Blogging – Page 2 – Dennis J. Smith

Expose your WordPress blog postings with a little Facebook “Like”

September 29, 2010

Now you can get some “Like” on Facebook for your WordPress blog post with a simple plugin. You don’t have to know anything about programming code like HTML. While in your WordPress Dashboard go to Plugins on the left-hand menu. Click the “Add New” button and type in “Facebook Like Button Plugin for WordPress” (current version is 0.4a). There’s also WP FB Like which is easy to setup with a few clicks of the options. Pick whatever one you feel comfortable with but don’t delay on adding this must have plugin. The screenshot above shows you some of the options for one of the FB Like Button plugins. I recommend displaying the button before and after an article for maximum benefit. When a reader “Recommends” or “Likes” your posting a link is posted to their Facebook profile. This is an excellent way to drive traffic from your friends Facebook page to your blog. Do you have a favorite plugin you’d like to recommend to other readers? What do you “Like”? Feel free to comment below and click “Recommend” to recommend this article to your Facebook friends.

Windows Live Writer makes blogging a breeze

August 9, 2010

Are you thinking about starting your own blog but scared off by technology? It might not be as hard as you think when it comes to starting a blog. If you know Microsoft Office you’re already halfway there. If you don’t its still easy when you have tools that simplify the process. Windows Live Writer from Microsoft is one of those must have tools for bloggers. Windows Live Writer lets you manage your blog regardless of where its hosted or the format you are using. I use it to update all my WordPress blogs and an older blog I have on Blogger. But it can be used with LiveJournal, TypePad, Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint and others. Plug-ins are available that give Live Writer even more functionality. Visit the Live Gallery to find out what’s available and to install plug-ins you find beneficial. The toolbar across the top of Windows Live Writer lets you control aspects of the font, text alignment, adding images, tables and inserting other items into your post. You can also cut, paste and undo changes if you aren’t satisfied. The side bar to the right duplicates editing tools such as current drafts, recently posted articles and inserts into your article. It’s really easy to get around the application to create the perfect blog post. The edit mode tab allows you to create your article much like you would create a Word document(add images, hyperlinks, tables and more). Preview mode loads the theme of your blog and gives you a sneak preview of what your readers will see. It might not display a perfect rendition since it depends on the theme you use. The bottom area of the application lets you assign categories, tags, the author, future publish date and more. Those who have a little more knowledge of HTML can click on the Source tab and use HTML code to customize a post before going live. Here’s a great resource for those interested in learning more about HTML. If you have a blog have you used Windows Live Writer? Another blogging tool? Give it and try and see what you think and share some of the articles you’ve written with Windows Live Writer. Please feel free to leave your comments below. Download Windows Live Writer Windows Live Writer Plugin Gallery By Dennis J. Smith

Carry your WordPress blog in your pocket or purse

July 31, 2010

For those of us who are always on the go WordPress has come to the rescue. WordPress for Android is available for free in the Android Market. The most recent version 1.3.2 was released this morning to correct some minor bugs. Just add the URL of your blog along with your login username plus password and the application will load your WordPress blog data, comments, post, stats and anything related to your blog. You can add both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.org blogs to the mix. Review previous post, edit a past post or even add a new blog post right from your Android phone. I would recommend a good speech-to-text application to make posting a little easier. Approve comment, reply to comments or mark as spam right from your Android phone. Moderate several comments all at once with a click of the checkbox next to the comments you want to moderate. Then assign the status of those comments and you’re done. Download AppTo download WordPress for Android, choose your path: Search Android Market Visit the Android Market on your device and search for “wordpress”. Select and install the application that is published by Automattic, Inc. Scan the Code If you have a barcode scanner installed on your device, scan the code here to be taken directly to the download page for WordPress for Android. Find out about other features not mentioned here on the WordPress for Android blog or view the video provided at the beginning. Have a WordPress blog you use to promote your business or cause? Share it below in the comments along with any suggestions for other readers. WordPress is also available for iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad and Blackberry phone. Find out more on Apps for WordPress including Desktop applications for WordPress blogs. By Dennis J. Smith

Start tracking Website and Blog visitors with Google Analytics

July 25, 2010

Analyzing with Google Analytics – The Basics There are many ways to keep track of website statistics like unique visitors, user browser preferences, location and other valuable information. If you already have an account with Google it’s really simple to get started with Google Analytics. Provide information regarding your websites and then simply paste the tracking code into your site, have Google verify that the code is correct and the rest is done automatically. Best thing is that it’s free and has all the tools you need to discover the various trends of your website. Overview of your websites and blogs The opening screen is going to give you an overview of all your websites using Analytics which gives you a quick breakdown of current trends. Below you see some of my websites and what the trends are for the current week and comparing it with the previous week. You can also compare to the previous day, month and year depending on how long you’ve been analyzing your sites. Information at hand can be sorted by visits, average time on site, bounce rate, percent of change and website name. The information is valuable in knowing what kind of changes you might make on a site to keep visitors longer or where your traffic is coming from. By clicking on "View report" you’ll get that more detailed information such as the type of browser one is using to view your site or what state, city or even country they are visiting from. More Detailed Information Right after clicking on "View report" the Dashboard for your site stats gets displayed with more valuable information. By default the date range is the same as the main Overview page and now gives you a graphical display and breakdowns of key site stats. The first stat you see is the amount of visits for each day in the date range and below that are the site usage information, visitor overview, map layout, traffic sources overview and content overview. By clicking on the down arrow on the Visits tab you can change the type of stat you want displayed here. You can choose from Visits, Pageviews, Page/Visit, Average Time on Site, Bounce Rate or the percentage of visits that are new. You can find description of each of these by visit http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics What to look for What kind of trends should you be looking for? Well that depends on what kind of goals you have in mind. If all you care about is getting visitors to your website then look for the Absolute Unique Visitors. But many of those visitors might have incorrectly made it to your site due to a bad search. The one trend I look at is the "Bounce Rate". The higher the bounce rate the more likely someone came to your site on accident such as bad search results. However if this number is low then chances are good search results got them to your site/landing page and they stayed and browsed. If they stay on your site then the next trend to check out would be "Average Time on Site" and "Pageviews". Those will give you a good indication of the quality of your website by showing you how long a visitor sticks around and how much stuff they checkout. It’s most important to have great content that’s relative to the visitor than just getting someone to visit your site. It’s also great when people are coming back to your site so it’s important to keep your content fresh and unique. Something noteworthy in the screen shot below is how many people are using Firefox, Safari and Chrome for their web browser. IE market share has been slipping and therefore it is important to keep this in mind when developing your website. I get frustrated when I can’t browse a site correctly when I’m using Firefox. Firefox is one of the most respected browsers in the industry and I’m going to assume that Chrome is going to gain market share quickly. What’s your browser of choice? 1-month view for one of my websites Stay tuned Next time we’ll take a look at some of the other aspects of Google Analytics and how you can use those to increase the type of visitors you are looking for. Resources: Google Analytic Product Tour Google Analytic App Gallery

10 must have WordPress Plugins

July 22, 2010

Being the most popular blogging platform in the world has its advantages. There are millions of individuals and businesses that are using a WordPress blog. Those blogs are the stepping stones to promoting a business or a cause. Plugins make those blogs even more powerful and there are over 10,000 to choose from. The best thing is they are all free and install in just minutes! We’ll cover some of the best plugins out there that make your blog more attractive to search engines, one that let you send a newsletter and others that will keep your readers on your site longer and some get you “Liked” on Facebook. All in One SEO Pack If you don’t have this plugin installed you should download it today. It is the most downloaded plugin for WordPress blogs. This plugin is used to assist in the search engine optimization of your WordPress blog. Installation only takes a moment and set-up is fairly simple. Find more information here on how to use it once you have the plugin installed. Akismet This plugin prevents spam from being posted to the comments section of your post. The plugin checks your comments against the Akismet server to see if they look like spam. The “Comments”" admin screen lets you review spam comments before they display below your post. Contact Form 7 Those looking for a way to gather customer information need to look no further. The plugin Contact Form 7 uses CAPTCHA in order to prevent non-humans from submitting a form. This plugin even uses Akismet to filter out any spam. It can help you manage multiple contact forms and is customizable for those with a little more experience with code. Contextual Related Posts Keep your readers around longer with a plugin that displays related stories. This plugin will display a list of related post at the end of the post the reader is viewing. The plugin looks at the tags or the current article to match it with similar post the reader might like. Therefore keeping them around longer on your site instead of reading one article and moving on. fbLikeButton Let your readers “Recommend” or “Like” your blog post and share them with one-click to their Facebook friends. The plugin is customizable in look and feel depending on your blogs theme. The button can be displayed before or after your post. This is a great way to draw traffic to your blog from Facebook. Google Analytics for WordPress This plugin bills itself as the most complete Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. Track where your readers are coming from, how long they are staying around on your blog and more. The newest version promises to be faster when loading the tracking code. Newsletter Keep your readers coming back to your blog with a newsletter you compose. It can be sent out on whatever frequency you like. Your readers can opt-in to your newsletter with just a name and email address. This is a very powerful plugin and you can read more information here. WP-DB-Backup Must have plugin to give you piece of mind that your hard work is protected. This plugin is able to backup your core WordPress database on a schedule or when ever you need. You can save it to the server, your PC or have it sent via email to protect your blog post. It also allows you to backup other tables that are related to your WordPress blog. WP Google-buzz Facebook and Twitter still reign when it comes to social media sites. Google might be the powerful search giant but its entry into social media with Google Buzz kind of fizzled. However there is rumor that Google has something new coming down the pipeline. WPtouch iPhone Theme Give your blog that iPhone look and feel for your readers on the go. WPtouch gives your WordPress blog an iPod/iPhone app look. The admin controls for the plug-in give you lots of customization. Viewer can toggle to the normal view for your blog with a flip of a switch. More information”¦ More Resources: WordPress Plugin Directory Affordable WordPress Hosting from GreenHostUSA ““ Starting at less than $10 a month!

Have your blog speak to your readers with Odiogo

July 18, 2010

If you are looking for a new way to promote your business or cause you might consider a WordPress blog. It is a great way to get high search engine results when tied to your organizations website. Many of the plug-ins offered for WordPress are designed to share your blog with with others on Facebook, Twitter, other social media sites and are easy to add. Odiogo is one of those plug-ins that makes your blog stand out from others. It gives your readers the ability to listen to your articles by the push of a “listen now” button. If your followers don’t have time to read your current post they can take it with them on the go. Odiogo turns your blog into a portable podcast. You install plugins by going to the Dashboard for your WordPress Blog and selecting “Plugins” from the menu on the left. That will bring you to the screen below when you can search from hundreds of available plug-ins. You can pick from Featured, Popular, Newest and Recently Updated. If you know the name of the plug-in just type it into the search box. Type in “odiogo” to install the Odiogo plug-in on your blog. Once you have the Odiogo plug-in installed you will need to register your blogs RSS feed. You only need to submit your email address and the address of your RSS feed. It is free to register and this how Odiogo monitors your blogs for any new post. Your new blog post is then turned into an MP3 file that also your readers to listen to your post. It can take a few minutes for the process to complete. Readers just click the “Listen Now” button and the player automatically launches. It also gives them the choice to load a podcast onto their iPod/iPhone or an MP3 for any MP3 player. Try it out today by clicking the “Listen Now” button on the top of this article. I think you’ll be impressed at the quality of translation. Let me know what you think! If you know of any other WordPress plug-ins that are unique or help make a blog standout from others, please let me know. Get the podcast for this blog here!

Blog your way to success using WordPress.com

July 7, 2010

Blogging is an important component of any businesses social media plan. This blog is a WordPress blog and using one of many free themes available. WordPress is the number one choice for bloggers around the world and open source. It’s possible to find free services for blogging like Blogger.com and WordPress.com. Both work just fine if you are just starting out and on a tight marketing budget. Before Facebook and Twitter, a blog was one of the first ways a business could interact with its customers. It allows 2-way discussion and communication with your customers. It is also an easy way for someone not familiar with website coding to get online. WordPress.com Blog – socialmarket.wordpress.com If you want to keep your cost down the free version of WordPress is the route to take. Create your free account by filling out some basic information so you can keep the account protected and secure. With the free version your blog address will be yourblogname.wordpress.com and you are limited in storage space. However you can upgrade to premium features if needed at a later date. You are forced to stay with WordPress and if you change your mind you can always import your blog postings into another blog service. If you want more control over your blog, better search engine optimization, better selection of themes and plug-ins then regular WordPress is the best option. You can get your own domain name (typically $10 a year) for your blog and monthly hosting is inexpensive. When done with the registration process you can start posting right away. There are a few other things to set-up like categories and tags but that can be done as you go. By setting up categories and tags you will help your readers find postings they are interested in. I suggest that you take a few moments and think about the goal of your blog and your target audience. Write out the categories that best fit with your blogs focus. If you were going to write about fashion your categories might be hats, shirts, pants, accessories and shoes. The tags you might use would be bonnets, derby hats, t-shirts, polo shirts, jewelry, watches, jeans and tennis shoes. WordPress starts you out with the default theme which you can choose to use or you can search through hundreds of free themes or find specially customized theme for purchase from many different sources. If you are a real estate agent you can find a theme geared towards the housing market or whatever line of business you might be in. If you are a hobbyist you can find lots of themes to showcase and blog about your favorite hobby. If you don’t like a theme all you have to do is find another that you like and install that theme. Anything you’ve already posted takes on the look of the new theme. Just keep in mind that with the free version of WordPress you are limited in your choices of themes. But there’s something for everyone and more are being added all the time. Check out more WordPress themes here: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ I’ll talk more about themes, plug-ins and widgets in a future post to give you time to get familiar with the free WordPress. Plus I’ll cover the differences between the free version and hosting a WordPress blog.

Category: Blogging