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Posts Tagged ‘Wordpress’

Blogging One Year After – The Unseen Blogging Knowledge

December 28th, 2009

This is the third and last part of my blog review.

The previous two parts are:
Blogging One Year After – The Unseen Statistics
Blogging One Year After – The Unseen Social Activities

One year of blogging has brought more activities and time spent both facing the computer or laptop and also outside of the online world.

I’d just like to share some of the blogging knowledge or experience I have gathered in a year. You would probably get the same juice off this posts if you have been following other blogs about making money online or how to blog.

Easy to start a blog

wordpress-plugins

It is very easy to start a blog. The difficult part is maintaining it.
Myself has started two websites/blogs before marvinlee.net which have now been abandoned.
I have also helped two person to start their blog and they have less posts in a month than the sight of a full moon. 🙂
If you have inclination towards starting a blog, I would recommend using WordPress instead of Blogger or any other blog platforms for that matter. WordPress is easy, popularly used and loads of plugins for you to plug and play.
Yes, you do not need to know how to program.
All you need to do is signup for webhosting that comes with WordPress, get a nice domain name, and follow those tutorial that should be easy for non-techies to start a blog. If you have problems, I’d be glad to help too.

Tips

sand_clock

Some tips though, blogging needs persistence. You might want to think of a topic for your blog that you will blog persistently. Even if it is not a theme-based blog, you should have an idea what is it that you need to keep you blogging for long term.
You might wonder how someone (or me) could be so free to blog everyday? The answer lies in WordPress. There is a schedule post option. You could create a post and scheduled it to be published tomorrow while you are at work or next week when you’re on board a plane.
Some people have scheduled posts up to a month but so far I only have scheduled posts for the same week.
Some posts have more visitors than others, those that permanently attract visitors are mostly timeless entries.
What are the timeless entries? Something like ‘How to make money online’ guide posts is timeless, while ‘I made $100 yesterday’ statement post is not. Get the drill?

Traffic

bargraph1

Some people blog and do not care about their website traffic. They just blog for fun and for personal satisfaction. If that’s the case you can use free blog hosting (like from wordpress.com or blogger.com) and not pay for it.
However, if you do care for your blog, you can use tools to analyze your traffic, like sitemeter.com and Google Analytics.
You’d also care what type of entries that would bring higher traffic (remember timeless entries).
Having a blog brings visitors from all over the world and traffic all the time even, including while you are asleep.

SEO search engine tips

search-engines

Most often than not, your blog visitors comes from Search Engine instead of a recommendation by word of mouth.
So if you do care of your blog and would like more traffic, you should make your site SEO friendly. SEO is abbreviation for Search Engine Optimatization or making your site easier to be listed in search engines and easier for people to find your site.
This goes a bit technical and you’ll need time to venture into this. However, once you get your blog started, you can then start diving into SEO easily with Google.

Making money is possible

money-photo

The million dollar question, is always related to money. Does blogging tell me that it is a way to make money?
Yes and no.
Most students and stay home mum blogs actively nowadays and I believe they are getting a hefty sum for their active effort.
Those that blogs professionally or full time has been able to use thier blog and blogs to replace a full time employment as well.
Getting rich or blog to be a millionaire? I don’t think so.
Notable professional bloggers to learn from : JohnChow, DavidRisley and Problogger.

If you are a blogger, please share what knowledge or experience you had so far with me. I will appreciate it very much.

blogging, Internet, Internet Marketing , , , , ,

Display related posts in your blog with LinkWithin wordpress plugin

November 25th, 2009

Well, another useful WordPress plugin. LinkWithin is a blog widget that appears under each post, linking to related stories from your blog archive.
It’s another useful, easy and FREE to use plugin.

linkwithin

One of the widget from this blog

I had the related posts plugin installed earlier, but with LinkWithin, it adds thumbnails, so that it will be more appealing to readers and it might just increase your pageviews.

Download the plugin from LinkWithin.

linkwithin_get

You will need to provide the Blog Link and the same download cannot be used on multiple blogs. This is because in the code, it has embedded a website id that points to your intended plugin installation.

Determine the width of your blog to put the widget, so when you select the number of related stories in the widget, it will fit nicely.

Just like any plugins, upload the zip file content to your wordpress plugin directory and activate it form the Adminstration screen.
There is only one settings for LinkWithin, that is to show the widget on the homepage or not. 🙂
linkwithin_settings

Internet, Review, Software , ,

Make a mobile version of your wordpress blog with WPtouch

November 18th, 2009

Do you know what else you need other than a blog nowadays?
A mobile website.
Alright, that might not sound exactly right.
It should be a mobile device accessible and easily readable website.

wptouch_5

MarvinLee.net as seen on a mobile phone

Although now smartphones allow you to zoom in and out webpages easily, having a mobile-version of your website or blog actually brings advantage, at least to your readers.
It’s just like your blog feeds subscription, they will not see your ads (unfortunately not good for you and me, but I’m sure readers like it), and it will not take as long to load as a full blown site.

wptouch_1

This is the main screen that lists posts from the blog’s homepage.

If they are on limited data charges, having a mobile site actually downloads less data and hence less charges.

What I wanted to highlight is WPtouch plugin, which essentially is a wordpress plugin for wordpress platform blog (like marvinlee.net) on iPhone, iPod, Android, Storm & Pre.
It is easy to install and use but most of all, it’s FREE!

Just download the plugin file from http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/ and find the Download link.
Upload to your blog’s plugin folder, then Activate it via your WordPress Administration and voila, it’s all set.

There will be no visible difference on the site when it’s accessed through a desktop browser, but once it’s loaded on a mobile phone, your readers will see a slim (and sexy) version of your blog.

wptouch_2

This is the screen of a single post.

If your reader doesn’t like the mobile version, there is a link to turn off mobile and it will return to the original version of your blog.

wptouch_3

wptouch_4

If it doesn’t work, append the ?theme_view=mobile to the URL.

If your phone as a QR code reader, scan the code below and see the difference.

And finally, a disclosure, I remember seeing sites which uses this plugin for quite a while, but that last one before I took action to find out what’s the actual plugin is from FlyFM Ben’s blog http://benjern.com. He is a one cool radio DJ that has a nice blog. Go visit!

wptouch_benjern

Internet, Review, Software , ,