I don’t know about you, but I sometimes struggle to know what to say on the various blog posts I write across the web and this one is no exception; in fact, it’s why it’s now mostly author interviews. But all that is about to change ….! More coming soon about that.
I guess that most people start a blog because they'd really like to share something they are passionate about with the rest of the world. They hope that they'll get the chance to speak to increasingly large groups of…
I’ve been wandering round a few blogs recently because of various activities I’ve been involved in, I’ve also been social media spotting too and there seems to be a bit of theme developing. Perhaps I ought to explain further before I try and head into this post! Working as a social media strategist I often advise clients to work with the social networks, to write blog posts and to share on the social networks; I hope I take them through a process which involves them learning how to ‘have a conversation’ in whichever network they happen to find themselves.
WordPress is the ice-cream of website development software with two different flavours to choose from. The vanilla, if you like is the free and hosted version you’ll find at wordpress.com (like this particular blog); the strawberry is the self hosted version you download and host yourself that you can pick up for … well … nothing … at wordpress.org.
Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed a number of my compatriots with popular blogs moving away from WordPress.com in order to have more ‘freedom’ on their self hosted WordPress website. And, I’ve wanted to scream … “NOOOOOOO, stop and think about this first”.
I’m going to make a huge assumption here and that is that you are hoping that your writing will eventually pay off in some way and that you aren’t doing this just for the love of writing. I could be wrong but writing for the sake of writing, without any sort of recognition of ‘success’ (whatever that may mean to you) will eventually pale alongside the need to do other things that are considered more important.
Okay, I ought to be able to do this, after all I blog for a living - in fact I've been writing on one blog every working day of the week since last March (it helps to be able to…
I was sent an email earlier this week about an intensive weekend workshop I’m running with a colleague (Steve Graham) on installing, setting up, using and maintaining WordPress software. The email said “Thanks for this. Seems a good thorough programme – certainly we’re interested, however we aren’t sure what the business benefits of wordpress are?“.
I’ve been playing again. Playing with widgets that is. I know what you must be thinking, but I am perfectly sane and normal, really 🙂 please believe me.
We all know that wordpress.com rocks. Not only do those lovely guys over at Automattic provide us with a free blogging service, but they keep improving it too, adding in extra themes and functionality almost as soon as it is available. However, one thing you can’t do at wordpress.com is use Plugins, they are reserved solely for those of us who are hosting wordpress ourselves. In many ways this can limit the functionality of the blog, BUT….. and it’s a big BUT …. all is not lost. By using the widgets provdided in ways that are slightly more intuitive then you can actually add all sorts of things you thought wasn’t possible. So, here are my top 5 wordpress.com widgets in no particular order:-
One of the things I talk about in the book is using blogs as a way of creating a website and you may well have already done that. If you have, then the next thing to do is to begin…