5 Remarkable Resources on Building a Better Blog Today I’ve got 5 resources about building websites that you’ve got to check out. The true cost of entrepreneurship (what your friends and family will never understand) 5 steps to building a better blog (an oldie, but did you finish all 5 steps yet?) The dirty little words that prevent your readers from buying whatever it is you’re selling (I call them wallet-closing words). A remarkable, high-converting feature box download (for Thesis users) 3 beautiful website designs that use Thesis (for design inspiration) Plus, I need your opinion… 5 Resources on Building a Better Blog First, let’s start with the resources: 1. When you begin building a web-based business, your friends will think life is great. (Note, I want you to pay close attention to some of the comments on this article. 2. 5 steps to building a better blog We published this article on DIYthemes a few weeks back, but today I want to check in with you. 3. 4. By now you know I love the Feature Box, so I’ll spare you the “selling.” 1.
Disable wpautop Plugin A simple plugin to disable the WordPress wpautop function. This is the function that automatically formats your posts. Installation Installation is just like any WordPress plugin: Download disable-wpautopUnzipUpload to /wp-content/plugins on your serverActivate the plugin You can find full details of installing a plugin on the plugin installation page. If you find that breaks (<br/>) are being stripped from your posts then look at this WordPress support page. Like this: Like Loading...
Recommended Blogging Resources I am regularly asked for recommendations on different tools, training, resources and services available to blogging. People particularly want to know what tools I use to run my blogs. As a result I’ve put together a list of recommended blogging resources that I’ve either personally used (in most cases) or which have come highly recommended to me by people I trust. I will add to these lists as I come across new blogging resources that I recommend. Blog Platforms WordPress My recommendation for blogging platforms is pretty clear – WordPress.org. A couple of other platforms exist of course including: WordPress.com – a free hosted blogging platformBlogger – another free hosted option – owned by Google Recommended Reading: Choosing a Blog Platform Hosting There are many hosting services available for bloggers. If you’re just starting out or have a smaller blog I highly recommend you check out BlueHost who have put together a special discount offer for ProBlogger readers. Blog Design/Themes
Press It Languages: English • ไทย • (Add your language) Note: This feature was removed from WordPress 2.5, and was replaced in WordPress 2.6 with the Press This function. You are pouring over your feeds, viewing a website with an article or story that catches your eye, and you want to share that information with your WordPress site viewers. A quick trick is to use the WordPress Press It feature. WordPress makes it easy to quickly add links and information to your site through the use of a bookmarklet called Press It. If you find something of interest on the Internet, you can click the Press It link and a window with your site's Administration Write Post panel will popup with the page you are viewing listed as a link. The Press It bookmarklet is found at the bottom of the Write Posts panel. Favorites, Bookmarks, or Links list or toolbar. To activate, simply click on the "Press It" bookmarklet link. The link is Javascript, and its form is: Give it a try.
Alt Design Summit - Blog - Great Blog Resources Every Blogger Should Know Alt Summit Blogging Goodness in SLC, and now Online! Altitude Summit is your definitive resource for the very serious business of beautiful, brilliant blogging. A community of exciting, creative thinkers and entrepreneurs, Altitude Summit is a workshop with all your closest friends, and friends-to-be! Did we mention the Altitude Summit in SLC from January 22-25, 2014 and in SF on July 18, 2013. We’ve convened the absolute bee’s knees of lifestyle bloggers to discuss how to build, brand and beautify your site.
CSS WordPress relies heavily on the presentation styles within CSS. With the use of Themes, you have an almost infinite choice of layout options. WordPress Themes make it easy to change your website look, and open up the field to help you create your own Theme and page layout. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. This article briefly describes the use of CSS in WordPress, and lists some references for further information. WordPress and CSS WordPress Themes use a combination of template files, template tags, and CSS files to generate your WordPress site's look. Template Files Template files are the building blocks which come together to create your site. Template Tags Template tags are the bits of code which provide instructions and requests for information stored within the WordPress database. Stylesheet The CSS file is where it all comes together. WordPress Generated Classes The same classes are used to align images that have a caption (as of WordPress 2.6). Templates and CSS CSS Resources
Blog Resources This resource list puts together a very good group of WordPress centric blogs that don’t quite fit into one specific niche. Many of them discuss development, design, news, and tutorials. Be sure to check them out and see which one becomes your favorite! WPForce News, Themes, Plugins and Hacks. WP Mayor Resources, news, and a job board. Code Poet Loads of resources and interviews. WPHub Top quality resources all in one place. WPExplorer Themes, plugins and more! WPSnipp Code snippets for every area of WordPress. Yoast Reviews, Hosting and Plugins. WPEngine Interviews, hosting and WordPress news. WPKube News, themes, plugins and more WordPress goodness. Bill Erickson Tips and tricks from a WordPress consultant. Paulund Tutorials, snippets and other helpful resources. Got any more that we missed? And if there are any that are outdated or that no longer publish consistently then please let us know as well. Like this: Like Loading...
WORDPRESS GOD: 300+ Tools for Running Your WordPress Blog As one of the leading open source blogging platforms, WordPress has inspired hundreds (if not thousands) of plugins and tools to customize your blog. In this article, we've compiled a list of more than 300 of our favorites. This information is compiled from previous Mashable articles. If you enjoy this post, also see ONLINE MEDIA GOD and ONLINE PRODUCTIVITY GOD. For the blogger AjaxWP - Adds AJAX to all aspects of your WordPress site, which speeds up the load times. Alexa Rank - Display your Alexa rank with pride. Ajax Comment Preview - Allows readers to preview their comment before submitting. asTunes - Retrieves data from your Audioscrobbler/last.fm profile and posts it as a list on your blog. Codebox - Creates a side scrolling box for displaying code snippets. Crossroads - Adds thumbnails and comments from your Flickr account. FireStats - Full featured statistics including referrers and popular pages. Google PageRank - Allows you to display your Google Page Rank on your blog. For your readers
Best Resources To Start Your Blog Or Website Hello everyone, my name is Tyler. I have been helping Kari with the many technical details of starting and running GI 365 | Gourmet Innovations. We’ve had many questions already about how we built our blog. There are so many different products and services to choose from, that it can be overwhelming when you’re trying to get started with your blog or website. Disclaimer – Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. Index Domain Name A domain name is like a personal address to your website. Web Hosting Service What is a host? Bluehost Bluehost is probably one of the best hosting service providers you could have for any small – medium size blog or website. You can read more about their features at – Why Choose Bluehost? Media Temple We are currently using Media Temple as our host because we are a WordPress Multisite which requires more online space. *Update* – May 13, 2013 So, “the proof is in the pudding” ; this saying sure is applicable here. Before Media Temple WP Engine WordPress
Business Blog Marketing Hub Business Blog Marketing Hub What is Inbound Marketing Software? Learn how HubSpot can help turn your business into an inbound marketing machine . Tools for Finding Blogs Google Blog Search Technorati Tools for Reading Blogs Bloglines FeedDemon Google Reader NetNewsWire Tools for Writing Blogs Blogger HubSpot Movable Type TypePad WordPress Tools for Measuring Blogs Alexa Compete Comscore Technorati Blog Grader Top Blogs About Blogging Blogtrepreneur Copyblogger Daily Blog Tips Lorelle on Wordpress Problogger Comprehensive Business Blog Resources If you want to get found online, a business blog is a great way to produce ongoing, fresh and remarkable content to improve your search engine rankings. Featured Business Blog | Blog Articles Why Blog? Best Practices: Image Help: Content Ideas: Promotion: Metrics: Business Blog Kit Blogging for Business Marketing Kit Business Blog Webinars NEW! Blogging for Business 5 Tips for Advanced B2B Business Blogging How to Blog Effectively for Business (via IMU ) Grade Your Blog
15 Resources for Pro Bloggers (or Those Who Want to Be) I get asked every week about the various resources I am using. Last week, a blogger asked about my podcast equipment. Another asked about the productivity apps I am using on my Mac. Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/jfmdesign So, I thought I’d write a series of posts on these resources, devoting one post to each category. Here are my fifteen go-to resources: WordPress. SnagIt. I am constantly trying out new tools. Questions: What resources have I missed? Prefer to own your data? Here are some alternatives to Google Analytics - iwantmyname Domain Blog Google Analytics has become somewhat of the tool of choice for most people who run their own website . After all, it's free, and what's better than free, right? You're always giving something in exchange for Google offering a service for "free" and in this case, that's data on your website. There are some great alternatives out there that many aren't aware of so we've made a short roundup of the ones we liked most. Think of Clicky as Google Analytics' slightly worse looking cousin. Clicky features real-time statistics, Twitter monitoring, a Wordpress plugin as well as an iPhone application . Clicky is a hosted solution, so has a few price tiers as well as a free version. To sign up for Clicky , visit their website. This is a self-hosted Google Analytics solution and comes from the same developer as the very inspiring Google Reader alternative, Fever . The basic functionality can be extended upon with their "Peppers" which are 3rd-party developed tools that extend the platform.
8 Alternatives to Google Analytics | Venveo Ever since Google Analytics launched back in 2005 it has empowered us to track almost every aspect of how our visitors interact on our sites. Google Analytics was not the first organization to offer free site performance tracking but their ability to pair this technology with their popular advertising platform AdWords instantaneously made them the 800 pound gorilla for online analytics. I've attempted to outline a couple alternatives and why you might want to choose them over (or in addition to) to Google Analytics. In Conclusion I think there are some really great players in the analytics industry other than Google Analytics. What they all can do well is measure trends for your website, and if you look at trends over time, you should notice more similarities than differences. What other alternatives to Google Analytics are our there that might be better?
25 Free Google Analytics Alternatives In my last post, I had a little rant about the Google Analytics Opt-out add-on. Obviously, I am a little disappointed in the direction, but I have a general rule that I like to live by, “Don’t just complain about the problem, give me a solution.” There is an inherent difficulty of providing timely content and following this rule in the same post. First, let’s get some basics covered. Below is the list of the free web analytics services that I found so far. UPDATE* Some other tools are already being added! Log File Analyzers Log file analyzers are the original analytics tools and summarize activity based on the http web logs. Analog – Their own description says it best: “The most popular logfile analyser in the world. AWStats – This is one of the oldest products available. Deep Log Analyzer – This is a freemium tool that has a solid set of basic reports. GoingUp – Free log file analysis tool and a whole bunch of other tools. JAWStats – Free and open source companion to AWStats. Yahoo!