How tos

Oct

How are you using tags on your blog?

So we’ve touched on 15 must-have items for a blog post and in this list I mention categories and tags. It’s one of the elements that got the most questions and I’m going to break down how I use and think about Categories vs Tags when it comes to WordPress blogs. (Note that blogger/blogspot blogs are set up differently.)

I like to use the analogy of a book. Categories are like chapters of the book – the main breakdown on the blog’s topics. Tags on the other hand, are like the book’s index in the back – crossing multiple categories.

For example, if I write a post about Easter Dinner Menu Plan I might place it in the Meal Plans category, but the tag will be “Easter”. Then when I’m writing about the latest Easter Hat Fashions, I’ll put that post in the Fashion and Style category, but still include the tag “Easter”. When I write about how to dye your own eggs it’ll go in “Crafts and DIY” but the tag will be “Easter”.

A reader who wants to see only crafts will go to the craft category, but someone who wants to see EVERYTHING you wrote about Easter can click the Easter tag and immediately see every post on your blog related to Easter – regardless of which topic category you place the post in.

Are Tags Still Important for SEO?

Not so much, no. But good tags make it easy for readers to find their way around your site. AND good tags make it easy for you to direct readers to content types on your site. For example, on Blissfully Domestic I set up tags for baby crafts and within the various articles I can now say “Visit all our baby craft ideas for more DIY tips!” and link readers to all the infant-related craft posts.

But Google isn’t likely to direct very much search engine traffic to the tag page vs a post or page so in that regard, tags aren’t as important. What I have found is that tags help me mentally stay on track with a post. And I use the keyword research tags to help me focus my posts.

Sep

15 Tips to Cover Before Publishing Your Post

By AngEngland | How tos

20 Comments

Keep a checklist in mind before publishing.

Sometimes it’s easy to get so excited about a blog post that we click that Publish button before we’ve really maximized the potential of the post. These 15 things to check before you publish a new post will help you “score” yourself before you turn that blog post loose in the world.

1. Does Your Post Cover One Topic

Your blog post should one specific topic. And that’s it. If your blog post covers three different topics; your homemade pizza recipe, what your neighbor said to you earlier, and your kids’ soccer game, then you should actually have three different blog posts. This will help naturally improve the SEO performance of your blog.

2. Clear and Concise Title

With more and more sites being accessed via mobile units, your titles need to be more clear and concise than ever before. While Google.com search results show 60-something characters of the title, on a mobile phone or tablet only 30-something characters may be visible to the reader. Make them count!

3. Did You Include a Photo?

Pictures are key for a blog post to help capture reader attention and give them something to share. Have you noticed how pinterest, stumble-upon, facebook sharing, etc all include a thumbnail or photo from the post? People are visual – give them a visual!

4. Include Links to Your Other, Relevant Posts

Did you add links to other blog posts that are relevant to a keyword phrase in your post? It doesn’t have to be related to THIS specific post. For example, in #1 you’ll notice I’ve linked the words “SEO performance of your blog” to a post about improving blog SEO. Even though that post isn’t really about what to check before publishing your post, the way this one is, the link is still relevant.

5. Did You Check the Appropriate Category?

You do have relevant, keyword rich categories for your blog right? Like chapters of a book – they should tell what topics you’re covering on your website. Don’t be cute here – be specific. And put your post in the right category to help future readers find it.

6. Add Relevant Tags to Your Post

This helps serve as a blog “index” of sorts, pulling together similar posts from across more than one category. Tags also help your SEO in an organic, reader-friendly way.

7. Add Links to Outside Sources When Appropriate

Google is getting smarter and smarter – outgoing links won’t kill your blog or page rank. In fact, linking to high-quality posts and articles when relevant shows Google you know what you’re talking about. And encourages others to link to you. If you mention another blog, are inspired by a particular post, or reference someone else’s article, you should be linking to it. (Ditto the same with photo attributions when necessary.)

8. Did you SEO Your Images?

By this I mean – did you maximize your SEO potential with your images? Your image titles, alt text, description and caption should all be relevant to your post. Google can’t view your image so it relies on these other factors to determine what the picture is about.

9. Is Your Post Complete?

If it’s the “Ultimate Guide” to something, but you only include five items, your readers are not likely to share it. In fact, they may feel cheated. Just as in #1 I stressed the importance of covering just one topic, you should also make sure that the topic is thoroughly covered. I recently published a post about ten tips to success with affiliate sales. It’s a LONG post – longer than my average. But it covers the material thoroughly and I’m still getting emails thanking me for the post.

10. Call to Action

Do you include a call to action? A question someone can answer in the comments? Suggestions to purchase your ebook or subsribe to your newsletter? Or even a simple “Did you like this post? Please stumble it or share it on Facebook.” which can improve the shares on your post.

11. Read Your Post Aloud

No really. Sit at your computer and read your post out loud to yourself before you publish. Preferably AFTER you’ve stepped away from the post for a few minutes. You’ll be amazed at the things you suddenly see that you didn’t notice when you were writing the post.

12. Take Notes for Future Posts

Oftentimes when I’m working on one blog post, I’ll find myself inspired to create another one. For example, when working on this post I realized I never really covered Categories and Tags yet. So I’ve made a note to discuss them in a future blog post. Write down your ideas! I cannot say this enough. Write them down! These brainstormed blog post ideas are highly valuable!

13. Do You Have Reader-Friendly Formatting on Your Post?

Bold. Lists. Quotes. Numbers and Bullets. Images. These things all contribute to create a reader-friendly experience on your blog. Shorten your paragraphs. Tighten your copy. Make it easy to scan and browse in a variety of digital formats.

14. Check Grammar Basics

Spelling. Punctuation. These things are basic building blocks of the English language, and while no one expects you to be a master builder (unless you’re blogging about grammar) you should have the basics covered. Like loose and lose. And write, right and rite.

15. Preview Your Post and Check Everything Out

Do all your links work? Did your formatting show up right? Are your images visible and not bleeding into your sidebar? These simple checks are so important to the reader experience. How often have you visited a blog post you saw being tweeted and been disappointed by a lack-luster post? Don’t be that person to your followers – make your post worth the click.

Jul

Get Two Year’s Worth of Blog Ideas

By AngEngland | How tos

6 Comments

At the beginning of the year I wrote about how bloggers can use editorial calendars, and in that post I mentioned a free resource from Blog Energizer. Since then I’ve been subscribed to their monthly blog idea membership program. I’d often wished I could go back and get the past ideas and have more than one month at a time.

The monthly subscription part of Blog Energizer is not going to be offered any longer and instead they are doing a one-time charge of $37 for access to the past two year’s worth of prompts. What I love is that you aren’t just getting 30 days worth of general ideas, but actually THREE sets of PDF files per month – one for health and fitness, one for family and home, and one for business and finance.

So it’s almost like 6 years worth of ideas! Or at least – ideas for several different blogs or situations. So nice. Plus with this one-time offer, I got a very cool blog prompt plugin, and access to 20 premium wordpress themes. I haven’t check out the themes yet, and ya’all know I usually go with Headway or Genesis for all my websites now. But hey – free themes are free themes and you better believe I downloaded them.

The offer ends on the 31st and then it’s gone. So if this is something that sounds of interest to you, check out the going away special today.

Jun

How and Why to Add the Google Plus One 1+ Button To Your Blog

By AngEngland | How tos

7 Comments

While this screen cast specifically shows how I installed this button on a Genesis site, you can easily adapt to most premium themes and simple hooks or easy hooks systems.

Benefits of the Google Plus One 1+ Button

For SEO purposes I think that the Google Plus One button will be beneficial for website owners and bloggers – especially bloggers who have some built in community that will naturally participate in the clicking of buttons and things. If you tend to get a fair amount of Facebook Likes/Shares or Retweets on a post, you should definitely see results with this new Google 1+ Button.

What we know is that the activity on the Plus One Button will effect search engine results and placements. What we don’t know just yet, is how. As with all things Google.

I do feel that visually, a post that may fall in third or fourth results, but is showing recommendations via the 1+ button, will be more likely to get organic searchers clicking through to the site than a third or fourth place result would otherwise see.

How to Install the Google Plus One Button

I’ve seen the button with a site-wide place somewhere like a sidebar, header or footer. And I’ve also seen the button placed at the top and at the bottom of posts. After testing the placement with my brilliant technical friend, Erica Mueller, we found that placing the button in a site-wide location like header or sidebar is much more limiting. You should place the button where your readers and click on more than one individual post, bettering your search engine results for your entire website.

Get your Plus One Button Code from Google Webmasters tools. The top part of the code does in your header script section. Most premium themes have an area specifically designed for adding script codes like this very easily – on the screencast I show you a Genesis Theme.

The second part of the code goes where ever you want to place it on your website. In this case I am testing the button showing up just under/after the title of the posts. Using Simple Hooks for Genesis plug in made it very easy to install the code without having to edit anything outside of the back dashboard. Most premium themes have hooks available – one of many reasons why I recommend using a premium theme.

Here is the full screen cast to see step-by-step how to install your Google Plus One Button.

If you find it helpful, give it a 1+!

Mar

How to Align Images in a WordPress Post Video

By AngEngland | How tos

Use the Image Edit Screen

Click on the image once it’s been uploaded to bring up the Image Edit screen. Use Center when you want the image be displayed front and center. By selecting Left or Right alignment, you’ll have the text wrapped around the image.

Other Image Editing Options

You can also use this screen to add a URL to the image (this is great for affiliate links). I also use this screen to check the image title, alt text and captions to make sure that I have keyword phrases there. This will increase the SEO friendliness of my post overall with keywords in these “hidden” locations.

Images can effect both post SEO and the reader friendliness of your posts so use them wisely in your blog posts to maximize your blog’s effects!

Mar

What do I do if Someone Steals my Blog Content?

By AngEngland | How tos

22 Comments

As we’ve seen, catching a plagiarist is not overly difficult. The tough part can come from knowing what to do next. Once you’ve found your blog post or article copied on someone else’s site, how should you handle it?

Email or Leave a Comment for the Content Thief First

Sometimes a blog or website owner is ignorant of copyright laws. There seems to be a misguided belief out there that goes something like “If it’s online, it’s free”. Which of course is not at all true but some people don’t quite understand that. So I tend to start with a firm but polite email that goes something like this:

“Hello! I noticed you enjoyed my article on lavender essential oils however this article is copyright protected and cannot be republished elsewhere. I am available to write an original article for you for $75 per post if you are interested. Either way, this article needs to be removed within 48 hours. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Blessings, Angela <><”

Things to Include When Contacting Content Thieves

I always include a link to my original post to prove copyright ownership. If it’s a post that I’m willing to allow to be reprinted I’ll add a sentence after the second sentence that says, “The reprint fee for this article is $150 if you’d like to keep this article on your site. I’m also available to write an original article for you…..”

Be sure that your request for them to remove the article is NOT a negotiable statement or question. “Would you mind taking it down?” is not a request, it’s a question. Which the content thief could answer with a “yes I mind taking it down” and they’ve answered your question. So be sure you’ve actually said, “I need you to take my article down” or else you’ve never actually requested your article to be removed.

What Happens if They Don’t Take Your Article Down?

If the person who stole your article or website post doesn’t take your post down within the alloted time frame you need to move on to a DMCA complaint. This is a serious thing and should result in the plagiarist being de-indexed from Google as though that post doesn’t even exist – protecting your hard work and blogging efforts. You can file a DMCA with Google here.

I also will contact the advertising networks, hosting companies and domain registrars if there is no response. And I track down an email address (WHOIS is a good resource) and send invoices via Paypal. Usually what happens is I get ignored and then they get the invoice from me and take down the article.

Do Content Thieves Ever Actually Pay?

Yes. Usually 3 out of 10 people will apologize and take the post down, pleading ignorance of the laws. An additional 2 out of 10 will take down the post after first contact but never say anything to me. 3 out of 10 will wait until I send an invoice and THEN take it down without comment. 1 out of 10 requires a formal DMCA before taking action and about 1 out of 10 will either pay the reprint fee or hire me to write a replacement article for them.

Feb

How to Find Plagiarized Content Using Google Alerts

By AngEngland | How tos

19 Comments

How to Search for Stolen Content - Photo by Joana Croft

I love Google Alerts to find out when someone has stolen my content. It’s a great tool that is completely free and will warn you when someone copies your articles. But in order to be useful for catching plagiarists and content thieves, you have to set up your Google Alert properly.

Using Vanity Google Alerts for Name and Blog

It’s common for bloggers and those active in the social media arena to use Google Alerts for what are known as “vanity alerts”. This means the blogger creates Google Alerts to search for their name, and their blog name. For example my vanity alerts search for AngEngland, Angela England and Untrained Housewife (which yields some interesting results by the way).

Creating Google Alerts to Catch Stolen Blog Posts

When you create a google alert to monitor your content you want to set them up a little differently. Take a unique sentence from your blog post or article and make THAT statement your search parameter.

BUT (here’s the really important part) be sure to use quotation marks around the unique sentence or you’ll get total spam and unrelated results. So for example, if I were creating a google alert for this post I would put a unique sentence from the middle of the post in quotes and it would look like this: “For example my vanity alerts search for AngEngland, Angela England and Untrained Housewife (which yields some interesting results by the way).”

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1-Take your sentence from the middle or middle-end of the post. Content thieves will often rewrite the title and intro paragraph and then cut and paste everything else over.

2-Search everything – News, blog posts, etc so you can catch plagiarism of your content in any location. I’ve found my articles published on college websites, customer newsletters, EBay sales pages….everywhere.

3-Don’t forget to use quotation marks so the search results will yield exact matches only. This will prevent your inbox from being flooded.

4-Once you’ve created your Google Alert, search Google.com using that same sentence IN QUOTATION MARKS to catch any current theft (this would apply to posts more than an hour old) since google alerts will only catch additional plagiarism moving forward from the time you create the alert.

Using google alerts can be a great way to monitor your blog posts for stolen content and help you fight plagiarism of your work. It’s an epidemic but there’s a lot you can do to stop thieves in their tracks. Tomorrow I’ll post how to handle things when you’ve found someone has taken your blog post or article.

Feb

Adding Heading Tag Subtitles to a WordPress Post

By AngEngland | How tos

4 Comments

I was helping a client with her website and she didn’t know how to add Htag Headings to her posts subtitles so I realized that more people might now know how to do that either. This screen cast will show you how.

Using the Show/Hide kitchen sink icon to display ALL the available editing choices. I use the options of the drop down menu for Headings mainly, but some of the other stylistic choices can come in handy depending on what you’re trying to write about. For example, I’ve used the Address formatting to display song lyrics or poems.

Subtitles created using the H tags or Heading HTML can really help improve your basic blogging SEO and simultaneously make things easier for readers who want to follow along. In this case it’s a total win/win with almost no reason not to. Instead of making bold sentences for your main points, try switching to Headings instead.

As you can see from the WordPress Training tutorial it takes almost no time at all, and will make your post much more search-engine friendly.

Dec

How to Add Niche Newsletter Autoresponders Using Mailchimp

By AngEngland | Community, How tos

1 Comment

This screencast will cover how to create targeted autoresponder newsletters for your subscribers via Mailchimp. I love mailchimp because you can start out at a free level while building up your newsletter subscribers. I only wish that I had set up a newsletter for my websites much (MUCH!) sooner. Do not make my mistake – go to Mailchimp and get an account for your blog immediately.

Why Use Autoresponder Newsletters For Your Readers?

In the screencast video you’ll see step-by-step one way I might set up an autoresponder for the niche topic newsletters I’m just creating for Untrained Housewife – in this case, Menu Planning, Recipes and Meal Prep. It’s a good way to include affiliate links while providing GREAT content for your subscribers: I’ll be highlighting archived articles that might otherwise be overlooked and be able to group similarly themed articles written by multiple contributors (in this case when I finished polishing I pointed readers to three pizza-related articles on Untrained Housewife). I will also be including lots of newsletter-only content.

Steps to Creating An Autoresponder in Mailchimp

1. Log in and click on the Autoresponder tab in your Mailchimp dashboard.

2. Click “Add Autoresponder” and Title your autoresponder. This is the title YOU will see, not any of the people on your list.

3. Once you’ve created your autoresponder, create the email (use the quick links under your newly created title)

4. Select the group or list segment you want the autoresponder to go to. In this case, I’m selecting specific list segments based on who signed up for the additional resources group on the Untrained Housewife newsletter subscription page.

5. Select the template or create your email and enter your specific copy. In this case I found a couple other articles about pizza and made the content section bigger so it’s balanced with the sidebar ad.

6. (not shown on the video) Click NEXT just above the editing screen. Click Copy from HTML. This creates a plain text version of the newsletter or autoresponder so that people who request plain text emails will still get the mailing.

7. Keep clicking next and double check that everything is how you want it. Watch your reply to email in case you want a different email than the one you signed up with. Click START AUTORESPONDER (see orange button in image) and your autoresponder will “turn on” and be ready to mail out as soon as the selected parameters are met. In this case – as soon as a subscriber reaches their 60th day, viola (!) this email will appear in their inbox!

Affiliate Programs I’ve Used

Linkshare is the affiliate program I demonstrated in this screencast. It’s easy to use and has a wide variety of advertisers involved. This and Share-A-Sale are the two I’m now using most frequently.

Commision Junction is another one I’ve used with fair success.

Share-A-Sale is something I’ve recently joined when I joined the Headway Themes affiliate program (the theme I have on Untrained Housewife) and I’ve had very good success through them so far. Better than any of the other programs I’ve tried, although the Share-A-Sale site is a bit harder to navigate than Linkshare.

ClickBank has a lot of digital products, but didn’t work as well in my own experiences.

Note that some links in this post may be affiliate links.

Sep

Interlinking and Crosslinking for SEO to Increase Rankings

By AngEngland | How tos, SEO Tips

9 Comments

This is a training I recorded for Blissfully Domestic and Untrained Housewife but I hope that many of you are able to benefit. Interlinking and cross-linking (what I call linking across multiple websites) can hugely benefit bloggers and web writers and I’ve given a few examples in my screencast below that you may find helpful.

Writing for multiple websites can be a challenge but there are benefits. When Google May-Day hit I found that Untrained Housewife traffic did not suffer at all, in fact increased slightly, while other websites were shaken up.

In researching some possibilities with a few good friends who are STARS with the SEO stuff, we concluded that linking in from multiple websites really matters more than ever. And interlinking to specific posts – not just main homepages. How does it work? Here I demonstrate two main ways to interlink around the web.