Fairy Blog Mother

Welcome! If this your first visit, and you enjoyed this post, why not subscribe to the RSS feed for more updates from the Fairy Blog Mother.

Author Archives:

Why you should activate Akismet

Written on Tuesday 10 April 2012 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

The beauty of WordPress.com is that most of the technical stuff is already done for you. This is an absolute dream, as this means you can set up a blog in next to no time, and have everything working perfectly for you from the beginning without you having to worry about activating anything.

One of the most beneficial things WordPress does for its .com customers is to automatically set up Akismet as standard, without you having to pay for it. It used to be free for all WordPress users, but now WordPress.org blogs need to pay for an Akismet key to activate it. So what is Akismet?

I like to think of Akismet as a spam-eater. The internet is plagued with spam, and many clever people are continuously employed trying to combat it. Spam is almost like an ever-evolving animal, so it is a never-ending battle trying to keep on top of it, and sometimes it can actually take over your blog and your life.

Let me show you part of my Dashboard from this morning:

As this is a WordPress.org blog, I have already activated the Akismet plugin WordPress kindly supplied me when I downloaded it. Here you can see it has ‘eaten’ 159 spam since yesterday, not to mention all the spam I’ve ever received since setting up this blog. Without Akismet this spam would have appeared as comments, and would have clogged up my email inbox as well. Considering that some of this will not be particularly salubrious, I am glad Akismet has done its work.

And of course, it’s easy to get rid of spam, just click on the word ‘spam’ to view the list:

Don’t bother reading them. Akismet will have checked them for relevant content and if any of them are true comments, they would have been placed in the Comments section ready for your approval, and hopefully your reply.

Some spam will appear to be complimentary – this is to get you to approve them. Whenever you do approve a comment, it’s always wise to check the weblink it is associated with to make sure it hasn’t slipped through Akismet’s net, or you will be giving SEO credit to a website you would not like to recommend.

I had a friend who didn’t activate his Akismet on his blog, and started receiving 1,000 comments a day. Of course they were all spam, which he didn’t realise, and he approved the ‘nice’ ones thinking he was collecting a good following. What he was doing was sending a message to these spammers to send him more, which of course he got in spades. After I had shown him what a true comment was like, with the differences to a complimentary spam, he was at first devastated, and then resolute to activate his Akismet as soon as he could.

The image above shows a red ring about the button ‘Empty Spam’, which I suggest you use regularly! Not only will this give a short-lived sense of annihilation, it may trigger a message to spammers that they are not tolerated, and there are devices at hand to destroy them.

Viewing stats is changing

Written on Friday 23 March 2012 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

WordPress.com automatically gives you the statistics of your blog activity, which is great fun to keep an eye on your performance.

refers to .com blog

But now they have decided to detract the Stats function from each individual blog to only allow access from the WordPress.com homepage.

This is where it is usually located:

But there is now this statement from WordPress:

…announcing its move to newer realms:

…in their all-encompassing homepage. By selecting the ‘My Stats’ tag, you arrive at this page:

…which allows you to choose which blog you want to see the stats for via this drop down menu:

The new addition to the stats is now which countries your readers come from for that post:

…along with top posts and pages, referrers, top recent commenters, and which search engine terms were typed in to reach the post – excellent information to analyse what readers were looking for on that day:

blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs - Tags: analyse, homepage, information, referrers, search engine terms, Statistics, stats, Wordpress.com - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Does your website exude trust?

Written on Wednesday 21 March 2012 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

Online marketing works on trust. Gone are the days when an expert could spout forth all sort of impressive gobbledegook and people would listen spellbound and then jump to! Now it is through social media and word of mouth (or mouse) that trust is formed to promote your product or service.

Usually this is accomplished over a period of time, as the online marketer will gently woo their customers round by interaction and engagement, talking about stuff they want to hear and working their empathy into the conversation, a great way of gaining trust.

But just sometimes it can happen almost immediately. I popped in to see an elderly neighbour to check if she was OK, and noticed that she had had some major work done in her garden. I asked if she had hired these gardeners through word of mouth, but no, she got them from the internet.

So I asked her what made her choose these particular contractors? She’s an avid silver surfer, so I know she would have done adequate research. The response was that she felt she could trust them by looking at their website, so made contact with them.

Wow! This is quite a step for an octogenarian, even one who is as e-savvy as her. What was it that made her trust these guys? Apparently it was something from her website that she felt she could trust. They were based some 50 miles away, so they were hardly around the corner.

She first emailed them her request, and after a reply spoke to them on the phone. That’s another stage accomplished, getting the customer to make contact. Whatever happened within the conversation resulted in a home visit, another bold move from my elderly friend who is often wary about who is invited in. Anyway, to cut a long story short, they won their contract, and her overgrown garden is starting to take shape.

Obviously these gardeners were extremely nice people, something my neighbour sensed just from looking at their website. So my questions are: do you have content on your website that exudes trust? Does it have that particular something that would prompt a similar positive response? Can you persuade your web-visitors to make contact – the first hurdle accomplished towards conversion into a sale? Or does this process take a long time for you?

increasing business visibility, marketing methods, online marketing - Tags: conversion into a sale, empathy, engagement, interaction, make contact, online marketing, positive response, trust, websites, winning a contract, word of mouth - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Writing a post has just got easier!

Written on Friday 2 March 2012 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

WordPress.com never stands still, they are constantly thinking of new ways to make a blogger’s life easier. Their latest announcement publicises another quicker way to write a post in WordPress.com, so Fairy Blog Mother has emerged from hibernation to check this out…

The idea is to be able to write a post without having to log into a specific blog first, or if you’re in one blog and have a desire to write a post for another one, you can do this without have to abandon the first.

First log into WordPress.com, and at the very top you will see a black bar with your gravatar (if you’ve created one) in the right corner. You can see the same thing on your dashboard of your blog:

And I have ringed the ‘New Post’ link, which will direct you to a page within WordPress. Here you will be able to write a post for any of your WordPress.com blogs without having to enter them first:

It’s been created to be very intuitive, so I won’t go through everything. In fact, it’s a perfect place for exploring! You can upload all sort of media really easily, and even tags to optimise your blog, but there is no provision for categories that I can see. I suppose if this really matters, you could edit your post later to allocate an appropriate category.

Then you allocate the blog you wish to post into from the drop down menu next to the ‘Publish’ button (I like the green suggesting Go!), and voilà, you’ve published a post!

Blogging help, Free Wordpress blogs - Tags: blog posts, blogs and blogging, easier life, faster blog posts, new ways, posts, Wordpress, writing posts - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Sidebar imagery sets blogs apart

Written on Thursday 8 September 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

There is a design agency I keep an eye on. I like them because they are distinctly visual (I suppose design agencies are supposed to be), but it is the myriad of colours and the way they use images that attracts my attention.

This is not confined to just their graphics on paper, but online too. Their style is distinctive, and may not suit everybody, but simplicity combined with complexity is tastefully intertwined, and they have found a way to put this concept onto their websites and blogs they also design for.

If you are into NLP, you will know that people understand and process things in different ways. Some respond visually, others to words and the rest to sounds. A blog can use all these to put its messages across. By using all of these media, there is a better chance of capturing the attention of more potential followers and customers.

A WordPress.org blogsite allows you to do virtually anything you like on your sidebars. You could go down the usual route and add in conventional widgets which are mainly text-based, or you could go out on a limb and create linked images. This is particularly apt if your main subject lends itself to a visual presence, and each image is specifically designed to look ‘clickable’ (three-dimensional, enticing and understandable), so your visitors could end up have far more fun exploring your site than an ordinary blog. After all, isn’t that what you want them to do?

Having images on your sidebars linking to various areas of your website should be in addition to the navigation bar, because there will always be people who prefer using that method to enter a site (reference NLP) and won’t understand the concept of clickable pictures. Don’t discriminate people who are wired differently from you, they all have to be accommodated if you are going to make your website succeed.

blogs and blogging, design makes a difference, increasing business visibility, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs - Tags: attention, blogs and blogging, design agency, graphics, images, navigation, NLP, sidebars, text based, visitors, visual, websites, widgets - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

The use of blogging within social media campaigns

Written on Monday 5 September 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

I’ve said it many times before that your blog should be the hub of your social media marketing strategy. It is the alpha and omega of marketing online, from it your social networking exploits can issue forth to their audiences and be there to collect the finished results.

Of course blogging should take centre stage. Many companies overlook or brush aside blogs, as they think they are used purely for self-expression. They fail to understand the importance for communication to get the overall marketing message across. An archive of easy accessible material aimed at education, entertainment and information-based articles specifically written for the audience in mind.

Using social media within integrated marketing campaigns can only work if there is a realistic objective. If this is understood, there are various methods which can put in place to guide the campaign towards the ultimate goal. Blindly participating on social media without a proper aim may be enjoyable in the short term, but it can be also be viewed as a waste of time because nothing is seemed to be achieved. Only by aiming towards a proper outcome will social media become useful and powerful within the overall marketing campaign.

Blogging and social media used in combination will enable companies to learn all they need to know about their customers. Social networking isn’t about selling, the focus should be on communication, conversations, observation, following and understanding trends, catching breaking-news early and taking action before the competition. Used properly, companies can almost ‘merge’ with their target market: comprehending, empathising, educating, gently changing the general shift towards their products or services without actually using direct selling tactics.

The power of integration should be two-way, through the encouragement of responses from the readership and inviting followers to subscribe so they are constantly kept up to date with the latest posts. And, of course, blogs can be easily and effectively integrated within all social networking profiles through RSS, thus extending the audience and exposing the marketing campaign over a wider area within the web. And by participating in sharing and referral tactics within social bookmarking sites will also prompt further expansion of the messages involved, as well as a larger awareness of the blog and its authors.

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, online marketing, social networking - Tags: audiences, blog, communication, conversation, education, information, integration, marketing strategy, objective, observation, other social media, RSS, social networking, taking action - 1 Comment - Why not leave a comment?

Focus on one thing at a time

Written on Friday 2 September 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

Not all of us are multi-taskers. As a woman I’m supposed to be able to multi-task, but in reality it’s not second nature to me. I am very good at concentrating on one thing really well, sometimes to the detriment of all that goes on around me! I can put all my effort into making that performance as perfect as I can, and hate it when I get distracted by external stimuli that break the spell and force me to think of something else.

In business this can be a good trait – especially for small enterprises. The world is huge, and competition can be fierce, so being a ‘jack of all trades’ is not necessarily a good thing. It is unwise to ‘spread yourself too thinly’, to dabble in many things and become master of none. OK, it’s certainly good to read widely and extensively, to expand your knowledge within your chosen field, but sometimes it’s preferable to focus your expertise towards a particular area.

My tip for a small business is to find a niche. Something that is required by your target market (customers), you fully understand all the problems associated with it and you have the best solution possible. Alternatively, your niche is very lucrative, so concentrating on that particular venture will being in a good return and raise you above the competition.

By focusing on a small area, you will be able to become a true expert within that subject. Don’t get sidetracked by attractive prospectives that may persuade you to stray from your chosen path, they will only dilute what you have to offer, and make your niche less understandable.

I know a particular florist that started by providing beautiful, sumptuous and exotic bouquets. If you wanted to send a floral gift that was different, and not just an ordinary bunch of flowers, they were the place to go. Unfortunately, they panicked with the extended recession, and started to sell other items. Now their shop offers all kinds of unrelated additions, from garden implements, trinkets, figurines, cards and even clothes. There is no resemblance to the little florist that began its life only a few years ago.

I have no idea if this tactic has paid off, but it has certainly made me think whether they still provided those extraordinary floral displays for which I first knew them. The confusion has probably put off some custom because nobody is quite sure what they really sell. The pavement outside used to be decorated with wonderful blooms and exciting plants, now their windows show strange and weird gifts, mannikins sporting floral dresses and not a flower in sight.

Work out exactly what your real niche is, and stick to it. Don’t think that you need to know or offer everything. In fact, by becoming a true expert in your field, with the help of your blog, of course, you will attract more people because they understand what you do. They will know exactly what to expect, they won’t become confused or disillusioned, and they will feel safe either approaching you or recommending you to someone else. And eventually you will become the ‘point of call’ for that particular niche, even over your competitors!

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, marketing methods - Tags: competition, concentrating, expertise, focusing, multi-taskers, niche, solutions, subject, target market - 1 Comment - Why not leave a comment?

You need to share to get more traffic

Written on Wednesday 31 August 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

I’ve had a lot of questions recently about how to get lots of traffic to a blog and whether it is worth participating in social media to do this.

Unfortunately, if you want to promote your blog successfully, you need to think in the long-term. As with all marketing methods, nothing can be done properly overnight, and that does include using social networking sites.

You need to use social media to build up your reputation and your readers’ understanding about you. We all can’t be blessed with instant recognition and a truly magnetic personality that instantly attracts thousands of followers – those that appear to have these qualities have worked really hard behind the scenes before unleashing themselves on their public. Even those that seem to ‘pop out of the woodwork’ really have been slaving away at their promotional tactics and business presentation.

So to go back to the original concept, yes, you do need to use social media to increase your blog’s traffic. The cold, hard reality is that you need to work at gaining followers. This can be accomplished by becoming the best in your field, your niche, or whatever area your blog’s subject is about.

The 80/20 rule also applies here. Give away 80% of what you know and retain the truly best bits within the 20% you charge for. Win followers on your side by sharing your knowledge; help people, let them get to know you and trust in you, gain from the added value you have given them to improve their lives, and make them believe there is much more to have if they maintain their connection with you.

And while you are succeeding in collecting a huge number of followers, friends and subscribers, you’ll be feeding your new posts regularly into your social networking profiles and Twitter stream. It is there you will have a potential audience to read your wonderful new content, which will allow your blog traffic stats to go up and up.

To make these stats even better, participate in some sharing activities of your own. Nobody tolerates a one-sided relationship, so start reading other people’s blogs, comment on their posts, retweet them on Twitter, share them on Facebook, recommend them on social bookmarking sites, refer readers to them, offer to write guest posts and interview them for your own blog.

And after a while you’ll start to enjoy this social networking lark that so frightened you in the beginning – and as well as making lots of friends, associates, contacts and business prospects, your blog’s traffic will be improving all the time!

Magic Moment: How to hide pages

Written on Monday 29 August 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

Here is a very quick magic moment for the Holiday Bank Monday. There may be an occasion when you have created some pages in your blog and you will want to hide them. All you need to do is to change them to draft status.

Open up the page you wish to hide as if to edit it, and go to the Publish menu at the top right hand corner:

You’ll see that the status is ‘Published’, and next to it is an ‘Edit‘ link. Click on the link:

It will open up as a drop down menu. Click on it to reveal all its contents:

Select ‘Draft’ and click on the ‘OK’ button:

And don’t forget to click on the ‘Update’ button to confirm your changes. Now when you go into your blog you will see that this particular page is now not visible.

To reverse the situation, go through the procedure and select ‘published’ again.

Blogging help, blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs - Tags: change, created some pages, draft status, edit, hide, procedure, publish, update - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Magic Moment: Variable comment logins

Written on Friday 26 August 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

Back in the old days when you commented on a blog post you wrote what you wanted to say and then filled in the details below about yourself before publishing it. Why did you bother to do this? Well, this information accompanied the comment and allowed any interested parties to click on your name (which was usually a link back to your website, if you had filled that part in) to find out more about you.

There is another good reason for this – it’s not just humans who clicked on those links. Spiders like comments as they see them as new material that can be indexed, so a busy blog that has lots of comments is usually placed much higher in the search engines than unpopular blogs. And of course these spiders are then happily crawling over the commentor’s website too…

Anyway, this Magic Moment is about the four ways you can register yourself before you publish your comment in a WordPress.com blog. Clever apps have been incorporated that allows you to choose whatever identity you would like to comment under.

The first one is as a guest. This is where you are allowed to put in your personal data how you want it to be:

You don’t need to enter in your website or blog details, but if you have one I recommend that you do, for the reasons stated at the beginning of this post.

The second option is for those who have a WordPress account. This one is the usual preference that I comment under. This account is recognised throughout the WordPress blogging world, and your gravatar automatically comes up to accompany your comment as an extra visual presence.

Once you’ve entered your WordPress username and password, your comment will be acknowledged as a WordPress user:

The third option is via your Twitter account. A lot of people might prefer this as they are usually always logged into Twitter so registering is easy.

Once you’ve filled in your details, you’ll be logged in as a Twitterer, and your name will be linked back to your Twitter profile:

The final option is via Facebook, and the same thing applies:

And once your Facebook details have been entered in and accepted, you’ll be commenting under your Facebook profile:

For each profile you comment under, the picture icon you use for that account will show as your gravatar. As I use the same one for all my accounts so there are no differences for me to demonstrate, but be aware that if you have a silly Facebook icon, do you really want that showing up next to your comment?