Blog Tips

Announcing the For Bloggers By Bloggers 30 Day WordPress Workout Program

This post originally appeared on the For Bloggers By Bloggers blog resource centre.

One of the things we?ve always tried to do at For Bloggers By Bloggers is offer you the most relevant and helpful information to help you grow your blog.

We?d like to think that our tips and posts are helpful, and have helped you get more results from your own blogging goals, whatever they may be.

However, going by emails we?ve received and comments left on various posts, it?s clear that we also have a lot of new bloggers in our audience, or people that are looking to start blogging ? the problem is, they don?t know how.

While there are many reasons shared, the biggest one is ?How do I start a blog and which platform do I choose??.

Taking that into consideration, and being that all our team are die-hard fans of the WordPress platform, we?ve created a special course to help you, the new or prospective blogger.

Introducing the For Bloggers by Bloggers 30 Day WordPress Workout Program?!

So How Does It Work?

While written blogs are great for sharing advice, more often than not people react better and learn more from visual aids. It?s why we?ve produced graphics and videos in the past to help get a certain point across.

With that in mind, we?ve created a comprehensive 20-part video series that will take you through the complete WordPress experience when starting your blog.

From choosing which version of WordPress to use, to understanding how custom menus operate, to working with themes, plugins, multiple users and more, the For Bloggers By Bloggers 30 Day WordPress Program? is designed with you in mind.

We?ll help you choose the right option, get set up, choose a theme, help decide the best plugins for your blog, and much, much more.

As well as the 20-part video series, we?ll be providing you with free ebooks to complement the videos, as well as set up a support area (optional membership) for ?What Next?? questions.

Who?s It For?

As I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of new bloggers, and bloggers-to-be, in our audience. We also have bloggers that are on other blog platforms, but are curious about making the switch to WordPress.

This video series is for you.

It will help you understand the benefits of WordPress, and all the bells and whistles behind the scenes of the WordPress dashboard.

Complemented by our ebooks and membership section, the video series will really help you become a fully fledged WordPress blogger in 30 days or less (of course, this depends on the time you can allocate).

And, we?ll still be posting all our usual blog tips here at For Bloggers By Bloggers for you to take advantage of, and use on your newly-created WordPress blog.

How Much Will It Cost?

The full 20-part video series and ebooks will have a price of $67. However, there will be a special introductory price of $37 at launch, and you can sign up using the form at the end of this post to be alerted to the release, and receive your FBBB discount code to get the $37 price.

Additionally, we may be releasing each video in the series individually, so you can pick and choose which modules are best for your needs. Pricing on this is still to be confirmed, but expect them to be around the $5 price per video.

Membership fees will be low, and we?re looking at how best to serve you ? and also how to make sure your membership (if you decide to join that area) is really valuable to you.

So, we?d be offering strategies, offers, partners and more that we?d normally charge consultancy fees for, but for our member area, these costs will be greatly reduced.

Again, we want to make sure we have this nailed down so you really get a valuable offering, so we?ll announce that pricing soon as well, but expect it to be low, around the $20 per month range.

And for those interested in making some money, we?ll also have an affiliate program with 40% shared revenue on any program sold!

Ready to Get Blogging?

With all that having been said, here?s a taster video of the course series. The full 20-part version follows this format and, as you can see, is very easy to follow and clearly laid out. We’ll be announcing the full line-up of topics soon!

We want to make sure you don?t get lost with a bunch of buzzwords and technical talk ? after all, that?s not why you?d be interested in this series!

We hope to see you there when we launch, and make sure you sign up below for updates on when the For Bloggers By Bloggers 30 Day WordPress Workout? is launched and to get your special discount code!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMhIzy3Aipk[/youtube]

[gravityform id=”9″ name=”FBBB 30 Day WordPress Workout Pre-Launch Update”]

Your 10 Point Checklist to Help You Grow Your Blog

For many bloggers, there are a variety of blogging goals ? growing your blog, monetizing your blog, attracting more readers and more.

While the intent of setting goals is always a good one, often it can be easier said than done. Things get in the way, like life, work and more, and even the most intent blogger can soon let their goal slide.

Yet it doesn?t need to be this way. Just like any commitment, it just takes willpower and stamina. The good news for bloggers is that stamina can be replaced by a blog schedule or maintenance calendar.

With that in mind, here are 10 steps you can take to help you grow your blog .

1. Evaluate Your Blog

Every blogger has goals when they first start out. These vary depending on the blogger. It can be traffic and readers/subscribers; making money; raising awareness of your expertise; or many other reasons.

So check how you?re doing on your goals, and make a list of what you haven?t (yet) achieved.

2. Prioritize Your List

Once you have a list drawn up, start to prioritize from top to bottom in order of the things you want to achieve first.

If there are some that you feel have equal priority, think which one you could leave for another day versus one that?s really bothering you with its absence. Make that one your very top priority, or Want.

3. Build a Reverse Schedule

Now that you have your most important Want as a priority, you need to build a schedule that defines how you?re going to meet this goal. The easiest way to do this is to make it a reverse schedule.

This involves starting as if you?ve succeeded, and then work your way backwards from there to see what pain points you might meet along the way.

These could include vacations, work schedules, family events, etc ? anything that takes?time away from your blogging and therefore your?goal. Then, adjust your goal?s finish date accordingly and make it more realistic based on the pain points.

By making?something realistic, you?ll have a far better chance of achieving it.

4. ?Gather the Tools

Now that you know what goal you?re going to work on first, and the time it?s going to take you, you?ll have a better idea of the tools you need to make it happen. So, for example, if it?s monetizing your blog, you may want to look at affiliate products.

If it?s gaining readers, consider an email list tool. If it?s a redesign of your blog, start looking at themes and frameworks to help you in this.

My preferred choice is the Genesis framework (affiliate link) purely because they make it easy to get going, and provide a rock-solid basis to start your blogging journey. Tools maketh the artist; choose yours wisely.

5. Set Your Success Metrics

Now that you have your Wants and Goals in mind, and the tools needed to get there, you need to set some success metrics. The reason for this is simple ? if you?re not measuring your progress, you don?t know how successful you?re being. This will stop you from making necessary adjustments.

So, if your goal is to monetize, aim for X amount by month 1, then month 2, then month 3, and so on. Same for readers, subscribers, email list members, percentage of visitors from search results and more.

Keep monthly comparisons as these will help you plan an Exit Strategy.

6. Plan an Exit Strategy for Your Blogging Goals

In business, there?s an option called an Exit Strategy. This can be knowing when it?s time to sell a business, or leave?a failing one. But you can also use this for your blog.

If your goals aren?t being met, sit down and ask yourself why.

Is your subscription box not prominent enough?
Have you picked the wrong affiliates?
Are you passionate about your topic?

Knowing where you?re failing ? and why ? will help you either switch paths on the fly, or cull altogether and start afresh.

7. Leave Your Blog Alone

While this might sound crazy ? after all, how can you grow your blog if you leave it alone? ? it?s not. When I say ?Leave your blog?, I mean spend around 70-80% away from it. You should only be there when writing content and replying to comments.

The rest of the time? Promote, promote, promote.

Share on social networks; take part in #BlogChat; comment on other blogs; join communities like BlogEngage and ComLuv; and present at local and national blogging events.

Simply put, the more you get out and about and get to know other people, the more you?ll find those people come to your blog and begin to share it.

8. Have a Locked Down Hard Stop

The biggest mistake many bloggers make when trying to achieve their goals is letting them drag on for?too long when they?re not working. Don?t make this mistake too.

When you have the date you want to achieve something by ? the realistic one we spoke about earlier ? stick to it. If it doesn?t work, it probably wasn?t meant to be, so try something new.

There?s nothing wrong with failing ? failure is just another path to success. Remember this, and you?ll understand what it means to be successful.

9. Re-Evaluate and Redefine

Depending on how you prioritized your goals, you should have a good idea of how many are realistic throughout the timescale you set out to measure your success. Don?t take on too much ? remember, grow your blog in one area and solidify that success, then move onto the next area.

At the end of 12 months, look back at what worked, what didn?t, and then start the process again. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint ? true success comes from longevity, not a fast burn.

10. Read For Bloggers By Bloggers

Okay, hands up, this is kind of a cheeky one. Kind of. Yes, I?m biased, but I really feel we have a great collection of some of the best tips around when it comes to growing your blog, and both our core authors and contributors offer something different in how they present their tips.

We know the pain points you?re experiencing, because we?ve been through them and overcome them.

Yet we?re still learning too ? and that shared experience will help you grow your blog the way you want it to. So keep on dropping by and subscribe to get the latest posts ? you know it makes sense.

27 Highly Recommended WordPress PlugIns As Used on Here

One of the great things about self-hosted WordPress blogging is the amount of plugins available to help you make your blog just the way you want it.

For anyone not on WordPress, plugins are additional solutions that you can install to your site’s admin area, and they then offer extra functionality to your blog and how your readers interact with it.

These can range from social sharing options, design tools, subscription options, e-commerce solutions and much more.

In my last post, I spoke about the process that went into the redesign here, and Ken Mueller (an awesome part of anyone’s blog community) suggested sharing the plugins I use on here.

So, here they are.

1. afterRead

If you look to the bottom of my posts, you’ll see a simple reminder to subscribe to the blog. This is created using afterRead, a great little plugin to offer a call-to-action to your readers after they’ve read your content.

2. Akismet

One of the most-used anti-spam plugins around, Akismet is one of these plugins that’s pretty much a given on any WordPress site or blog. As well as blocking its idea of spam, it’s also pretty effective at learning from your manual filters to improve its anti-spam filters.

3. Align RSS Images

This one is more cosmetic, as it’s a plugin that works on your RSS feed (this is where subscribers can read your blog). What I like about Align RSS Images is that it keeps the image formatting used on your blog post in the RSS feed, as opposed to losing the alignment like normal RSS feeds.

4. BackupBuddy

Probably one of my favourites, and definitely one that any blogger serious about their content needs, BackUpBuddy saves your content, widgets and themes in case your site crashes. It also makes migration to a new host or server super easy. It’s a premium purchase, but highly recommended.

5. Clicky for WordPress

For any site owner, analytics are key to monitor reader behaviour and where your traffic is coming from. Clicky is an awesome alternative to Google Analytics, and less scary for the average blogger. My friend Brankica wrote a great overview of Clicky – check it out.

6. Clicky Popular Posts Widget

While not a standalone plugin per se, the Clicky Popular Posts Widget is a nice addition from developer Konstantin Obenland that monitors your analytics and shows the most popular posts based on visitor interaction, as opposed to social sharing or page visits. Which, for me, is more useful.

7. Fix RSS Feeds

One of the possible dangers of changing designs or web hosts is it can mess up your blog’s RSS feed, and your subscribers aren’t aware of new posts. Fix RSS Feeds does exactly what it says on the tin, and fixes any errors caused by a migration or design change.

8. Genesis Responsive Slider

Officially my favourite WordPress framework, Genesis (affiliate link) offers a rock-solid theme platform with great plugins. Like the Genesis Responsive Slider, which offers a cool slider gallery for images which also resizes itself based on the browser you visit on (including mobile). A very cool plugin, and used on this blog’s home page.

9. Genesis Simple Edits

While I did the redesign of this blog myself, I’m no coder, so plugins like Genesis Simple Edits are hugely useful. It allows you to edit your footer code, as well as post meta and byline without messing around with the style CSS. So, perfect for coding idiots like me.

10. Genesis Simple Hooks

Again, perfect for non-coders (although more experienced WordPress users will make this plugin sing), Genesis Simple Hooks gives you a ton of control over various aspects of your blog, and singles out the area you want to change then lets you insert code without touching your main CSS.

11. Google XML Sitemaps

While your blog might be full of awesome content, if the search engines don’t know how to read it properly, you’re screwed. Google XML Sitemaps makes it easy for search engines to index your blog and point people to the content they want to find.

12. Gravity Forms

Along with BackupBuddy and Livefyre, Gravity Forms is one of my favourites. Much more than a simple form builder, this plugin lets you create contact forms, add pricing options, create feedback questionnaires and much more. Incredibly flexible and worth the purchase price.

13. Livefyre Realtime Comments

One of the best parts of any blog is the comments section, and Livefyre is the best comments platform bar none. Realtime updates, social network comment integration, friend tagging on Twitter and Facebook, commenter moderation and way more besides. Oh, and the new Livefyre 3 is due imminently and plain out rocks (sneak peek below)!

14. Login Lockdown

Like any popular product or platform, WordPress attracts its fair share of hackers. To help prevent your site being compromised, Login Lockdown disables sign-in attempts if the wrong user and password details are entered more than the amount of times you set. Very useful.

15. Premise

For any bloggers looking to monetize their blog (or simply grow traffic), Premise (affiliate link) is perfect. From the guys behind Genesis, this plugin lets you create landing sales pages, membership site solutions, social sharing for extra content options, and much more. Very comprehensive, highly recommended.

16. RSS Cloud

Because not everyone knows what an RSS feed is, the RSS Cloud plugin is a great way to make it easy for readers to subscribe. It points RSS Readers to the right format and content, makes the subscription process easier, and also updates servers when a new post goes live.

17. RSS Footer

There’s nothing worse than writing great content, then seeing an automated feed scrape pull your content and used on another blog. RSS Footer offers some protection by inserting a link and copyright at the end of each post, and linking scraped content back to your original source.

18. SEO Data Transporter

One of the biggest pains in changing WordPress themes is that you can lose all your SEO settings you so carefully cultivated. Thanks to SEO Data Transporter, this allows you to migrate all your SEO settings from plugins like Yoast SEO to a new theme with SEO built in, like Genesis. All the major platforms are supported and makes this plugin essential for any blogger.

19. Simple Lightbox

Ever been on a blog, clicked an image and it expands to full size? That’s a lightbox effect, and Simple Lightbox does exactly what the name of the plugin suggests – offers a pain-free way to have an elegant lightbox image gallery on your blog. (After a comment from Jon Loomer, I checked Simple Lightbox load times, and it was close to a second each time, which is a lot of load. Therefore, i deactivated the plugin and am removing its recommendation here).

20. Simple Social Icons

With the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others showing the benefits of using social networks to build your audience, making it easy to follow you is important. Simple Social Icons allows a clean and customizable selection of the top networks to display, so your readers can find you on your chosen networks.

21. Simple Trackback Validation

One of the ways spammers attack your blog (if they can’t bypass your comment filter) is by linking to your blog with their crappy content, which affects your standing in search engines if you’re linked with questionable content. Simple Trackback Validation checks the IP with the URL of the link and confirms it’s valid before approving.

22. SocialBox

Similar to Simple Social Icons, SocialBox is a smarter way to display your chosen networks, with follower and subscriber count on show too – always a great way to highlight your social currency when looking to attract advertisers to your blog (or even new subscribers – a high subscriber number usually equates to consistent quality).

23. Social Sharing Toolkit

You write great content – you want it shared, right? Social Sharing Toolkit does this and much more. As well as offering a host of the most popular sharing networks to allow your readers to share your content, it also has enhanced features like auto-linking Twitter names and hashtags, and offering more following options for your readers to connect with. A great social plugin.

24. Timthumb Vulnerability Scanner

Earlier last year, there was a major hack on WordPress sites using the code used to display thumbnails next to blog post excerpts. This caused huge headaches for a lot of bloggers, so the Timthumb Vulnerability Scanner plugin was released. This scans your database, highlight potential risks, and cleans these files for you. A must-have for any blogger that uses images.

25. Ultimate Maintenance Mode

If you want to make changes to your blog, or redesign it, but you don’t want to build offline and then transfer the data, Ultimate Maintenance Mode lets you create a maintenance message for your readers, and overlays it on top of a faded screenshot of your blog (or an image you upload). It’s one of the sleekest maintenance options out there, and I love it.

26. Viper’s Video Quicktags

If your blog is one that has a lot of videos on it, it can be a pain in the ass to grab the embed code, insert in your post, format and make sure it’s mobile-friendly too. Viper’s Video Quicktags does all this for you, and even inserts a little message with a direct link in your feed to say the post contains a video, in case it’s not displayed properly via email subscription.

27. W3 Total Cache

There’s nothing worse for a reader than visiting a blog and waiting for it to load. And waiting. And waiting. If your blog is taking too long to load, then you not only risk losing readers, but being punished by search engines too. W3 Total Cache is one of the most comprehensive options out there for scrunching your blog into less memory chunks, thus making it load faster.

Your Turn

And there you have it – my preferred plugins, some of which are always on, some of which are used when necessary.

There are other plugins that I haven’t mentioned here – WordPress SEO by Yoast, for instance, is great for getting you found on search engines. Since Genesis has a rock-solid SEO component built in, I don’t need to use any SEO plugins here.

Most of the above plugins will be great options for you to check out, some less so – for example, the Genesis plugins (with the exception of Simple Social Icons) are made for the Genesis framework only.

One thing to keep in mind – the more plugins you use, the more chance of impacting your site speed, so be careful with how many you use at any given time.

How about you – do you use any of these or, if not, which plugins are a must for your blog? Share away in the comments!

Of Blog Design Changes and Looking to the Future

Sometimes, I feel as if I should stay away from vacations and personal downtime completely. Case in point – I’m on vacation this week and the thing I did first? Redesigned the blog.

But… there is method behind my madness. Here’s the lowdown, for anyone interested in the thought process behind a blog design.

I’ve written about the changing paths of this blog before. Whereas it was originally a straightforward social media-led blog, I’d like to think it’s grown into something more as I’ve grown as a blogger.

Whereas previously the content has (for the most part) been of the written kind, my future plans include more multimedia, videos, presentations, ebooks and more. This leads naturally to the redesign, and the switch from a traditional blog format to a more website-type feel.

Finding Your Feet and Walking Different Paths

I’ve looked at the blogs of people like Adam Singer, Jason Falls, Brian Clark?and others, where the content has still been key, but there’s more to the experience for the visitor.

Sure, you can still read their blogs, but now there’s more to keep you interested and involved – digital downloads, resources and more. And it makes sense.

While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a “traditional” blog look and feel, the reading patterns and behaviours of web visitors is constantly evolving. And, from speaking with colleagues and watching the analytics of this blog, many bloggers are moving to a site framework versus a blog one.

There are several benefits of this approach:

Information hub homepage, where you can inform the visitor what they can expect.
Highlight your most important content, from blog posts to subscription details, books and more.
Clean call-to-actions, including digital downloads, webinars, partner sites, etc.
The visual appeal that a home page can offer, without cluttering your blog index.

These are just a few benefits. There are many more – the ones that matter to you are the ones that should matter on your home page.

Branding and Bigger Voices

Prior to my most recent redesign (yes, it was only a short couple of months ago – sorry!), I’d always had an image of myself in the header. With the design prior to this makeover, I removed that image and went solely for the name.

There are supporters for both arguments – Marcus Sheridan is a fan of the image approach, while Gini Dietrich is more of the name/company look and feel.

For me, there’s nothing wrong with either – a personal blogger may prefer an image to help him or her stand out, while a simple name or icon (without the blogger’s picture) can help extend the blog into something not uniquely attached to the blogger.

For example, both Gini and Jason that I mentioned earlier have regular guest bloggers, and their “name” approach means the blog is suited for that multi-author approach.

Gini’s even mentioned that the blog is bigger than her, and that’s why she doesn’t want it to be known as Gini’s blog. Again, for me, that makes perfect sense.

A blog is whatever the blogger wants it to be, while respecting the community around it that shapes it how they’d like it to be. It’s why I went for the name approach versus the image one.

For me, that’s going to see the blog evolve into what (hopefully) will be a repository for both content and downloads, to help you meet your goals, whether that be in social media, marketing or blogging (at least for starters).

Taking an image away from the header, as well as building on a website-type design, makes that goal easier.

We’re Always Evolving

It’s taken me a few iterations to get the result you’re looking at now (and if you’ve come straight to this post, hit the Home tab on the navigation to see the full design).

Some of my previous designs I was really happy with at the time, while others (in hindsight) were essentially a stop gap while looking for the design that I’d be really happy with.

While there will no doubt be more changes in the future, I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon. Having found the look and feel I’ve been after, it’ll probably just be minor tweaks here and there (a logo versus just the name, for example, though still no image!).

But though the look and feel may change, the goal remains the same – to open up the blog to you, and let you continue to shape it, in the posts from guests as well as the awesome thoughts and questions you continue to share and push with when you comment here.

This blog is as much yours as it is mine, perhaps more so.

Designs may come and go – but the same old me will always be around, waiting to hear your voice. Here’s to continued growth and evolution.

3 Ways to Repurpose Old Content to Create New Premium Products

One of the biggest questions many bloggers ask is how to monetize their blog. Search for that on Google, for example, and you?ll get?over four million results.

From having advertisements on your blog to selling affiliate links (or your own product), it?s clear that bloggers want to be able to make money from blogging ? it?s just a matter of how (and?without upsetting your readers).

Yet instead if trying to come up with new ways to monetize your blog, why not dig back into your archives and use stuff you?ve already created? After all, that offers a simpler and quicker way for you to start monetizing, and also gives you a ready audience, because they?re topics that people want to hear about (which we?ll see in the post).

So, with that in mind, here are?three ways for you to monetize your blog with some of your older content.

Create a Premium Ebook

Last year, I started writing blog posts that were akin to short stories. I?d offer business ideas and strategies through these posts, but wrap them in stories that could be looked at as fables.

These posts were incredibly popular, and gave me the idea to create an ebook around them and add new content as well to enhance the older posts, and then release it as a premium ebook.

That ebook was?The Parables of Business, and it?s since sold just under?a thousand copies. Multiply that by the $15 price for the ebook, and you can see that it was a great way to make the content from my blog profitable.

Look back at your content, and see if there?s an ongoing theme that can be fine-tuned and made available as a premium publication. It could be an educational series; a series on blogging tips; a series on health, or whatever your blog talks about. Look at the comments from these posts, and see if there were any unanswered questions.

Take these questions and turn them into brand new sections of your ebook, to make sure you offer value for any loyal readers. Add some new resources, and get your ebook professionally designed to make it a more attractive proposition. Then start selling and promoting (and even consider?an affiliate program?to help you reach more potential buyers).

By being a blogger, you?re already a writer (unless you?re a video blogger or podcaster) ? so why not sell books too?

Create an Educational Video Download

Video is an incredibly powerful medium.

Not only can a video enhance a point more than any written word could, purely from an ?Okay,?now?I see what you mean? standpoint, it?s also a great way to revamp old content.

Check your analytics, and see which posts had the most traction. That suggests that there?s an audience for that content, and while your written word may have been popular, a video overview will be even more so.

Create a video that shows how to maximize the SEO of your blog and content; or how to set up a WordPress site from scratch (including finding the best host); or how to understand the basics of coding so other bloggers can improve their own site design.

If you can write about something, you can almost universally create a video about it. Make it valuable and something that?s clearly needed, and a premium video download can be a great addition to your monetization strategy.

Host a Premium Webinar

Bouncing off the video download idea, an equally effective way to monetize old content is to build a webinar around it.

Did you write a post that looked at the importance of theme design and readability when it comes to reader growth?

Or did you write a post about the best way to take advantage of new technologies?

Any time you write a post about something that can help someone overcome issues or improve their process, it immediately becomes valuable.

If the written word becomes valuable, you can imagine how?valuable a?live webinar, with the ability to ask questions on the fly and see something happen in real-time, can be.

Again, look at your analytics and see where the most popular content has been. Combine that with something like?InboxQ?to get an idea of current needs and wants of potential customers for your webinar, and you can soon build a session that people will pay to attend.

If You Can Create It, You Can Sell It

These are just three ideas to get you started on ways to use old content to get new ways to monetize your blog. There are more ? blog consultancy services based on old content research, for example, or a members-only forum to answer the questions your readers are asking the most.

As a start, though, they should help you get started with selling your content that you take time and love to create. Because let?s face it ? if it can be created, it can be sold. Quality never has a price limit on it.

All you need to do is find the content you feel offers the most value and opportunity to turn into a premium offering. The good news is, the audience is waiting ? you just need to provide.

This post originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers, where you’ll find daily blogging tips to help you grow your blog and make it the best it can be. Subscribe today to make sure you get the latest updates as soon as they’re published.?

image:?My Blogging Journey