When Widget Love Becomes an Obsession

iStock_000001638352XSmall

All of us who love WordPress, love our widgets. You know—those little bits of code that work tirelessly in our sidebars and other places to offer useful and cool things? We sometimes find them on other sites and think, “Man, I have to get that one”. It’s like accessories for your car, your wardrobe, your [...]

Where Should My WordPress Blog Park Its Butt?

WordPress.com vs. self-hosted

If you are thinking of starting a WordPress blog, normally your first decision is to either put up a free blog at WordPress.com or choose to self-host it on a paid server. I used to try to explain it as a WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org kind of thing but, honestly, that is just way too confusing. Okay, [...]

Full Body Contact: Contact Forms on Steroids

contact forms on steriods

I am a huge fan of contact forms on WordPress blogs and sites, and have been for years. If you go to my site and look at one of my pages, you’ll see what I mean. WordPress has some very nice simple contact form plugins, like Contact Form 7 and Simple Contact Form, but for [...]

Time to Upgrade WordPress (again)

WordPress updates

If you have a self-hosted WordPress site or blog, it’s time. You may have heard, or seen via your dashboard, 3.2 has officially been released. And. as major upgrades go, this one is pretty sweet. A “write only” full screen and a much faster load time just to name a couple of my favorites. Cool, [...]

Content Marketing For Your Blog With Lijit

lijit content marketing

If you take a look at the sidebar to the right of this post, you’ll see the Lijit logo next to the search box. Lijit is a third-party search platform for bloggers – and a heck of a lot more on top. While it’s perfectly fine to use whatever standard search box comes with your [...]

Lose the Resolutions: 21 Smart Ways to Get More Readers in 2011

New Year's dog

I swear this will be the year I finally do it. Lose 10 pounds. Really, I will.  I’ll hop on that elliptical machine at 5:30 every morning and push those pedals for 60 minutes. Every day. I’ll never take another bite of Dreyer’s Fudge Swirl ice cream. I will finish my book. Are you an [...]

Why Blogging Isn’t as Simple as Just Hitting Publish

questions to ask when blogging

Sometimes being a blogger is no fun. I don’t mean that from a, “Oh, woe is me, I have to blog” point of view. Nor do I mean it from a, “Why hasn’t my blog been turned into a book yet?” viewpoint. Besides, how much of a letdown would a book that’s made up of [...]

Overview of SEO Data Transporter Plug-in from StudioPress

seo data transporter from studiopress

For any self-hosted WordPress blogger, the SEO Data Transporter plug-in from StudioPress could be one of the most useful plug-ins around. Compatible with some of the most popular premium WordPress themes as well as SEO plug-ins, the SEO Data Transporter does exactly what it says on the tin – transports SEO data. Not only that, [...]

Plug-In Review: Livefyre Comments System

Livefyre comments for WordPress review

Regular readers of my personal blog will have noticed the introduction of the Livefyre comment system. While I’ve written in the past about my reasons to go back to the WordPress comments system, I saw Livefyre in use on a couple of blogs I enjoy and was intrigued enough to check the system out. While [...]