blogs and blogging Archives - Fairy Blog Mother

Why I want you to have a successful blog

Posted on Wednesday 12 June 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

Training people to have a successful blog is what the Fairy Blog Mother is all about. I have been homing in on this niche lately, because that is what you need to do to set yourself apart from the competition, especially when networking in closed profession groups.

Setting up a successful blog includes focusing on a niche. You aren’t restricting yourself to a narrow perimeter, rather you’re allowing the subject you’ve chosen to be fully explored to the greatest extend, so that you can become a thought leader and expert in it.

Training and explaining…

I’ve chosen training because this is where I feel most comfortable when using WordPress. Sure I can create a website for someone using WordPress (it’s not difficult, and I created this one by myself), but there is all that responsibility to sort out the problems that may arise later, especially if they are technical. But if somebody much cleverer at code and other techie stuff creates a fantastic WordPress website for a company, but are reluctant to explain how to use it to the new owners, that is where I can step in.

When I started using WordPress I did rely on finding tutorials to help me. But I was usually disappointed or frustrated at the poor teaching quality which left me more confused than when I started. Only recently when searching for an answer I came across a video with no sound and the mouse whizzing about the screen at breakneck speed supposedly showing me how to solve my problem.

And while networking I speak to people who say they are reluctant to learn how to use their new websites because the training manuals are too confusing or they don’t understand the tutorials. This is particular true for the older learners who aren’t au fait with the latest technology and probably need a bit more time and patience for them to understand everything.

…through workshops

So that is why I am giving workshops on how to create a successful blog, and have been working very hard on creating online courses on how to create a blog from scratch, which will be available very soon. For me it’s important that people get to understand how their new WordPress websites work, learn all the functions that are necessary, find out how to make their lives easier, and get the chance to explore their website’s capacity to its fullest extent.

And all this is done through my ’cause and effect’ method, which shows you what needs to be done, and then what happens after you have achieved that step, purely as reassurance that you have done it correctly. I never assume you know chunks of what has gone before, because if you do know it, it can be gratifying to be able to ‘whizz’ past that part and even refresh your memory in the context of the remainder of the tutorial it’s set in.

My successful blog workshop

My latest workshop on how to create a successful blog will be examining blog niches, forming the ideal reader, exploring the reader’s experience, developing a writing style, finding out how to build a blogging community, examining the blog’s functions and design attributes that contribute towards success, sharing a blog post writing exercise encompassing the correct way to use SEO, and revealing which plugins can enhance your blog’s performance and therefore success factor.

As you can see, it’s packed full to the gills, is fully interactive and should be a fun-filled experience. And my best prize would be if any of my delegates came back to me to show me they’ve created a successful blog because of what I have taught them! Then I would be really proud…

Filed Under: Blogging education, Blogging help, blogs and blogging, non-jargon, successful blogging

What really is the new SEO?

Posted on Tuesday 28 May 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

I came across an excellent new way of describing the new SEO: “search experience optimisation”, and this hits the nail on the head!

If you want to fully optimise your website now to capture the attention of Pandas and Penguins (algorithm updates), you need to change your attitude towards the use of keywords and how links work on your website.

In fact, you could almost say that the new SEO really is improved content marketing. It is based on unique, compelling, readable and sharable content. It should be created so that your readers love your posts, want to bookmark them, tell all their friends about what you have written and regularly come back for more. And this can only happen if you product good quality content specifically produced to please, educate and entertain your readership.

So how does new SEO differ from old SEO? The keyword is no longer king. This means you don’t stuff your content up to the hilt to attract the attention of the search engines. Certainly don’t stop using keywords, but just be mindful of their relevance to your post’s content, and restrain their frequency by placing them in the title, URL, meta description and first paragraph. Here the keyword saturation is enough to stimulate the SEO response you want without impacting on the readability and enjoyment of your post’s content.

The other thing to take stock on is the use of links. Old SEO banged on about creating as many links as possible to and from your site. In new SEO links should take into consideration the relevance of their destination to the content’s subject, used sparingly and certainly not over-saturated both internally as well as externally. Contextual links used to be focused on keywords, but now the URL of the destination may have a better impact upon the search engines, especially if it is well optimised for relevancy.

Duplication is now a source of consideration. In the old days SEO was stimulated by plastering your content all over the web, linking back to your site to increase traffic and ultimately your site’s rankings. Now all this activity may be penalising this content and your site, and this also extends to duplication within your site, such as repeated titles, over-optimised tags and categories and the lack of no-follow links to your archives. If you want to increase your content throughout the web through article submissions and guest posting, just make sure that the distributed content is totally original each time, through edited titles, paragraphs, length and style. This isn’t affected by RSS feeds, as that only creates links back to your site without fully duplicating the content elsewhere.

So coming back to the ‘search experience optimisation’ as the new way to view the new SEO, if you can continue to create fabulously readable, conversational and fact-filled posts that everybody will enjoy, they are much more likely to be indexed than boring old posts like this one!

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, Writing tips

How SEO uses the human factor

Posted on Thursday 23 May 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

Going further into my SEO research for my Lunchtime Learning video this month, I am fascinated by how complicated it is. So I will need to be mindful of how I’m going to explain my findings in a way that isn’t too heavy for you!

The old way keywords were used was to make sure they were relevant, had a high readership with low competition, and their strategic positioning in the headline, post’s URL and the post itself. This was all well and good, and worked with the old style of search criteria and algorithms. There is no reason why this won’t work today too, except there are now some extras that need to be taken into consideration.

Search used to work a bit haphazardly, taking the 10 most probable answers to satisfy a search request. Now it uses an additional 200 metrics to arrive at its results so it can provide more direct answers than before. This is why it can work in favour of a site that is not heavily SEO-ed, stuffed full of keywords and therefore rendered unreadable.

Search engines are now favouring people rather than websites. They are placing themselves on the side of the searcher, the business content marketing provider, and how people use speech connected to human thought processes. There may be a downside to this, as by adapting the algorithms to respond to the true meanings of words, would the variances between UK English to American make a difference? We have yet to find out.

This has come about from the rise in popularity from social media. It is here where people react on the internet in a human way, responding in a conversational mode, flitting back and forth in a reciprocal manner, stimulated by real-time reactions. Things can change and adapt at breath-taking speeds, stuff can go viral at a drop of a hat, and information spreads like wild-fire to a potentially huge audience. This is all responding to the basic gossipy element of communication that is sometimes faster than which with the news media can cope and keep up.

Therefore search needs to transform from being unstructured to become structured. It needs to work on the concept of trust, authority, reputation, longevity and the user’s digital profile. In other words, the more active you are on the net, particularly with original and worthwhile content, the better the results will be, and not just because you’ve stuffed your content up to the gills with keywords.

The old keyword usage combined with link building and content duplication now take on a secondary role. SEO now needs to work on the basis of trustworthy content that generates valid and relevant comments, receives copious sharing on a variety of social media sites (bookmarking as well as networking) and reciprocal referral and recommendations by authoritative contributors.

Search engines also now need to assess the importance of content in relation to its relevance to the activity it represents, eg any links or call to actions to reputable and relevant destination sites. In other words, relevance plays a much larger part in confirming SEO in content marketing than before.

In other words, SEO is becoming more real, honest, transparent and, well, human!

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, online marketing, Writing tips

Hanging out with your target market!

Posted on Sunday 12 May 2013 by Alice • 11 Comments

Blogging can be sometimes quite a lonely experience, so it is extremely nice when you can get out to meet other bloggers and find out about what they do. This is especially so if most of the people you talk to either don’t have a blog or don’t use it enough.

Recently I’ve joined up with a blogging coffee morning group in Henley. These are an interesting bunch of ladies, all with different values and reasons for blogging, such as promoting a book they have written, publicising a garment manufacture business, or merely writing for fun or to show off their expertise.

Having been thoroughly inspired by joining the world of bloggers I was inspired to find some more, so I have signed up to go to the BritMums Live! blogging conference in June. This is an exciting prospect: two days mingling with 550 bloggers in an environment that is totally blog based! Could I become over-saturated with blogs? Never! This is an experience I am definitely looking forward to.

Now all these people already have blogs, so why should I want to circulate there? Well, here is an opportunity to find out why people blog, what makes them tick, learn from their successes and failures, find out new stuff – basically by entering such a world I’m sure I can fill in many gaps in my blogging knowledge so that what I present to you will become all that much better!

There are plenty of fun things we can be doing in preparation for this momentous weekend, such as participating in a linky. How exciting – I will be answering some questions below and will add this post to the BritMums Live! blog in the hope that more people will read it and the rest of this website. So here goes:

Name: Alice

Blog: Fairy Blog Mother

Twitter ID: @alice_elliott

Height: 164cm last time I measured myself!

Hair: Short, brown and spiky!

Eyes: Brown, hidden behind purple glasses.

Is this your first blogging conference?

Yeah, believe it or not!

Are you attending both days?

I certainly aim, though unfortunately I may have to miss the last bit of Saturday.

What are you most looking forward to at BritMums Live 2013?

Getting the chance to meet lots of bloggers in one place and learning lots!

What are you wearing?

Oh, something purple – I always wear purple!

What do you hope to gain from BritMums Live 2013?

By meeting bloggers I want to find out all about them, why they blog, what tips they can give me and maybe gain some knowledge that will help my business.

Tell us one thing about you that not everyone knows

I’m an ex-graphic designer and I did wedding stationery – most unsatisfactorily – with flowers and calligraphy. I absolutely love flowers, hence why I’m participating in a blogathon (posting every day for a year) with my nature blog!

PS You can learn more about me in this Liebster Award post.

Filed Under: Blogging education, blogging encouragement, blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, successful blogging

Banishing blogging myths: it’s too technical

Posted on Thursday 25 April 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

A lot of people don’t start a blog because they see it as something ‘techie’. The other day I spoke to an up and coming young chef who was cooking fabulous food. She had taken wonderful pictures of her culinary creations and she was doing the right thing by posting them onto her Facebook page. This proved she was used to social media and understood the need to publicise her wares.

I told her that because she was happily posting onto Facebook, this didn’t mean she couldn’t do the same in a blog. But the very word ‘blog’ immediately put her defence shields up; it was technical, it commanded website knowledge, it was totally the unknown… and that was the crux of the problem, she didn’t know or understand anything about blogs.

Further questioning quickly established it hadn’t taken her long to get to know Facebook so that she felt easy about popping in to upload a picture or make a comment about her latest supper party she had hosted or tell her friends about the scrumptious wedding cake she had just delivered to the bride’s family.

So I explained to her this is exactly the same with a blog. They are just as user-friendly as the other social networking sites, especially WordPress, which has been refined and simplified over the years to make it as easy as writing in Word. The majority of us use Word almost every day, it is a commonly used platform we all understand, so it stands to reason a content management system like a blog should be made just as easy to use.

I write a nature post every day as part of my blogathon. I go in, write the post and then I’m out again within 15 minutes (these posts are never very long). WordPress has made it as easy as possible to write, edit, upload and compose posts by eliminating all the difficult technical stuff, by creating intuitive methods of achieving what you need to do, placing the methods and buttons required in easy to find places, and taking all the hassle away.

All the hard work has been done behind the scenes so you don’t have to worry about the technical stuff. All you need to do is to click on the appropriate button and everything is done for you! No technicalities required whatsoever! Couldn’t be easier!

I specialise in teaching non-technical people how to create a blog and regularly post in it. I understand that some people are confused by the jargon, bemused by the editing fields, scared to press a button in case it blows the computer up, frightened to go into the ‘unknown’ in this weird and wonderful blog.

But once they have a friendly, helpful, empathetic person by their side helping them with each function and explaining each transaction, they soon pick it up and are blogging away like anything. Quite a few start to predict what comes next and it is me that has to run to keep up with them! That’s brilliant, because I have given them the confidence to try things out for themselves, and that’s what my blogging teaching is all about!

Filed Under: Blogging education, blogging encouragement, Blogging help, blogs and blogging, non-jargon

Let’s get more people blogging!

Posted on Wednesday 24 April 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

I came across a shocking statistic: only 13% of businesses have a blog!

After having a good think about this, I came to the conclusion that probably it’s because not many SME owners are aware of how beneficial blogging is for their business. Even if they have heard about blogs (as they are finally starting to be recognised as a business resource), they can’t see how a blog would work within their business, understand its relationship with social media, or even for digital marketing campaigns.

And then there is the rise of content marketing over SEO, for which a blog is a perfect medium for original writing and conversational communications with the potential customer base. Using a simple CMS (content management system) to explain, express and exchange ideas with the public so that they get a chance to understand a business better, is a vital part of customer relationship management.

A blog should be used as a hub of any social media campaign or activity. It is where the beef of your message is contained. The activity on social media is limited in its content, so this should be used to direct interested parties back to the blog with attractive headlines and relevant links. Structure messages on social media based on the call to action back to the blog, where much more information can be delivered to them for better comprehension, suitable persuasive content and further links back to the website where the business transaction can take place.

Blogs are actually very easy to set up. They don’t require any technical knowledge, and many are designed to be similar to other word processing platforms using familiar icons, etc. In fact if you can cope with updating your Facebook profile or page on a regular basis, this is no different to creating and maintaining a blog, as the system and reasons are the same. And if you are thinking why bother creating a blog as well as using Facebook, then consider the different audiences that use these platforms, and spreading a marketing message around the web will increase the exposure of it further.

For those who are not used to it on a daily basis, technology can be quite daunting until it is properly learned. And even then that process is not easy, as many people who technical proficients are unable to explain what they do without peppering their language with jargon and other confusing vocabulary. In fact, training and explaining about blogs in a way that anybody can understand does require some specialist knowledge, namely having been on the receiving end and experienced the difficulties each student is going through. Blogging jargon is mostly of American origin, so translating it into English and then relating it to everyday circumstances or the interests of the learner certainly helps in understanding and retaining that newly-founded knowledge.

Fairy Blog Mother aims to become one of the best WordPress trainers and tutor providers available for businesses and individuals. By being able to explain and teach blogging in a proficient and easily understandable way, blogging use will be increased and maximised to its full potential. There is so much a blog can do for a business, as long as it is totally and appropriately understood, appreciated and implemented.

Filed Under: Blogging education, blogging encouragement, blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, non-jargon

Content marketing is about communicating, not keywords

Posted on Tuesday 23 April 2013 by Alice • 2 Comments

Back in 2012 there was SEO. Now in 2013 there is content marketing. Are these the same? Think again.

There is a move away from the importance of keyword use to a preference for promoting and respecting original writing. Repetition and duplication are given short shrift, only to be replaced by original content with relevant subjects, links and references to other authoritative sources.

Another difference is readability. An unrelentingly SEO-ed post would be stuffed to the gills with keywords, there would be no need for copywriting skills except how to incorporate the desired keywords in as many places as possible to stimulate the search engines. Now content marketing is rewarded with excellent writing, reader appreciation, reciprocal sharing via social media and plenty of comments and feedback. This can only happen if posts are written properly, have appropriate prose, grammar and syntax, and be suitably entertaining, informative and useful for the reader.

Content marketing communicates to the reader, not the search engine. Writers should address their audience in a way that shows they are understood, known and appreciated. Conversation is key: posts should be written as if directed solely to that one person reading the content, using familiar, personal and human language. Stories should take over from facts, case studies replace selling statements and the overall message should reflect ‘What’s in it for them?’.

The concept of conversation came from social media. The search engines noticed that a lot more interaction was taking place from to-ings and fro-ings from friends and contacts, however trivial, because the language used was easily understood, appreciated and simplified. There was no need for meaningless keyword use: repetition was natural, the vocabulary was appropriate and the pace fast. Short communications were vital to cope with a limited attention span, and messages were usually scanned first before a decision to read them properly was reached.

Another move was away from the written word. Images had been taking over since 2012 with the rise of Pinterest and other related social platforms. Video was making a comeback as creation facilities increased in mobile and tablet applications. Instant gratification of visual communication was made possible at a click of a button to express an idea, thought or observation on different media available to the audience.

Many things have happened since the beginning of the year, and we’re only about a third of the way through. Therefore it’s important to be aware of developments so you can keep up and adapt accordingly. All those agencies that specialised in SEO may now have their noses out of joint, but unless they can adapt to the world of good writing, excellent prose, meaning communication and exciting conversations that can relate to the reader, all good attributes towards blogging, they may find themselves falling behind.

Filed Under: blogging encouragement, blogs and blogging, social networking, use of words

Matching up a WordPress.com blog

Posted on Friday 1 March 2013 by Alice • 3 Comments

There is a small drawback to creating a WordPress.com blog to accompany your existing website. Even though there are over 200 themes available, if you want to keep the costs down it’s advisable to choose a free theme and adapt it as best as you can.

This isn’t as difficult as you think, as long as you are able to see the bigger picture. I usually have about five themes in the back of my mind that I know what can be done with them, and bring them out one by one to try and adapt them to suit the client’s needs.

Here’s the result of my latest project. I wasn’t able to exactly recreate the blog to match the website, but the owner was very pleased with the result.

Here’s the website:

And its accompanying blog:

Now I know they’re not identical, but they’re close enough to recognise they belong to each other. Using a WordPress.com blog will enable the owner to start her blogging career, which she will be able to continue to promote her business and draw in more traffic and potential customers.

Filed Under: blogging encouragement, blogs and blogging, design makes a difference, Free Wordpress blogs

Why simplicity, clarity and transparency?

Posted on Thursday 21 February 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

I don’t believe that WordPress is complicated. It only seems so if you don’t understand it.

So this is where the Fairy Blog Mother comes in. Over the years I have specialised in understanding blogging jargon, translating it from the American into ordinary, everyday English, using words that normal people say, and incorporating it into my training programmes.

WordPress is, in fact, very simple to use. Certainly it is if you compare it with other blogging platforms like Joomla. It uses a content management system (CMS) that is designed to be easy to edit and create new material yourself. If you can use Word, you will understand WordPress, as there are many features that are the same.

Instructions should be made as clear as possible. No transaction should be left out or merely assumed. What may be obvious to you might not be so for another, so not only do I show what to do next in my training, I also reveal what happens as a result, to provide reassurance that everything has been done correctly.

When I create a website in WordPress, I enter it via the admin access, or front door. This is important, as this is how the owner or main user will see it. Very rarely will anybody need to use code or FTP, if they understand what that is, so I make a point of creating it without that so that everything is totally visible. This means no custom pages or any similar untoward systems, which the owner will not understand, make them confused or anxious.

Websites need to be simple, clear and uncomplicated. The navigation should be obvious, easy to follow and uncluttered. Each page should contain one message so to not confuse both the visitors and the search engines. The content should not stretch much ‘below the fold’, so that the most important stuff is visible at the top of the page. The sidebars should contain relevant call to actions to get the readers to ‘do’ something positive and useful to you and your business. And any additional material should be placed in a blog, which will explain the business in detail that cannot be accommodated within the website.

For information based first websites I suggest using WordPress.com as a method of cutting your blogging teeth. Once you’ve mastered the concept of blogs and how they work, and your business has successfully expanded, then you can move onto the next level (WordPress.org) which is where the fun really starts – especially if you learn how to understand it properly from me. Learning the foundations correctly from the beginning will save you time and angst when you want to start getting technical, use sophisticated digital marketing strategies and fully extend your business expectations. There is so much more you can do with a blog…

Filed Under: Blogging education, blogging encouragement, Blogging help, blogging success, blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, non-jargon, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs

How to find post fodder every day

Posted on Monday 18 February 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

It is quite a tall order to find material to regularly post in my blogathon.

I have set myself an experiment to write a short post every day for a year in my nature blog. It is not a chore or a burden, but a new lease of life. I may be completely mad to do this, but I am finding it invigourating to search for something to write about, mainly stimulated by taking photographs wherever I go.

Blogging requires a change in mindset. I call it “going into blogging mode”, when I switch my brain over to start looking for something to write about. In fact I don’t have to put much effort in, as suitable subject matter starts springing out of the woodwork at me. It seems that everything has the potential for a blog, in some shape or form, and it is only up to the author to find the time and energy to make it so.

Nature is a great subject to blog about. The seasons are changing all the time. Even on grey, cold days when nothing seems to happen, I can find something that wasn’t there the day before: an unfurled leaf, a new flower, an exciting shoot, promising new growth – and even the old stuff has a fascination that should not be ignored. People walk about blinkered to the world as it manifests itself around them, it is up to them to open their eyes and see the possibilities, and then manipulate it into something worth writing about.

Blogging is another subject I unfailingly find fodder for. But unlike my blogathon, I don’t post here every day. The difference is that these posts take more time to do, and require a bit more brain power, and there is so much more responsibilities on my time that prevents me regularly writing. A poor excuse, I know, and something I hope to redress in the future.

If you are fully passionate about the subject you have chosen, you will never be short of material. In fact I forget much of it if I don’t write it down. Fabulous facts I could blog about come to me at inappropriate times, only to disappear into the ether before I can find a suitable method of capturing them. If I did nothing else all day, this blog would be jam packed, so it is perhaps to preserve your sanity and mine that I have plenty of other things within my business to do.

Filed Under: blogging encouragement, Blogging help, blogs and blogging, Writing tips

Category Archives: blogs and blogging

Training and explaining…

…through workshops

My successful blog workshop