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How Do I Get A Unique Design For My Blog?

December 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Question: How do I get a unique design for my blog without paying a lot of money?

Many people start off writing a blog because of “easy money” and the allure of making money online and avoiding the day-to-day struggles in the corporate world.  But make no mistake, deciding to make a living from a blog is just as intense as starting a traditional business.  The good news is you don’t have to jump in all at once, you can ease into it and grow.

For a traditional franchise, you would look at a franchise fee and then a start-up fee, many times in excess of $250,000 and up.  By thinking of a blog as a business, you will soon realize that having a good-looking, professional blog is definitely worth $500-$5,000 for a unique design.

But if you are just getting started, and want a unique look without the unique price, there are templates available for wordpress and other popular blogging platforms that are pre-made, and available to purchase.

These templates usually come “out of the box” ready to upload to your site, but you can also customize them to meet your needs.  In fact, the templates featured here on asktheblogger.com over the years were purchased and modified.  Paying a designer or company to customized a WordPress template is most of the time a lot cheaper than commissioning one from scratch.

The following are some of the most popular template sites:

Templatic

Templatic hosts a wealth of Premium WordPress themes, including the popular Consultant theme popular with many bloggers and speakers.  You can purchase themes either one-by-one or the entire suite of themes for $299.
Templatic Premium WordPress Themes

Studiopress

Studiopress templates are not only premium WordPress themes, but an entire framework as well.  Their templates are built on the framework called Genesis and are easily customizable.  You can purchase themes one by one, as well as an entire developer package with an unlimited license for $249.
Get Genesis with StudioPress

Template Monster

Template Monster is one of the oldest and largest HTML and WordPress theme galleries around.  They also have themes for just about every web application/CMS you can think of.  You can spend hours going through the themes.  Their themes are available for download and use, and you can pay a premium to remove it from the sale to the general public and make it exclusively yours. (except for the ones that have already been downloaded of course.)
View Template Monster Themes

Be sure to read the terms and conditions of themes and templates before you buy.  Template right vary to one-time installations to developer (multiple) installations.

Check back soon for a guide to custom WordPress developers.

Filed Under: Blog Software, Blogging, Wordpress, Wordpress Templates

How Can I Blog On My iPad?

December 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Blogging on your iPad can be done in several different ways. The three basic ways to blog from your iPad include using Safari to open up your blog through the web browser, using the WordPress app (if you are on a hosted or standalone wordpress app) or using your blogs email features to write a blog post through email.

The most common way to write a blog post is to use Safari to simply open up your blog’s control panel like you normally would do on a computer with Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer or any other browser. You can access all the functions of your blogging platform through the web browser like normal.

If you have a hosted WordPress (wordpress.com) or a standalone WordPress installation, you can download and install the WordPress App from the iTunes store.  While there are some bugs in the app (one that keeps popping up for me is a scrolling issue), it is an efficient editor.  If you are writing blog posts to post later, be sure to set the post status to “Draft” instead of “Local Draft” or you won’t be able to access it on your blog later – it will only be on the iPad.

The third way is to use an email->blog function of WordPress or your blogging software.  By configuring the settings, you can set WordPress to check a POP mailbox for blog posts, so you can simply send an email on your iPad, phone, or anywhere and it will automatically post to your blog.  We’ll cover setting this up in another Q&A this coming week.

Using these three methods, your iPad can become a powerful blogging tool.  You can also use any text application to edit your post before publishing, to do spell check and other fine tuning.  I took only my iPad to BlogWorld Expo and it was light and easy to post updates with.

Happy blogging!

Filed Under: Blog Software, Blogging, Content, Wordpress

Should I Use Categories In My Blog Posts?

May 25, 2008 By 3 Comments

Question: I want to ask you how to display post by categories? For example in your blog, when I click a category in your blog, example I click ‘Affiliate Marketing’ then it will display all post connected with affiliate marketing. How do I do that?

Whenever I create a new blog post I always assign categories to each post. For example, for this post I’ll use the following categories.

Categories
Blogging
WordPress

It’s simple to do in WordPress, just look on the page when you write a post, below the space where you put your post copy in. Look for categories, and simply create a new one, or use an existing one you’ve used before.

This is great, to your point, because now someone can come to this blog and click on “blogging” as a category and see every post Ask the Blogger has ever done with that category selected. Tagging is similar to this.

Filed Under: Blogging, Categories, Wordpress Tagged With: , ,

Can I Have A Blog Without Having A Database?

January 2, 2008 By 4 Comments

Question: A client would like to integrate a blog into its site in which an expert would write about relevant topics to this particular industry. The client’s site developer doesn’t have database servers that support Movable Type. Is there a basic blogging tool that you recommend for a professional site that would work on what seems to be outdated equipment?

If you cannot make a database on your server, then you’re not going to be able to use blogging software like Movable Type or WordPress.org.

Instead, what you should be doing is…

A. Get the blog hosted on new server. The problem with that is you cannot integrate the blog directly into your clients domain name. (xyz.com/blog)

B. Get a “hosted” blog at someplace like WordPress.com. Again, you can’t directly integrate your blog on your domain. You can, however, link to it off of your domain in a forward.

C. Get a new webhost. If your host can’t make a simple database, then well, it’s time to find a new one, seriously. :)

Filed Under: Blog Software, Blogging, Movable Type, Wordpress

How Do I Optimize My WordPress Blog?

May 21, 2007 By 9 Comments

Question: We all know that WordPress isn’t really SE friendly because of the duplicate content it produces in other categories, monthly archive, etc… and many found ways to solve this problem. Just wanna ask your opinion. What is the “best” way to optimize a WP blog?
First off, let me comment on your first statement, as it’s important for me to clarify my position on this. You said…

We all know that WordPress isn’t really SE friendly because of the duplicate content it produces in other categories, monthly archive, etc…

I very much disagree with your assessment that WordPress is search engine unfriendly because of duplicate content. I have seen zero proof to show me that that is true. It is simply not true, and concentrating your time worrying about it is a complete waste of time.

I should make this perfectly clear. Going to put this in bold and all caps because I want everyone to understand something very, very important.

GOOGLE WANTS HIGH-QUALITY, RELEVANT CONTENT, PERIOD. IF YOU SPEND TIME DOING ANYTHING BUT WRITING GOOD CONTENT, THEN YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO RANK WELL LONG-TERM.

Now, back to your original question, in case everyone forgot :) You asked…

What is the “best” way to optimize a WP blog?

I do recognize that there are small things you can do to optimize your blog for the search engines (and more importantly, your readers), perhaps, but again, those pale in comparison to writing good content. That being said, here are some optimization tips that I have heard of that you could do.

Write better headlines. It’s very simple. Write titles that have searched for keywords and phrases in them. Write them in a way that someone might search for them. See my title on this blog entry?

Make sure your title tag has your title (headline) first before your blog name. You’ll need to edit your blog template to make sure that is happening. This is VERY important.

Tag your posts. Blog search engines like Technorati use tags to organize blog content. You should too.

Filed Under: Blogging, Wordpress

How To Put Google Adsense Inside A Blog Entry?

May 21, 2007 By 7 Comments

Question: How do you put Google AdSense ads in the middle of your blog post? I know how to add it to the top or bottom within the post but not sure how you put it in the middle of your posts. Thanks for the info.
Great question, and actually, the answer is much more simple than you imagine. In my experience, you can do it two ways.

The first way is to simply just do it manually. That’s how I do it here at AsktheBlogger.com. See the Adsense block above, just below the question? I manually placed it in using a simple cut and paste. The problem with that method is I have to keep a copy of my Adsense code handy for every post, and it’s unnecessary really.

The right way to do it is to use a WordPress Adsense plugin. This one called the AdSense-Deluxe WordPress Plugin is great because it uses both Google Adsense & Yahoo! Publisher ads, your choice.

AdSense-Deluxe is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress 1.5+ (including WP 2.0) for quickly inserting Google or Yahoo! ads into your blog posts, and managing when and where those ads are displayed.

What if I don’t use WordPress?

Well, then I’m afraid you’re probably stuck manually pasting your code in the blog entry, or finding out from your blogging platform if they have some type of plugin you can use.

Just another reason to use WordPress. :)

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Blogging, Google, Google Adsense, How do I put ads in my blog?, Wordpress, Wordpress Plugins

How Do I Change My WordPress Blog Permalink Structure For Better Search Engine Rankings?

March 1, 2007 By 3 Comments

I want to get better search engine rankings. How do I change my WordPress permalink structure without breaking my old blog links?

When you install WordPress fresh, it sets your permalink structure to something like this:

  • http://www.domainname.com/?p=123

That’s fine, it doesn’t hurt you. The problem is that you may want to later change your permalink structure to something that has your post title keywords in it for possible improved search engine rankings. For example, like this post.

http://www.asktheblogger.com/how-do-i-change-my-wordpress-blog-permalink-structure-for-better-search-engine-rankings/

So if you make that change, you risk losing all of your old search engine indexed pages, and possibly all of the bookmarks that people have accumulated to you over time.

So How Do I Change It Without Breaking My Links?

There’s a plugin that can help you called ‘Permalinks Migration Plugin for wordpress’.

With this plugin, you can safely change your permalink structure without breaking the old links to your website,and even doesn’t affect your search engine rankings.

How Does It Work?

Here’s the technical details on how it works. I realize it can be confusing, but you should know how it works.

There is a way to tell the search engines (and browsers) that the page has permenantly moved, and that the old address should be replaced by the new one . It’s called a “301 Redirect”, also known as a Permanent Redirect.When you do this, Search engines will update their indexes quickly and you won’t lose your pagerank.you will continue to receive traffic as though nothing had changed. This works for search engines, bookmarks, and links from other sites.

Where Do I Get Started?

Simply download the plugin here and follow the directions. Good luck!

Bonus! AsktheBlogger Video On WordPress Permalinks

Filed Under: Ask the Blogger, Blogging, Installing Wordpress, Permalinks Migration Plugin, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines, Wordpress, Wordpress Permalinks