If your business has a Facebook presence, getting readers and fans to convert into customers is more straightforward than it appears. And especially if your plan is to monetize your blog in any way, the free WordPress.com version will prevent you from doing that. Considering this, we recommend you to get started with Bluehost. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee in place – in case you change your mind with the whole blogging experiment, just ask for a refund. In partnership with Hallmark Channel, the Cheer Map is your interactive local guide to share and discover the best holiday decorations around town. Nextdoor’s annual Cheer Map is back to help your neighborhood shine even brighter this season. In partnership with Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to.
Limitations of external blog –There is no real method of tracking the traffic to your blog or a means of submitting your blog to search engines. Remember, with the blog hosted on their site, you would really be tracking the traffic to their main site.Advice Media can track the activity to your blog in the same way the traffic is monitored to. Your blog's description. The language of your blog. This setting is to indicate the content of your blog contains adult content, including images or videos that contain nudity or sexual activity. If selected, viewers of your blog will see a warning message and will be asked to confirm they want to proceed to your blog.
If you’re a blogger wondering what to prioritize during your work time each day, check out my 10 blogging tips for what you should be doing as a blogger.
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When trying to grow your blog, it can get be a bit intimidating to figure out the most important tasks to focus on and what to prioritize.
Add to that all the constantly changing algorithms and the bombardment of online advice from the “experts” and it can get straight up overwhelming!
I’ve been blogging for over a decade and I’ve learned that a lot of times you just have to experiment and see what works for you and your audience.
But I’ve also discovered several strategies that have been SO effective, I think every blogger should try them out!
These are 10 blogging tips I think every blogger should be experimenting with…
{Note: I’ve labeled each of these tips with what area they are pertaining to — live video, Pinterest, etc. — so you can quickly find the specific kind of tip you’re looking for!}
1. Live video: Get your face on camera.
Seriously, if you’re going to do live video (and you should be doing it!), stop hiding behind the camera! Get your face on camera.
Be excited, animated, fun, quirky, and interesting. Your audience loves connecting with a real-life person, and getting your face on camera fosters that authentic connection with your community!
Psst! Not sure what to post on live video? Try these 10 live video ideas or these 5 tips to figure out what to post on live video.
2. Live video: Become a better story-teller.
People connect with stories way more than they ever connect with facts. The more real, approachable, honest, and interesting you can be, the more people will want to stick around.
Practice telling a story on Instagram in 4 slides or less. Learn to say a lot in a short amount of time.
And be sure to watch yourself on the replay without sound on to make sure your body language exudes excitement. Then listen to the audio by itself to ensure you sound interesting and are using enough voice inflection.
3. In general: Pick one social media to focus on.
Stop trying to be good at everything!
Which social media is working best for you? Which one do you love? Which one brings you life? Focus on that one.
{This is especially true when you’re first starting out. I always recommend that you start out focusing on one main social media channel and doing it really well.}
For instance, I absolutely love Instagram and I see SO much conversion and return on investment from it that I find it well worth it to spend at least an hour or two (or more!) on Instagram each day.
…But that means I don’t invest as much in other social media, because I can’t do it all!
4. Instagram: Tell stories with your photos AND your text.
Don’t just give facts or expect people to deduce what you are trying to say with a vague photo and text.
The more your photos can tell a story and the more your text can support that, the more people will usually respond!
5. Pinterest: Create multiple graphics for your posts on Pinterest.
Right now, Pinterest is rewarding you for pinning unique pins and not just pinning the same pin over and over again. (This is a huge change in the past year!)
With this in mind, we’ve created multiple graphics for all of our top posts. We don’t include these graphics in the post; we just pin them and link them to the post.
This allows us to pin the same post over and over again, but in a fresh way — and it usually means more traffic and engagement for that post than if we just had one pin for it.
Psst! Need extra help with Pinterest Images? Download this FREE Pinterest Image Guide!
6. Blogging: Use your own photos and tell your own stories.
Want to set your blog apart from the hundreds of thousands of other blogs? Be you. Be unique. And tell your own stories.
You have stories to share with the world. Start paying attention to the stories around you and think about how to communicate them to the world.
Also, stop using stock photos! People want to see your own photos!
7. Facebook: Start a private group.
Facebook is really encouraging people to build community through groups right now, and they’ve made it clear this will be more of their focus in the future.
You don’t need to go crazy and set up 13 different groups, but think about whether or not there’s a smart spin-off group you can begin to build around your blog’s theme.
This Blog Is Your Blog Wordpress
This can be such a great place to grow relationships, serve your audience at more of a personal level, and foster community. Plus, I think that groups are something that will be long-lasting despite what other algorithm changes Facebook might throw at us in the coming months and years.
8. In general: Celebrate your gifts
I originally wanted to tell you to stop second-guessing yourself… but this is supposed to be what you SHOULD do, not what you should NOT do! 🙂
Seriously, stop apologizing and focusing on what you’re not good at.
Focus on your strengths. Embrace your gifts. And don’t be shy about sharing them with the world!
9. Facebook: Share multiple photos in one post.
We’re noticing that Facebook is showing our posts to a lot more people when there are multiple photos uploaded (at least 4-5) with great teaser text and a link.
These kinds of multiple-photo posts typically perform 2-3 times better than link posts or single-photo posts. I highly recommend experimenting with this!
Psst! Here’s an example of what a multiple-photo post looks like on Facebook!
10. Blogging: Make your email list sign-up super obvious.
If people have to hunt for your email list, they aren’t going to sign up… because it will be too hard to find.
Make your email list super obvious and enticing for people to sign up for. Give them an irresistible offer and make sure it’s in a really conspicuous place so they actually see it!
Do you agree with my list? Anything you’d add or delete? I’d love your honest thoughts.
One of the great things you can do with WordPress is blogging. If you want a blog on your site but don’t want to display the blog on the front page, you can add one on your WordPress Dashboard. To create a blog for your site, first you need to create a blank page:
1From the Dashboard, choose Pages→Add New.
The Add New Page screen appears. This is the page where you can write a new post to your WordPress blog.
This Blog Is Your Blog For A
2Type a name for the page in the text box toward the top of the page.
For example, because this will be the main page for your blog, enter Blog for the name. This automatically sets the page slug to /blog.
3Leave the text box blank.
You leave the text box blank here because you don’t want to display any page content on your blog; rather, WordPress displays your blog posts using this page after you assign it as your blog.
This Blog Is Your Blog Host
4Click the Publish button.
The blank Blog page is saved to your database and published to your WordPress site.
You have a blank page that redirects to http://yourdomain.com/blog.
Next, you need to assign the page you just created as your Blog page.
5Choose Settings→Reading.
The Reading Settings page opens.
6From the Posts Page drop-down list, choose the page you just created.
For example, select the Blog page as a posts page.
7In the Blog Pages Show at Most section, type the number of posts you want to display in the Posts text box.
This setting specifies the number of posts you want to appear on that page at any time. If you enter 5, the Blog page shows the last five posts you’ve made to your blog. Enter the number of posts you would like to appear based on your preference.
8Click the Save Changes button.
The options you just set are saved, and your blog is now located at http://yourdomain.com/blog (where yourdomain.com is your actual domain name).
You can add a link to your blog in the navigation menu by adding it to your custom menu.