13 Social Media Plugins for Your Wordpess Blog

Posted by Tammy in Blogging, Tammy on February 26, 2010 | no comments

I recently took a long trip into the world of Wordpress plugins. I was specifically looking for plugins related to social media bookmarking and networking. Social networks like Twitter and Facebook can help you build a community of like-minded people, which is particularly important if you’re trying to monetize your blog. As I learned, there’s a ridiculous number of plugins, widgets, gadgets, sidebar whatchamacallits, and bright, shiny thingamajiggers for Wordpress. Hopefully this list will save you some time if you’re looking for a way to make your Wordpress blog more social. This post lists 13 Wordpress plugins that make it easy for your readers to share and distribute your content

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Blog Design – Part 2: Don’t Miss These Resources!

Posted by Scott in Blogging, Scott on January 14, 2010 | 5 comments

For those of you who are planning to start your own Internet-based businesses, you’re going to need a blog because you’ll more than likely be using a blog to promoting your product or service. What I covered in part 1 should give you a firm starting point in blog design for beginners. I covered many questions that you should ask yourself when you begin to think about how your blog will look and function, as well as the purpose of your blog. But when you’re new to blog design, it can be overwhelming and can leave you confused at times. And when we are confused, we’re less likely to follow through. But you want to have a successful Online business with a blog that gives you credibility and authority, right? So, in order to help you do that, I’m going to share some resources for taking the basics of blog design and expanding on them. The tools and resources provided here will be a companion to blog design theory from part 1. You’re not going to want to miss these resources, they are some of the best on the Internet! Please note that some links are affiliate links (as noted by hovering over the link) and simply give us credit for referring you. So let’s get right into some awesome resources…

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Blog Design For New Blogs and Internet Businesses, Part 1

Posted by Scott in Blogging, Scott on January 6, 2010 | 2 comments

Our efforts continue to figure out what we want our blogs to look like. Do we want a two- or three-column blog? Slick or muted graphics? Textured, 3D look or subtle and spacious? And then there’s the color scheme to consider. Do we take the time to learn about blog design so we can do everything ourselves or do we get help?

Tammy and I are weighing out these choices carefully. The process is made tougher when we see these really slick-looking sites with neat, flashy graphic things going on where the graphics just seem to burst to life on the computer screen and dazzle the imagination. We do so enjoy the creative talent that goes into designing these one-of-a-kind blogs. It grabs our attention and then we start blissfully spinning out of control.

Eventually, we come to our senses again and put our feet back on the ground and pull our thinking caps back onto our feeble and overwhelmed heads. So what are we actually considering when making these choices for our own individual blogs? I’ll share with you some of what we’re thinking about as we’re going through this process. This is, by no means, comprehensive, but it’s a place to start, especially when you’re just getting started. This post will cover some of the basics of blog design. First, I’ll talk about the marriage between your audience and the purpose of your blog. Who are the people you want to find your blog and what interest or need has brought them to your blog? Next, I’ll talk about visual communication. What is the unspoken message you want your blog to convey to your readers when they arrive? What is the first impression you want to create in the minds of your readers and how do you create it?  I’ll conclude by giving you a collection of great resources for more education and tools for help with blog design. So, let’s get started…

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Blog Makeover for $100 until November 13

Posted by Tammy in Blogging, Tammy, Web Candy on November 10, 2009 | 2 comments

In my web wanderings this week, I ran across this limited time offer on blog customization. If your blog needs a new theme, customization, or an overall facelift, this could be an affordable way to get what you need. If we had the extra cash right now, I’d be tempted to jump on this offer simply because our blog is making my eyeballs jiggle right now. More about that in a minute…

What’s the Deal?

Inspired Design Studio is offering a special this week on installation and customization. The special offer includes the installation of your choice of any theme offered at Studio Press Themes. There are some nice-looking Magazine style themes there. My guess is that the $100 offer from Inspired Design Studio does not include the theme itself. In other words, you buy the theme and then pay $100 for the install and customization.

Edit: Thanks to Bridgett for the details. The $100 does include the blog theme. Which makes this an even sweeter deal!

Head over to the blog at Inspired Design Studio for all the details. There you can see what’s included in the offer, and check out some sample work from Inspired Design.

I think our blog needs either an attitude adjustment or an exorcism, as it seems to be possessed lately. Among other things, it has decided to randomly apply formatting here and there just to give us that periodic reminder that we are not Wordpress wizards. Yeah, we get that. So, if you visit the Quitters blog and the entire home page is in bold print or something odd like that, just throw some holy water on your screen and bear with us while we try to sort it out.

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Four Wordpress Themes You Shoudn’t Miss

Posted by Tammy in Blogging, General, Tammy on November 5, 2009 | 30 comments

If you’ve been following along lately, you know that Scott and I are working on establishing our own internet businesses. We’ll both be starting new blogs as part of the business model, and this week we’ve been spending a lot of time looking for that perfect WordPress theme. In this post, we’ll show you our “short list” of themes we’re considering for our business blogs – and we’d love to hear opinions from any of you who have used any of these themes. We’re probably going to be making our final decision this week.

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Will the New FTC Guidelines Affect Your Business Practices?

Posted by Tammy in Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, General, Tammy on October 19, 2009 | 3 comments

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finalized their guidelines regarding testimonials and endorsements in advertising. In case you haven’t heard about it yet, there is a summary of the FTC changes on the FTC’s website, and a good article by Lynn Terry at ClickNewz.com. Will these changes have any affect on your business practices? Well, it may change the way a lot of people approach affiliate marketing and advertising in general. My favorite thing about the changes? Those annoying ads that say something like…

”Joe Schmo took this amazing pill and lost an amazing 216 pounds in just one month, and so can you!”

Of course, the claim is always followed (in teeny-tiny print) by “results not typical.” Duh.

According to the new FTC guidelines, advertisers get no more “safe harbor” just by including the “results not typical” disclaimer. They will now have to actually tell the consumer what are the typical results. Nice.

If you are into blogging, advertising, affiliate marketing, selling, etc, etc – make sure you take a look at the guidelines to see if it will affect your business.

Will the new FTC rules have any impact on the way you do business?

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Web Candy: How to Get Your Blog to 100,000 Visitors and Beyond

Posted by Scott in Blogging, Planning, Scott, Web Candy on August 30, 2009 | 4 comments

I ran across the Free Money Finance blog a while back. It’s a great blog with super content about money and finance. But what really caught my attention was a specific series of posts that, at first, didn’t seem related to money or fiscal awareness. The title of the series is “How to Get Your Blog to 100,000 Visitors and Beyond”. If that title isn’t an attention-getter, I don’t know what is. The suggestions found in this post are essential to creating a blog and driving traffic to it. The series spans 22 blog posts that range from selecting a SEO-friendly domain name, to networking for greater exposure and many topics in between. There are a multitude of useful links across all the posts and each topic builds what is, to me, a one-stop resource for anyone who wants to build a traffic-friendly blog. Read the rest of this entry »

Web Candy: Windows Live Writer

Posted by Tammy in Blogging, Tammy, Web Candy on April 18, 2009 | 1 comment

Scott and I use Wordpress for our blog. While it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to accomplish the basics with Wordpress, there’s still plenty to learn if you’re new to blogging. If you’re not a seasoned pro with your blogging platform, you may find that it takes you twice as long to tweak the “details” of your post as it does to actually write the content. One thing we’ve struggled with – until recently – is adding photos and things like Twitter badges to our blog. Yeah, it can be done. But for me, it was way too time-consuming doing it from within Wordpress. And God help me if I needed to move anything around or change anything.

I don’t do code. I do drag-and-drop. I could learn how to do code, but I’d kinda’ rather punch myself in the mouth. I’m also about the furthest thing from a Wordpress Guru you’re likely to find.

So, you probably noticed that our blog started out with no photos and now just about every post is dressed up with some kind of picture. Well, that’s because I found a very simple program that has made the blogging process a little simpler and less time-consuming, and it makes inserting pictures easier than falling off a log.

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31 Days to Building a Better Blog: UPDATE

Posted by Tammy in Blogging, Tammy on March 31, 2009 | no comments

Read the original post about the ProBlogger challenge HERE

Just got an email from Darren Rowse at ProBlogger. The start of “31 Days to Building a Better Blog” challenge has been delayed one week. The original start date was set for April 1st. The new start date is April 6th. Here’s more news from Darren’s email:

Forums are coming

As I wrote on ProBlogger last week I’ve decided to make this year’s #31DBBB more interactive with the introduction of a forum area exclusively for signed up members (that’s you).

My hope is that in doing so this will become a much more communal experience for everyone involved. Together we can achieve a lot in the 31 days!
I’ll be in touch with details of how to access the forums in the days before we start.

Darren reports that there are currently over 6500 people registered for the Challenge. Are you one of them? If not, don’t miss out. Go HERE and register before APRIL 6.

Improve Your Blog in April

Posted by Tammy in Blogging, Tammy on March 27, 2009 | no comments

I’ve written before about the ProBlogger blog and the massive pile of awesomeness you can find there. Have you checked it out yet? If not, now’s the time. Beginning April 1st, Darren Rowse (Mr. ProBlogger dude himself) will be starting a project called (Drumroll, please)…

31 Days to Build a Better Blog

What the hell is that all about? Well, Darren promises this isn’t an April Fool’s joke, because well, that just wouldn’t be funny. He’s done this twice before and from what I understand it’s been a pretty successful gig. Each day beginning April 1st, there will be a big fat juicy post for you at ProBlogger that will consist of a teaching component and something for you to do on/for/to your blog. The focus is on doing something to improve your blog. So, if you’ve been feeling like you need to do something, but you don’t have a clue what that something is, or how to do that something, then this 31-day thingy just might be the something you need to get your blogroove on. And best of all, it won’t cost you a penny. But wait…

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