Blogging Tips

As a successful blogger (and blog developer) for nearly 15 years, I have learned a lot of things - some of them the hard way. These posts are snippets of wisdom that I have learned through the years. I hope these blogging tips will help you steer clear of some of the things I did wrong, and to tell you some of the things that I did right.

Struggling with consistency

By Chad Butler Leave a Comment

Well, I have had this blog for a number of years now. And considering how much work has gone into it, I am happy with the results. But I know that it can be far more successful than it has been. I know that probably the biggest thing holding it back is my own level of consistency (or lack thereof).

So, I will commit to being more consistent in my focus on this project. They say it takes 28 days (or 30, depending on who you talk to) to develop a new habit. So for the next 28 days, I will post every day. And I won’t post worthless information just for the sake of posting. My biggest challenge when posting has been weeding through the stack of possibilities, then losing focus and I end up not posting anything.

I have wanted to redesign the site, so I’ll try to do that but only in so far as it doesn’t interfere with posting consistent relevant content.

This would be a good time to plug Darren Rowse. If you don’t have his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, then you need to get it. I got it, even after years of blogging and found a lot of useful information.

Incidentally, Darren has a new ebook out, ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging. I don’t have it (yet) and I don’t usually make recommendations on products that I have not personally reviewed, but if his previous material is any indication of the quality of content, I would say that it’s worth picking up a copy.

[Update: I have purchased a copy of ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging and am working on a review.]

SEO Plugin for WordPress | Sponsored Plugin Review

By Chad Butler 5 Comments

This plugin fills a void in the SEO plugins that are available for WordPress. Most SEO plugins tend to focus on keywords, titles, and metatags. While those are important, one of the areas that is missed is how Search Engines rank your links based on how your backlinks are titled.

Google has an algorithm that filters for link spam and other search engines (including Google) look for keyword rich links. Your keyword rich post is not benefited when sites are linking to it with “click here.”

But how can you control the text that people use in linking to your site? SEO Link Rotator fills this void by giving you the ability to rotate the link text that people use when copying a link to your site. Much like social bookmarking plugins that provide a “link to me” type of button, SEO Link Rotator provides a button to provide a link, but it rotates through up to 5 possible sets of link text that you define via the WP admin.

Pros

This plugin is a snap to set up. And there is a free version that allows you to try before you buy. (The free version is fully functional, but does not allow you to set 5 possible links. It defaults the the post title.)

Not only is it easy to set up and install, it’s easy to start using. Once activated, it will automatically place a button at the end of each post, encouraging your readers to link back to you. No edits to your theme are required. If you are using the pro version, you can set your 5 possible text links on the post edit panel.

Cons

As a WP Plugin developer, I am generally a little more critical of plugins from both an operability standpoint and how the plugin is built and coded. The SEO Link Rotator plugin is pretty well written from a php development standpoint.

This is more nitpicky rather than a major flaw, but I’d like to see admin panel functions broken out to a separately loaded file rather than the main plugin file. While this isn’t a concern for someone running a blog that doesn’t get much traffic or is on a dedicated server, if you have a high traffic blog or are on a shared system, this is extra and unnecessary bulk that should be trimmed. I would suggest the developers consider breaking out the admin functions to a separate file that loads only if the user is an admin. This makes for a much more efficient plugin for busy sites.

Give it a try

Overall, I like the plugin. It is not an “also-ran” of the many social bookmarking/linking plugins out there already; ditto for the meta-tag SEO plugins. This plugin is unique, and as I said before, it fills a void in the the WP SEO plugin arena. Give SEO Link Rotator a try. With the free version, you can easily determine if this plugin is right for you.

This is a sponsored review for which I received compensation.

Problogger offers special November discount

By Chad Butler Leave a Comment

I’ve written about Darren Rowse and his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course before. I think very highly of Darren, his book, and his course.

This month, Darren has been offering both the 31 DBBB course/ebook AND his new(er) book Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers for 25% off. But you MUST ACT NOW to get the discount! This is only for the month of November (which, by the way, ends tomorrow). The discount code is November25 (think 25% off for November). Enter this code when prompted at checkout to get your discount.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers

Both ebooks are regularly $19.95, but with the discount, they are $14.95 apiece. I recommend you get both – especially since they are not usually on sale!

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