Archive for the Category »Plugins and Widgets «

13
Jan
Take One Thing Off

I like to decorate our home for Christmas.

When I do, the process is pretty simple. I remove my normal decorations and before each spot is cold, I’m adding Christmas decorations.

Photo of Coco Chanel taken in 1020

Coco Chanel

For a month or more as these decorations surround me. I enjoy looking at them. I enjoy having them around. I enjoy the season.

Christmas passes. The New Year comes. It’s time to put the holiday decorations away.

Time to start anew.

This year I noticed something.

Because I was being more methodical about putting the Christmas decorations away and ridding myself of those which no longer brought me joy, where those decorations had been housed, looked REALLY empty. Void of clutter.

In fact, my eyes moved around each room without stopping. Without being distracted.

I liked what I saw.

I redecorated with less.

Today’s Lesson

Blogs are like that.

When we first start blogging we have a blank canvas. If we use WordPress, we see the “Hello World” post, but nothing else.

Sidebars are empty and the header only contains the name of our blog (and maybe the tagline).

The blog is pretty bare.

As time passes, we begin to fill the blank spaces. Just like decorating a home and hanging artwork on the walls.

But, unlike a home which we may decorate for a holiday and then start over, with a blog we often forget to clear the clutter.

In fact, sometimes we add more.

We become blind to how it looks to others.

But our visitors notice.

To them, our blogs may seem cluttered. Busy. Hard on the eye.

In truth, they may have trouble finding our content.

But we don’t see it.

We live on our blogs and know exactly where everything is. Every button. Every banner. Every widget or plugin. They’re all in the same spot we left them.

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking it’s time I clear the clutter and get rid of widgets which take up space and ads which don’t pay.

It’s time to start anew.

What say you?

Today’s Assignment

How often do you clean up your blog?

What’s your first impression of a blog which is cluttered?

Care to share?

signature for blog post

P.S. French fashion designer Coco Chanel (1883-1971) is known for the quote, “Before you leave for the day…take one thing off…” She knew the secret to not letting our accessories distract from our beauty.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Category: Archives, Blog Maintenance, Blogging Lessons, Plugins and Widgets  56 Comments
31
Aug
The Game Of “Either – Or”

In addition to making money, most bloggers want two things.

  1. Traffic

  2. Comments

Unfortunately, both depend on the actions of others, and those “others” are often fellow bloggers.

Today’s Lesson

When bloggers make the rounds to other blogs, they’re mentally asking themselves questions and/or making choices. For example,

  1. Do I have time to read this post in its entirety? Or will I skim it?
  2. Does it appear the blog author wants my opinion?
  3. If so, did they ask for it? Or is it implied?
  4. If I leave a comment, will it add value to the post?
  5. Is this post worthy of being promoted on my favorite social media site?

As blog authors, we can help make those decisions easier.

Such as,

  1. Are we asking for comments?

    2. Did we end our post with a question? Or does our post appear so “complete”, it sends a subliminal message comments aren’t welcome?

  2. How easy is it for others to leave a comment?

    3. Does the commenter have to register or jump through hoops to pass the security features of our blog? Or have we made the process of commenting as simple as possible?

  3. How easy have we made it for other bloggers to promote our work?

    4. Are we including buttons which take our visitors directly to Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon? Or do we expect them to “figure it out” on their own time?

  4. Is our post worthy of being shared?

    5. Does is hold value others can benefit from? Is it grammatically correct and void of typos? Are the facts correct?

  5. If a reader lands on our home page (www.ourblog.com) do they have to click again to read the full post?

    6. Are we using excerpts and the “continue reading/more” feature? If so, does this feature make it easier for our visitors to read our blog posts?

  6. If we’re showing a post in its entirety on our homepage and the reader does NOT click through to the post, does our homepage show the Retweet button or an application which will make it EASY for someone to share our article?

    7. Or does sharing our post require additional work on our readers part?

  7. Are we asking others to promote our posts on their favorite social media site?

    8. Or are we assuming our visitors are mind readers?

Truth be told, we can’t/shouldn’t expect our visitors to read, comment on, AND promote our blog posts each time we publish something new.

Just like with us, their time is limited.

If we’re lucky, they’ll do one; comment OR promote.

But usually not both.

Today’s Assignment

If you could only pick one, what would it be?

To receive comments?

To have your post promoted on a social media site?

I’d love to hear why you picked what you did.

signature for blog post

P.S. This post was inspired by what social media consultant Vered, shared in her comment on the Call Me A Hypocrite post:

…When time is short, I promote posts that I like on social media…

Thank you Vered.

Category: Archives, Blogging Lessons, Comments, Increase Traffic, Plugins and Widgets, Writing Tips  63 Comments
13
Aug
Turn Your Blog Into A Book?

I’ve kicked around the idea of writing a free ebook for quite some time.how to turn your blog into a book

My thought is to put some of my previous blog posts into book form for those who prefer not to dig through my archives. I’d like for the comments to be included since that is where most of the value lies and I’d also like to include links to the comment author’s sites.

I know I’ll turn some of my blog posts into a book sooner rather than later, however I’ve convinced myself there must be an easier way to do it rather than cutting, pasting, and re-editing before publishing.

My search to do so has taken me on an interesting journey.

Today’s Lesson

I first tried two different plugins for turning a blog into book form.

  1. Anthologize and
  2. Blog2Print

For reasons I can’t figure out, both plugins failed to work for me so my search continued.

Thanks to Rick of What’s On My PC? my first stop was

  1. BlogBooker

    2. I used my green blog, input the URL and a link to the XML file into their form. The process was quick and when complete, the ebook included photos, some of the links and comments. Unfortunately, only the CommentLuv links showed up. The blog which only has a handful of posts ended up being an ebook containing 23 pages including the cover and an index. Additional formatting would be required, however with this being a free service, I thought the results were quite impressive.

My search for more information lead me down an unexpected path. What I found were sites which let us self-publish, as well as sell our end product.

The links in Matt Cutt’s “Blog to Book” post led me to these sites.

  1. Fast Pencil

    2. On Fast Pencil I decided to turn my Observation Mountain blog into an ebook. Before “publishing” to draft, I deleted all spam comments, edited out approximately 30 of the 165 posts and ended up with a book which was 180 pages long.  The draft which was created was perfectly formatted with each post having it’s own page(s),  however no comments nor links were included.

  2. Lulu.com

    3. Lulu’s site includes a short video of the services they provide for self publishers, and although I’ve watched the video, I’m not sure this is the route I want to take.

  3. Blurb.com

    4. Blurb.com provides a free download of their “Blurb BookSmart” software. The software lets you create a book which can be sold on their site. After downloading and reviewing the software, it appears to be very comprehensive and helpful.

I also remembered George Angus of Tumblemoose used Smashwords to publish five ebooks.

Smashwords offers numerous possibilities and from reading the review of Smashwords on his blog, George is quite pleased with their service.

Knowing things aren’t always as they seem and wanting to be cautious, I also checked the website of watchdog Clark Howard. There I found these links:

  1. Absolute Write, a forum for writers and,
  2. Preditors & Editors

To repeat what is written in Clark Howard’s post:

Up until about 1998, the “vanity press” industry would charge people outrageous sums to publish a book. It wasn’t unusual for someone to pay $8,000 – $12,000 to these phony publishing houses.

The best advice Clark can offer is be skeptical. Use the collective wisdom of the Internet to help you steer clear of rip-off artists.

Although I haven’t found the perfect way to turn parts of my blog into an ebook, I feel I’m a few steps closer.

Today’s Assignment

Have you written a book or ebook? Or are you thinking of turning your blog into a book?

What platform did you use? Or will you use?

Care to share?

signature for blog post

P.S. For those of you who plan to either turn your blog into a book or write a book, having it proofread prior to publishing is essential. Davina is one of the best proofreaders in the field and can be found at  Shades of Crimson.

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Category: Archives, Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Plugins and Widgets, Reviews  Tags: , , , , , , , , ,  69 Comments
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