Archive for the ‘How Tos’ Category:
How To Add a Q&A Section To Your Blog
One of the best ways to build a solid community around your blog is by getting your visitors engaged in discussion on your website. Everybody who comes to your blog has needs and will have questions. That’s why adding a Q&A section to your blog can help you take it to the next level. Thanks to WordPress, you can easily add such a functionality to your website (regardless of what platform your main website is run on). Instant Q&A is a super clean and dynamic theme that does just that without you having to make any changes to your main blog.
All you have to do is create a new folder (/answers) on your blog domain and install WordPress and Instant Q&A theme on it. That’s really all there is to it. Once done, your visitors can take advantage of this theme to ask and answer questions on your website. Why install it separately? Q&A sites do get attacked a lot. If you are not accepting user registrations on your blog for security reasons, you don’t have to make any compromise by taking this approach.
How to Add Like/Dislike Buttons To Your Blog
In case you have not noticed, there is no way to give a website or web-page a negative score with those Facebook or StumbleUpon buttons. Getting positive feedback from your visitors is nice, but sometimes you may need more than that to improve your blog and take it to the next level. Giving your visitors an easy way to vote your stories up and down is one way to go. Nobody likes to get negative votes from others. If you have worked hard to develop your content, you should not have anything to worry about.
LikeBot is a fun tool that adds vote-up / vote-down buttons to your blog posts. That way your visitors can tell you exactly how they feel about your work.
The script is very to install. You can either download LikeBot WordPress plugin to get the job done or use the Javascript code to install these buttons on your website (regardless of the platform). There are multiple designs for you to choose from. You can make the appropriate changes from your WordPress back-end or by playing with the code. Read more »
How To Secure Your Blog
Nothing is more frustrating than waking up one day and realizing that your blog has been successfully defaced. That’s if you get lucky. In most cases, hackers go after blogs and add malicious code to them that is hard to find and get rid of. Sometimes, they may even lock you out of your own blog. Make no mistake about it. There is no hack-proof blog out there. Some security holes we all know about. Some nobody knows about until they are exploited. Your goal as a blogger should be to make the process as hard as possible for hackers. Having your data backed-up can give you the cover you need just in case someone gets through your blog’s security defenses. But it is not the only thing you need to do to secure your blog.
As a blogger, your focus should be on creating the best content possible for your readers. But there are a lot of us that get too attached to our work and forget about other issues that we need to take care of to keep our blogs going. Blog security should be at the top of every blogger’s agenda. Your blog’s admin pages are like a closed gate of a tower. If someone finds a crack in there somewhere, you are in deep trouble. Of course, if you let someone kick at your door long enough, the door might open (brute force attack). If you happen to run your blog on WordPress, there are plenty of plugins you can download to strengthen your blog’s security. Even if you are using other platforms, there are still simple steps you can take to protect your blog:
- Hide sensitive information: hiding the information that hackers can use to get through your defenses easier is smart. You should take time to hide plugin information as well as anything else that you do not need to show to the world (but can be a security threat). Encrypting your database information is a must too (use a public/private key if you must). Read more »
How To Use Twitter For Blogging Ideas
Credit: jaylopez
Almost all bloggers that I know have had trouble coming up with new ideas for their blogs from time to time. Newbies have to deal with this issue more than experienced bloggers. These days, there are just so many tools that one can use to come up with new blogging ideas. You just have to learn how to use them. Twitter is one of those tools. It’s a powerful social network that connects you to the world and gives you access to millions of people. Many bloggers use Twitter to drive traffic to their blogs and push products. There is nothing wrong with that. Don’t forget that there is a lot of value in listening to what others have to say on Twitter. It’s not hard to miss things when you are the one who’s doing all the talking.
If you are ready to listen to what others have to say on Twitter, here are 5 ways you can use this network to come up with new ideas for your blog:
- Track top stories with Topsy: lots of Twitter fans use Tweetmeme to find the top stories in Twitterville. I personally prefer Topsy. It’s a powerful Twitter search engine that lets you find out what’s trending and what people are talking about online. It even shows you who the influential players are. Great tool to gather information for your next blog post.
- Ask Questions: if you are too impatient, you can just ask questions on Twitter. There are tools that let you share polls and questions with the Twitter community. Just make sure your question is to the point and something worth answering (that goes without saying).
- Track keywords: tools such as tweetbeep to keep track of your favorite keywords on Twitter just like you would on Google using Google Alerts. You’d be surprised how many ideas you can get by looking at your Twitter alerts. Read more »
Build Your Own News Aggregator with OneNews
In order to become a successful blogger, bloggers need to focus more on providing value to their readers. People come to a blog to learn new things, stay on the top of the latest news, and communicate with their blog community members. As a blogger, you may not be able to track every single piece of news, but it never hurts to create a news aggregator on your site to give your visitors an easy way to keep track of the latest developments in your niche without leaving your website. Thanks to OneNews for Wordpress you can do just that in a matter of minutes.
OneNews for WordPress is a very easy to use theme that transforms your blog into your very own news aggregator, similar to what AllTop offers. You can use the theme to add your favorite blogs, Twitter searches, and Google news feeds. That way your visitors can stay on the top of the latest developments in your niche all from one place. This theme can handle Flickr photos and YouTube videos too.
How To: Improve Your Post Quality with PaperRater
Have you ever been in a situation where you have to meet a couple of deadlines in one day and can’t possibly get it done without doing things faster? We have all been there before. Maybe you have 5 blogs that you need to write posts for in one day and just do not have enough time to even blink. As a blogger you should not cut corners. But, when you are in a hurry, it’s so easy to make simple mistakes and miss them when editing your posts. If you have the budget for a dedicated editor, you probably don’t have to worry about that. But a lot of bloggers do not have that luxury, which means they end up editing their posts by themselves. That’s when having an easy-to-use post-editor is helpful. Paper Rater is an innovative service that is designed to help bloggers edit their posts, catch those grammar and spelling errors, and improve the quality of their blogs fast.
Paper Rater’s main audience may be college students, but as a blogger you can get some real value out of this service. It’s a free service that analyzes your paper for grammar and spelling errors and even tells you ways you can improve the way you have put things in your posts. Read more »
5 Ways Start Your Own Membership Website
Owning a blog and working hard to make it popular should not be your only focus as a blogger. If you take a look at what top bloggers have done with their sites and how their business has evolved, it’s easy to see that they have gone from writing content to selling their own products and services. It’s not just about making more money. It’s about hedging your bets and expanding your business.
Creating a membership site around the topic you blog about can be yet another way for you to make money online and take your business to the next level. If you have been blogging about your niche for a few years, and you have kept up with the latest developments in your niche, you should have more than enough material to kick-start your own membership website. It won’t be that easy to manage your membership but the start doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, here are 5 ways you can create a membership site fast:
aMember: aMember is the top membership site software on the market. If you watch the top membership sites on the market, there is no doubt about the merits of this software package. It’s very scalable, and it allows you to integrate payment systems fast. It can also be used to setup free areas on site, requiring only registration. So it works for freemium business models as well.
vBulletin: vBulletin is one of the best forum software packages around. Whether you want to build a professional forum or just want to start your own membership site (e.g. ProBlogger.com), vBulletin is a nice piece of software to own. Read more »
How To Save Yourself from Tax Headaches
Bloggers need to pay taxes as well. In fact, if you are a professional blogger, you are going to have a more complicated tax process than someone who’s working as a blogger for another company. The self-employment tax process can be a bit more complicated, so you want to make sure you do everything possible to save yourself time with the process without putting your business in danger. Most bloggers work with multiple companies to make money online. Their revenue consists of affiliate commission checks, adsense (advertising) checks, and maybe sponsorship funds. You are going to have to pay taxes on all these items. Things would be simple if you were working with only a handful of companies. But chances are you work with multiple affiliate companies and sponsors. That’s why you want to make sure you stay on the top of your taxes and keep track of things so you don’t have to scramble when preparing your taxes the following year.
Here are 5 simple ways you can save yourself time and effort when dealing with your taxes:
- Stay organized: I can’t emphasize on this point enough. There are a lot of bloggers who like operating in chaos. There is nothing wrong with that if it works for you. However, you can’t take the same approach with your taxes. If you are dealing with multiple companies, you can’t afford to be lazy. Besides, staying organized does help you to focus more on things that matter the most to your business, such as creating high quality content.
- Keep track of your expense: while you don’t want to go overboard with what you write off as your business expense, you still want to keep track of all your blog’s expenses to bring your taxes lower. Using a business credit card could help here. Most business credit cards provide you with an annual expense report each year. If you have only used one or two credit cards, you’ll have an easier time tracking your costs. You’ll be more ready for an audit as well. Read more »
Spy On Your Blogging Rivals with SpyFu Kombat
SpyFu is one of the most powerful and most affordable spying tools on the market. Many bloggers make the mistake of not watching what their competitors are doing. While I am not suggesting that bloggers should copy what others are doing in their niche, it’s always nice to know what your competitors are working towards. Maybe you can offer more value in the areas your competitors are focusing on. SpyFu Kombat is a cool tool that lets you figure out what other bloggers are advertising on and what organic keywords they are going after.
SpyFu Kombat is a part of SpyFu membership program that lets you compare your own organic and paid campaigns against those of your competitors. Let’s say I want to compare bloggingOT against Problogger. It would certainly be nice to have a tool that could tell me what areas I need to work on to catch up to Problogger in the search engines. That’s what SpyFu Kombat offers and then some. It not only shows you what areas you need to work on to take your blog to the next level, it also shows you what areas you have in common with blogs you are competing against. Read more »
5 Ways To Add Enhanced Comments On Your Blog
So how do you measure success when it comes to your blog? One way to do that is by determining whether you are reaching out to people and getting them to engage in conversations on your blog. A weblog that does not get any comments is not necessarily a failure, but it’s certainly not a success either. If your posts don’t make people want to comment and participate in your community, then you’ve got trouble. In that case, you want to make sure you do more research and address topics that people want to hear about.
What if you are already getting a decent number of comments on your blog? If that is the case, you should try to provide your readers with even more tools to comment on your blog. Whether it’s allowing them to leave you a video comment or rate other people’s comments, giving people more tools can only help take your blog to the next level. If you are looking for ways to enhance your blog’s comment section, here are 5 services that you should try:
Disqus: one of the most flexible services around that takes over your comment section on your blog and makes it possible for you readers to post video comments, connect to your blog via Facebook connect, and do a whole lot more on your blog. It works with the most popular blogging platforms which is a plus.
JS-Kit Echo: one of the best third party comment systems around. It not only comes with an advanced comment editor, it allows your readers to post more dynamic comments to your blog. The service is growing fast and has a bright future.
Intense Debate: a nice alternative to Disqus and Echo. It’s currently being used by a lot of Wordpress bloggers. The fact that the developers have opened up the platform to others means you are going to get a lot of enhancements through third party services.
Backtype Connect: a social media and conversation search engine that lets you know what people are talking about (based on your URL or article). You can install it on your Wordpress blog to let you users find out about the conversations going on about your content in the social media.
Facebook Connect: if you don’t want to mess with your blog and add services such as Disqus to enhance your comments, the least you can do is add Facebook Connect capability to your blog. The service can help you build a more solid community and take advantage of Facebook to go viral with your content.
These services may not improve the quality of your content, but they certainly do improve the quality and quantity of conversations on your blog. What more can you ask?
