it looks:
wordpress-3point8
You can switch to a different colour scheme for your Dashboard, by going to Users –>Your Profile.
wordpress-change-dashboard-colourscheme

#3: You Can Manage Installed Themes More Easily

Go to Appearance –> Themes on your newly-updated blog and you’ll see that things look a little different:
wordpress-3point8-themes
If you click on a theme to see the “Theme Details”, you’ll find that you can flip through the themes using arrows (either clicking the buttons on the screen or using the arrow keys on your keyboard):
wordpress-3point8-flip-themes

#4: The Visual Editing Icons Have Changed

The visual editor or “WYSIWYG” (What You See Is What You Get) editor has a fresh new set of buttons.
Here’s how it looked in 3.7:
wordpress3point7-editingbuttons
And here’s how it looks now:
wordpress-3point8-editingbuttons
Like the icons down the left-hand side of the Dashboard, the buttons are simplified and bolder in their look.

#5: Not Everyone’s Happy

A number of WordPress users have voiced concerns about the changes, with the main complaint being the lack of an option to revert to the old-style Dashboard.
Several plugins are already in development to allow users to switch back, so it’s likely this won’t be a problem for too long.
Don’t let the new design put you off upgrading, though – it’s important to keep your WordPress version up to date to avoid security risks and bugs.

We’d love to hear what you think about WordPress 3.8, and about any new features that are helping (or hindering!) your blogging. Drop a comment below to tell us
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Friday 10 January 2014

How to Write a Post That Readers Will Love

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 17:08
Do you find that some of your posts get a great response … and others are barely noticed?
Learning to write posts that your readers love can involve a bit of trial and error, but these five steps dramatically increase the chance that you’ll hit on a winning combination of topic, structure and style.
Here’s how to do it:

Step #1: Choose a Hot Topic

However well-written your post is, it’s unlikely to be a success unless you’ve chosen a topic that your readers are eager to hear about.
Maybe that’s something in the news – an exciting (or worrying) development in your industry, or a feel-good story that people can’t get enough of.
Or maybe it’s one of the topics that you know always strikes a chord: for a personal development blog, for instance, that could mean “being more motivated” or “managing your time better”.
Try to avoid any topics you’ve done to death recently, though – even if they’re popular ones.

Step #2: Give Your Post a Great Structure

Your post’s structure is its skeleton. Readers may not be able to see it – but without it, your post will just be a big blob of ideas.
There are plenty of easy structures you can borrow and use, like the “how to” post (you’re reading one) and the “list” post. You’ll see these done over and over again on different blogs.
To make your post stand out, look for ways to add extras to the structure. In our series of “Mistakes” posts, we have “fix it” suggestions for each mistake.

Step #3: Use Your Readers’ Words

If you use language that goes over your readers’ heads, or leaves them cold, then you won’t be creating a post that they’ll to read and share.
Use readers’ emails and comments to find the exact phrases they use when asking a question or describing a problem. (This is a technique Sam Horn recommends in her book Pop! Create the Perfect Pitch, Title and Tagline for Anything.)
If they suggest a post, consider using their wording: one of my most popular posts on Aliventures is titled “7 Habits of Serious Writers”. I wasn’t sure about that title – I thought “serious” would sound dull and unattractive – but I was mistaken!

Step #4: Edit Your Post Carefully

One of the great things about publishing on a blog is that it’s easy to go back and make changes – but don’t use this as an excuse to get sloppy.
While readers will be forgiving of an occasional typo or grammatical error, constant mistakes will undermine all your good work. A post that’s full of good information but badly written won’t get the attention it deserves.
Tip: Try cutting your post by 10% after drafting it. You’ll almost always make it stronger.

Step #5: Add Formatting, Links and Images

A well-written, well-structured post that speaks in the readers’ language isn’t quite enough … it also needs to look good.
You certainly don’t need to be an artist or designer to create an attractive blog post that’s easy to read, though. Simply use basic formatting features like:
  • Subheadings, to break up the text, add visual interest, and act as “signposts” for the reader.
  • Bold text, to highlight key sentences. (Pro tip: aim to be consistent with this. You’ll see that in this post, I chose to have one bold sentence at the start of each subsection.)
  • Links to other posts. These can help readers who need extra background information, or who want to dig deeper into a particular topic.
  • Images, which draw the reader in, add white space and visual appeal, and can make it easier for readers to understand or appreciate your points.
For your blog to be a success, you need readers to love your posts enough that they’ll keep coming back for more (and spread the word to their friends too).
Follow these five steps and you’ve got a very high chance of creating a post that will be a great hit with your audience. Leave a comment below to tell me how you get on!
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Thursday 9 January 2014

100 Great Business Ideas for 2014

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:34
A couple of weeks ago I came across an interesting blog:ScottSBarlow.com. Scott is what you could call “an ideas guy,” and that’s the focus of the site. Business ideas, more specifically.
Last week he came up with a pretty interesting post titled 100 Awesome Business Ideas for 2014. It’s nice read. Below you’ll find some of my favorite entries:
Rock Your CV: I was once a manager and also hired someone to work for me when i ran my own business. The rubbish that was CV’s representing people is ripe for disruption! If people really wanted to earn $100k a year then they should be investing upfront in themselves. One option would be to offer a service where you re-design peoples CV’s like the hundreds of templates available on GraphicRiver or find a designer to build you 5 templates. Charge $49 per CV. Can’t design? Then find an offshore designer via oDesk. People should even be going as far as this to stand out from the job competition!
Security Analytics: This is going to be a growing area in 2014 as we see more and more hacking stories in the press. Most organisations have the data but how do they visualize it into meaningful results? Maybe a start would be to offer a data analysis service using offshore experts, after this start figuring out what a core product would be that these companies want. Here’s a good post on the current situation of companies not knowing where to start.
Make sure to check the full article, and I am pretty sure it will give you a good insight or two.
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Tuesday 7 January 2014

Three Good Reasons to Use an Editorial Calendar

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 16:30
Do you plan your content ahead of time … or do you just sit down on each “blogging day” to write a post?
While it’s a perfectly good idea to write while you’re inspired, it’s more likely that you’ll end up sitting down in front of a blank post or Word document, scratching your head and trying to figure out a good topic.
Even if you don’t have trouble coming up with ideas, you may find that you’ve run five list-style posts in a row, or covered the same topic in two consecutive weeks.
An editorial calendar is simply a list of what blog post you’re going to write when.
You can use a plugin, like the Editorial Calendar, or you can create a spreadsheet, use a physical diary, or even use a Gantt chart – or whatever works for you!
2014-calendar
Image from Flickr by danielmoyle.
Here’s why planning and scheduling your posts in advance is a very good idea:

#1: It Helps You Stay on Top of Your Blogging

Do you ever find yourself rushing through a post at the last minute – or skipping posting for weeks on end because you never seem to have enough time or enough ideas?
An editorial calendar helps you stay in control. You’ll come up with a bunch of ideas at, say, the start of the month – and then you know what you’ll be writing all month long.
This makes it easier to plan the rest of life around your blogging. For instance, if you know you’ve got a big post coming up that will need a lot of research, you can spread the work across several days.

#2: It Gives You a Better Balance of Posts

I know from experience that it’s all too easy to write the same types of posts day after day and week after week.
Maybe you’ve got into a bit of a list post rut, with “5 ways to…” and “7 tips for…” cropping up every single time. While list posts are great, and numbers make for compelling headlines, it’s good to shake things up a bit.
A calendar lets you plan for a good balance of posts. This might mean having a regular series – e.g. I’m running the Mistakes series on Fridays at present. Or it might simply mean throwing in a few new types of posts – perhaps a review once a month, or a how-to every couple of weeks.

#3: It Allows You to Work with Other Bloggers

If anyone else writes for your blog (either as a guest or as a co-blogger), then an editorial calendar is especially important and useful.
Guest posters will want to know when their post is likely to run. If you don’t have a calendar, it’s hard to give them a good answer – and if you simply run their post as soon as possible, you may find that you end up with a whole lot of guest posts in a row, followed by none for weeks.
Co-bloggers need to know when you’re posting and (unless you always cover different topic areas) what you’re posting about. A calendar will keep everything running smoothly, especially if you edit one another’s posts, or if one person approves them all before they go live.

Do you use an editorial calendar, or is this something you plan to do in 2014? Let us know your thoughts in the comments…
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