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Written on 12/8/2012 at 12:00 am by

How to Choose the Right WordPress Contractor for Your Blog

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

This guest post is by John Bonello of WPProHelp.com.

After reading the articles on how to work with designers and technical contractors here on Problogger.net, I felt the need to share my experience with you on how to choose a WordPress contractor.

Choosing a third-party WordPress contractor is probably the most important task of all for a WordPress blogger, yet it’s not often discussed.

I worked as a system and web server engineer for international companies for over 12 years and recently, I started my own business. In that time, I have seen projects fail or take much longer than expected to be finished. Even worse, I have seen projects which have cost more than double the allocated budget.

All these failures can be attributed to one simple mistake: the project manager didn’t choose the right contractor for the job.

How can a blogger find a good WordPress contractor?

Finding the right WordPress contractor is not always easy. It might take some time until you find a person that really fits your needs. Major problems typically encountered by bloggers when hiring a contractor are price, availability, lack of communication, and worst of all, lack of knowledge.

I am going to share with you some necessary tools to help you find the right WordPress contractor to get your job done. Be careful, though: these are not golden rules. Unfortunately, although a contractor may satisfy all of these criteria, that does not necessarily mean that he or she is definitely the right one for you. That said, these points can serve as good indicators that the contractor is worth considering.

Basic skills

You can determine if a WordPress contractor is knowledgeable or not by checking out his or her website. Typically, WordPress contractors like sharing their experiences online via their own blog—after all, it’s their marketing tool.

If the contractor frequently publishes WordPress-related content, and has a WordPress blog, then most probably he or she is quite experienced in the field.

Previous jobs

A WordPress contractor’s testimonials can speak for themselves. You should always check out the contractor’s website for testimonials. If you are in doubt, ask the contractor to share a customer’s contact details with you so you can approach the customer with any questions you might have. If you found the contractor via an online hiring platform, check the history of his or her previous jobs ratings. Previous job ratings can give a better indication than testimonials.

If a WordPress contractor is new on the block, most probably they won’t have many testimonials, won’t have a rich job history, and won’t have a lot of followers on their social media channels. This does not mean that you should immediately give up on the contractor. Keep in mind that start-ups tend to be really hungry for work and more flexible than already established contractors.

Listen to other bloggers

Since you’re blogger, most probably you know other bloggers who hired a WordPress contractor before you.

Get in touch with them, and ask them who they’ve been working with, and if they are happy with their contractor. Feedback from experiences of fellow bloggers can prove to be invaluable.

Attention to detail

We tend to believe that no one gives enough attention to detail unless the project is their own. I tend to disagree with this impression—there are some great WordPress contractors out there.

You can assess the WordPress contractor’s attention to detail by simply visiting his or her website. If parts of the contractor’s website aren’t working, and it includes broken links, definitely that is not a good sign.

A contractor’s website is their shop window. It is what prospective customers see first. So if a contractor’s shop looks run down, then most probably his products and services really are.

Communication

Everything boils down to communication. If the communication level is not right, I can guarantee you that the job will not succeed.

The first time you engage with your WordPress contractor will be via email or phone. While discussing your needs, make sure that the contractor can understand you properly. Throughout my career, I met a lot of brilliant minds that unfortunately are not able to communicate well. A good working relationship isn’t just about the technicalities.

Hiring the WordPress contractor

Now that we’ve covered the basics of how to start looking for a good WordPress contractor, let’s talk discuss some tips on what to look out for when hiring a WordPress contractor.

Stick to a single company

Designers are good at designing websites. WordPress developers are good at writing code. WordPress technical contractors are good at troubleshooting and fixing broken websites, and building new solutions using existing code, such as WordPress plugins.

Each is a different job, and they shouldn’t be mixed together.

The good thing, though, is that typically a designer knows a technical WordPress contractor and a developer, and vice versa. There are also WordPress companies which offer all WordPress services under one name.

So if you already have a WordPress contact, be it a designer, a developer, or technical contractor, and you need something which the contractor cannot provide, ask your contact if he or she knows someone in that particular field before rushing to hire another third party.

There are several advantages in hiring people that know each other rather than having three different contractors from different sources.

  • It costs less. If you hire a group of WordPress contractors that know each other, or hire all services through the same company you might and should be able to discuss a package price, rather than paying for each individual job. Individual jobs tend to be costly.
  • It is more efficient. If all of the WordPress contractors you hire know each other, or work for the same company, they are used to working together. This means that the project is more likely to be finished in a timely manner and work right out of the box.
  • You’ll have a single point of contact. Dealing with a group of contractors and coordinating all the work between them can be a nightmare. You are better off spending your time more efficiently, such as writing content, rather than coordinating a project. So if you hire all your WordPress services using the same contact, you’ll only have to worry about conveying your needs to that one person.

It isn’t a one-time project. Build a relationship

Although you may think that finally you’ve got the ultimate website design with all the functionality you may need, rest assured that after a couple of years, if not months, you are going to need to change something on your website or blog. Be it a small design change, new functionality, or a complete website revamp, you will need to get in touch with your WordPress contractors from time to time.

When shopping around for WordPress contractors, make sure you are comfortable working with that contractor as this isn’t the last time you will speak to them. Make sure they can always understand your needs and can listen attentively.

Contractors do not like to take over someone else’s leftovers and try to fix them. For most technical people it is much easier to build something from scratch rather than fix someone else’s code. Even the best software developers in the world admit that reading another developer’s code is very difficult and time consuming.

Switching from one WordPress contractor to another is costly, it guarantees you an endless amount of emails and phone calls, and ultimately it will take you ages to finish the task.

Try to keep customizations minimal

I have encountered many developers who prefer to build their own custom solution rather than use an already existing plugin or function. Custom solutions will always cost more and in the long run this might be a problem. If something goes wrong and you need an urgent fix, you’ll have to use the same developer.

In such scenarios, it is highly likely that you will be overcharged, since you are at the developer’s mercy. This does not mean that all developers take advantage of such a situation, but I suggest you don’t put yourself in such a situation in the first place. I receive many emails asking me to fix something because the developer who has done it is no longer available, or is overcharging.

If you need specific functionality implemented on your WordPress website or blog, you should always ask your contractor and check for yourself if it can be achieved using existing WordPress plugins. As I’ve already explained, no one likes fixing someone else’s mess, so always push for readily available solutions where possible.

Ready, set, go!

Even though you’ve probably heard of many bad experiences when hiring WordPress contractors, there will always be WordPress contractors who are capable and loyal.

If you already have a WordPress contractor that you’re comfortable working with, it is good to ask them about anything you need. Chances are that even if they cannot provide you the service themselves, they will have some contacts who can.

If you do not have a WordPress contractor and are looking for one, shop around and ask as many questions as you have. Good contractors will answer all of your questions, help you, and be ready to go the extra mile to get the job done for you—even if they cannot do it themselves.

Do you have a contractor who helps with WordPress maintenance and updates? How did you find them? We’d love to hear about them in the comments.

This is a guest post by John Bonello, owner of WPProHelp.com, a WordPress security and technical firm based in Europe. WPProHelp.com also frequently publishes WordPress Tutorials for Beginners on the company’s blog.

Written on 12/3/2012 at 12:05 am by

Prepare Your Blog For the Festive Season: a Step-by-step Guide

Filed Under: Featured Posts, Miscellaneous Blog Tips

Over the weekend, we ran a short series of interviews with bloggers of different types, to get a feel for how they’re preparing for the festive season.

Christmas

Image courtesy stock.xchng user danyba


We spoke to the owners of:

If that series made you realize how underprepared you are for the coming weeks, don’t worry. Today’s post is a checklist for getting ready.

1. Have you worked out when you’ll take a break?

The first thing to do is get out the calendar. Work out when you won’t want to be blogging, and block those days (or weeks!) out.

Now you know how much time you have to work with.

2. Do you know what you want to get out of this period?

The benefits of setting some goals up front are two-fold.

First, goals will help you set your priorities for the next few weeks. Second, they’ll help you assess your efforts when you come back to your blog in 2013. They might even help you improve on your work when the festive season rolls around again in a year’s time.

Set a few goals. They might be as simple as maintaining regular posting and social media schedules, or as detailed as setting expectations for sales and tracking the sources of traffic that converts.

3. Do you know what you need to do to get there?

List the tasks you’ll need to achieve your goals.

If you want to maintain a twice-a-week positing schedule, how much writing time will you need? How much editing time? Will you work any affiliate promotions into those posts? Which ones, and when will they run? When’s the best time to promote those posts?

Make a list of all the things you need to do. Then, schedule them. Think a long time in advance, and get right into the details. Don’t just make a note to curate ten tweets to autopublish over the festive period. Schedule the time you’ll need to find quality content to include in those tweets.

Without taking your plans to this level of granularity, you’ll run the risk of underestimating the time and energy you’ll need to do everything on your list. Which leads me to…

4. Have you prioritized your priorities?

This is an extra step, but one you may well end up doing. You may already have found that your eyes were bigger than your stomach, so to speak, when you set your goals for the period. If you can’t fit everything in, check your top priorities and consider whether you’d be happy if you just achieved those.

This should help you focus as the inevitable distractions and schedule-changes come up in the coming weeks … and you run out of time!

Tip: Consider making your own checklist for every one of the tasks you need to do, so that you can avoid waking up in a panic because you forgot to find images for a post, or to encode your affiliate links in that email you’re autosending.

5. Have you got things ready for your return in 2013?

Getting ready for the festive season isn’t just about getting through to January 1, 2013. It’s also about hitting the ground running when you get back to your desk.

The lead-up to the break, at a time when you’ve just set all these goals, is to write a to-do list for Day 1, 2013. Include:

  • checking emails, stats, and social listening to find out what you missed while you were offline (assuming you were offline!)
  • goal-setting for the new year (if you haven’t done that during the break)
  • reconnecting with others who you can help—and can be helped by—in the coming 12 months.

This is the basic checklist I use to make sure I’m on track through the festive season and beyond. What about you? Share your tips and advice for keeping your blog going through the silly season below.

Written on 12/2/2012 at 6:09 am by

Blogging the Festive Season: The Not-for-Profit Blog [Case Study]

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

Stephen Pepper is insurance administrator by day, youth worker and blogger by night. He and his wife run Youth Workin’ It, a not-for-profit site that provides consultancy and services for youth workers and organizations worldwide. This includes blogging 6 days a week about youth work.

As part of our Blogging the Festive Season series, we asked Stephen how he and his wife are preparing the blog for the festive season.

What does preparing the Youth Workin’ It blog for the festive season mean?

Over the last year or so, we’ve realized that we need to be well-prepared when it comes to writing posts about particular times of the year. We posted an idea for a Valentine’s Day fundraiser on February 13th, but this meant youth workers didn’t have any time to use the idea this year.

So we started publishing our Christmas posts a couple of months early, like a youth work session to include young people when planning Christmas activities and ideas for organizing a Christmas card fundraiser.

This will be your second festive season on the blog. What did you learn last year? What will you do differently this time?

Last year, we stole an idea from Jon Acuff. He wanted to take time off over the Christmas period but didn’t want to neglect his blog, so he re-posted his his most trafficked posts from the prior 12 months. This meant new visitors read material they might not have come across otherwise, while loyal readers were reminded of some of his best writing.

On our blog, we did something similar. This was based on the 12 Days Of Christmas, where we re-posted our most highly trafficked 12 posts since we started the blog on 1 September 2011. It probably wasn’t wise from an SEO standpoint, as we were effectively re-posting duplicate material. However, we’d moved into a new apartment at the beginning of December, so not having to write new posts for two weeks meant we were able to get settled in far more quickly.

Last year, we also found that our Christmas scavenger hunt ideas proved to be popular. We therefore started posting similar ideas throughout the year, which in turn also received a lot of traffic. Having identified the popularity of these activities, we published our second book, 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas.

Youth Workin’ It has a global audience. What usually happens to readership and traffic on your site over the festive season?

As our blog was only a couple of months old in late 2011, we had very low levels of traffic in comparison to today, making it hard to identify any kind of trend. Our average number of daily visitors has grown approximately 3,000% since December 2011, so it’s hard to estimate what our traffic levels will be like this festive season in comparison, as we started from such a low base point last year.

Having said that, I’m anticipating that in the run up to the festive season we’ll see a bump in Christmas-themed search traffic. In the first two weeks of November 2012 we had close to 300 people find our site through Christmas-themed search terms, suggesting this trend will continue.

We’ve been seeing good growth all year, but I think that overall traffic will drop off over the Christmas period. Visits to Youth Workin’ It continued increasing throughout November, until two days before Thanksgiving when it dropped off for a few days while Americans celebrated this holiday, so I’m assuming the same will happen at Christmas too.

In January, though, I think we’ll receive a lot more traffic as youth workers will be looking for new youth work and youth ministry ideas for the coming year.

Do you think that having a “cause” blog provides you with different opportunities or challenges around this time of year than bloggers with more commercial blogs face?

For commercial blogs, I’d imagine Christmas is one of the best opportunities for generating revenue, particularly by driving sales through affiliate schemes.

Although we have the odd affiliate link on our site (mainly using Amazon Associates) and produce our own youth work resources, we’re not a commercial blog.

This means we can focus on writing material that we think youth workers will find helpful, rather than feeling like we have to focus on writing about topics or products that will earn us an income. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with commercial blogs—I’m simply not a salesman, so am glad I don’t have that pressure when I write.

This also helps ensure that most of our content is evergreen, rather than becoming dated quickly. If you’re trying to drive sales of the latest phone, or camera, in six months those products will be old news, and your blog post could equally become old news.

We therefore try as best as we can to take the opportunity to provide youth work ideas and principles that will be equally as valid in five years as they are today.

How else does the festive season affect your blog and blogging schedule?

I have a full-time day job and will only be taking a couple of days off over Christmas—I contract for an insurance company so if I don’t work, I don’t get paid! My blogging schedule therefore won’t change much, as I’ll be maintaining the same daily routine.

Our engagement with subscribers and social media followers won’t change much either, but that’s because we don’t have a large focus on those channels at the moment. Both my wife and I have full-time jobs, do volunteer youth work in our spare time, and blog six days a week. Unfortunately, we’ve therefore been unable to focus any time and energy on engaging with readers and followers on a consistent basis.

What’s the start of the New Year got in store for Youth Workin’ It?

Although we’re not taking any time off around New Year, the start of 2013 is going to be very busy. My wife Shae is going to be a speaker at Open Boston—a new youth ministry event—so she’ll be planning her talk for that. She also runs three girl scout troops in low-income housing areas that rely on fundraising in order to organize activities, which means she’ll also be focused on selling Girl Scout cookies.

The result of this is that I’ll be taking over more of the blogging responsibilities. I’ll therefore try to get ahead on my blogging schedule, particularly at weekends.

And what will you be most heavily focused on?

In addition to our regular blogging, we’re aiming to publish at least two new youth work resources again this coming year. That’s an area I’ll be focusing on, along with writing guest posts for other blogs. I’ve also been approached about another blogging project which looks set to be an amazing and fun opportunity.

On top of all this, I’ve recently set up a separate scavenger hunt blog. As mentioned earlier, these activities were popular on Youth Workin’ It, but we didn’t want them to be our primary focus. I’ve therefore set up this separate niche site so that I can keep publishing these ideas, which will also hopefully drive a few more sales of our scavenger hunt book.

Shae’s focus will be on getting more speaking and consulting opportunities. We’re also planning on setting up a non-profit that will work with young people in our local low-income communities, so we’re definitely going to be busy!

We’re not planning on making any changes to the general design or layout of our site, but are seriously considering signing up with AWeber instead of relying on Feedburner to deliver our daily emails.

One of the reasons for this is that we’re considering experimenting with popovers to gain even more email subscribers, especially having seen how much success Darren had with this technique.

As we’re not a commercial blog, we’d be paying for the service out of our own pocket without expecting to earn any revenue from email subscribers, which is why we’ve held off on doing this so far. The increase in subscribers should be a good longer term investment though, as it’ll help get the Youth Workin’ It name out more widely and will hopefully result in further speaking and consultancy opportunities for Shae.

What’s your advice to other not-for-profit bloggers to make the most of the festive season—both on their blogs, and in their personal lives?

Depending on the nature of your blog, prepare for the festive season well in advance. As I mentioned earlier, we’re already receiving hundreds of visitors to our posts relating to the festive season. As always, Google’s keyword tool is an invaluable resource for finding out what people in your niche are searching for when it comes to Christmas, the New Year, and other religious holidays.

In the New Year, people will be looking for a new start and fresh ideas. What can you offer them to make their lives better?

As for your personal lives, make sure that you have some balance. Answering these questions has made me realize how much I want to achieve for 2013, but this could easily result in working too hard and getting burned out. I therefore need to make sure that I intentionally carve out time—even if it’s just for one weekend in December—where I don’t touch blogging at all.

I’ve found this leaves me feeling incredibly refreshed, so this will set me up well to launch into 2013.

Huge thanks to Stephen for taking the time for this interview. If you run a not-for-profit or cause blog, what are you doing to prepare for the festive season? Share your plans in the comments!

Written on 12/1/2012 at 6:02 am by

Blogging the Festive Season: The Blogger-Consultant-Speaker [Case Study]

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

Tara Gentile is a blogger and business strategist whose online presence underpins her thriving consulting business at taragentile.com.

As part of our Blogging the Festive Season series, we asked her how the festive season affects her business and blog.

What does preparing for the festive season mean for your business?

For me, preparing my blog and business for the holidays means preparing for time off. I try to produce extra content to fill blog posts and email updates for sporadic publication but I go easy on myself. If I don’t get the content created, I still rest.

My goal for this season is to clear the way for momentum and inspiration in the New Year. This year, I’ll be taking stock of a few new ventures, including my microbusiness accelerator Kick Start Labs, and setting the stage to hit the ground running with a few new projects which include beta testing a mastermind program and beginning serious work on my book.

I also launched a complete redesign (and refocusing) of the site. Since the holidays are a slow time for me, that gives me leeway in discovering any flaws or missed opportunities.

What usually happens to readership and traffic on your blog over the festive season, and what happens to your consulting and speaking schedules?

Readership and traffic tend to be low during the festive season. That said, sales are often brisk at the end of the year with people making last-minute business expenses before the US accounting year closes. However, the real work doesn’t need to be done till January or February, so I make a point to take about four weeks off between December and January. Why work for work’s sake?

I’ll write, think, and read. But I don’t answer much email, execute programs, or do calls during that time. It’s a chance to recharge my personal and business batteries.

I’ve found that it doesn’t pay to try to change sales trends. Instead, I try to amplify sales trends. If it’s normally dead, then I take time off, regroup, and enjoy the downtime. If it’s a busy time of year, I ramp up my activities and do the work that allows me to take advantage of buying seasons. For this year, that will mean taking lots of time off, but providing a few key offers right at the end of the year.

Plenty of solo operators would be worried about being away from their businesses for so long. Are you worried about missing opportunities in that time?

My customers are doing exactly the same—or at least, I hope they are. I’m not going to send out a lot of content they can’t use at this time of year so what work I do is focused on the future—both mine and theirs.

Future-focused work includes doing research or reading that inspires me to create the kind of work that will serve my customers well in the next year. I’ve noticed that when I take time off at the same time my customers are taking time off, no one really notices my absence!

Sure—consulting and speaking aren’t exactly seasonal purchases. You mentioned key end-of-year offers. Is that how you keep revenue coming in the door during the festive season?

Aside from providing a compelling offer or two at the end of the year for those who are looking for add-on business expenses at the end of the year, I don’t worry about keeping revenue coming in the door.

Just as a family plans big purchases or budgets for daily expenses, it’s important for entrepreneurs to plan their revenue. When you plan for the natural ups and downs, you can feel good about letting your revenue flow naturally instead of trying to force sales when they are difficult to come by.

So, even now, I have a good idea of what my revenue plan for 2013 is. I know what’s launching when and about how much I can expect. Of course, that plan will change and evolve as the year goes. But this way, I know I can feel comfortable about taking the summer off or taking family time in December.

Your site at taragentile.com has been has been going for a while now. How has your approach to preparing for the festive season changed in that time?

I’d say I used to approach each month of the year as if it were the same as any other month. Now, I try to be keenly aware of how each month is different, bringing with it its own challenges and opportunities.

As the years went by and I started noting trends, I could predict what would be important each month: more content vs. less content, more offers vs. less offers, more events vs. less events, and so on. Now I can use that information to effortlessly create a plan for the season months in advance.

Are there any special preparations you’re making for the time you take off?

December 16-January 10 are marked off for family and fun time on my calendar. During that time, I’ll work if inspiration strikes me and I’ll certainly be making reflections on the year past and journalling on the year to come, but I don’t worry too much about making sure my blog keeps going.

There’s little reward in expending energy just for the sake of continuity, especially if no one is paying attention.

My readers have their own work to do and their own families to attend to. I don’t worry that they’ll forget about my site or that the dip in traffic will last forever. We’ll all find our way back into the groove in mid-January.

My only goal is to have great content, new ideas, and a compelling offer waiting for them when they return.

And when you do return in the New Year, what will you be focusing on?

For early 2013, my attention will be split three ways.

First, I’ll be continuing to up the value at Kick Start Labs, a microbusiness accelerator community for entrepreneurs making difference through commerce. We’ll be releasing a new series of practical business learning resources.

Second, I’ll be beginning the next serious stage of work on my book. That means lots of research, interviews, and writing. My favorite things! Finding the time and energy for this project has been difficult to say the least, but it’s work that I enjoy immensely and I’m very excited about who the book will reach and how it will encourage them to take action in the You Economy.

Third, I’ll be beta testing a mastermind program. I’ve spent the last two years really getting clear on my process and how I work with clients. It’s time to put it to the test. The goal of the program is to free business owners from the day-to-day execution of their businesses and create the space that’s necessary to see their businesses from 10,000 feet up.

I’ll first be rolling it out to those who have worked closely with me already and then later in the year, I’ll roll it out publicly.

Sounds interesting! So what’s your advice to other bloggers who sell consulting services alongside their blogs to make the most of the festive season?

Take time off! Recharge! Unless you are coaching or consulting in the wellness industry (the classic New Year’s products), this is an off time of year. Make the most of it. Don’t make appointments with others, only yourself. Mark your calendar with appointments to address difficulties in your business, plans for the new year, or loose ends that need tied. Set aside time for writing, thinking, and research.

But set aside the most time for family fun, quiet evenings, and personal introspection.

Sound advice! Thanks so much to Tara for giving us her insights. If you run a consulting or contracting business that’s supported by your blog, let us know what your festive season plans are in the comment!

Next in the series, we hear the festive season plans of a digital publisher.

Written on 11/30/2012 at 6:05 am by

6 Things “Saved By the Bell” Taught Me About Blogging

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

This guest post is by Chiara Mazzucco of TheIndieChicks.com.

There are hundreds of thousands of articles written on being a successful blogger and driving traffic to your website or blog .

Bleh.

You can sit down and read each one, leading you to write your first blog post in about 4 years, or you can pick the gems (on sites like ProBlogger) and choose to drive inspiration from the world around you, instead.

Let’s take popular 90s sitcom, Saved by the Bell, for example. Would it blow your mind if I told you that watching just one episode could lead you to become a better blogger? Yup.

Here are six lessons I learned from Zack and the gang.

1. Be yourself, loud and proud

Screech stood out, without shame.

While thousands of other bloggers, known and unknown, write about the same thing, the only guaranteed way you’ll stand out is if you stay true to who you are and know your voice—without shame.

Start typing, without worrying about grammar, sentence structure and keywords. Thought flow is a unique process and it needs to be respected. If you worry about what others will think, how many sentences should be in a paragraph and whether or not you’re SEO optimizing your text, you’ll never actually write what you’re thinking.

Be unique. Readers appreciate honesty and individuality. Stick out.

2. Be trendy

Lisa was oh, so stylish.

You need to be blogging about things people actually want to read about.

The first step is to find your niche. The tighter the niche, the easier being trendy will be. Write on a popular topic that people care about, from a different perspective, with your unique voice.

And don’t forget, you pick the trends you want to follow. Don’t write about politics because #election2012 is trending when you know little about the presidential candidates and your blog is focused on Irish bagpipes.

3. Be charming, confident, (and a little slick)

Let’s be honest, Zack was a charming, trouble-making stud—and he was completely irresistible.

You may not be the most confident person at a social gathering, but the beauty of blogging is that it’s done behind a computer screen (and, more recently, any type of tablet or smart phone), which means, you are able to be anyone you please.

The key is to establish yourself as an expert. You want readers to be attracted—smitten, even—and to want to know your every move.

Even if you’re blogging for business, you can portray a sense of charm and confidence that immediately sets you up to be seen, and respected, as an expert in your field.

4. Be the girl (or boy) next door

Remember Kelly and that sweet, snuggle-inducing smile of hers?

There is something to be said about the need for your readers to be comfortable in your home (blog).

Whatever you blog about, welcome your readers with open arms—even if you blog about hating your readers. It’s important you make your website easy to navigate, aesthetically appealing, and user friendly.

End your posts with a question, encouraging your readers to engage, and please, allow comments.

Deep down, we all had a thing for the girl (or boy) next door. Don’t you want your readers to have a thing for you, too?

5. Be bold, and don’t apologize for it

A.C. Slater was a bit inappropriate… and it worked.

This particular lesson has to be taken with a grain of salt. You don’t have to be sexist to make it work for you—but you do have to be bold.

In order for a post to be a success it has to solve a problem, be controversial or be generally entertaining.

You can’t entertain or trigger controversy if you’re afraid of making a statement.

So be bold. People won’t be able to resist the urge to comment.

6. Stand up for what you believe, be educated (and blog about it)

Jessie was a pain in the backside, even when she got addicted to caffeine pills. Putting her small indiscretions aside, it’s safe to say that Jessie always knew what she was fighting for, she had the knowledge to back it up and she was always vocal about what she believed in.

These are qualities, in my opinion, that are absolutely crucial to the success as a blogger and I’m grateful Jessie taught me about them.

First of all, being able to write something incredible and have it go live in front of the world without relying on a major newspaper to publish it, is truly a gift that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

The second quality I cannot stress enough is to be educated on the topic you’re discussing. Whether you’re writing about a celebrity love affair or the complicated matters in the Middle East, make sure you have your facts straight … and convey them without spelling or grammar errors.

Apply it

Does this mean each characteristic has to be vibrant in every single blog post in order to make it a success?

Absolutely not.

Use the popular 90s sitcom to learn your strengths, your weaknesses and what you need to work on as a blogger.

You don’t have to hover over old Saved by the Bell episodes to learn anything new about blogging, either.

Look around you and be inspired. I happen to (shamelessly) love television, so I can tactfully take a CSI episode and learn that a blog post is like a murder mystery; pieces to a puzzle lead to a conclusion that solves a problem. Boom!

is CEO and Editor over at TheIndieChicks.com – an online magazine for the badass independent woman – where she devotes her time to inspiring anyone who’ll listen. She wrote a book on dating and relationships, The 9 Mirages of Love: How to Stop Chasing What Doesn’t Exist, and can be found handing out free nuggets of inspiration to new badass subscribers.

Written on 11/30/2012 at 12:02 am by

Why’d You Choose That Domain Name?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

This guest post is by The Blogger.

Let’s admit one thing. We all started this web thing honestly, naively.

Our first site was designed to help people, to fill a gaping void we saw in the online world.

We wanted to do so much good.

Where, then, did it go so wrong? And why? Why did we end up with a website like “www.how-to-earn-money-online.com” that we can barely mention across the dinner table without blushing?

In this post, I’m going to target the psychology behind our seemingly harmless paths to web domination. I’ve been curious for a while about why a few of us start the Zygna.coms and Digg.coms while others go a, well, different path. It all dates back to the mid 1970s, when a man name Albert Bandura, the guy behind Social Cognitive Theory, examined how we seek to replicate success we see in our surroundings and in media, often at all costs. It gets a bit creepy.

Day 1: A new beginnning

It all began with GoDaddy.

“What is GoDaddy?” we ask Google. And Google responds with a full tutorial on GoDaddy.

“Thank you, Google. Now I’ve got my first domain and I have no idea how to use it.”

Well at some point, no thanks to GoDaddy, we find Blogger or WordPress. Your first domain name most-likely had a .blogspot or .wordpress in it. Hello, new blog.

“Wow, this is so interesting,” we think. “I can write posts, post images, create links, and put things in my side bar. And what exactly is a sidebar? I’m going to grow this blog to be huge! I’m getting 100 views a day! Wait, I was tracking my own views. Shut that off. So this actually is difficult … okay, I can handle that.”

We set up our first Google Analytics profile and hardly use it. We’re too focused positioning Adsense ads and garnering Facebook likes.

“Suggest to friends? I think so. Why did he not like it? Not my friend anymore! Write posts, write posts, write posts. Write even more. How am I ever going to have as many posts as that other site? Three a week, that’s it. Must happen. Three great posts of 500 words at least. More coffee. You can do this! Backlinks. Backlins! Need more. Alexa tells me I don’t have enough. Must network. Got one! Got a tweet too! Oh my dear god prepare yourself for traffic! Traffic didn’t come…why not? More posts … more domination!”

At some fateful point after much deliberation we decide to hack off the .blogger/.wordpress and basically think the world will rejoice over our decision.

“Sigh, they don’t. People don’t care. They’re focused on their own websites. Oh well, more networking, more Facebook marketing! Backlinks!”

Day 2: Day 1 got old

At some point in blogging, we become jaded. It just isn’t like it was on Day 1. Our community blog, our niche review site, and our Google Adsense landing page just didn’t work as planned. It wasn’t all we were told it would be, but we did learn in the process.

So, we start a new blog. We suck up our pride. We hobble back over to the computer. We probably woke up later that day because we were up late making it big the night before.

This is where it gets interesting.

The day we start up a second website defines us in our blogging careers.

Why? Because (in case you didn’t realize yet) everyone starts a semi-successful-yet-pretty-mediocre website at first, then moves on to another project. It’s in that second project that we either:

  • show the world we’ve learned from our mistakes and are ready to build something useful, or
  • totally sell out and continue down the path to eventual existential failure.

I’m sorry, but it’s one or the other. Which path are you on?

Maybe you’re on a different path?! If so, let’s hear about it in the comments.

Day 3: Pick a new domain

It may not be on actual day 3 of blogging, but the “third day” in your blogging career is the day you choose your next domain name. On Day 1 you made your first website, on Day 2 you decided to build another one, and on Day 3 you picked this new domain. And on Day 7 s/he rested.

So what did you pick?

The brandable domain

If you picked a brandable domain then I’d like to buy you a beer. I’m proud of you. A brandable domain is something like “Twitter.com”. It’s something like “Coursehero.com” or “Koofers.com”. It’s a brother of “Problogger.net” and a cousin of “Alexa.com”. Its recognizable. It stands out.

It holds its own in a conversation across the dinner table. (Should that be the new standard?)

People learn not just from trying and failing, but from observing, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes for means of survival, what works for our peers.—Albert Bandura

The importance of a brandable domain is five-fold:

  • Unique: It stands out.
  • Recognizable: People remember it.
  • Bizarre: It’s weird enough to generate some intrigue the first time someone hears it.
  • Worth mentioning: People want to talk about weird things.
  • Worth putting on a t-shirt: Yes, you would consider wearing that logo with it’s branded image on a t-shirt.

If you picked a brandable domain I commend you because, while you won’t get immediate “direct match” traffic from Google, you will get many more returning visits because you have a pretty cool concept.

These websites are more likely to get blog comments and will inevitably build larger email followings. They may not be the best at making a quick buck, but they do have a long-term trajectory to success. Props to you for choosing this option!

The keyword-rich domain

If you picked this type of domain, you may want to watch this short video as Matt Cutts talks about how Google is changing the algorithm.

Short summary: A lot of noise and competition exists among keyword-rich domains. Google is altering the algorithm so websites with keyword-rich domains won’t get as much an advantage over similar websites with less keyword friendly domains.

If you picked a keyword-rich domain, this is my advice for you.

  • Check out onlineprofits.com: It’s a successful community that makes online profits.
  • Check howtomakemyblog.com: It’s actually an awesome how-to site by Marko Saric.
  • Check out onlinecolleges.com and literally every other domain name with some variation of the phrase “online colleges” in it. You’ll begin to see just how competitive things are getting.
  • Learn some on-page SEO: It’ll help you immensely against the waves of others like you.
  • Get used to being #2: Hey, look at how well Monster does in the shadow of Redbull.

It’s okay, as a few of these examples will show you. With your keyword-rich domain your blog might actually make that six-figure annual income you dreamed about on Day 2.

However, as time passes I can’t help but think keyword-rich domains will become a dime a dozen, and will get sifted out to the bottom of the blogosphere while unique, original concepts rise to the top. It’s a process that may be happening as you read this.

Why did we choose one option or the other?

We’re human. We don’t want the things we do to eventually lead to failure.

We want to succeed, sometimes badly, and will often consider every means necessary to do so. Sometimes this means selecting a domain we at first would have scoffed at.

Albert Bandura was a renowned Canadian psychologist. He examined the characteristics we learn in our adolescence that leads us to success or failure. From the existing Social Learning Theory, it was known four key factors affect how we learn new behavior: drives, cues, responses, and rewards.

What Bandura found, in plain words, was that those of us who are more aggressive often skip a couple steps to get to the “rewards.”

This can be dangerous.

When our aggression outweighs our engrained moral compass, we exhibit “lapses in judgement,” as Bandura called them, where we totally avoid “cues” and “responses.”

It’s these tendencies which lead us to choose a certain domain and make larger, more long-term business decisions. It’s pretty hard to say a domain doesn’t hold vibes and messages that follow our website throughout its entire existence. So next time you’re sitting at GoDaddy about to make a purchase, remember Bandura and think about the long-term implications of your choice.

Bandura became the endowed chair of social psychology at Standford University in 1974 and is believed to be the fourth most cited pyschologist of all time. Go find more of his related work on Wikipedia.

The Blogger is a 25 year old guy from Manhattan who answers 150 blog questions before breakfast and holds a world record for comment response time. Sign up to his email club if you haven’t already (jeez) and find him on the Twitter.

Written on 11/29/2012 at 12:05 am by

How to Establish the Right Priorities to Grow Your Blog and Profits

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

This guest post is by Nathalie Lussier of The Website Checkup Tool.

Here’s a harsh nugget of truth for you.

Once you get this, your blog will not only take off, it will become way more profitable. Are you ready for it?

Here it is: You don’t need more how-to’s or to-do’s… You need priorities.

As bloggers and business owners, we’re constantly introduced to cool new tricks, strategies, and techniques to grow. There’s just so much information, much of it competing, about what you need to do to make it big online.

Think webinars, SEO, social media, magic beans, WordPress plugins, guest posting, YouTube videos, list building, product launches, silver bullets, Facebook ads, Pinterest, contests, joint ventures… The list is endless.

You know you have a ton of options when it comes to growing your blog and making more money online. You just don’t have enough hours in the day to implement all of them. Not to mention that some of these tactics are likely to work better for some markets, some personalities, and some stages of development than others.

The answer you’ve been looking for is not another silver bullet, or another cool marketing strategy. It’s simple, it’s free, and it works.

It’s priorities.

How to establish the right priorities for your blog

Okay, priorities. That sounds good, but unless you’ve built a successful blog before you might not know how to set them properly.

It’s easy to model another business owner or famous blogger and just try to do what they do, because it seems to be working for them. But you need to remember that we’re all on different paths, with different experiences, and different blogs.

Unique blogs and businesses require unique priorities and strategies to be wildly profitable.

My aim here is to help you figure out what you need to do, in what order of importance, so that you’re not putting the cart before the horse.

The first step to figuring out your priorities is to take a quick assessment of where your blog and business are currently.

Let’s look at a few questions that you can quickly jot down an answer to:

  • Do you have a blog or website that you’re proud to send people to?
  • Are there enough people visiting your blog on a regular basis?
  • Do people join your email list on a consistent basis?
  • Are you blogging on a regular schedule that feels comfortable for you?
  • Have you built a network of likeminded bloggers that you can support and be supported by?
  • Does your blog employ SEO and/or are the right people finding your blog?
  • Do you have a social media presence that engages your audience and spreads your influence?

Alright, so these questions might be pushing your buttons, but they’re not meant to make you feel bad if you don’t have all of these items in place.

On the contrary, it’s important to know what you are doing and what you still haven’t gotten to, because this will inform what your priorities and schedule looks like.

What should I do first? How to decide on your top priority

I’m often asked by my clients and readers what should come first when you’re starting up a blog or online business. Do you get the website up, look for clients and customers, guest post, set up social media profiles..? I mean, it’s all so overwhelming, so how can you get it all done?

It might feel like you need to have all of these things done simultaneously, preferrably last week. But it is possible to grow a blog by taking it one step at a time. In fact, it is the only way to grow a blog.

Everyone’s blogging journey is going to be different, but here is my recommendation for establishing your priorities.

The very first thing you need to focus on when you’re building a blog is setting up your web foundation or hub. That means your blog and website, and I recommend that you get your own domain name and hosting. Then get yourself a WordPress installation and theme.

Do not spend thousands on a design quite yet, because your blog’s direction may change as you evolve.

Next, it’s time to start honing your voice by writing or creating video for your blog. I don’t recommend overcommitting to creating a ton of content just yet. Especially since your blog might not have the audience to warrant spending a ton of time in creation mode. Once you do reach a certain audience size, then it makes sense to commit to a consistent blogging schedule.

Finally, outreach comes next. Once you have your blog as a hub, you’ve practiced writing and have a bit of content on your site, it’s time to bring people into your sphere.

The outreach part is definitely where things can get hairy, so I suggest picking one or two things that you will get really good at and focusing on those.

Take, for example, two strategies that you might want to focus on: guest posting and SEO. Another set of strategies might be social media and webinars. Yet another might be joint ventures and advertising.

Just pick two!

Doing more than two types of outreach will not only burn you out, but will have you spread so thin you won’t be getting the results you’re looking for.

Now that you have all three steps handled, it’s time to iterate. The more people who come into your world and read your blog, the more clarity you will have around your topic and direction, which will inform your site’s design. This in turn will shift your writing and voice, and help you decide where to spend more time in outreach—whether that’s specific sites or strategies.

Rinse and repeat, and keep those priorities tight.

Write ’em out, and stick to your priorities

Now that you know what steps to take to really grow your blog’s online presence, you need to write out your priorities. If you don’t have your plan and priorities down in digital ink then you might as well go back to throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Keep your priorities front and center as you go about your daily tasks. If something falls into a non-priority activity list, then it’s time to take it off your todo list. If a cool new system or marketing tool comes out, ask yourself if it fits in your priorities.

I guarantee you will go much further by mastering just two outreach strategies, focusing on your home base on the web, and getting your voice honed.

Do this prioritizing exercise right now! Don’t let another week, month, or year go by without having focused priorities in your blogging career.

Let me know in the comments below what your top priority is, and what stage you’re in (building your hub, honing your voice, or outreach).

Nathalie Lussier is a digital strategist who combines original ideals with forward-thinking marketing expertise, and delivers competitive results in the online space. She helps you get techy with your business, and she’s the creator of The Website Checkup Tool.

Written on 11/27/2012 at 6:08 am by

How to Target 25-40 Year-olds Online

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

This guest post us by Genevieve Flintham of www.stagweb.co.uk.

Pictures of the day’s events, winter landscapes, and memorable quotes. Titles laden with puns, facts, and intrigue. An architectural layout that’s accomplished, savvy, and uncomplicated.

Each target group demands a different set of things when it comes to websites and blogs, but in this instance we’re going to look purely at users aged between 25 and 40. This is my target market. With ten years of experience targeting this commonsensical group, we’ve made some discoveries through our two blogs, The Antler for grooms-to-be and best men, and the GoHen Blog for brides-to-be and maids of honour.

Here’s what we’ve learned.

1. Keep it informative

As with targeting any group online, it’s important to first understand this age group. They’ve grown up with technology and sales pitches hitting them from every side and are, to some degree, immune to the typical advertising approaches.

Go Hen

As a first piece of advice, ensure that any form of engagement, whether it’s a blog post, advertorial or product description, remains fairly non-promotional.

We’ve found that people in this age group prefer instructional, informational posts; the most-viewed posts on our blog are Top tips for your Sunday hen party and Stag weekend planning—managing number changes. If you’re targeting a younger demographic, less-wordy posts tend to be favoured, such as those including bullet points, infographics, and pictures.

The Antler

2. Tell them (nearly) everything about you

Another factor we’ve found when targeting this particular age group is that the bare facts ain’t gonna cut it.

We make sure to state all the facts (including that we’re financially protected, our contact details, testimonials, etc.) whenever we get the opportunity. Make information about yourself readily available and if you’ve got great credentials, let them know!

This demographic tends to be wise to companies that could rip them off and have seen a fair share of reputed companies go bust, so they need to know that they can trust you. To back ourselves up, many of our blog posts link to the following page:

Stag web

3. Appreciate that it’s a great target market to have

There are many benefits to having a target audience of 25-40 year-olds.

One example is that picture placement seems to have little effect; we’ve spent years trying various positions of quality pictures and call-to-action pictures, but the resulting enquiries for each page haven’t changed with each different position.

As well as that, they’re wise to the testimonies of the company—great for genuine, successful businesses, since this audience is able to weed out the fakes.

4. Mix old and new

Only slightly less tech-savvy than their 18-25 counterparts, 25-40 year olds are spending increasingly more time online. Many people have suggested that offline advertising will soon become redundant, but Direct Marketing News does point out that when trying to reach the 20- to 45-year-old demographic that “word of mouth has always been a powerful marketing tool.”

Word of mouth has transformed to be word-of-mouse now though, and if you’re looking at online advertising then mix in the elements of the old (aiming to get people talking about your product) with parts of the new (finding innovative ways to target consumers).

If you don’t mind paying for social media advertising, the best fairly new way to target specifically 25-40 year olds might be to employ the use of Facebook hypertargeting; when going through the advertisement setup process, select this age group as the only ones to see your ad.

Overall, to avoid making any egregious errors when targeting the 25-40 age demographic, ensure that your content is informative, your company values are reflected, and that you bring contemporary elements into a traditional mix.

Do you target 25-40-year-olds? What extra tips can you share with us?

This is a guest post by Genevieve Flintham of www.stagweb.co.uk.

Written on 11/26/2012 at 6:05 am by

Are You Defining Your Niche Properly?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

This guest post is by Charles Manfre of CodeConquest.com.

When I started my blog, I made the mistake of not defining my niche well enough.

In fact, I defined it with one word: “coding.”

Defining the niche my blog targeted with one word was never going to be enough. Perhaps for the pioneers of the internet it was okay, but in this day and age, with millions of websites in the competition, you need more than a one-word topic name for a niche.

I can’t emphasize how important it is to define your niche. You need to be able to know the focus of your blog inside out, what makes it so great and how it’s different from every other blog. A one word simply isn’t enough.

I didn’t know this when starting my blog. But when it did dawn on me, I knew I needed to change. I overhauled my About page, I changed my tagline, and I generally wasted a lot of time deciding on what the heck my site was about.

Luckily for me, the site was still new and unknown, and I doubt a single person noticed my change of focus, but this was time I could have spent building great content and promoting my blog.

I hope that you can learn from my mistakes. So here are the main things you need to think about when defining your niche.

Choose an audience, not a topic

This was the first mistake I made. When you decided what your blog was going to be about, did you choose a topic like business, blogging, or photography? Or in my case, coding?

I did. And it wasn’t long before I realized it wasn’t going to work. Coding is a hugely broad topic, and I had no idea who I was writing for. Beginners? Experienced coders? What kind of coding were they interested in? What needs did they have that I could address?

I didn’t even know my own blog! My blog posts were lacking purpose. They weren’t targeting anyone, they weren’t addressing any needs. No wonder no one was reading them!

Think of all the successful blogs you know. ProBlogger, Digital Photography School, Zen Habits. They don’t just blog about a topic, they’re aimed at a specific audience.

Coding was a weak topic. But those who are learning to write code and want to apply their skills to real projects—now that’s a very clearly defined audience.

Lessons

  • Don’t write about something, write for someone.
  • Know the focus of your blog, inside out.
  • With every blog post you write, ask yourself: what’s the purpose of this blog post and how does it address my audience’s needs?

Differentiate your blog from every other

When I was deciding on my clearly defined audience, there was one big thing I had in mind. How was my blog going to be different from all the rest?

If you’re blogging about blogging, you’re competing with ProBlogger. If you’re blogging about photography, you’re competing with Digital Photography School. If you’re blogging about coding like I am, you’re competing with Tuts+ and SitePoint.

How do you expect to stand out from the pack? You simply don’t stand a chance. Unless you differentiate your blog.

Here’s a little exercise Derek Halpern taught me. Identify the top ten blogs in your niche and for each one, explain how it is unique from all the others. Now decide how your blog can fit in amongst that top ten, with its own unique spin.

In my case, I decided that my blog was going to be focused on coding in the “real world”—guiding people along their learn to code journey, while also helping them apply their skills to real projects.

Lessons

  • Identify how your blog is different from all the others in your niche and how it can compete.
  • Ideally, choose a unique spin that no other blog shares.

Where do you want your blog to be in a year?

Knowing how you want your blog to grow is something that’s extremely helpful for defining your niche. It’s not as important as the previous two points, but it really does help.

Think about what kind of things you’ll be selling, what components there will be on your website, even how you want your site to look and be designed.

For me, I decided that in a year’s time I wanted to be selling WordPress themes and plugins on my website. So, to prepare for this, I now have a WordPress category in my blog which I add to regularly.

I also know that I want my website to be known as a supportive community for coders. Just knowing this gives me a better idea of what kind of content to add to my blog today.

Lessons

  • Have an idea in your head of what your blog will be when it’s fully mature.
  • Think about how it will make money, what it will be known for, and how it will look.
  • Use this insight to gain a better idea of what to focus your blog on today.

Strengthen your blog’s foundation

It doesn’t matter whether your blog is already established or not. Websites are dynamic—you can change them at any time. So take this advice: laser define your niche and strengthen your blog’s foundation.

What niche does your blog focus on? Tell us in the comments—and no one-word answers please!

Charles Manfre is the owner of CodeConquest.com, a website and blog that helps beginners learn to write code and apply their web coding skills in the real world. Visit the website or subscribe to the blog.