All Entries in the "Blog Tools" Category
Twitter Tools: The Automatic Way To Microblog
Microblogging has become all the craze and Twitter is the leader in this realm. What is microblogging? If you do it the Twitter way, you write a little post of 140 characters or less. Twitter Tools is a WordPress plugin that automatically tweets your blog post when you post it. The message appears like thus:
namecritic New blog post: Disaster Aid: What Are You Entitled To? http://tinyurl.com/5urc56
It’s starts with your Twitter name, followed by “New blog post” and a short description with the URL to the post linked as a Tinyurl. Beautiful!
With Twitter Tools you can have one Twitter post automatically done every day with no effort. All of your followers will see it and the more followers you have the better off you will be to market your blog. But you have to have a Twitter account.
Add A Twitter Badge To Your Blog The Hard Way
I decided I’d put a Twitter badge on a client’s blog so I went looking for Twitter badges. Man are they hard to find. Well, if you have a Twitter account and you are active in your account then you should add a Twitter badge to your blog. What better way to attract new followers than right there on your blog?
Here’s what you need to do to find that Twitter badge:
- From your Twitter page, click on “Help”
- In the left sidebar you’ll see “Twitter FAQ” – CLICK ON IT
- Click on 1.1.FAQ
- Scroll down
- Keep scrolling down
- Scroll, like, all the way down until you see “Can I put Twitter on my blog?“
- Click the link using “put a Twitter badge” as anchor text in the “Can I put Twitter on my blog?” paragraph
Yikes! That’s seven steps just to find the page on which the badges can be found. Five if you count the three step scroll function as one. Facetiousness aside, you’d think that Twitter would make it easier for bloggers to find badges for their blog. And, I’m a bit disappointed in the limited choices available. Oh, well.
Instead of the above seven-step process, just click here and you’ll go to the Twitter badge page. Or you can go to http://twitter.com/badges. Now, from here:
- Click the type of widget you want to use (again, I’m disappointed they don’t have one for WordPress – the most popular blogging platform); if you use WordPress, click “Other”
- Choose the type of badge you want
- Customize your badge
- Copy the code
- Inside WordPress, click on Design then Theme Editor
- Click on the Sidebar php file you want to edit
- Insert the widget code where you want it to appear in the sidebar
- Update file
- Visit Site and make sure the badge appears the way you want it to appear
Don’t have the time to install your own badge? We’ll do it for you. Call Chris at 786-317-8774 or visit the website and fill in our contact form.
Audio Blogging Is As Simple As 1-2-3
Audio blogging hasn’t caught on yet, but it will. It’s just a matter of time. All it requires is a microphone, which is built into most laptops now, and the software to record your voice. Audacity is a free software that can take care of that for you. With WordPress and its podcast plugin, you can have your very own audio blog.
To create an audio blog all you need to do is set up WordPress the way you would an ordinary blog and install PodPress, the plugin. Download Audacity then take an article that you’ve written and record yourself reading the article. You should also be able to find some free music that won’t require permission or a copyright notice to use as an and opening and closing theme. After you’ve got your podcast edited to your satisfaction, upload it through PodPress and write a description of 50-100 words to give the search spiders something to feed on. Otherwise, they won’t know your podcast is there. Save and publish and you now have an audio blog post. That simple.
Turn Blog Readers Into Loyal Readers
Here are a few tips to help you turn those social bookmarking visitors into loyal readers:
- Make your RSS subscription icon highly visible – Don’t put your RSS button at the bottom of your blog. Put it at the top where people will look first and make it big enough to see.
- Allow subscriptions by e-mail – If you use Feedburner, you can add a subscribe by e-mail button in addition to your RSS by feed reader button. This will allow new Internet users who are not familiar with RSS to subscribe to your news feed and read your blog in their e-mail.
- Add a bookmark button to every post – Whether you use ShareThis, AddThis, or one of the other umpteen bookmarking buttons available, use one. This will encourage people to bookmark your posts and share with their friends. As an added bonus, allow your readers to send your posts to their friends via e-mail.
- Reply to comments – Quickly.
- Encourage comments – Allow readers to comment on your blog and make it easy for them to do so.
- Don’t talk down to your readers – Make your blog posts interesting and easy to read. People will stick around longer.
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