How To Keep Your Blog Alive During Long Vacation

Planning to go on a long vacation with family? Have you ensured your blog won't go on vacation with you? Sometimes, we tend to procrastinate (haven't you ever?) even in the most favorable conditions and a long vacation can really trigger this deadly virus within you, unless you do the preparation in advance. Careful planning can keep your blog alive even during considerably long vacations. All you need is a meticulous plan to place everything in the right place.

Schedule beforehand - Unless you explicitly declare your non-availability during vacations, you can't afford post-less weeks without intimating the same to your subscriber base. The larger your subscriber base, greater is the risk of losing your credibility if you keep your blog starved for a long time. It's better to write some posts in advance and schedule it for the vacation time. You can reduce of the size of the posts as well as the frequency to speed up the scheduling process.

Invite guest posts - This is the second best option to fill your editorial calendar with content from your peers and readers. Gently push a message through popular social media platforms (Facebook, twitter) asking for guest posts. You can send direct message or email to some of the close blogging peers asking to contribute during your vacation.

Repurpose old content - This is an art that comes handy in such situations. It's like packing the old wine in a new bottle. Pick some of the least performing posts from your archive and create a fresh one improving on the old version adding some more spice to it. It's like adding bells and whistles to the old car and presenting it with new looks to the buyers. Needless to say, this method speeds up the post writing process and helps you in filling your editorial calendar at a much faster pace.

Interview peers - Who doesn't like to get interviewed and featured in front of qualified traffic? Quickly jot down a set of questions and create 4-5 different sets. Mail them to your network (selective peers), sit back and relax. In a day or two, you'll receive completed questionnaires ready to be scheduled. Just be careful not to post them in quick succession.

Miscellaneous tips for blogging on the go

Here are some essentials guidelines to make your routine blogging tasks as smooth as if you're doing them from your usual blogging workplace.

• Don't forget to pack your blogging gadgets (laptop, smartphone and tablet) loaded with all the essential software.
• Make sure you've turned off automatic software updates; else you may get a hefty bill (in case of metered broadband) from your hotel.
• Blog about your entire day spent with the local people/culture and co-relate it with your blogging activities.
• Switch-off comment notifications while you're on the move. Don't forget to enable them when you're back in your hotel room.
• Avoid geo-tagging your social networks updates during vacations.
• Nothing's better than editing and posting the drafts while sipping coffee in a local cafe.
• Visit a local bookstore and you're guaranteed come out with dozens of new ideas to post during your long vacation.

What other tips you'd like to share with us for painless blogging during travel? Has it ever happened that you've canceled your trip merely because you couldn't keep up with your blogging routine? Share your thoughts and comments below!

Image Credit: Thom Watson

Continue Reading

Written by Rajeev Edmonds | | View Comments

6 Easy Steps To Make A Successful List Post

If you're filling your archive with different types of posts (e.g - how-to's, link roundups, news, informational, lists), you truly are doing justice with your subscribers. No one likes monotonous content that forces a subscriber to click the 'unsubscribe' link. Among these different types of posts, list posts are known to bring tons of traffic consistently. Lets walk-through list post creation process and see how to convert these gems into a perpetual fountain of traffic.

Choose a massively popular topic

This sounds very obvious, but sometimes we ignore simple things and pay the price. The moment you choose a trending topic (which can be controversial too), half of the battle has already been won. You may ask the question - Why the hell should I write about a topic already popping out on every corner of the web? Am I not creating a second copy?

No, you'll not create a copy provided you know the principles of creating remarkable content. Even if there are lists on similar topic, you can beat all of them by identifying their weakness and shortcomings. Selection of popular topic ensures that in case your list is elevated in search engine result pages, it can receive good amount of traffic.

Note: If you decide to choose a controversial topic, make sure you're not hurting the sentiments of a certain community at large.

Write a magnetic headline

Once you have a hot topic in your hand, move on to the next step of creating an eye-popping headline (post title). Creating a good post title is like hanging a carrot on the end of the stick. It should be irresistible enough to induce a click from a visitor.

Spice up with illustrations/pictures

No list post can be regarded as complete without pictures. Some lists require multiple small images, while others may require medium to big size images for each item/entry. Some of the most popular list posts are entirely made up of images. A very long list post without any image may not receive that much attention as you may have anticipated. While adding images to your list post, make sure you follow these simple yet very effective image optimization guidelines.

Say a big NO to long paragraphs

There's very little scope of large text paragraphs in list posts. Generally, an ideal list post is made up of images with little text sprinkled around them with a link (if required) for each entry. However, you may include a medium-sized opening paragraph to summarize the list content. Some lists that are devoid of any images do have the scope of very short paragraphs for each entry in the list.

Resist the temptation to create a very long list

Creating a very long list containing large number of hyperlinks can backfire. Same thing is applicable to image list posts. The larger the number of images, the more time it takes to open. This not only increases the bounce rate, but also unnecessarily consumes your server's bandwidth. If the number of images is very large, divide your list post into multiple parts.

Segregate related items into sections

If your list post is long, 9 out of 10 times you're filling enough items in it that can be easily subdivided to make the post less confusing and more readable. Group all related items in one section and order them logically for making it more useful and informative.

What Else?

Now it's your turn to add to this list. If you've been experimenting with list posts, what else you'll like to add to this post?

Continue Reading

Written by Rajeev Edmonds | | View Comments

How To Create A Simple Wordpress Plugin

Almost every Wordpress user is familiar with plugins and their benefits as a whole. They simplify complex tasks and enhance the functionality of your weblog without modifying the core. Even though there are thousands of plugins available on web, still sometimes we couldn't find the one that yields the same result, as we want. Why not create our very own plugin? Well, if you can tweak your theme (basic HTML editing, simple CSS enhancements), you can make your own plugin in no time. Let's see how to create a basic Wordpress plugin that serves as a platform for a more complex one.

Note: This tutorial assumes that you're familiar with Wordpress and have basic knowledge of HTML and PHP.

Our plugin will not do anything exceptional, since it's just a sample plugin to get you started. This elementary plugin will do two simple tasks. First, it will display a friendly text message on top of Wordpress administrator dashboard, and secondly, it will display a line of text at the end of each blog post. So let's get started.

We'll start by creating a new text file my-first-plugin.php. Add the following text to the file. It's a standard plugin information header that helps Wordpress in identifying the plugin.

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Test Plugin
Version: 1.0
Description: Just a test plugin!
Author: Rajeev Edmonds
Author URI: http://URI_of_plugin_author_website
Plugin URI: http://URI_of_plugin_descripion_and_updates
License: A slug describing license associated with the plugin (usually GPL2)
*/
?>

Although each line in the header is self-explanatory, still it's better to once go through each entry.

• Plugin Name - While naming your plugin, once check that you're not giving a conflicting name to your plugin. Since the sheer volume of Wordpress plugins is so high, there are good chances that you may end up putting a name that matches with an existing plugin.
• Version - You can choose any version system you want. If it's going to be a complex plugin with frequent updates, it's better to go with a 3-digit version system (eg. 1.0.0), else, a simple 2-digit version system (eg. 1.0) will do the work.
• Description - This is one of the important fields. Make sure, you're writing an unambiguous and clear text explaining the exact functioning of the plugin in layman's language.
• Author - Do I need to explain this?
• Author URI - Mention your weblog's or website's url here. It can be a homepage, portfolio or contact page.
• Plugin URI - It's common for plugin authors to create a dedicated page for plugin mentioning about it's features and updates. Specify that plugin url in this field.
• License - This field indicates the license associated with your plugin. Since you're going to build it for Wordpress platform, it's generally a good idea to go for GPL2 or compatible license. If you are building a complex plugin with proprietary images and javascript, you can opt for split GPL license.

At this point, your plugin has ample information to be recognized by Wordpress engine. Upload it to the wp-content/plugins directory and refresh 'Plugins' option in your admin dashboard. Here's what you will see.

You can activate and deactivate your plugin at this moment. Since we have not placed any real working code in it, plugin activation will have no effect except a notification of successful activation. So let's move on to the next step and include a code to display a message on top of the admin dashboard. Here's the code...

function display_admin_notice() {
echo '<p>Just a notice for demo purpose!</p>';
}

add_action('admin_notices', 'display_admin_notice');

Make sure you put this code just above '?>'. Now lets dissect what this code does. First, we've created a function display_admin_notice(), that simply displays a text message. The second part does all the magic. add_action() function is a Wordpress function that hooks on to a specific action specified by the user. Actions are referred to as events that are initiated by Wordpress core engine whenever something happens, like a page refresh in admin panel, change of theme etc. Here we've hooked on to 'admin_notices' action (triggered whenever admin dashboard page is refreshed) and have passed on our custom function to display the text message every time this event happens.

Once you've added the code, simply activate the plugin, and instantly you'll see the notice on top of admin dashboard as shown in the image above. Yay! We've just created our first working plugin.

Now lets move on to the second part, where we'll try to display a line of text at the end of each post. Again we'll take help of a custom function to append a line of text to the post content. Here's the code...

function display_post_end_notice($content) {

if (is_single()) {
$content .= 'It\'s just demo text at the end of every post.';
}

return $content;
}

add_filter('the_content', 'display_post_end_notice');

We've created a custom function display_post_end_notice() that receives post content as an argument. After appending a line of text, our custom function simply returns the modified post content. The second part consists of a Wordpress function add_filter(). Filter is simply a hook that Wordpress triggers before sending the modified text to database or to the browsers screen. Here we've used the 'the_content' tag that returns the post content and is passed on to our custom function display_post_end_notice() as an argument. After modification add_filter() sends the modified post content (containing our appended line of text) to the browsers screen.

And here's what it looks like. The first line is the original post text and the second line is injected by our plugin. Oh, I forgot to tell you about is_single() function used in our custom function. This function simply checks whether a visitor is browsing a single post page or not. If he's not on a single post page, nothing will be added to the post content.

So that's it. You can download this plugin file for instant testing on your local Wordpress install.

Image Credit: smemon87

Continue Reading

Written by Rajeev Edmonds | | View Comments

12 Deadly Sins of a Small Business Blog

Recently, I got two emails asking to get their small business blog pimped & pumped up. Interestingly, both of them were exhibiting almost same shortcomings that were hindering their growth. For some of us, it's very surprising to see a business struggling to take full advantage of their blog. Is it lack of formulating effective web marketing strategies or is simply underestimation of the power of new media? Whatever is the case; some of these mistakes are committed by countless small business blogs leading to frustration and financial loss.

Fortunately, the road map to build a successful small business blog is very much realistic, practical and implementable. It does take some time, but the results are equally rewarding. Some new small businesses also put this question - "Why the hell do we need a business blog?" That clearly suggests that the brains behind the business are ignorant about new media. Well, here's a list of DONT's, that may help in identifying and weeding out the negative practices responsible for sluggish growth of your small business blog.

• Making it news outpost - That's the most common practice that makes your business blog dead even before you expect first 1000 visitors.
• Posts written by bot - I've often found business blogs posting content without proper author profiles. You can see 'by Admin' as the author name. Common, you're dealing with humans!
• Countless irrelevant categories - Now this is purely lack of professional blogging staff. I've seen business blogs creating categories as 'My Company X products', 'My Company Y products'. Categories are there to segregate relevant content, that's it.
• Flash, flash & more flash - Some businesses can't resist to add a large flash gallery above the fold to showcase their products. Leave this for your primary website. Blog is to build a community around engaging and persuasive content.
• Keeping comments closed - Unless you're a trillion dollar company holding a monopoly in your domain, you can't afford to close comments on your business blog. Bring out the human face and interact!
• No contact information - This is the last thing can do to ruin your company's image and credibility. Build a contact page offering multiple ways (contact form, email, toll-free number) to contact your public relations department.
• Hard-selling - This is yet another mistake done by large number of small business blogs. Use cleverly crafted contextual links within content to drive traffic to your primary website's product landing pages.
• Irregular updates - Like any other blog, business blogs too demand regular content feeding. This doesn't mean you have post every single day. Create a posting frequency and stick to it.
• Ranting about personal & business problems - Avoiding all this sounds quite obvious but still some small business blogs fall in this trap inadvertently. Think twice before hitting the publish button.
• Disclosing classified information - This can be the last thing you can do to severely damage your company's credibility. Occasionally, business blogs do share statistical data and clients' case-studies, but make sure you're picking up the right files before making them public.
• Indulging in head-on confrontation with competitors - Who doesn't like healthy competition, provided you keep the limits and practice good business ethics. Talking too much negative about your competitors on your business blog can backfire.
• Failing to integrate correctly with primary website - Your small business blog should provide a prominent link to your business website. Make sure you host it in a sub directory (mycompany.com/blog) instead of hosting it on a sub-domain (blog.mycompany.com) to preserve link juice.

There are many other points mostly dealing with seo and technical aspects of blogging. If you really want to make your business blog successful, make sure you've hired a professional blogger. If you're making some of these mistakes, this is the time to switch gears and make your small business blog a favorite destination for your clients and prospects.

Continue Reading

Written by Rajeev Edmonds | | View Comments