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.

Tag Archive: Wordpress

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?

Make it easy for your readers to take action

Written on Thursday 25 August 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

The whole point of a blog is that it enables your readers to interact with you. That is the beauty of Web2.0, and sets it apart from static websites that just sit there looking pretty (if you’re lucky) and boring (if you’re complacent).

So to make the experience of visiting your blog exciting for your readers, there are loads of apps and widgets at your disposal to upload and activate, which will keep your visitors really busy!

I don’t expect you to put everything available into your blog, or it will look like a dog’s breakfast and nobody will be able to choose what to do next, and will probably result in them running away! But there are some elements that should be present if you are to maintain the interaction a blog deserves.

One is to encourage some sort of subscription service. There are so many ways of doing this, varying from sophisticated sign up boxes to buttons you press after making a comment. For me it is important to make it very obvious to the reader that you want them to subscribe, and to stage it so they literally fall over the methods for doing so. I have often landed on a really good blog that has interested me, and wanted to keep in touch with the latest posts, only to hunt drastically around the site to look for a method of subscription, even to sign up to a RSS feed.

Of course RSS feeds always don’t fulfill my needs. I hate it when it merely leads to bookmarking the blog from my browser bar – I can’t be bothered to check that every day for new posts. What I am looking for is something that sends the newly-published posts to my in-box or to a reader in my search engine provider. This can be accomplished by creating a RSS URL through Feedburner (or equivalent), or using the various plugins or widgets available from WordPress. Read about one of them here: Don’t leave your WP greet box plugin undone.

Sharing is almost a requisite for blogs, as it has become commonplace to retweet a good post on Twitter or to share it on one of the many social bookmarking sites. This should definitely be encouraged, especially if you want to increase the traffic to your blog or expose it to a larger audience. There are lots of apps available to enable sharing, from individual transactions to collective mechanisms that allow the reader a choice in wherever he wants to promote your post. Even WordPress.com have a simple version: read Sharing is easy on WordPress.com to learn more.

These are just two interactive activities you could place on your blog, and there are many more to choose from which can enhance your blog’s performance and increase its interest factor. Just examine the widgets available for WordPress.com, and check out the myriad of plugins available for WordPress.org, and do a bit of experimenting. If you don’t know what to expect, take a look at other blogs you admire to find out what they have to offer, and then see if you can find a way of emulating the same functions that take your fancy or stimulate you to take action!

Magic Moment: Unleash the kitchen sink

Written on Thursday 11 August 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

When you’re writing a post in WordPress, you will see a number of icons at the top of the text field. These will give you access to some applications that help you to make your post look better, such as bold, italic, ~~crossing out~~, bullet points, numbered lists, how to emphasise that some text is a quote, text alignment on the page, link creation, ‘more’ breaks and a spelling check provider.

Magic Moment #5 is looking at the end icon which is called the ‘kitchen sink’.

If you click on it, another line of goodies appears:

And now you can select the size of your headings, underline, enforce justification, change the colour of your words, paste copy into your post from ordinary text or from a Word document, remove formatting if necessary, select and insert a custom character, such as àccénts and symbols ©, indent your text and back again, return to the last action you made and get help.

But a word of warning – don’t go mad and use them all at once! Your post will become almost unreadable – they’re there to be used only when required.

The jump between each WordPress is bigger than you think

Written on Monday 8 August 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

In technical abilities, I would say there is quite a chasm between the two types of WordPress.

This is not always noticeable, as quite often blogs look very similar. But if you look closer there is a distinct difference, as the .org versions have a lot more applications at their disposal, and therefore are able to perform to a much more advanced level.

But – saying that, I am amazed (and pleased) to see how far WordPress.com has come over the years. So many of the applications previously only available as plugins have become standard, and are more easily accessible and activated due to all the hard work the developers at WordPress have put in.

I suppose the main difference is hosting. WordPress.com provides a free-hosted package so all you have to do is to decide on what your blog is going to be called, and then create it. You can make as many blogs as you like under your username, which you can create by opening a WordPress account (even without a blog).

WordPress.org, on the other hand, requires you to purchase your own domain name and hosting account for each blog. Getting a suitable URL is quite easy, but acquiring a suitable host is where advice is necessary.

Many hosting companies will happily say they are compatible with WordPress, but then there are two versions of being compatible. There are those that require technical knowledge to prepare your hosting server ready to receive WordPress, and those that make it very easy for you through just one (or two) click(s).

When searching for these ‘easy’ hosts (WordPress has a selection which they recommend), they will probably include an application called Fantastico, which takes all the stress out of the preparation for WordPress by doing it for you in advance. These hosting companies also will happily advertise that fact that they use Fantastico for WordPress.

Once you’ve done the necessary clicks and WordPress is installed into your hosted space, it will be in its default form, just like as for WordPress.com. But unlike WordPress.com who has everything ready for you to use in its sidebar instructions, you need to add in your own applications to your WordPress.org blog.

This is where having a FTP viewer platform like FileZilla comes into play. Right, explanations are probably needed here.

FTP stands for file transfer protocol, and it allows the transfer of files to different platforms on the internet. You will need to transfer your WordPress.org theme into your host’s server, into WordPress which you have set up, to be able to activate it.

You can see what is going on by using FileZilla, an FTP viewing browser or application that shows what is already set up in your host’s server, especially your WordPress files, and allows you to transfer (via FTP) your new files and plugins into your new WordPress.org blog. By putting the necessary files into your blog and activating them, your blog will start to become alive.

But all this extra technical stuff isn’t necessary for WordPress.com. It has been carefully formulated to take out any technical stress and angst for the novice blogger, and yet still provides an extensive amount of applications available for blogging use. These have been made as easy as possible to activate, providing extra time for actually writing posts and reaping the benefits they provide.

Blogging, blogs and blogging, CMS, Free Wordpress blogs, non-jargon, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs - Tags: applications, blogging use, blogs and blogging, domain name, Fantastico, FileZilla, FTP, hosting account, hosts, plugins, technical, Wordpress - 5 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Start your blog the easy way

Written on Wednesday 3 August 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

So, you’ve been told it’s a good idea to start a blog, and you go online to learn more about it.

Although most people seem to be recommending WordPress, further investigation halts you in your tracks because it all sounds so complicated and technical.

That is because the majority of advice is starting from the wrong end. These people who write about how wonderful blogs are already have whizz-bang versions of their own. They are quite happy to bang on about the fantastic facilities you can get with a blog, without sparing a thought for the poor, intrepid beginner who, until only a few days ago, hadn’t heard much about blogs.

Blogs are, of course, complicated things if you don’t understand them, so reading what these experts have to say will certainly put anybody off who doesn’t understand any of the jargon they band about so freely. So my advice is to start at the shallow end. Learn through the perfect medium to get your started, a WordPress.com blog: free, easy to use, and so simple to set up.

You won’t need to hire an expensive web-developer, because WordPress will set it up for you. All you need to do is to decide on what you want your blog to be called, what you’re going to write about (i.e. its niche) and set aside half an hour to press some buttons.

Once your blog has been created, the next thing to do is to practise. You can’t break anything, so don’t worry about making mistakes – except what’s in your post content! Explore something new every time you go in to publish. Let your curiosity take over, and you’ll soon learn what WordPress have made available to you to make your blog wonderful.

Eventually you’ll get the hang of blogging, and you’ll be ready to move on. Great – that is exactly what your original objective was. Now it’s time to select a suitable web-developer to set up a WordPress.org for you (if you don’t fancy having a go at it yourself), and your blogging world will start to open up even more!

But don’t forget that without this chance to learn how to blog properly on WordPress.com beforehand, venturing straight into the world of WordPress.org from the beginning would have been extremely daunting. Oh – and it’s very easy to transfer all your old posts over to your new blog, so all your efforts will not have been wasted!

Blogging book material, blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs - Tags: activity, beginner, complicated, medium, new facilities, objective, online, practise, start a blog, web-developer, Wordpress - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Which service would you use to start a blog?

Written on Tuesday 26 July 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

This was a question that was asked on LinkedIn. I took a look and blanched at the number of answers that were already there (which would normally mean my response would be lost in the wilderness), but then having read them I realised the question hadn’t been properly answered.

This is because there isn’t a straight answer to this kind of question. Of course I would recommend WordPress, but there are, of course, two kinds of WordPress, each with their own characteristics and special features.

The questioner needs to work out which one is right for him. Here are three questions he needs to consider:

Are you technically-minded?
Do you have access to a web-developer?
Do you want to use your blog to sell products or make money?

If the answer is yes to the above, then he obviously needs to use WordPress.org. This is an excellent platform to create a monetized blog or a blogsite to act as a CMS website, and the facilities it provides are second to none.

But if you are starting a blog on your own, without external help or a desire to monetize it, purely as somewhere to write or to promote your business more effectively on the web, then I would recommend WordPress.com.

Now I expect all the other blogging experts that answered this question will be be thinking that I’m crazy. Well, not really. You see, it’s usually wise not to run before you can walk. You can use WordPress.com to master the art of blogging properly and effectively before seeking out a web-developer to move onto WordPress.org. And don’t forget it’s very easy to transfer your posts and pages from one to the other, so all is not lost.

Meanwhile, while you are learning the ropes with WordPress.com, you’ll still receive excellent SEO, search engine coverage, access to social media, and an excellent and easy to use environment to learn all about blogs and how they work. Here you can build up your readership and following in safety, because WordPress is doing a lot of the work for you behind the scenes.

Once you’ve moved onto WordPress.org you’re out on your own, which means you’ll have to start working that much harder. But that won’t be a problem, because you will have gained a good grounding beforehand, allowing you to develop and grow, rather than floundering like a non-swimmer diving straight into the deep end.

Blogging help, blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs - Tags: answers, blogging platform, characteristics, CMS, following, LinkedIn, master the art of blogging, monetize, other social media, question, readership, SEO, Wordpress - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

WordPress and Blogger – which one to choose?

Written on Thursday 14 July 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

One of my new guinea pigs asked me this question soon after she signed up to my Blogging Guinea Pig Group, because she was already writing a blog using Blogger and I was concentrating my book on WordPress. So I decided to do some research to find out the differences.

Blogger.com and WordPress.com are both free hosting blogging platforms. Blogger is owned by Google, so the URLs are http://username.blogspot.com, whereas WordPress is independently owned and a WordPress.com blog’s URL would be http://username.wordpress.com.

The general consensus is that Blogger is easier to set up, so is best used for blogging as a hobby, whereas WordPress appears to be more complicated and can be adapted more for business use. (The reason for my book is to show that WordPress isn’t as hard to use as everyone makes out, and to create a WordPress.com blog is just as easy as Blogger.) However, this may be overshadowed by WordPress.org, the more sophisticated version, which is complicated to set up if you don’t have any web-developer experience, so it is best to hire someone to do that for you. But once you’ve learned the basics of blogging with WordPress.com, doing the same in the .org version is just as easy.

Each platform have their pluses and minuses, as you would expect. It all depends what you want from your blog. The availability of templates (Blogger) or themes (WordPress) vary considerably. Blogger may not have as large a selection of templates, but they do offer the ability to customise them for free, whereas this facility is only available as a paid upgrade in WordPress; however, they do provide over 100 themes to choose from, and some can change their banners, colours and other features.

Blogger can only import posts from other Blogger blogs, whereas WordPress accepts the importation of posts from a large selection of alternative blogging platforms. Blogger only allows the creation of 10 pages per blog, whereas WordPress has no page limitations. Blogger allows 1 GB for image storage, and will only accept images, whereas WordPress provides 3 GB of space and can upload many forms of documents, not just images.

WordPress allows a selection of users: Administrators, Editors, Authors and Contributors, for a shared blogging experience, whereas Blogger only has Administrators and non-Administrators. WordPress can moderate and edit comments to its posts, and provides Akismet for protection against spam, whereas Blogger can moderate but not edit comments, and appears to have little spam protection.

Blogger allows Adsense to advertise on its blogs so they can become monetized, whereas WordPress.com only allows Google-related advertising in certain circumstances. Blogger allows the process of changing to a customised URL for free, whereas this facility is only available as a paid upgrade in WordPress. Blogger allows blog privacy to unlimited Blogger users, whereas WordPress limits it to a maximum of 35 WordPress account holders; however it does provide facilities for password protected and private posts and pages, which could be used as a rudimentary membership site.

There, that is plenty of comparisons. Some of this is quite technical, and may be not of importance to a beginner or hobby blogger, but it does show why I am biased towards WordPress. There is also the added benefit that your .com blog can very easily be transformed into the .org version, with all the extra functions it contains and the supremacy it has on search engines, which is something to consider if you want to develop your blogging experience further in the world of business.

If there is anything I’ve missed out, misunderstood or got wrong, please feel free to correct me by commenting below. It can only benefit all of us!

Update (19/7/11): I’ve just noticed that Blogger have announced a spam filter and improved comment moderation facilities, details available from http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?&answer=187141.

Oh my goodness, everything’s changed!

Written on Thursday 26 May 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask a question!

I’ve been watching the new developments of WordPress.com recently, as they dramatically update and change the existing blogging platform they offer. This means, of course, that I need to update all my existing e-courses, and create new ones to accommodate all the new features they have in place – ah, happy days!

So over the coming weeks I’ve got my work cut out, which is probably a good thing. I was going to put all I know into a series of books, and it’s not a good idea to fill it with old stuff when there is a brand new version ready and waiting to be explored!

During this time I’ll also review how I explain the processes of blogging, to make it compatible to as many people as possible, and this is where you guys can help out. I need as many queries as possible about existing and new developments in WordPress.com (and I will find out whether the newest version of WordPress.org contains these new features after I’ve updated), so I can find out the answers and provide a coherent and user-friendly e-course or blog post to explain everything!

I rely on my readers and followers to point out things I have missed or overseen. I do try to cover every little thing about using WordPress, but it’s amazing how much I don’t notice, or assume is unimportant, when actually it has been troubling someone or preventing another from progressing further. Help me by telling me everything you want to know, and I will do my best to answer – just click on my logo in this post to send me an email – and get your friends and colleagues to participate too, the more the merrier!

blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, non-jargon, revised e-courses - Tags: answers, blogging platform, books, changes, e-course, features, information, new developments, processes of blogging, update, Wordpress - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

WordPress is both easy and difficult

Written on Friday 6 May 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Whether you find using WordPress easy or difficult, it does depend what you’re using it for and what kind you have.

I have mentioned before that WordPress have made blogging as easy as possible, and certainly the CMS (content management system) has been programmed for effortless use. The areas that you regularly use, for example, to write a post or create a new page, are designed for efficiency and straightforwardness, especially once you’ve start using it regularly, and if you are familiar with Word, you can easily adapt to WordPress.

WordPress.com is particularly focused on providing a free-hosted blog with the minimum of fuss. All you need to do is sign up, confirm your username, choose your template and start blogging. Everything is pre-programmed so you don’t need to worry about anything technical, and you can create a really good blog within a surprisingly short time-period.

WordPress.org is where the fun really starts. Here you have been given full access to the world of blogging, and you can add or subtract as much as you like from your blog. Not only is HTML accepted and works properly, which is necessary for advertising, installing sign-up forms or pasting up other promotional gadgetry, you have the opportunity to adapt your themes to suit your ideas, corporate image or preferences.

If you have the know-how, here you can pop into your CSS to change the colours of your design and links, create new banners and place images into your sidebars to promote your business, books or whatever, choose from thousands of plugins to improve the performance of your blog – in fact the more you learn about blogging, the more you can add stuff to your blog to make it do something amazing!

And if you find all of this too difficult, hire someone that knows this technical stuff, because once they’ve finished your blog will be fantastic! And as the process of writing posts and creating pages is the same as WordPress.com, it is as easy as falling off a log to post regularly, keep your readers happy, interact with them daily, encourage comments and feedback and persuade more subscribers to join your RSS feed so they can keep up-to-date with everything that you do!

Don’t neglect your About page

Written on Tuesday 26 April 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Lots of new bloggers ask me to check out their blogs. One thing I notice that is increasingly common is that they have either forgotten to fill in their About page, or have done so inadequately.

WordPress automatically give you an About page when you create your blog. Recently I’ve noticed the text they put in to show you want you can do has been extended, as the previous message was very bland and uninviting. Now you’re shown what exciting things you could say about yourself, with the use of quote text for your testimonials or fans’ comments. This is a vast improvement, but it’s never the same as putting in your own details about yourself.

I confess it took me a long time to get round to adding in content to my About pages when I first started blogging. I was quite happy creating additional pages with all sorts of interesting stuff in them, but not my poor, neglected About page. I suppose it’s because I’m a bit ashamed about blagging on about myself, I would much rather do stuff to help others.

Even so, you need to understand that your readers are very interested in you (if they like your blog and visit it regularly or subscribe to it) and they would like to know a bit more about the person who is writing all these posts. I felt a bit better about it once I had some professional portraits done by a photographer friend of mine (he owed me a favour), so that was one hurdle overcome.

And a very necessary one, I consider it important include a picture of yourself, not an image of something else! (Oh, dear, I suppose I do hide behind the Fairy Blog Mother logo when I write these posts, but you can see a proper picture of me on my About page.) I have seen examples of wine glasses and fluffy animals, let alone company logos, so think carefully about how you want to be ‘seen’ by your audience. What is the reason for feeling the need to be so anonymous?

The next task is to sort out which elements about you are relevant to your readers. OK, you can go on about your life, family, hobbies, fads, pets, aspirations, past experiences or whatever, but if these aren’t interesting to your readers, or aren’t connected to your blog’s niche or subject, then they may seem a little strange or even over-indulgent.

Even so, it’s important to bear in mind that a blog is a part of social networking, so remember to connect socially with your audience by not writing in a stuffy, uninteresting way that would put people off. Relate to your readers so they feel they are able to get to know more about you, and do so in a friendly, forthcoming and inviting manner that is interesting, entertaining and engaging.

And add in that you would like to get to know them too, as a blog’s readership is vital for its success, so encouraging any comments would be very beneficial! Your blog should become the hub of your social networking activities, and this means relating to those who read your blog as much as them to you!