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Blogging Pitfalls: Why You Can’t Be Just a Blogger

Everyone knows what being a blogger entails but fewer people know what creating a successful blog involves. Far too many bloggers have fallen for the false mantra of “If you write it, they will come” only to watch their traffic, readership and even profits lag behind their efforts.

There is much more to writing a blog than just simply putting out new blog entries. Even ignoring promotion, communication and other activities all bloggers do, there is a simple truth that, for the most part, a great blog can not be simply a great blog.

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The Secret to Boosting Search Traffic By Being Fast and Easy

Did you know that sites which load quickly get higher search engine keyword rankings thereby getting more search traffic to their sites than slow-loading sites?  It’s true for your blog, too.  Even Google has admitted that fast load times equate to higher search rankings.  However, most bloggers haven’t taken the time to evaluate their blogs’ load times.

The more “stuff” you put on any given page on your blog, such as flash effects, ads, images, videos, and all the other stuff that clutters bloggers’ sidebars, the slower your blog posts and pages will load on a visitor’s web browser.  Fortunately, there are ways to both analyze your blog’s load time on an ongoing basis and there are ways to speed up page load time across your blog.

Out with the Old

First, take a look through the content on your blog.  Are there flash items, images, video or other content that slows down the page load time that you can remove entirely?  Common culprits for slow-loading pages are flash elements and third-party ads.  Each element on a page on your blog or website has to be “called up” and displayed on screen each time that page loads.  No one wants to hang out and wait for a page to load for more than a couple of seconds.  That’s simply the way that web browsing works in 2010.  People expect pages to load instantly.  If they have to wait more than a few seconds, they’ll click away never to return again.

In with the New

Second, use a tool like Google Webmaster Central to keep track of page load time on your blog.  Using the Site Performance option in Google Webmaster Central can give you all kinds of information about your blog page load time, so you can make changes to pages that are loading particularly slowly.

Add a Little Something Extra

Third, if you use WordPress, use a plugin like W3 Total Cache to speed up page load time on your blog.  You can follow the link to read more about WordPress plugins to reduce load time.  You also should read about 9 easy steps to speed up your WordPress blog.

Bottom-line

Page load time can help or hurt the organic traffic that comes to your blog from keyword searches.  What are you waiting for?  If you want to get more search traffic to your blog, then you should take some time to find ways to make sure your content loads quickly so Google gives it the highest ranking possible.

Image: stock.xchng

5 WordPress Plugins that Increase Traffic to Your Blog

If you want to grow your blog’s audience and you use WordPress.org as your blogging application, then you need to try the five WordPress plugins listed below.  They’re easy to use, free, and can have a significant impact on the number of visitors to your blog.

1. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)

The more great content people are exposed to on your blog, the higher the chances are that they’ll find something they like causing them to return to your blog again, share your content with their own online connections, and ultimately, drive additional traffic to your blog.  YAARP is a great plugin for automatically including a list of related posts at the end of each of your blog posts.  The Link Within widget is another alternative.

2. Tweetmeme Retweet Button

The Retweet button is a must-have for all bloggers who want to increase traffic by making it easy for readers to share your blog posts with their own followers on Twitter.  You can add the Retweet button to your blog as a widget or as a WordPress plugin.  The TwitThis plugin offers similar functionality.

3. Share This

There are a number of WordPress plugins that make it easy for people to share links to your blog posts through their social web profiles like Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and more.  Share This is a popular choice.  Others include Sociable and Add to Any.

4. All-in-One SEO Pack

You can use the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin to give your blog posts an SEO boost and drive more traffic from keyword searches on popular search engines like Google.

5. Subscribe to Comments

When you allow people to subscribe to the comments published on a blog post, they receive an email when new comments are added.  This drives them back to your blog again to keep up with the conversation and continue participating.  The Subscribe to Comments plugin makes it easy for WordPress.org users to allow readers to stay involved in ongoing conversations on their blogs.

What are your favorite WordPress plugins for boosting traffic to your blog?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Image: stock.xchng

How to Win Friends and Influence People with Blogging

It’s no secret: many of us want to make more connections, meet new people and network with influencers in our industry. By doing so, it helps us advance our careers and reach new professional heights. But unless you’re a habitual schmoozer who loves making small talk, networking can be tedious and awkward. So how can you meet others in your niche if you’re not into glad-handing and transparent hobnobbing?

Try blogging.

Yup, blogging is a fantastic way to make new friends and influence people. Most people see blogging as a way to express themselves, share their thoughts and opinions, drive more traffic to their website, etc. And it’s true. Those are some of the great perks of blogging. But publishing a blog is also a terrific way to connect with other industry professionals. A blog can serve as a networking vehicle that helps you meet people you admire when you really have no idea how to go about meeting them. How does blogging help you accomplish this? Let’s take a look… [Read more…] about How to Win Friends and Influence People with Blogging

Free Forum Scripts that Work with WordPress

Want to add a forum to your WordPress blog or website?  Don’t want to spend a lot of money?  Don’t need a lot of highly advanced features?

If you answered yes to these questions, then this is the post for you!

There are a lot of forum scripts and tools to create forums out there.  Some are free and some have expensive price tags attached to them.  Some offer a simple design and simple functionality while others are jam-packed with every feature you can imagine!  Fortunately, there is a forum tool for everyone, and today, I’m going to point you in the direction of three great free options for WordPress users.

1. phpBB

There are tons of forums online that operate on phpBB.  It’s free and even comes with a variety of design choices, so your forum doesn’t have to look exactly the same as all the others online.  You can see phpBB in action here and here.

2. Simple-Press

Simple-Press is a WordPress plugin, so it’s extremely easy to set it up to work with your blog.  It’s not as feature-rich as other forum tools, but it gets the job done.  You can see it in action here and here.

3. bbPress

bbPress was created by Automattic, the company behind WordPress, so it makes sense that it integrates seamlessly with WordPress blogs and sites.  It doesn’t offer all of the functionality that you’ll find in forum tools like vBulletin (see below), but it gets the job done for simple forums.  You can see it in action here and here.

And if you’re willing to spend some money on your forum, then I’d recommend checking out vBulletin, which you can see in action here or here.

Do you manage a forum?  What forum script or tool do you use and why?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Building Blog Trust: 6 Actionable Items

Any decent relationship is built on trust. Without it, you have nothing more than two people in a room. Violate it…and you’ll spend a lifetime working (often unsuccessfully) to get it back. Earning and maintaining the trust of a significant other is hard enough, but a bloggers’ job is even tougher. You need to earn/maintain the trust of an audience.

Building trust doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s an important ingredient to cook up a winning product. Here are few tactics to employ in order to build trust…and become a better blogger.

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5 Cool Retail and Ecommerce Premium WordPress Themes

Do you sell products online and need a cool WordPress theme to make your online store easy-to-use, easy-to-manage, and visually appealing?

Fortunately, there are many free and premium WordPress themes that can help you create a great online storefront, complete with a shopping cart and all the features you and your customers need!

Below are five well-coded premium WordPress ecommerce-related themes from Templatic that might work for you!  One of the things I like about Templatic themes is when you buy one, you purchase a lifetime subscription for a price that is competitive with many other popular premium themes.  However, many other premium theme pricetags only include 1-year of upgrades and support. You can also create a free demo account to test drive Templatic accounts before you purchase one.

1. Store Front

Five color choices and a clean look.

Get the details or View the demo

2. Productz

Six color choices and a less “ecommercey” design for the home page.

Get the details or View the demo

3. Emporium

Four color choices and a design that’s perfect for fashion, jewelry, fragrances, and more.

Get the details or View the demo

4. e-Commerce

Five colors and a very simple look.

Get the details or View the demo

5. Store

Four color choice and a very unique design for an online store!

Get the details or View the demo

Do you use WordPress to power your online store?  What theme do you use?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Best Tools for Brainstorming Content Ideas

This is a guest blog by Loren Baker, the SVP of Online PR at BlueGlass Interactive, a full service online marketing agency, and is a professional blogger & creator of Search Engine Journal, an AdAge Top 10 ranked marketing blog.

One of the most important things you will do as a blogger is create content. The more content you have, the more opportunities you have to be seen by the search engines and by your readers. That will give you a base flow of traffic. The more base traffic you have, the more likely it is that you will get links to your site. The more links you have, the better you will rank on the search engines. Starting and maintaining this continuous cycle is one of the most effective ways that you can improve your site’s success. Whether you are an established blogger, or planning a new blog, generating ideas for that content can be pretty difficult, however. There are some great free tools that will help you come up with things to say. [Read more…] about Best Tools for Brainstorming Content Ideas