Wordpress 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

Grab my sidebar badge now!

Posted on Friday 17 May 2013 by Alice • 1 Comment

I’m so excited! I’ve just created a sidebar badge for you!

If you like this and want to include it in your sidebar, find the code under this example:

(You can increase the code area by grabbing and pulling down the bottom right hand corner.)

Then you need highlight and copy the code, go to Appearance > Widgets, drag a text widget into an appropriate place in your sidebar (near the top would be great!), and when it has opened, paste in the code and save it.

Now go back to your blog and check your sidebar and your new widget will look like the badge above! Enjoy!

And why not tell all your friends and colleagues about your new blog widget badge and where you got it from!

And if you want to create your own sidebar widget badge, I learned how from this post – except that I used Photoshop and this blog’s server instead.

Filed Under: blogging encouragement, blogging success, Free Wordpress blogs

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

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

Untangling some blogging knots

Posted on Wednesday 6 February 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

In the past I used to get nervous when presented with a problem, but in my old age I have learned to step back, review the situation and take it one step at a time. It’s even worth going away from it for a while to give the subconscious a chance to work it out for you.

It pains me when I view blogs that have got themselves into a pickle, especially when there really has been no reason for it. This usually arises from people attempting to set up a WordPress blog without truly understanding how it works, a web developer getting too big for his boots and making it too complicated, or, as with my latest example, using a template that is full of custom facilities that is unnecessary, usually because its designer doesn’t want to use the simplicity of WordPress’s CMS.

One of the reasons Fairy Blog Mother was set up was to show how simple WordPress really is, how easy it is to use, and to educate people how to use it properly. Now businesses come to me with their blogsites with a request to see how I could make it better, more efficient or effective. This is when I get a chance to take a proper look at what is going on, and sometimes the results astound me!

In an ideal world I would love to have time to work out what is wrong, find a solution, and offer my services to sort out the mess, but usually the blogsite owner has no idea that there is anything wrong. Even when I point out the errors or try to explain what I have found, I’m met with incomprehension or disbelief.

My aim is to create WordPress blogs using the simplest methods available and to achieve the best results possible that is understandable to the blog’s owner and makes their life easier. I always strive to use the front end (via admin access) as much as I can as that is where the user enters. And it’s important to use the same facilities and language to make comprehension easier and clean up the full use capabilities WordPress has to offer.

And once everything inside has been put into order, then it’s easier to put into practice techniques and applications to make the blog more efficient and attractive to both readers and search engines. It’s like a ripe tomato, as long as the insides are firm and tasty, then the red flesh will look attractive and it is more likely to be eaten.

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

I don’t mind admitting I’m not technical

Posted on Monday 4 February 2013 by Alice • 0 Comments

Of course this all depends on what is meant by ‘technical’. Many of my followers may agree that I am, and the majority of web developers will say I’m definitely not, but this doesn’t, or shouldn’t, undermine me as a WordPress expert.

Once upon a time I was bemused by blogging and how it worked, and I decided to understand it, patiently and steadily, fathoming out the jargon into non-technical language, and taking the same path of the ordinary, everyday person who want to be able to blog. And therefore my ‘WordPress expertise’ has arisen by putting myself into the shoes of the people I want to help, which would not be possible if I was unable to understand how my clients think or what they want to achieve through WordPress.

My simple mantra is if I can’t do it, neither can my clients. If creating a blog becomes too technical, then there’s obviously something wrong and it hasn’t been properly thought through, worked on or developed properly. WordPress prides itself on being easy to use, it has been steadily and carefully improved over the years to gain such an accolade, so if any blogging application fails to perform adequately I’m afraid it will be abandoned in favour of WordPress.

Because I want to use WordPress on the same level as my clients, I therefore develop my WordPress blogsites using the ‘front door’ or admin access that they would use. I very rarely enter via FTP (or the ‘back door’) unless I really need to. I have invested in a CMS theme that can be activated from the front end, and upload and perform everything I need to do from the Dashboard.

Therefore when my clients finally get to take over the keys and move into their new blogsite, everything is there ready and visible to them. Nothing is hidden or customised, and I offer training in every aspect of how to run and keep the blogsite healthy.

Many web developers will be sniggering into their sleeves thinking ‘she hasn’t kept the mystery aside so she can’t make any continuous money out of her clients’. But because I have made everything as transparent as possible, and allowed each blogsite to be fully functional, I can offer my tuition services for the immediate and continuous future, and when the client exceeds their blogsite’s capabilities and wants to extend, hopefully I will be the first point of call.

And again I will explore with the client everything they want to achieve with that extension, making sure that the best facilities and practices are put in place, enabling them to fulfill their marketing strategies or expansion purposes. I will advise on any changes that will improve the navigation, user experience and conversion funnel, whichever may be applicable.

You see, I may not be an expert in web coding, but there is a heck of a lot of other knowledge I can provide, gained from my digital marketing diplomas, that would create a first class blogsite, all available and usable from WordPress’s extensive application library and other facilities on offer. And I think my design capabilities are quite good too!

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

Results of my blogging experiment so far

Posted on Thursday 17 January 2013 by Alice • 4 Comments

I have been working on my experiment blog now for over two weeks, with very encouraging results. My aim is to post every day for a year (from the 1 January) to see what happens. I will be doing very limited promotion, relying on the power of WordPress and organic search engine reaction to get traffic.

The most amount of views in one day has been 12 so far, and since the third day I have always had traffic (I’m up to 70 views so far). I’m not sure about the reliability of WordPress’s statistics, as when I have received email notifications about ‘likes’ from readers, these have not been picked up. Therefore I suggest you treat these results with a pinch of salt, and don’t take them as ‘gospel’.

One of the main indicators of a successful blog is the amount of interaction you receive, whether it’s in the form of comments or ‘likes’. Even though the latter is gratifying, the former is the most desired (so far I’ve got two), as it shows you have moved the reader enough to express themselves in words rather than just pressing a button.

I have set up the sharing buttons to allow readers to share my posts, but I haven’t seen any evidence of this yet. But it is early days… However, the RSS system is set up to syndicate or feed my posts onto Twitter and Facebook, and the stats do show if anybody does click through from these to view my posts.

Frequency is certainly a good indicator to get regular traffic, but so is good content. Visitors need to know that whenever they visit they will get something worthwhile to read, as well as something new each time. Pictures make blog posts more interesting, and can say a lot more than words, so you can create a satisfactory post quite quickly and easily. I will be investigating how to make this process more efficient using various technological advances that are becoming available – watch this space.

Another thing to mention is that I take as much care with my categories and tags as with the quality of content and pictures. Adequate keyword usage stimulates the search engines and helps new visitors to find you. And it’s important to include the alt tags behind your images too, not only for the spiders to read, but to help any partially sighted visitors to understand your blog better.

If you want to take a look at the blog in question, feel free: http://aspiringcountrywoman.wordpress.com

Filed Under: blogging success, blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs

Experimenting with a New Year

Posted on Wednesday 2 January 2013 by Alice • 2 Comments

As it’s now the New Year I’m going to do a little experiment. I’ve heard on the grapevine that things are going to change for the better for bloggers, allowing them to write how they feel rather than how they think they ought to.

So I’m going to put this to the test. I’ve created another little blog using WordPress.com to write about nature and what I find in the countryside.

I know this probably belies my age, but it is something I have been thinking about for some time. I regularly go for walks in the country, trudging up and down muddy lanes noticing how the seasons change as the days go by. I remember my grandmother receiving a book one Christmas about an Edwardian Lady’s Diary, in which the author had written and drawn about the flowers and animals in her immediate surroundings 100 years ago. I was an enchanting present to give an old lady, but I found it fascinating, and somehow the idea has stuck with me all this time.

So now I’m going to create a 21st century version using a blog. The aim is to try and post something as regularly as possible (ie every day if I can) and see what effect that has, such as consistency and frequency, combined with free speech and relaxation of writing, as well as using a WordPress hosted blog with all the trimmings available, and in a non-American environment (believe me this is important, as European attitudes to blogs have yet to catch up).

I want to monitor what response I get and whether I generate any interest and what kind it is. This experiment will also evaluate whether a simple blog using WordPress.com can compete with a fancy, full-blown WordPress.org blog with all the plugins that are available for it. I will be relying totally on what WordPress give me regarding statistics, search engine compatibility, exposure to other bloggers and feeds to social media. The result will be simple, but I want to see if it is effective.

I still advocate that all blogging beginners should start with a WordPress.com blog to get used to blogging before they progress further. There is no easier way than this, as you can’t go wrong and everything is totally set up for you. It is regularly updated with lots of volunteer geeks striving to make it as simple and easy as possible (though recently I think they have overdone it and it is starting to get a bit too complicated again).

I definitely still want to see if regular posting does make a difference, regarding what subject you blog about. Certainly talking about what I see and find in the British countryside will only appeal to a selection of readers, but isn’t that what many bloggers start with? And I also want to occasionally inform you about my progress and what I have learned along the way, especially the concept of ‘free writing’ once more.

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, successful blogging

Why the mis-use of WordPress annoys me

Posted on Monday 19 November 2012 by Alice • 2 Comments

I’m not a person who usually gets on their high-horse to make a stand, but recently I have come across two instances involving WordPress that have made me angry.

I like to help people to succeed through advice so they travel down the most appropriate road. I don’t like placing barriers in the way to hinder their progress forward. Some people find technology confusing enough without anybody making it difficult for them. So why do some web developers (not designers, as their results show they obviously aren’t that breed) become so protective of their ‘work’ they destroy the very medium they are working with?

WordPress is an open source tool that is available for free to make blogs and websites using a content management system. It has been carefully constructed and designed during the past decade by some clever people in the US to make it as simple as possible to use. It is this simplicity as well as its effectiveness that has made it so popular, and the content management system in place is designed for anyone to edit and make changes wherever needed.

These two incidents I’m referring to consist of blogs that don’t allow their owners to make such changes. When they enter via WordPress’s CMS front doors into the Dashboard, they cannot see the content they wish to amend. The pages are either invisible through what I call ‘back door coding’, or the content within them is not available for editing.

WordPress’s language is .php, which is a usefully simple script that can easily be adapted. It seems to me that web-developers, with all their prior knowledge, like to flex their coding muscles to make their changes and put their ‘slant’ on a WordPress website. This is absolutely fine if a good job is done, but it is not fair if pages and other applications are created in ‘custom’ mode which is not visible via the front door CMS access.

I can’t understand why this CMS that is widely accepted by millions of users is ignored in this way. Is it beneath them to enter the website via the normal methods? CSS is readily available for coding changes, and by all means enter via a FTP browser application, but not to the detriment of the non-technical user.

The website’s owner must be able to make their own changes. If you don’t think they’re capable, then teach them how. It’s not difficult to learn WordPress’s CMS (that is why Fairy Blog Mother was created), especially with a bit of patience and understanding.

Any web developer who is ‘precious’ of their website construction ought to realise that this is detrimental to their continuing relationship with their client, who may resent having to fork out a large amount of money each time a typo needs correcting. They should be only offering professional help wherever it is valid and necessary, particularly if it could further the use of the website in the future.

Filed Under: blogging success, blogs and blogging, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs

Tag Archives: Wordpress

Training and explaining…

…through workshops

My successful blog workshop