One Very Simple Email Marketing Trick that Even Big Brands Aren’t Using

Last week, I was in Vegas for MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit – a high-profile conference aimed at businesses looking to improve their email marketing.

While some of the advice was definitely aimed at big brands with big audiences, there were plenty of tips that apply to anyone with an email list.

I wrote about what I learned in a post for Zen Optimise (Twelve Brilliantly Simple Email Marketing Tips from MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2014), but I wanted to share just one very simple yet really vital tip here:

Make your “snippet” text compelling.

What’s snippet text?

It’s the first few words of your email, which appear alongside the subject line in many email clients, like Gmail. I’ve indicated the snippets in red below:

Here are the snippets themselves:

South by Southwest’s email snippet reads “Having trouble reading this email? View it in your browser. Faceboo…”

genConnect’s email snipped reads “If you’re having trouble viewing this email…”

This is such a wasted opportunity. Why not use the snippet to encourage people to open your email? The myWaitrose email does the best job of this, with:

“Waitrose £5 wines plus how to make Delia’s pancakes…”

(And I don’t know about you, but the words “having trouble reading this email?” or similar aren’t exactly encouraging ones…)

There are plenty of ways to create better snippet text. Maybe your template has a box to include a sentence or two on the top left hand side. Maybe you want to change the way you begin your emails.

It’s up to you. Just be aware of what readers are seeing … and how you can use it to your advantage.

Have you got a great example of a compelling snippet from an email in your inbox? Share it with us in the comments!

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What Should You Blog About If You’re a Freelance Blogger?

In our survey last year, one DailyBlogTips reader asked:

“I sell myself as a blogger so do I need to blog myself?? What would I write about? How to write a blog article? That’s what I do!”

This is a common dilemma for bloggers who offer a writing-related service. Even if you don’t offer writing services, this question raises a wider point: what should you blog about in order to attract clients to your business?

For freelance bloggers, there are three options:

1. Choose a big, popular topic that you’re interested in (and one you’d want to write about). It could be parenting, personal development, food …
2. Aim your posts at people who are fairly new to blog-writing but need help – e.g. the online marketing team of a big company.
3. Don’t have a blog of your own at all – just guest post on other people’s blogs in order to raise awareness about your freelancing services. (You’ll want a website they can come to, though, to find out about what you offer.)

Any of these approaches can be successful, and I’ve used all three in different ways and at different times during my blogging career.

In the first case, you’ll have a great portfolio of on-topic work when you approach blogs in that area. (This is why it needs to be a popular topic, so that you’ve got a good chance of finding paid work.)

In the second case, you’ll attract clients who may hire you so they can go beyond simply reading your tips: they’ll realise you know what you’re talking about and that you can help.

In the third case, it doesn’t matter if your website only gets a few visitors – they’ll be highly targeted (and you may also pick up word-of-mouth referrals).

There’s one mistake you should definitely avoid, though…

…and that’s making your blog all about how to be a freelance blogger.

If you’re getting into freelancing, writing posts like “how to set your rates as a freelance blogger” or “writing articles for clients” might seem obvious. But if you do that, you’ll attract an audience of fellow freelancers – none of whom will want to hire you!

And the same goes for anyone providing a service. Don’t aim your posts at your peers, i.e. people offering the same service as you. Instead, think about who your ideal client is, and what sort of content they want to read.

If you’re new to freelance blogging or if you’re just thinking about the idea, we have two great guest posts from freelancer Tom Ewer on DailyBlogTips: 7 Lessons from a Full Time Freelance Blogger and How to Make Money Blogging (It’s Not What You Think).

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Five Ways to Improve Your Blog in Just Five Minutes (Take Our Challenge)

Does your blog ever feel like a hungry beast demanding a constant stream of fresh content?

A lot of bloggers struggle to keep up – and when there are new posts to write on a regular basis, it can be tough to find time to tweak, refine and improve your blog.

So this week, I have a challenge for you. Find five minutes per day to check off each of the tasks below.

(You might want to bookmark this post or even print it out.)

Monday: Fix Broken Links

Use one of the tools on this list to find broken links on your site. Fix as many as you can in five minutes.

Why it matters: Broken links create a bad impression for first-time visitors – and can even have a negative impact on your SEO.

Tuesday: Declutter Your Sidebar

Take a look at your sidebar. Are there any widgets you can do without? Remove them.

Why it matters: Like broken links, cluttered sidebars look bad. They may also put readers off taking action (e.g. subscribing to your blog) by presenting too many choices.

Wednesday: Take a Fresh Headshot

Grab your camera (and a friend if possible). Spend five minutes taking headshots.

Why it matters: You’ll want a good, recent headshot for your About page, social media profiles, and guest post bios. Smile!

Thursday: Update Your About Page

Add that headshot to your About page – and while you’re at it, fix any outdated information. (The age of your kids, the services you offer…)

Why it matters: It’s easy to ignore your own About page, but first time readers will often check it out.

Friday: Plan a Post for Next Week

Grab a sheet of paper or open up a new document. Spend two minutes writing down ideas as fast as you can, then pick one and write a plan.

Why it matters: Coming up with ideas ahead of time reduces blogger’s block; creating a plan makes it easier to write a well-structured post.

Are you up for our five minute daily challenge? Drop a comment below to tell us that you’ll be taking part … and share the post with your blogging friends for extra accountability.

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Get Great Blog Post Ideas by Using the Google Keyword Planner

Do you wish you had the knack of picking popular topics that will bring you lots of search engine traffic?

You don’t need to be a marketing guru or great at following a trend. Instead, you can find out what readers are searching for … and tailor your posts to fit them.

If you’ve been blogging (or thinking about blogging!) for a while, you’ll have come across the concept of keywords. These are simply search terms that people use in Google and other search engines.

By writing a post inspired by a popular keyword term, you increase your chances of getting organic search engine traffic.

(Organic traffic is the kind that comes naturally, as opposed to paid traffic, which is from people clicking on ads.)

When Google’s Keyword Tool was replaced by the Keyword Planner, I found it a little hard to get to grips with, especially as it’s designed for advertisers rather than bloggers to use. It’s thanks to my friend Joe Williams that I’m getting the hang of using it now.

Joe made a great video demonstrating exactly how to use the Keyword Planner for SEO (search engine optimisation) purposes. He writes:

Would you like to research keywords and prioritise the best ones for SEO?

If you give me 17 minutes I’ll show you how to do just that one page at a time, and we’ll cover best practices for using the Google Keyword Planner.

You can watch his Keyword Planner video here.

And if you’re using keyword research to help you build your blog, tell us about your experiences (and share your best tips) in the comments below.

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Always Prefer Written Communications

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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Five Crucial HTML Tags Every Blogger Should Know

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:

<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:

DailyBlogTips

<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):

DailyBlogTips

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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Careful with Guest Blogging for SEO Purposes Only

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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How To Get A Logo For Your Site

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.

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

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.

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.

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Nine Blogging Milestones to Celebrate

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.

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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Business is a Marathon, Not A Sprint

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

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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Warning: Don’t Make This Stupid Website Security Mistake

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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Google and the Future of Search

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

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:

(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.

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

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:

You’ll then see this at the top of the Page Info tab:

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.

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”.

And that’s it! You should see this confirmation message:

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.

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WordPress 3.8 Released: Five Things You Need to Know

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).

#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:

You can switch to a different colour scheme for your Dashboard, by going to Users –>Your Profile.

#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:

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):

#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:

And here’s how it looks now:

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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