It Comes Up Repeatedly: Easy Blogging Steps

Repetition, when you want to do something well, is a good idea. Learn the right way to do it and then repeat, repeat, repeat, until you continually improve. Blogging is no different, nor is the need to repeatedly go back to a list or an outline of what your blogging about, why you’re blogging about it, and the basics of what any blog should include. While there are many, many lists out there and , even here you will see different variations on blogging tips, it is always good to keep the same basic principals drilled into your head.

So here you go! These 5 can help you make sure you get the most out of your blog activity; a short list of some blog framework that you can hang your quality content on:

• Be informative – you’re trying to create an impression that you are knowledgeable about your business. Your reputation matters so be sure to stay current and check your facts. Initial blog posts can include items like a history of your business and how you got started. Future blog posts can highlight new products and services, special events, employees, or tips for customers.

• Use keywords wisely – one of your goals is to increase your visibility, so it is wise to use words that people will use when searching for your types of business on the web. Each blog post should have a title as a headline that will attract attention and be relevant to the post.

• Quantity matters – in order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to develop content with substance. A simple headline or single sentence is not going to grab someone’s attention or help get your post found on Google or Yahoo!

• Frequency matters too – if your blog content is updated and you add new information frequently, you can keep customers interested and search engines will index your pages at regular intervals.

• Grammar and spelling count – It only takes a few extra moments to check your posts before putting them on the web. Keep your posts looking professional and make sure there are no spelling errors or grammatical mistakes. You can create your content in Microsoft Word, check for spelling and grammar errors and then paste it into your blog.

Need help setting up the tech side of your blog? Just want to have some help putting it together? We’re just a call or click away…. and it won’t cost an arm & a leg.

WordPress 3.0 Released

After a half year’s work, the developers are going to get some rest and their byproduct is running happily into the jungle.

WordPress 3.0 has been released. The folks over at WP have dubbed their latest and greatest as “Thelonius.” At the time of this post being published, I am still doing research as to the origin of the dub – my guess, it’s going to be a humor-added discovery.

You can now take WP 3.0 for a test drive and check out the many new features that are available. Head over to www.wordpress.org for the free download, the Famous 5 Minute Install Guide, or the full-blown documentation and support resources. Many people already use WordPress for many things other than just blogging but this release will certainly create opportunities for managing content even more effortlessly than before.

WordPress was first released in 2003 as a content management system intended for bloggers, and today is regarded as the most popular blogging software available and a CMS-favorite of professionals and do-it-yourselfers, alike. WordPress is constantly being upgraded with great new features that make it possible to use it as a full website CMS instead of just a blogging platform. Many blogs and even large business sites are using WordPress as their CMS: CNN, Wall Street Journal, Nikon, Pepsi, etc. No question about it, WordPress 3.0 has extended the possibilities for creating a full website with a user-friendly CMS for clients.

New Menu Management Feature

In my opinion, this is one of the most noteworthy new features with WordPress 3.0, and it’s included in the default installation. Before this, it was possible to create a dynamic menu with some plugins and/or WordPress ninja skills. But it was never very easy to accomplish and now they’ve made it super simple.

You can add pages, categories, and even custom website links. With the custom website links option, you could link straight to a post, another website, whatever you want. It’s very user-friendly and setup similar to the current sidebar widget area where you can easily drag and drop to customize it just the way you like.

Custom Post Types

Currently, you can only create pages and posts with WordPress. In 3.0, you can create your own custom post types, and set up the appropriate fields to go along with each. When a user chooses a new post type, something like a Podcast, they will just add a podcast, simple as that. You don’t need to walk your clients through a complicated process and explain why they need to add a new post for a podcast and then click on a certain category and fill in a certain custom field. It’s one step now, and clients will love the simplicity. It does require the use of a plugin, but before it required much more work to setup.

Multi-User

WordPress MUhas been around as a separate entity for a while but will now be integrated in WordPress 3.0. MU allows you to maintain multiple sites from a single admin panel. It’s great for anyone that runs more than one site or blog and would like the simplicity of logging in once and maintaining them all from one place. This is especially helpful if these sites share content, templates, or plugins. One installation means less work and less time to create the same thing.

This isn’t completely setup in the default installation, but it’s fairly easy to get it up and going. First add this line to wp-config.php.

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

Now “Network” will appear under Tools in the main menu. Once there, fill in the Network Title, Admin Email Address and press Install. WordPress gives you the option to set these sites up under sub domains or sub directories. If you’ve installed this version of WordPress in a sub directory or you’re using localhost, WordPress requires that you use sub directories.

Other Noteworthy Features

You can now choose your own username and password in the installation process, no more auto generated passwords using the admin username. Not only is this cool, but also a significant security improvement.

The new default theme, Twenty Ten, is nicer. It’s clean and lightweight with minimal style attributes.

I’m looking forward to a couple of things with WP 3.0: Getting our existing clients upgraded, and then proactively using 3.0 for as many new website installations as possible. At SafeHouse Web, I think it’s important to stay as close to the leading edge in a new Release Version – while many people will remain complacent with their WP 2.9 (or earlier) installations (which are very strong platforms, don’t get me wrong), I have experienced the benefits of being able to confidently tell my clients that they are getting the best, newest WP version to run their business website.

How Do I Optimize My Site

Optimize it for humans, and it will be optimal for engines, too:

1. Publish good material.
2. Publish good material well! Standards for online content authors
3. Link to good material.

OK, maybe that’s not the complete story but it’s the best you can get in a short answer. To quote Michael Torbert, maintainer of “All in One SEO Pack”, the most popular WordPress plugin currently:

The biggest thing, of course, for SEO [...] is content. That will never change and it’s become increasingly, more and more important [...] as the search engines get better and better determining what is on your page and parsing through all that data. So, having good content is the key.

Michael Torbert, AKA hallsofmontezuma, in: “All In One SEO To Go”

With that said, search engines can always use a little help to index a website better. There are two very popular WordPress plugins suited for this.

“Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress” is a must-have. It automates the generation of an XML sitemap, a document recommended by the search companies themselves.

An XML sitemap tells web crawlers (also known as “spiders”, “robots” or just “bots”) where to find the content to be indexed. So, everything is indexed, even pages with no links, internal or external, pointing to them. An XML sitemap helps crawlers in other ways too. For instance, when a crawler sees the same content repeated in the home page and in the permalink of an individual post, it does not have to work too hard to decide which to give more weight to: it just looks at the XML sitemap, and learns that the main and permanent location is the permalink.

XML sitemaps and sitemap pages in websites are DIFFERENT things. The former are unstyled XML documents meant for web crawlers. The latter provide an index, an overview of the site’s content, for human visitors.

“All in One SEO Pack”, the other very popular SEO plugin, does various kinds of optimization. One is similar in purpose to XML sitemaps: It adds noindex tags (“do not index this”) to pages that duplicate content (category pages, tag pages, etc.), so that crawlers can work better.

It can also rewrite page titles, add meta descriptions, and more — see its page for details.

• Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress
• All in One SEO Pack

Both plugins work fine in their default settings. Just install and activate.

7 Things To Stop Doing Now On Facebook

Some of these steps may seem overly protective or overly simple. But, we all know some of the ill-intentioned people out there often thrive on the most simple opportunities. We think this is good stuff to remember and to put into practice; and it really doesn’t have to curtail the entertainment or communication benefits of this powerful social tool!

Using a Weak Password

Avoid simple names or words you can find in a dictionary, even with numbers tacked on the end. Instead, mix upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. A password should have at least eight characters. One good technique is to insert numbers or symbols in the middle of a word, such as this variant on the word “houses”: hO27usEs!

Leaving Your Full Birth Date in Your Profile

It’s an ideal target for identity thieves, who could use it to obtain more information about you and potentially gain access to your bank or credit card account. If you’ve already entered a birth date, go to your profile page and click on the Info tab, then on Edit Information. Under the Basic Information section, choose to show only the month and day or no birthday at all.

Overlooking Useful Privacy Controls

For almost everything in your Facebook profile, you can limit access to only your friends, friends of friends, or yourself. Restrict access to photos, birth date, religious views, and family information, among other things. You can give only certain people or groups access to items such as photos, or block particular people from seeing them. Consider leaving out contact info, such as phone number and address, since you probably don’t want anyone to have access to that information anyway.

Posting Your Child’s Name in a Caption

Don’t use a child’s name in photo tags or captions. If someone else does, delete it by clicking on Remove Tag. If your child isn’t on Facebook and someone includes his or her name in a caption, ask that person to remove the name.

Mentioning That You’ll Be Away From Home

That’s like putting a “no one’s home” sign on your door. Wait until you get home to tell everyone how awesome your vacation was and be vague about the date of any trip.

Letting Search Engines Find You

To help prevent strangers from accessing your page, go to the Search section of Facebook’s privacy controls and select Only Friends for Facebook search results. Be sure the box for public search results isn’t checked.

Permitting Youngsters to Use Facebook Unsupervised

Facebook limits its members to ages 13 and over, but children younger than that do use it. If you have a young child or teenager on Facebook, the best way to provide oversight is to become one of their online friends. Use your e-mail address as the contact for their account so that you receive their notifications and monitor their activities. “What they think is nothing can actually be pretty serious,” says Charles Pavelites, a supervisory special agent at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. For example, a child who posts the comment “Mom will be home soon, I need to do the dishes” every day at the same time is revealing too much about the parents’ regular comings and goings.

What Is A Business Blog?

A Business Blog is an inexpensive, fast way to build an online presence. It is a direct way for business entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, speakers, authors and other professionals to establish their credibility and expertise. Since your readers can post comments, you create a conversation with your audience and build rapport and trust as a result.

The very nature of a blog is perfect for the busy professional. They are quick and easy to update. You are creating fresh content frequently (two to three times a week is recommended minimum) that is useful to your prospects and customers and loved by search engines. In contrast to “traditional” static website, a blog is a dynamic site that encourages your visitors to interact with you through commenting so they can get to know you better.

When you create a conversation with your audience (visitors, readers, prospects), you are establishing your credibility. You build your network and increase the visibility of your products and services in a casual way.

A blog is an essential tool in the professional’s marketing toolbox. Combined with a website, an ezine, database management and ecommerce system – or any of these pieces – you will have everything you need to develop and run your business locally and globally, online.

Our approach to the Business Blog is this: if it is where you can start today, start! If it is where you can add value to your static website or integrate it into your overall website & online presence plan, add!

Contact us for a free consultation on getting your Business Blog started right away, and the right way.