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John Chow speaking at Costa Mesa Connectors

March 14, 2012 By 1 Comment

I got an opportunity to visit with John Chow and Debra Faris at Costa Mesa Connectors recently, and I captured John’s talk. You can watch it below. It’s about blogging. The video is long, but it really gives you a great idea on how you could make a living from your blog.

If you don’t know about John Chow, I recommend you take a look at his site http://www.johnchow.com. John makes his living from his blog, he blogs daily, sometimes twice a day about tech, about blogging, or about whatever he’s up to with his gadgets and stuff.

Filed Under: Blog stuff Tagged With: , , ,

How to create lists in your blog

September 18, 2011 By 3 Comments

This should be a quick tip for you bloggers out there. I especially want to send this to people that are getting started with their blogs.

Often I find great lists of information, but unfortunately sometimes they are not formatted properly. To give you a simple example, I might find a list of the best cars to buy in 2011. And the writer or blog author makes their list it looks like this:

* Audi
* Mercedes Benz
* BMW
* Fiat
* Chevrolet

In the example shown above, I’ve simply typed an asterisk before each item, then a space and press return after each item. And well, there is nothing wrong with that except one thing, it isn’t really a list. You see, in the web, it is important to use the formatting tools that are provided to you and for this type of information (a list) there are proper ways of formatting them. Let’s take a look.

There are two main ways of making lists online, one is called an “unordered” list, and the other one is called an “ordered” list. Technically there is a third type of list, but we’ll cover that in another blogpost.  The main difference between the unordered and ordered list is that an unordered list will add a bullet point in front of each of your items, while ordered lists will add a number and provide you with a count.

Take a look at the same items you see listed above, but in a proper unordered list:

  • Audi
  • Mercedes Benz
  • BMW
  • Fiat
  • Chevrolet
  • Nissan

Now take a look at the same items in an ordered list:

  1. Audi
  2. Mercedes Benz
  3. Ford
  4. BMW
  5. Fiat
  6. Chevrolet
  7. Nissan
In the unordered list, the bullets are placed automatically and you can actually choose what type of bullets you want to display in your blog, you could use circles, squares, or even your own custom bullet to make the list fit into your blog even better. For the ordered list, the greatest benefit is that the numbers are adjusted automatically. If you add items to the end of the list, they get their own number in sequence. When you add items in between existing items, then they all get repositioned correctly.
Buttons showing how to make an unordered or ordered list

Buttons showing how to make an unordered or ordered list in WordPress

So next time you want to make a list of items in WordPress, decide if you want the list to be bulleted or numbered, make sure you’re in visual mode (1), and then use the icons (2) at the top of your editor to pick between one type of  list or the other (see image above). It will make your post look nicer, and you’ll be creating content with the proper formatting which always helps with search engines.

Filed Under: Better Blog Tips, Video Tutorials Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

3 Easy tips for your WordPress blog

July 20, 2011 By 35 Comments

For WordPress, crossword puzzle-style image says: Tips & HintsAre you running a WordPress Blog? Here are three tips that will make your blog look more professional and also help your visitors become more engaged with you.

  1. Change your URLs to pretty permalinks. This means that instead of seeing example.com/p=23 you end up with something like example.com/my-cool-blogpost. This is important for a few reasons; it gives Google and other search engines a little more description about your post and it makes it easier to remember or search for.

    2. To fix this, go to your Dashboard, then click on the Settings (lower left), and then go to Permalinks. Choose one of the permalink options that are available to you or read through the documentation to pick a custom one.

  2. Don’t use “Admin” for your author name. WordPress gives you a number of options to use when posting to your blog, so that your post shows “posted by ____” where the blank represents your name. By default, your username will be displayed there, but you can change it to anything you want, you could use your First name, nickname or a different name if you prefer. This gives your readers a more personal experience that you can’t achieve with the generic “Admin” username.

    3. To fix this, go to your Dashboard, then click on Users (mid-lower left) and then click on “Your Profile” this will take you to a screen that looks like the picture below:

    Showing where you can Change "display name as" in WordPress

    Where to change "display name as" in WordPress

  3. Sign up for Gravatar and display your profile picture. Most WordPress sites support Gravatar icons. If you sign up to Gravatar.com you can associate your email address with a picture of your choice. This image will show up whenever you leave a comment, and in some cases, depending on your theme it will also show up when you post a new blogpost. It is good to have this set when you start leaving comments so that people can recognize you whenever you leave a comment in your blog or even someone else’s.

    4. To set this up, go to gravatar.com and sign up for an account, then upload your picture and you’ll be ready to go. You can see this working in any of the blogposts that have comments on my site.

Filed Under: WordPress Tagged With: , , ,