Pictures add something to blog posts. They don’t have to be original, expensive, gorgeous or even particularly accurate. Just a hint of a visual representation of the article’s subject engages a reader’s sense of visual aesthetics. It’s one more way to draw her into your article and make it memorable.
I recommend using free photos wherever you can. They may not be unique, but how often do you remember thinking, “Oh, ... READ MORE
| Posted in » Blogging 
I read a post at Neat Living recently about de-cluttering blogs, and it got me thinking. That post suggests several items you can go read yourself. These are some of my thoughts.
Longer, less frequent posts? Unless you can really pack something attention-grabbing into a short post, you’re better off with longer posts that give a lot of information or opinion. While some people’s attention spans won’t make it to the ... READ MORE
I’ve added some neat features to the WordPress blog I used for GTD recently. I found the To Do plugin, which sticks a nice To Do list right in your admin panel. It will not send you any reminders, and it doesn’t allow for separate categorization of stuff. But I find it a useful replacement for my GTD Inbox – I jot things down quickly, and later I do the ... READ MORE
Thinking about moving your sites to a new host? If both hosts have Cpanel, there are a few ways to do this.
First, the “full backup” method, explained here. This one is simplest, but doesn’t always work. The new host may not give you the access level you need to install the backup on that end.
The second method is almost as easy. From your cpanel backup:
Download a home backup. It’ll save ... READ MORE
Pick The Brain has a post of blogging tips, and there’s a theme running throughout the tips: don’t post just for the sake of posting. Not if you really want readers to come and stay and subscribe and comment.
I’m very guilty of posting just because I think I have to. Some days, there are just no topics coming to mind that I feel like trying to write about, or feel ... READ MORE
If you want to cut out the middleman and sell sponsored posts and paid links yourself, without losing a commission to a text link or sponsored post broker, here are a couple of WordPress plugins that could help you with that.
WPbankroll lets people write posts for your site and submit them at a price you set. That’s right – not only do they pay you for the linkage, but they ... READ MORE
I’ve been researching the best ways to tell search engine robots just exactly which parts of your WordPress site they should index, and which parts to avoid. Robots.txt is one obvious way to go about this, but there’s no shortage of conflicting opinions about just what to block. The goal here is mainly to avoid duplicate content in Google, which will toss pages into the Supplemental Index. But I’ve seen ... READ MORE
UPDATE: Put your WordPress GTD into a Zoho Notebook, along with your Bloglines and most everything else you need at your fingertips.
I spent a lot of time this week trying out different online and server-side apps to help me get into GTD mode. Nothing was quite right for me, and eventually I decided I needed to just pick something and be done.
That’s when I came up with the idea of ... READ MORE
Out of the box, WordPress is decent for SEO. But there’s so much more you can do to get the advantage.
Template Tips:
Find templates that put the sidebar code after the content code. Look at the source code of your template. You want as little code as possible between the bots and the content. Is the code for the stuff in your sidebars (categories, blogroll, etc.) before or after the content ... READ MORE
