Using Social Media to Promote Your Blog

by sitemanager

Can't seem to gain any traction with your blog no matter how many posts you publish? In most cases, you'll need to invest some of your time and resources into promoting your blog. By spreading the word, other users will see your blog and share it with their network. Today we're going to reveal how social media networking sites can be used to promote blogs. Encourage Users to Share If you look at some of the most popular blogs like Huffington Post and , you'll notice they all have one thing in common: they feature a variety of social "sharing" buttons. These buttons allow users to share the b...

Best Online Tools for Bloggers

by sitemanager

There are dozens of online tools available that can help bloggers write better posts. Maybe you already use some of these tools, but others may surprise you. Word Counter We all know the importance of writing blog posts with X amount of words. Depending on your niche and intent, this might be 300 words or it might be 2,000. Regardless, you'll need some way to keep track of how many words you've written. Fortunately, WordPress and most other blogging platforms have built-in word counters. If your platform lacks this feature, you can use Word Counter to check the length of your posts. Google ...

5 Types of Blog Posts Guaranteed to Boost Traffic

by sitemanager

There are an estimated 152 million blogs currently on the Internet, with thousands more being created every day. The vast majority of these blogs ultimately fail to gain any traction with their target audience, so they fall into the abyss where countless others have gone. To avoid this same fate, you should think carefully about the types of blog posts you publish. List Blog Posts Blog posts crafted as lists are highly effective at driving traffic. Lists are considered a type of evergreen content, meaning users are always interested in reading them. This is in stark contrast to news and curr...

Top 3 Security Plugins for WordPress

by sitemanager

wordpress security plugins, security icon

Powering approximately 60 million websites -- or 25% of the entire Internet -- WordPress is by far the world's most popular content management system (CMS). It's free to download, loaded with features, and offers both a WYSIWYG "visual" editor as well as a code editor. But one of the drawbacks to WordPress is its lax security. According to W3Techs, 17.8% of all WordPress sites are running outdated versions of the CMS, which subsequently places them at risk for hacking. Even if you are running the latest version of WordPress, it's still a good idea to strengthen your site's security by using...

How to Use the Rule of Three When Blogging

by sitemanager

hand displaying three fingers - rule of three

If you are a blogger who's looking to create stronger engagement with your target engagement, you should consider following the rule of three. Basically, this principle is based around the idea that our brains are hard-wired to respond when confronted with groups of three. To learn more about the rule of three and how it can be used to create a successful and engaging blog, keep reading. Rule of Three: the Basics Even if you are unfamiliar with the rule of three, chances are you've seen or have encountered groups of three before. From stories like the Three Little Pigs and Three Musketeers, ...

Anatomy of the Perfect Blog Post

by sitemanager

Creating a successful blog from scratch is no easy task. The first step is to plan your content strategy, which involves crafting relevant posts. Keep reading to learn the elements of the "perfect" blog post. Captivating Title A good blog post should have a short and concise title (headline) that captures the reader's attention. The title is essentially your one and only chance to convince visitors to click into your post. If it's plain, boring and/or overly generic, they may skip over your post and click on someone else's that looks more interesting. So when crafting your blog posts, u...

How to Make Your Blog Easier for Search Engines to Crawl

by sitemanager

Are search engines able to crawl your blog's content with ease? If not, it could have a significant impact on both your search rankings and traffic. Google, Bing, Yahoo and even some of the lower-tiered search engines work by scanning, or crawling, websites to determine what they are about. If a blog site was designed in a manner that prevents proper crawling, however, it won't be able to rank it accordingly. Don't Use Images as Text It may seem harmless enough, but avoid using images in place of text on your blog. Some companies, for instance, will display their name, address and phone numb...

Top 5 Reasons to Choose WordPress

by sitemanager

Powering nearly 1 in 4 websites, WordPress remains the world's most popular and widely used content management system (CMS). Of course, there's a good reason for its popularity: WordPress is fast, efficient, cleanly coded, and can be used for all types of websites and blogs. Today we're going to reveal just a few of the many awesome features included in the platform. Import Posts from Another Blog Do you currently have a blog hosted on LiveJournal, Movable Type, TypePad or Tumblr? Well, you can import the posts to WordPress using its convenient import feature. In just a few clicks of the ...

Choosing a Niche for Your Blog

by sitemanager

Thinking about starting a new blog? Well, one of your first priorities should be choosing a niche. Many newcomers make the mistake of creating general blogs without a central theme or topic. Unless you have an established brand, however, this simply isn't going to work due to the excessive competition. So, how do you choose a niche for your blog? Passion/Interest Rather than choosing a blog subject based on its profitability, it's recommended that you choose a subject that actually interests you. You'll find it's easier to come up with topic ideas and write new posts if it involves somethin...

Keep up with John’s Blogging Tips