5 Blogging Trends to Watch

Posted on August 24, 2015August 30, 2015 by sitemanager

Blogging is a dynamic industry that changes from year to year. What's popular and trending one year may be gone the next. This is why it's important for bloggers to familiarize themselves with the latest trends. 1) Video It should come as little-to-no surprise that video is gaining grounds in the blogging industry. Bloggers can diversify their content while creating a more attractive blog by adding videos to it. In the past, slow Internet speeds and sub-par computer hardware restricted users' ability to watch videos. But this isn't an issue now, as Internet users can enjoy seamless videos wi...

Ways to Generate Revenue With Your Blog

Posted on August 14, 2015September 21, 2015 by sitemanager

Looking to generate revenue with your blog? It's actually a lot easier than most people realize. Just check out some of the following ways to generate revenue through blogging. Sell Ad Space Assuming your blog receives a decent amount traffic, you can always sell out space to other webmasters and marketing companies. This basically involves creating empty ads on your website, with a placeholder image saying something along the lines of "Rent this space for $X dollars per month." Keep in mind, however, that selling ad space requires a bit of work. You must manage billing, ensure clients' crea...

How to Use WordPress More Effectively

Posted on July 26, 2015July 26, 2015 by sitemanager

Do you use WordPress to blog? There's no denying the fact that WordPress is a powerful blogging platform. It features a massive directory of plugins and themes while preserving a clean and user-friendly interface. Backup Your Files Don't forget to backup your files. Many first-time WordPress users make the mistake of only downloading their core files via a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program. But WordPress isn't static, and most of its data is stored in the form of a database. Therefore, you'll need to download both your core files, as well as the database associated with your site. If all ...

WordPress Plugins to Reduce Your Blog’s Load Times

Posted on July 25, 2015July 26, 2015 by sitemanager

How long does it take visitors to load your blog? Load times play an important role in the usability and overall function of a blog. If visitors are forced to stare at a loading screen for a long time, some will click their browser back button. Thankfully, WordPress has a massive directory of plugins, many of which can be used to reduce a blog's load times. W3 Total Cache Arguably, one of the most effective ways to reduce a blog's load time is to enable browser caching. Rather than forcing visitors to reload the same files each time they visit your site, browser caching will automatically st...

The Scoop on Product Endorsements in Blogs

Posted on July 4, 2015July 6, 2015 by sitemanager

You might want to think twice before blogging a product or service that you were either given for free or paid for writing about. Even if you good intentions -- which most bloggers do -- you could be breaking the law. So, what's the scoop on product endorsements in blogs? Just five or so years ago, this wasn't even a topic for discussion. Bloggers wrote about products without disclosing any relationship they had with the manufacturer. Since then, however, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has revised its guidelines to prohibit this practice. Bloggers are still free to write about products ...

What Google’s Recent Mobile Update Means For Bloggers

Posted on May 9, 2015May 9, 2015 by sitemanager

We first talked about Google's mobile-friendly update last month, revealing some helpful tips for webmasters and bloggers. In case you missed it, the Mountain View company rolled out a major update to the algorithm it uses to rank websites. Called "Mobilegeddon" by some marketing gurus, it's designed to improve the search rankings for mobile-friendly sites, while lowering the rankings for mobile-unfriendly sites. So, how will this update affect bloggers? Google began rolling out its new mobile-friendly update on April 21st. At the time, it was unknown just how significant this update would ...

Where To Find Images For Your Blog

Posted on May 5, 2015July 6, 2015 by sitemanager

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, holds true when blogging. Adding relevant images to your blog posts will encourage a higher level of visitor engagement, which in turn translates into a better blog. Due to international copyright laws, though, you can't simply copy and paste any image you come across. To legally use an image on your website, you must download it from a source that grants such permissions. Flickr Creative Commons Arguably, one of the best source of free-to-use images is Flickr Creative Commons. With over 20 million images and counting, you can find pic...

How To Manage Spam Comments In WordPress

Posted on April 3, 2015April 18, 2015 by sitemanager

One of the perks of choosing WordPress as your blogging platform is the ability to engage directly with your visitors. WordPress has a built-in commenting feature which allows visitors to share their thoughts on posts/articles. While you can always disable this feature, it's usually best to keep it turned on. Each time a visitor leaves a comment, it creates unique content for your blog -- and search engines love fresh, unique content. Unfortunately, though, WordPress also attracts comment spam. You may notice generic comments like "Great blog, I'll grab your RSS" or "This was a wonderful bl...

Can You Really Make Money Blogging?

Posted on March 27, 2015April 3, 2015 by sitemanager

The short answer to this question is yes, you can make money blogging. But it takes more than just throwing up a WordPress site and a couple of short articles to produce any sizable income. Blogging is highly competitive industry, with millions of active blogs currently online. If you want to succeed, you must differentiate yourself from the rest while providing something of real value to your readers. So, how can you make money blogging? Dozens of different opportunities exist, one of which is writing blog posts for high-traffic blogs in exchange for a flat per-post fee. It's not uncommon ...

Free and Paid Ways To Promote Your Blog

Posted on March 13, 2015March 30, 2015 by sitemanager

The amount of traffic a blog receives is a direct indication of its success. Blogs that receive hundreds or even thousands of unique visitors per day will rank in the search engines and generate more sales/leads than blogs with only a trickle of traffic -- it's just that simple. You can boost your blog's traffic by using free or paid promotional methods, which we're going to discuss further in this post. Free Blog Promotion Methods Blog commenting. Let me rephrase that, commenting on other blogs can be used to promote your own blog. Assuming the other blog allows commenters to include a...

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