Tag: blogging

You’ve finally bought your very own CMS website and it runs on WordPress, people keep telling you about content marketing and how blogging is a great way to enhance your organic search and build a fan base. This is very true and thus why I am going to be creating several blog posts and vlogs (on The Change Creative YouTube Channel ) about how to use WordPress and what you should be considering every step of the way so you never get lost. In this post I will discuss how to create a successful blog post that will get attention.

Continue “How to create a successful blog post using WordPress step by step”

The blog Title is probably the most important part of any blog post.

You have finally decided that you want to start blogging as you hear this content marketing stuff is really good for drumming up a new business and thus you have created your first masterpiece but what do you call it? Blog titles are probably one of the most important parts of any blog post and in this blog post, I am going to discuss why. Continue “Choosing a user centric blog title”

The last blog post I wrote was all about three steps to increase your website traffic and it is clear that blogging is of huge importance to any online marketing.

Make your blog titles count!

Something that is very important is the title of the post and also the keyword selection you use within.

Incase you are unaware what a keyword is it is a word that you are targeting the search engines to look for in your page to give it more relevance to a users search.

For instance, my keyword might be ‘twitter profile’ then the website must include this keyword throughout the article without making it look ‘faked’.

Go forth and populate my keyword minions!

You need it in your title, your page url, your heading tags, your paragraphs and even in your alt tags for images! Don’t stress though, search engines are clever, they will look at the rest of your content and see how relevant your content  is to your keyword without actually being your keyword!

So now you have an idea about keywords you might realise why what you title your blogs is so important! If you are still a bit stifled for ideas then here are 9 ideas to help you start those creative cogs turning!

1. What does (fill in service/product) do?

2. An insight into a (your job)’s role

3. 3 things you should always consider when choosing (service/product)

4. What to expect from your (service/product here)

5. Should I buy a (your service/product)

6. Opposing service/product vs your service/product ( start with positive points about the opposing service and where that competition might actually be the answer to the readers problem).

7.  5 problems with your service/product (then turn it around to help people make decisions)

8. Best price for a (your product/service) –  ( make comparisons with others and why you are cheaper or more expensive than the competition or alternatively what you think is important in your/product service.

9. Should I buy product A or product B.

Notice that these headers are all asking questions , questions that your potential customer might have! By blogging about these topics you are educating your customers and that is great way to build trust with your possible customers as it empowers them to be able to make decisions and shows that you care about giving good service and advice to those that need your business.

A great tip I read from the http://www.thesaleslion.com/ is that to take time to consider questions that your customers ask you. Usually they are about pricing or time but there may be some other questions that are not price related, these are fantastic things to blog about and will help you generate new content for your business blog!

Best of luck writing your blogs and remember this is meant to be fun and not a chore!

If you have any tips how to generate new ideas for blog posts please comment in the box below! Or should you need help with a specific topic and want me to help you generate some ideas please get in touch and i will see what i can do 🙂

Finding Blog topic inspiration can be tricky. Sometimes you may have noticed my blog posts start drying up…I go three to five days without posting anything new and it sometimes is due to a lack of creative writing inspiration but how do we get back into the flow of things when this happens? How do we get our creative cogs turning again? In this post I give five suggestions on how you can get inspiration and start writing regularly and freely.

Trending topics

Sometimes what others are saying about a particular topic in your industry can be useful to spark your creativity. I have written about how to find out what is trending on the major social media platforms before here but there are other ways too!

Twitter trends

For instance on Twitter you can #Discover things you are interested in. Okay so, for an example, I would probably search for something like #art or #graphics or #brand. This will bring back hashtags with those phrases on and give you inspiration to see what others are talking about in your particualr field of interest.

Instagram trends

Or on Instagram you can search for tags in your field of interest. It is a lot similar to the Twitter discover tool but obviously these are images relating to the hash tag. This isn’t a bad thing, why not take inspiration from an image and write about it or maybe do a review of another artist or someone else’s photography. Maybe an image will spark a piece of creativity within your own soul.

Tumblr trends

Tumblr offers the same ability to search for hash tags so there are oodles of ways for your to find some inspiration from others.

Questions, questions, questions

Have people asked you questions about your work or industry lately? This is a great area of inspiration, every time someone asks you a question don’t just answer it but write it down too! You would be surprised just how many people in the world probably have the same question.

Get your work colleagues to help

Are you a business man or woman reading this blog? How many employees do you have? For each colleague you could have a potential new blog post in each and every person! So if you have 40 employees and each creates just one post a week that is 40 pieces of new content A WEEK!! A huge advantage over a lot of your competition.

If your creativity is a bit low as sometimes happens call a friend and ask them for a little hand, we are all creative and all have things to say about the industry we work in.

Old Works

Another option is to consider old works such as case studies ( if you provide a service ) or artworks you have created ( like myself ) and explain the concepts you had behind them. You can even discuss what you learnt from the experience too, that might help you to readdress where your strengths and weaknesses are which is always a great thing to do.

Guest Blogging

If you are totally dry and still struggling to blog about something interesting then you could open up your blog to others in your industry. This will help to keep your readers interested in coming to your website but also allow others to gain promotion from your website. You may think this is crazy to allow people to post on your blog but the truth is that the internet has made it easy for people to shop around a lot easier for what their specific needs are so don’t get defensive at the thought of advertising or helping a fellow person in your industry, actually helping others is great for business!

By helping promote another you are building a relationship with the person who has blogged on your website which may result in internet karma and potential leads when that person can’t complete a job for whatever reason.

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Once you have some inspiration spend just ten to twenty minutes of your time writing down around 10 to 20 topics you can write about in the near future then, when it comes to writing you can choose from one of your titles you came up with at the start of the week.

Have you got any more ideas how you find inspiration? Please feel free to leave a comment in the box below.

Blogging is something I decided to take up on my website only this January and I have found it to have many benefits not only to my website’s traffic but also in many other areas of my professional and personal life. In this post I discuss why you should,without hesitation, take up blogging on your website.

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Search Engines will love you

What search engines love is content and the more you blog the more content you are generating for robots to munch on.

The reason this is so good for your business/profession is that the more topics you write about the more keywords that are generated to get your website found and the only way to generate more business is to gain more brand awareness. For example, right now I have created just over 100 blog posts and gain roughly 2,000 unique visitors per month and it is all thanks to my blog.

Reach a larger audience

By blogging you are diversifying who you get your message out to in two different ways. The first way is that you become an international man ( or woman ) of mystery just like Austin Powers! The audience that visit my blog aren’t only British, actually the majority of my visitors actually come from the USA, people who would have been very unlikely to have ever heard about my work otherwise.

The second way is it attracts both the fellow professional advancing their skills but also those who need an expert to help them complete simple tasks. Imagine, for example, a lawyer comes to my site visiting “Add social media icons to your email signature” but is impressed by the free knowledge and so see’s what other services I offer. Realising he has wanted to rebrand his logo for a while he notices my service and makes some enquiries…and thus a lead is generated.

Encourages Learning

Blogging really encourages you to learn new things. As a regular blogger I want to create content that others are really going to benefit from, increase their own knowledge and also be quite entertaining. I have found the more I blog the easier it becomes to find new topics to write about and more interesting ways to present information.

Shows you are knowledgeable

You may think that giving away your knowledge of how to do things is absolute suicide for your business but you would be wrong. By sharing your knowledge it shows others that you have a good ability in what you have chosen as a profession and it also shows that you have confidence in your ability so aren’t scared about others gaining your knowledge.

Gives you a standing in your industry

When you write about topics that interest you you are also inadvertently becoming a respected professional in your industry. At first, you will only have a few blog posts about your particular topic but if you manage to blog every day for a year that will be 365 blog posts and a lot of shared knowledge, you could become the Gandalf wizard of your trade.

Question yours and others opinions

When you start blogging you will find yourself reading others websites and blogs quite often. What you read you won’t always agree with and it can spark your blogging creativity. For instance I read a blog post about five things to make a perfect logo and one of the points was that a logo must be timeless and I considered this to be rubbish! If you are interested in why I think this you can read the blog post here.

Look at things from different perspectives

If you read the last blog post I just referred to is, I know, opinionated ( but unlike the real world, being opinionated is quite important when blogging ). Even though I have my belief it is important to be able to try and see particular topics from different points of view. Learning to try and see things from more than one perspective makes for great reading and is also a skill that is useful in day to day life as it makes us become more compassionate and able to weigh up the pro’s and con’s of every situation, whether business or friendships.

An asset and a resource

When learning about new things and sharing it via your blog you are also creating a directory of resources that you can use in your future works. For example I created a blog post called 11 Free Texture Websites ( which interestingly was shared quite a lot via tumblr & twitter ), this is a really useful tool for fellow graphic designers and actually, from a selfish stand point, very beneficial to me too!

Keeps a curiosity

Life is about change and everything is constantly changing. By blogging it forces you to stay abreast of what is changing and converse your own views and experiences of what you are learning as time, tech and trends change.

Curiosity is great for creativity and if you think of the most curious people in the world…they tend to be children because they have a keen desire to learn!

Blogging allows you to become that curious child again, we should all be living lives as Peter Pan characters!

It can be a lot of fun

Above all blogging can be ( and is ) fun!

If you are a creative person then sharing what you know with others can be great entertainment and really good use of your time, so rather than watching some television switch it off, get your laptop out and start typing.

It has more benefit to your professional life than being spoon fed by a television program.

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So why should I blog on my website?

If you aren’t already blogging and you are the owner of a website I hope this blog post has given you an insight into why it is so rewarding and a no brainer to take some time to create at least one or two blog posts a week. I can promise you that you will not regret it.

Do you have any experiences of blogging you would like to share? Please comment in the box below

Sometimes deciding what to write about on your blog can be difficult, you just get a creative block and it’s like you are sat in a white room, on a white stool with white windows & with nothing to white, oh sorry I mean write! Finding out what is trending on social media is one great way to inducious your creative sparks. In this post you will find four useful links to find out what is currently trending.

Google Trends

Each day there is new content created on the web and search engine giant Google is a great place to find out what is trending. It is the most widely used Search Engine in the Western Hemisphere so if you write about something related to the main trend you have a good chance you may generate some traffic from it.

Reddit

Ever heard of reddit? Well you have now! Reddit is a place that people share stories that they find interesting and they post them in specific categories. The benefit of this for looking for ideas for your own works is that you can see how many up’s they have which gives an indication at how interesting and successful the story might be if you were to create something yourself around that particular article.

Buzz Feed

BuzzFeed is the leading media company for the social age, intensely focused on delivering high-quality original reporting, insight, and viral content across a rapidly expanding array of subject areas. Their technology powers the social distribution of content, detects what is trending on the web, and connects people in realtime with the hottest content of the moment. A great way to really spark your imagination with many subjects and ideas to discuss on your blog, what could be better?

Youtube Trending

Lastly, if you are starting to enter the world of video blogging you may like to take a look at this site. It gives you insight into what is currently trending on youtube. Even if you aren’t video blogging it still might spark some ideas for your latest blog post or podcast.

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Remember, although all these websites are informing you of what is trending at that particular moment you may want to try and be a little bit psychic too and write about things that are yet to happen but are foresable and highly likely to happen as this will give google time to index your content and you won’t become old news. Alternatively, if you can write an article within a couple of hours and you have large social media followings on various platforms and you are a part of various communities then don’t worry so much about natural search results just make sure you use the hashtag as effecitvely as possible when describing your blog post so that your article can be found amongst all the other trending information. Best of luck and if you have any other ideas of to find out what is trending then please feel free to comment in the box below.

What is Tumblr? Tumblr is a microblogging platform and social networking website. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users’ blogs, as well as make their blogs private.

Problem with Tumblr

Tumbler, like Instagram & Facebook has also received criticism for the ability of bloggers to violate copyright. Tumblr’s visual appeal has made it a haven for photoblogs, which often times include copyrighted work from others and publishing them without payment. Tumblr users are able to post content that isn’t their own by re-blogging. Re-blogging involves presseing a buttong that allows users to re-post content that they found on a blog which they subscribe to, onto their own blog.

Widgets

Just like WordPress Tumblr allows users to add widgets that allow to add things that make their website that little bit unique such as twitter feeds, livestream apps or music players that being playing music when other users view their blog.

Combining Twitter with WordPress

That is how I would describe Tumblr really..a blogging platform with social media principles. If you are user of Twitter you will know that to get people to follow you you are best finding people that have the same interests as you & then they are likely to follow you back too and increase your fan base getting your content more noticed. How do you find people to follow? There is a “explore” button on the dashboard where you will find lots of interesting topics that people tag their blog post in.

Tag, your it!

What is tagging I hear you say? Every time you post something i recommend putting some keywords in the tagging box.  Basically what this does is act like a keyword so that it makes your content easier to find. Say someone is looking for flowers and your blog post is a picture of one then one tag you would use is obviously “flower” and you may get discovered by that searcher.

 Oi ! I posted that!

Get used to feeling like this! People will repost your things if they like it, thats the whole point of tumblr, its blogging but with a difference. It gets shared easily and quickly and you may often find things you have created in other peoples blogs. If you do this correcty it can create a larger following on your own blog and if you have a website, it could even direct people to your site too! More traffic? Now that can’t be bad can it!

 RSS me baby!!

not much time to create stuff for your blog? No problem! Other people can put things on your blog through rss feeds, you can simply set up different rss feeds to appear on your blog in the preferences setting.

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question!

Every time you blog on your Tumblr account you can choose whether to immediately share it on twitter & facebook but if  you blog a lot on tumblr it could annoy your twitter followers..i know if i see over 10 posts in one go on twitter it can make me quite irritated especially if i am not interested in the first tweet they put ( sorry to sound moody, but its true for most users! 🙂 )

 Wow big blog! Its just like a book

When you have a lot of pages then you can even get it published into a book! Now that is pretty cool isn’t it!

Is it for me?

The thing about Tumblr is it is a combination of WordPress ( a mainstream open source blogging CMS platform for those who know a little bit of code ) and Twitter, combining people who are interested in the same things as you…but the good thing is it is so very very simple. It is ideal for those who have lots of photos to share and are inspired by quotes and such like. If you aren’t ready for hardcore blogging like what I am doing here Tumblr is for those taking the step up from twitter & facebook amongst friends to start gaining a larger voice in their world community. [divider style=”1″]

How do I use it?

I use it to post my works and become inspired by others works and show appreciation to others and promote the work of those I admire and useful things I find along the way…I think they key to a good internet is a true bohemian heart, free love, free information & free creativity. Yes we all need to make a living but if you truly want to make an impact in the world and offer something of value to people then free is the best place to start…when you have a big enough following then you can consider selling some of your things to your close nit fans. I hope this blog post has helped you in undrestanding tumblr a bit more…if you are still unsure how tumblr works you can visit my site here : – http://jawilson-design.tumblr.com/ or alternatively just set up your own tumblr account ( it even comes with an app for easy uploads! ). Happy blogging! 🙂

You have just wrote your first blog post, proof read it, added a few pictures, added the usual seo features & officially clicked the post button. Right now, the door to the world is starting to open just that little bit more, your voice is being heard among the mass of confusing noise. You realize you enjoy this blogging thing and write another post…and another…and another..before you know it you have over 100 blog posts on your site, 100 pieces of individual information for google to feed its little robots on.

Now where did I put that book?

Imagine a library, full of millions of books, this is the metaphorical picture of a website. Now imagine you walk into that library and you are after a very specific book, one book amongst a million. How would you expect to be able to find it? A category perhaps? That would certainly narrow your search down wouldn’t it!?

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This is the basic purpose of using categories in WordPress. It may seem pretty obvious but when you first start using your blog categorization of your posts doesn’t really seem to matter that much, its more important to get your information out to the world but after a while you will realize you really should have spent some time creating categories.

Why is it so important?

I have already mentioned that if you are specifically looking for an old article you remember writing categories make it automatically easier for you to find. For example if you are looking for a blog post about the greatest football team in the world then a category called “Liverpool Football Club” would be an excellent place to store that post under.

User Experience

But really, wordpress categories aren’t for the creator, it is more beneficial to the reader. The best use of the internet isn’t for self its for the betterment of all. Yes of course it is really useful to store your knowledge that you gain somewhere and then be able to retrieve it at a later date when need be, but those who use the internet and blog for the right reasons want to share what they know in order to be able to help others.

A good user experience will have excellent categorization so it is easy to quickly find what they are looking for.

Related posts

Another great way to ensure navigating around your blog is easy is to add a related posts plugin of which I can suggest quite a few. What this will do is give a few options at the end of each post that will then give a very similair post to what has just been read. A very useful tool don’t you think.

My top tip

Before starting your blog sit down and think what is it you want to write about? Maybe you won’t have all the categories right away..that is fine, just make sure to create them as a new topic is generated. If it is partly related to a topic then make sure your new category is assigned what is called a parent category . All in all, you are wanting your visitors to benefit from the experience you can provide them so make it as an easy a ride as possible.

Any questions please don’t hesitate to complete the comment box below and best of luck in your category creating!

Last year Google Feedburner lost their Japanese domain name and it seems Google is not going to be supporting this great tool for much longer…December 2014 to be precise ( as this seems to be when the domain name is registered till. ) You may have built up quite a subscription of followers on  your blog and you really don’t want to loose them but know you need an alternative within the next year…here are a few alternatives to Google Feedburner to feast your eyes on : –

FeedBlitz

FeedBlitz is a service that monitors blogs, RSS feeds and Web URLs to provide greater reach for feed publishers. FeedBlitz takes all the headache out of converting feed and blog updates into email digests, delivered daily to subscribers’ inboxes. FeedBlitz manages subscriptions, circulation tracking, testing, and is compatible with all major blogging platforms and services such as Blogger, WordPress, FeedBurner, Joomla, Drupal and Typepad. Unlike other blogmail services, FeedBlitz is reliable, scalable and fully supported. No betas, wish lists or road map items here. You’re in production, and so is FeedBlitz.

Rapidfeeds

Includes lots of in-demand features, including branded RSS feeds, auto-Twitter update, RSS feed scheduling and subscriber statistics.  Also integrates nicely with podcasts. Price varies on the number of feeds you want to manage and the features you want.  Enterprise-level feed management is $13.95 per month

Nourish

Nourish is an RSS to email service and a reliable Feedburner alternativefor those sites whose visitors don’t really grasp (or don’t use) RSS much.  The free version lets you send up to 1,000 emails per month. Also includes customizable newsletter templates.

Feedcat

FEEDCAT.NET is mainly dedicated to boosting feeds and also serves as a public catalogue of feeds (RSS and ATOM).

Feedity

Feedity creates an RSS feed for any webpage and allows for social media monitoring, the aggregating of multiple feeds, and publishing of feeds on your website.

Has the fire gone out on feedburner?

I don’t think this is the end for google feedburner just yet, whether google totally abandon it and their many users or not is yet to be announced but at least you are prepared if something does happen. Fingers crossed they see how valuable a tool it is to the online community

Yes, as promised here are 5 more blog directories to submit your fantastic and informative blogs to. I do spoil you guys!

Blogs Avenue

BlogsAvenue is an blog directory on the Internet that allows you to get more exposure for your online publication. Every submitted blog is available to the public, and it displays some useful info like: a thumbnail of the homepage, some site information (owner, URL, category, etc.), the rating of the site, a set of SEO info (PageRank, Google / Bing backlinks, etc.) and the reviews (if any). Plus, you can check a statistics graph with unique daily visitors and pageviews for the present day, week and month referring to the blog site. Registration is necessary.
To add your site to BlogsAvenue, you must register first. Then select “submit blog” from the right sidebar panel. Here, add your blog URL, title and description of your site (160 chars minimum), RSS feed URL, and choose a category that represents what your blog is about. Last, add the BlogsAvenue reciprocal code to your blog to activate the submission.

Go Blogz

Go Blogz is a free directory and search engine where you can submit your URL to promote the content of your blog to a wider audience. Registration is not mandatory.
To submit your blog to Go Blogz, just add the title and URL of your site. Then, write a brief description for your blog and enter a reciprocal link. Last, add your e-mail address and you’re set.

Malatya

Malatya is a free RSS directory where you can submit your website RSS feed to obtain more traffic and exposure for your content. Registration is not mandatory to use the service. After you submit your RSS feed, the editors at Malatya will manually check your feed before displaying your content inside the directory.
To submit your RSS feed to Malatya, please choose a relevant category that describes your blog content and then enter the URL of your RSS feed.

Society of Socialpreneurs

Society of Socialpreneurs is a blog directory and social business network where you can submit your website or blog and get more exposure. The blog submission process is free as long as you place a button with a reciprocal link promoting the directory on your own website. Registration is not mandatory.
To submit your blog to Society of Socialpreneurs, after you post their button on your website, just provide your name and e-mail address, the title and URL of your blog and write a description for your blog.

Pingates

Pingates is not a blog directory nor an RSS directory where you can submit your website. What Pingates does is send a “ping“, a notification, to a handful of sites alerting them that your blog has been updated. Then, the web crawlers of these websites can come by and notify their readers of the update. No registration is needed.
To ping your blog using Pingates, simply type the title and url of your blog, select the sites you want to send a ping to (you can also check all of them with a single button) and then click on “Send pings“.

I will add one more blog post about top blog directories to add your blog to in the near future.