Best Practices for Choosing Blog Post Titles

by sitemanager

Few elements in a blog post hold as much importance as the title. This is what visitors first see upon viewing your post, and it's also what search engines display in their listings. But how exactly do you craft good post titles? Here are some best practices to follow when choosing titles: Use Title Case When crafting titles for your blog posts, it's recommended that you use title case format. Basically, this involves capitalizing the first letter of the first word, as well as the first letter of all major words. Smaller words (e.g. articles and prepositions) should be left all lower case...

5 Ways to Speed Up a WordPress Blog

by sitemanager

How long does it take the average visitor to load your WordPress blog? Studies have shown that Internet users have become increasingly impatient, with the majority of users clicking the back button in their browser if a website fails to load in just four seconds. The good news is that you can speed up your WordPress blog or website by following some simple steps. Speed Up Your Website: Enable Caching What is caching and why should you have it enabled? Caching refers to the process of storing bits of data within a web browser. Instead of forcing visitors to download entire webpages each a...

How to Increase Your Blog’s Subscribers

by sitemanager

increase blog subscribers, follow my blog graphic

The number of subscribers a blog has is a direct indication of its success. The more people who follow your blog, the more traffic you'll receive and the more conversions you'll make. But how exactly do you entice visitors to follow your blog? Host a Sweepstakes There's no easier way to attract new subscribers to your blog than by giving away a free gift. If you run a website about dogs, for instance, perhaps you could host a sweepstakes where visitors subscribe to your blog for a chance to a win a free dog bed or leash and collar. The monetary value of this gift is minimal, but because i...

6 Things to Consider When Choosing WordPress Themes

by sitemanager

If you use WordPress as your blogging platform, you have an almost limitless number of WordPress themes from which to choose. Many are free, and are fine, but you might want to consider these things before you decide which theme to use for your blog. Is It Responsive? Given the fact that more people now use mobile devices to access the Internet than traditional desktop PCs, it's essential that bloggers choose a mobile-friendly theme. Thankfully, there are hundreds of mobile-friendly "responsive" themes available for WordPress. Responsive themes use a combination of CSS3 media queries and p...

GoDaddy Announces Plugin Program for WordPress

by sitemanager

GoDaddy has announced a new plugin program for the WordPress content management system (CMS). The new program is designed to improve visibility and enhance blogging among WordPress users. While the exact number remains unknown, some experts estimate there to be more than 40,000 WordPress plugins currently online. These plugins add a plethora of features to WordPress blogs and websites, such as the ability to define custom Meta tags, automatic sitemap generation, automatic insertion of relevant links, SEO keywords, and more. While most of these features can be hard-coded directly into ...

How to Find Awesome Guest Bloggers for Your Blog

by sitemanager

guest blogging, reserved parking sign for guest author

Still writing each and every post for your blog by hand? Then perhaps you should connect with guest bloggers. Allowing others to produce content for your blog will free up resources and time that could be spent elsewhere, such as marketing your blog. But where exactly do you find guest bloggers? Third-Party Broker Sites One of the easiest ways to find guest bloggers is to use a third-party broker site, such as MyBlogGuest.com. These sites connect guest bloggers with blog owners who are in need of content. After setting up an account, you can browse through a list of guest bloggers, choosi...

Microsoft’s ‘Live Writer’ Blogging Tool Now Open Source

by sitemanager

Just in time for the new year, Microsoft's ten year-old blogging tool Windows Live Writer is now open source. The company announced earlier this month that it was releasing a variant of the what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) blogging tool under an MIT open-source license. Because it's been several years since Live Writer was last updated, developers agreed that making it open source will allow users to update it as needed. What is Windows Live Writer? Windows Live Writer was launched in 2006. After Microsoft had acquired Onfolio, it rebranded its blogging tool as Windows Live Write...

Is Your Blog Prepared for the Next Penguin Update?

by sitemanager

It's been more than a year since Google released a new Penguin update, leaving many webmasters and search marketing experts to believe it had ended. However, there's new evidence indicating that Google is planning to launch a new round of Penguin updates within the next 12 months. If you are a blogger, you should take this time to prepare for Penguin. What is Penguin? In addition to being a cute black-and-white, aquatic bird, Penguin is the name of a ranking algorithm update used by Google. The Mountain View company launched Penguin 1.0 back in 2012, affecting an estimated 3.1% of all sea...

Why Your Blog Fails to Generate Revenue

by sitemanager

Among the most common reasons for starting a blog is to make money. Of course, this should come as little-to-no surprise given their near-limitless earnings potential. Michael Arrington's TechCrunch blog, for instance, is believed to generate nearly $15,000 per day in advertisements, while Huffington Post generates nearly $30,000 per day. If you're struggling to turn a profit with your blog, you should first check to make sure you aren't making one of the following mistakes. Ads are Poorly Blended Ads that "stand out" from a website or blog's native content are less likely to be clicked. Thi...

The Do’s and Don’ts of Moderating Blog Comments

by sitemanager

moderating blog comments, animated post approved

One of the many reasons why blogs are such a powerful SEO tool is because they encourage visitors to leave comments. Each time a visitor leaves a comment -- assuming it's a legitimate comment -- it creates fresh new content for the blog, which search engines love. However, there are a few things you should know about the do's and don'ts of moderating blog comments. Do: Moderate Comments for Approval Wouldn't it be great if every comment left on your blog was legitimate and came from an actual human visitor? Well, this isn't the case, as a large portion of comments are generated from autom...

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