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Okay, I’m sure you’re all aware that Suzanne and I suggest using a self hosted Wordpress for your blog.

But what if you just can’t make yourself do that?

Blogger is a popular option. If you do go that route, lets talk about things you can do to make your Blogger blog more user friendly.

First off, do you really need the 10 digits of word verification before someone posts? We have to enter that EVERY TIME WE COMMENT on your blog. It makes it easy for the reader to just think, nah, I’m not going to bother to comment. Turn off the word verification option.

Let anonymous commenters leave a comment. Turn on the option for allowing anonymous comments for your blog. Not everyone has a Blogger account, nor do they want one. The reader wants to leave a comment on your blog and link back to their own website. It’s annoying enough that Blogger makes the reader enter their information, over and over, every time they want to leave a comment. (Blogger, if you’re reading this, get a clue. Wordpress, Typepad, and other blogging platforms save our information so we only enter it the first time we comment on a blog.)

Font size: I’ve seen a lot of Blogger blogs with small type size. Give your readers a break. That’s really hard to read, especially on laptop screens. Up your font size a few sizes. We’ll thank you.

That’s it. My quick suggestions for making your Blogger blog more reader friendly.

Tags: How to Blog, Website Tips by Kacey
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In our last article Suzanne explained WHY you should advertise your blog, and some advertising companies you can use to place your ads. They offer the advantage that the advertising companies provide the statistics for how the blog is doing. They list the traffic and pageviews of the blogs.

I’m going to look at another option. Blogs that offer advertising directly through the blogger. No middleman. Which sometimes means you’ll get the same traffic exposure for lower prices. These blogs usually have a link to “advertise here” or “advertising rates” or something similar. Some will have a page and post their rates. Some will list off their statistics such as visitors or pageviews per week. While you can take them at their word, you should do some other research on your own regarding the popularity of their website.

Things to consider:

1) Do they have an active blog? Do they post daily or at least regularly?

2) Do they have a comment section with a lot of activity? How many comments do they get on their posts?
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Tags: How to Blog, Marketing by Kacey
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We pause in our series of installing Wordpress. Wordpress just recently came out with version 2.5. I’m giving it a few weeks for the dust to settle, then I’ll install it on Dandelionblog. Then I’ll grab new screen shots for my tutorial on installing Wordpress. They’ve changed the Administration Panel quite a bit and many things are handled differently in this version. I’ll get back to the tutorial posts in a few weeks, when more is known about plugin compatibility, more bugs are ironed out, and more work arounds are figured out.

In the meantime, here is a list of some blogging forums you can visit to learn more about blogging.

Digital Point This is one of the first forums I visited to learn about the web. It’s grown into a huge forum with a lot of valuable information. You can also buy services from people there to help with your site. It has subcategories on Search Engines, Marketing, Business (such as legal issues, domain names, buying, selling & trading), Design and Development, and Product and Tools. [Read more →]

Tags: How to Blog by Kacey
1 Comment »

My next suggestion for those of you wanting to set up your own Wordpress blog, is to download the Firefox browser and switch to it. Aside from the fact that Firefox renders web pages more accurately to web standards (Internet Explorer 5 & 6 are the worst offenders here), Firefox offers many other advantages:

1) Tabbed browsing. You can have more than one page open in a window. I use this all the time. I open a link on a page in another tab, while still staying on the page I’m reading. I can then go over later and read the new page.
2) Pop up blocking. Need I say more?
3) Better security and protection from spyware. (with Firefox on my Mac, I’ve NEVER gotten spyware. Knock on wood. Knock on wood again for good measure.)
4) Firefox offers search suggestions in their search bar. If you start typing something in, a drop down list appears for you to choose from. Or you can finish typing it in yourself. I have to say, I use this often for things I’m not sure how to spell!
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Tags: How to Blog, Wordpress, Wordpress Setup Series by Kacey
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So you decided you want to set up your own Wordpress blog. I’m going to take you through the steps, one by one over the next few weeks. The first step is deciding on a hosting service to host your blog. A reasonably priced hosting service is BlueHost. You can get web space for $6.95 a month and a free domain name. Don’t forget to check the box for privacy if you want to hide your personal information.

BlueHost uses Cpanel for the administration interface for your website. I find CPanel an easy interface to use. They also have Fantastico which basically has a one click install of Wordpress.

For more information about picking a domain name see this post.

I’m going to be setting up another blog here on Dandelion on a subdomain to show you the steps on setting up Wordpress, uploading a theme and setting it up. We’ll then add some plugins and you’ll be all set to go with your very own Wordpress Blog on your own website.

My next post will be about finding an FTP client to use to upload files to your blog. I’ll be discussing Filezilla, which is free and available for both Windows and Mac.

Tags: How to Blog, Wordpress, Wordpress Setup Series by Kacey
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