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What are blog plugins and should you use them?

By Marcia Ming on Friday, March 26th, 2010 | 1 Comment

We saw in a previous blog post that the basic WordPress theme is pretty blah. In addition to using customized themes, you can add functionality to your blog with plugins. Plugins are software modules developed by programmers to allow your blog to accomplish different tasks.

What are the most helpful plugins and the most popular?

WordPress plugins graphic

There are hundreds of different plugins out there, but they may not all be for your blog. So how do you decide which plugins to use? Part of the answer depends on the type of blog or blog website you are creating?

Are you a blogger or an online retailer selling a product? Are you a service business such as a web designer or photographer needing to show off your portfolio so people can see your work? Before you add a plugin, you need to do some research to find the best plugins for your blog.

However, there are also plugins that every blog should consider. One is Akismet, a plugin designed to control spam. It will catch blog comments that fit certain criteria.

Vote for your favorite blog plugin

I plan to write about other plugins that are useful. But I’d also like to invite you to share the blog plugins you find most useful. So leave a comment letting us know your favorite plugin.

Name of plugin
What the plugin does
Where readers can download the plugin

If your plugin is mentioned, people can visit your blog website to see it inaction.

How to configure your WordPress blog?

By Marcia Ming on Thursday, March 25th, 2010 | 14 Comments

If you are the typical writer you probably hate words like configure. It sounds so . . . technical. And you chose WordPress because everyone said it was easy.

You can configure your WordPress blog from the dashboard shown here.

I hate to disappoint you but there are a few slightly technical steps you need to take to make your blog more search engine friendly. These minor changes will also make your blog more appealing to your readers. So let’s head under your blog’s hood to fix a few things.

Inside Dashboard – scroll down to the Settings section at the bottom on the left.

Click on the word Discussion to specify how you want to handle comments.

If you decide to let people post comments on your blog, you will want to set the conditions.

Check the first box that allows anyone to post a comment
Check the second box that says a comment is held for moderation.

In the next section, Comment Moderation, you can specify that comments be held for moderation if they have more than 2 links. That’s a common characteristic of comment spam.

You may think that spam is not a big deal. But I was amazed at the way people glommed onto my blog at first with spam. They were using my blog to get traffic to their blogs.

Of course, they still do that, but I only let them get away with it if they read my blog post and comment on what I wrote. There are tons of people out there looking for ways to drive traffic to their websites, and if you write halfway decent blog posts or get any traffic at all, you can expect to be targeted.

Later if you see a pattern in certain words comments use, you can return to this page and enter URLs, emails or IP into the comment blacklist box. That will help you to block some of the more flagrant abuses. Once you are finished, scroll down the page and save your changes.

Adjust the Permalinks settings to control the appearance of your individual blog posts.

Next you need to make an adjustment to the Settings for Permalinks – another technical term. Permalinks is the word WordPress uses to identify individual blog posts.

If you accept the default setting, WordPress will identify your individual posts with a question mark and a number.

By selecting the day and name option or the month and name option, you can get the title of your post in the permalink. The permalink will show up in the address line for the page on which your post appears. You also have the option of using a custom structure such as the name of the post only. Make your choice and save your changes.

Those are just a few of the changes you may want to make to get your blog to do what you want. To learn more, I recommend you learn how to create a blog with the Beginner to Blogger in 4 Weeks by Traci Knoppe.

To your continued success!
Marcia Ming

Should you pay for a custom blog theme?

By Marcia Ming on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 | 12 Comments

If you are trying to brand your business to set it apart from the competition, you may want a theme that reflects that unique branding. So you are probably wondering if you should pay for a custom blog theme.

This is the default WordPress Blog theme - Ugh!

As a person who has taken a few graphic design courses, but is not a professional designer, I have to admit — I don’t want my website or blog to look just like all the others. So I spent a lot of time looking for themes I could customize while checking out themes that come at a price.

In designing your blog, you can pick one of hundreds of free blog themes created for WordPress, you can buy a premium theme for as much as $150, or you can have a custom theme designed for several hundred dollars.

I stopped short of paying someone to design my theme, but I admit that I might have saved time and gotten more of what I wanted if I had paid someone to design a custom theme for me.

My blog was still evolving. I wasn’t sure what I wanted it to be. So my decision was to do it myself while trying to get my blog where I wanted it. However, I would recommend that some small business owners spring for a custom blog theme.

The WordPress platform lets small business owners build more traditional websites by adding pages that don’t look like blogs. If a company is going to build an entire website on a blog platform and they are looking for something unique, it makes great sense to hire a designer to create a unique theme that represents the business’ image in the marketplace.

You can do a lot with WordPress to vary the look and feel of a blog with a custom theme. A blog designer can also build in the functionality a business wants using plugins and widgets. That makes it a lot easier for you to achieve the web presence you want, while still preserving the option to update your blog website as often as you want.

How do you pick a designer to customize your blog theme? I’d recommend you read Should you hire someone to build your website, part 3. The same process applies here. But the key is to know what you want. If you’re not sure, pick a blog theme you can live with and wait until you have a clearer idea.

Marcia Ming

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

How to setup a simple blog website using WordPress

By Marcia Ming on Monday, March 15th, 2010 | 76 Comments

I’ve talked a lot in recent posts about hiring a professional graphic designer or webmaster to create your website. That’s a good solution for many small businesses that have a big enough budget to pay for original design and maintenance.

However, many small business owners working from home may not be able to afford that option. Others just prefer doing it themselves. It has never been easier for a small business owner to build her own website because of options like WordPress.

You may choose to setup a website using a hosted option on Blogger or WordPress.com. But most small businesses looking for the greatest level of flexibility should probably host their own blogs using WordPress.org.

Here’s my crash course on setting up a simple WordPress blog.

Look for the Fantastico button inside your CPanel to setup your blog.

Step 1. Register a domain for your blog. Try to get a domain name that includes your keyword phrase. To do that you should already have researched the topic of your blog using Wordtracker’s free keyword tool or Google’s AdWords keyword tool.Next, head over to GoDaddy.com to see if the domain name you want is available.

Step 2. Pick a web host with Cpanel where you can setup your blog by clicking a button and filling out a form. I recommend Hostgator.com. Once you have set up your account, go into your Cpanel.

Scroll down to Software / Services and look for the blue smiley Fantastico button. Click on it and you will find a page that looks like this:

Step 3. Fill out the form with your domain, ID and other information to install your blog.

Once you complete the form setup your password and click the button, your blog will be installed.

I wish I could tell you that that’s all you have to do, but that’s just the beginning. You will need to customize your blog before you can start posting.

Contrary to what everyone says about how easy it is to setup a blog, I’ll be honest and tell you it can be confusing for a newbie. So my advice is to get some help.

There’s a lot more to starting a new blog than setting it up. Creating a successful blog that connects with your audience and makes you money, takes planning and continued effort. You also need to know what works and what doesn’t. To make my own blog better, I have spent some time learning from some of the products out there. If you are thinking about blogging, but haven’t started yet, I would recommend that you check out Beginner to Blogger in 4 Weeks by Traci Knoppe.

Learn how to create a blog with the Beginner to Blogger in 4 Weeks eCourse and good luck with your blogging adventure!

Marcia Ming

P.S. This post includes promotions for several affiliate products. You should know that I will earn a commission if you buy through my links. However, I am careful to only recommend products that I have used and believe in. Please leave a comment to tell me if this post was helpful.

Should you hire someone to build your small business website, Part 3?

By Marcia Ming on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 | 8 Comments

Once you have assessed your needs it’s time to evaluate your web designer:

Should you hire a web designer to create your small business website?

Spend some time visiting the sites of web designers you are considering.

Look at their portfolios and the web design solutions they have created for other clients.
Examine their pricing strategies and prepare a list of questions to help you determine how they work, what they charge and what you will get for your money.
Get them to talk about the web platform they plan to use. If they use a software program you don’t have, you will not be able to add updates yourself. If its web-based, you may just need a password to add new content.
Find out if your staff will be able to add content without the designer’s help.

If you are creating an ecommerce site, someone will need to develop landing pages and sales pages that turn prospects into buyers. You may need to hire a copywriter. To learn more, read ”How to Make Your Website Really Sell.”

Once you complete your research, you’re ready to meet with web designers. Pick someone who is willing to advise you on the parts of your web project that you will handle internally, as well as the work the designer will do for you.

With the Internet, it is no longer necessary to limit your search to companies within your community. If yours is a really small business, you should look for independent contractors who are similar in size. You might find a small, home-based web designer whose prices and services are just right for your needs.

Should you hire someone to build your small business website, Part 2?

By Marcia Ming on Monday, March 1st, 2010 | 1 Comment

How will you promote your website to help potential customers find it?

Drawing of a spider web with computer monitors

How will you promote your website?

Site promotion is an integral part of website development. The structure of your site and how keywords are used in your content will determine how people find your site using search engines.

Make sure that the web designer you hire knows how to optimize your site for search engines. In the past some web designers have paid more attention to how a website looked than to how it performed for the owner and site visitors.

Marketing your website is not unlike marketing your small business. It’s important to understand your customer, your strategic advantage and your competition.

Here are some ideas to help you with your research:

Study the websites of your competition.
What do you like and dislike about their websites?
How does your company differ from theirs? (Does your business have a unique selling proposition (USP)?
What focus will your small business website portray that is different from the other options out there?
How will you make your website useful to your site visitors?

To learn more about marketing your website, read 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website without Spending a Dime.

Once you have completed your brainstorming, capture your ideas to present to the web designers you consider. It will be easier for them to give you a good estimate if you know what you want.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about what skills to look for in a web designer to ensure the success of your website.

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