Is Your Blog Prepared for the Next Penguin Update?

Posted on December 30, 2015January 4, 2016 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

Posted on December 29, 2015January 4, 2016 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...

WordPress 4.4 Now Live

Posted on December 20, 2015December 27, 2015 by sitemanager

The world's most popular blogging platform and content management system (CMS) WordPress just received a major facelift. WordPress 4.4 - New Features Earlier this month, developers released WordPress 4.4, introducing a new theme, along with numerous features, improvements, and bug features. Whether you currently use WordPress or are thinking about using it, you should take note of the recent changes made to version 4.4. Dubbed "Clifford," in remembrance of the late jazz musician Clifford Brown, WordPress 4.4 places an emphasis on speed and responsiveness. Twenty Sixteen Theme Among the ...

5 Things No One Tells You About Blogging

Posted on December 17, 2015December 27, 2015 by sitemanager

You'll Get Spam Comments... Lots of Them Allowing visitors to submit comments on posts and articles is a great way to boost engagement while creating fresh new content in the process. If you've been blogging for any significant length of time, however, you'll notice many of these comments are nothing more than spam. Such comments may consist of "Wonderful blog! I'll be sure to grab your RSS," or similar generic messages. This doesn't mean that you should disable your blog's commenting feature, but rather use an anti-spam plugin like Akismet to filter them. Competition Is Stiff There are lit...

WordPress App Launches for Windows

Posted on December 16, 2015December 27, 2015 by sitemanager

With Automattic having releasing the WordPress app for Apple's OS X, it was only a matter of time before a Windows version was released. Well, it appears that time has come, because the developer behind the world's most popular blogging platform has announced the release of a Windows version of its app. The new app seeks to streamline the process of creating and editing blog posts straight from your Windows desktop. Up until now, WordPress.com bloggers were forced to either log into their blogs to create new posts, which some users complained as being tedious. No Need For a Web Browser wit...

Reasons to Include Images in Your Blog Posts

Posted on December 12, 2015December 27, 2015 by sitemanager

close-up-of-photogratpher, using images in blog

If you look at some of the web's most popular blogs, you'll notice they all have one thing in common: they feature images in addition to text. While text is the backbone of most pieces of engaging content, images can enhance the experience the end user. To learn more about the benefits of using images in blog posts, keep reading. Images Break Up Text Have you ever encountered a webpage consisting of nothing more than a large wall of text? If you have, chances are you didn't read it, because pure-text articles such as this are difficult to read. Studies have shown that visitors are more li...

How to Interlink Your Blog Posts

Posted on December 9, 2015December 27, 2015 by sitemanager

how to interlink blog posts, backlink graphic

Looking to interlink your blog posts together? While WordPress has dozens of helpful features built directly into the framework, it does not have an interlinking feature. With that said, there's a quick and easy solution that will allow bloggers such as yourself to create internal links. What is Interlinking? Before we reveal the steps to interlinking blog posts, let's first discuss the definition of the term. "Interlinking" refers to the process of creating internal, not external, links to other posts and pages on a website. Links can generally be classified as either external, meaning t...

6 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting My First Blog

Posted on December 2, 2015December 15, 2015 by sitemanager

Blog Competition is Stiff To say there's a lot of competition in the blogging stratosphere would be an understatement. While there's no way to tell exactly how many blogs are currently on the Internet, some sources estimate the number to be around 152 million. If you plan on getting noticed, you'll need to focus your blog around a high-traffic, low-competition niche; otherwise, you simply won't achieve any serious degree of success. You'll Need to Moderate Visitor Comments Assuming you allow visitors to submit comments (and you should!), you'll have to invest the necessary time and energy i...

Should I Use Nofollow Links on My Blog?

Posted on November 24, 2015December 10, 2015 by sitemanager

nofollow links, broken links on a red background

Nofollow links were introduced by Google nearly a decade ago for the purpose of combating spam. As the name suggests, they tell search engines not to follow a link; therefore, no link juice is passed down to the linked website. As a blogger, though, you may be wondering whether or not you should use them in your blog. Advertisements A good rule of thumb is to make all advertisements and sponsored links nofollow. As noted by Google, paid links should be given the nofollow attribute to prevent them from negatively impacting user experience. If paid links are kept dofollow, they could art...

6 Undeniable Reasons Why You Should Blog

Posted on November 23, 2015December 10, 2015 by sitemanager

Deeper Connection With Your Readers Writing a blog will allow you to establish deeper, more personal connections with your readers. Why is this important? Well, by creating stronger relationships with your readers, you'll present yourself in a more trustworthy light. And when readers trust you, they'll feel more inclined to purchase your advertised products or services. It's just that simple. Higher Search Rankings This alone should be reason enough to start blogging. By creating (and managing) a blog, you'll increase your exposure in the search engines. Each post will get crawled by sea...

Technology and Computing