Blog Exercises: Site Goals

Early on in these Blog Exercises I asked you to clarify what you do and how you share your purpose on your site, what your target audience is, and review the why of why you blog and self-publish on the web. Hopefully you’ve had time over the past few months to digest those thoughts, evaluate […]

Blog Challenge: Top Ten List of Blog Goals

We’re barely a month into what is considered the “New Year” for many countries and cultures around the world, a time for reflection and preparation. This week’s blogging challenge is not to make a list of things to change or habits to break. I want a list of your blog goals. Blog a top ten […]

ProBlogger’s Group Writing Project – Write Your Blog Goals

ProBlogger has an ongoing series called “Group Writing Project”, and a recent assignment, “Blog Goals Group Writing Project”, caught my attention: I’ve also written on a number of occasions about making some of your blogging goals public as a way of adding accountability and motivation to reach them. I find that when I write something […]

Blog Exercise: New Years Reboot, Restart, Kick Ass

“It’s that time of year when the world falls in love…” The Christmas Waltz by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn I’d like to think that New Year’s thinking includes bringing back the love to your blog. You might not think that, but let’s go with that belief as we continue with this year’s Blog Exercises. […]

Blog Exercises: Which Stats Matter

In this ongoing series called Blog Exercises, let’s explore the stats that matter, the ones you should be paying attention to on your site and off. On your site, you should be paying attention to: Most Popular Posts: Are your most popular posts related by topic? If so, there is clearly a driving interest in […]

Blog Exercises: Blog a Conversation

In this ongoing series called Blog Exercises, today you will blog a conversation. “I don’t want to.” “Sure, you do.” “Nah. Don’t want to.” “This is a chance to improve your blogging.” “Uh-huh.” “This is a change to improve your writing skills.” “Nope.” “You will do it because I said so. Got it?” “Okay.” Writing […]

Blog Exercises: Ingredients of a Well-Designed Site

I was asked by a student in my WordPress class recently what defined a “professional blog,” one that met all the criteria for a well-designed, well-formed site that met web standards. What a marvelous question! We brainstormed all the elements that make up a web standard site, and mixed in personal preferences of the students […]

How to Avoid the New WordPress.com Interface

For the past three to four years, WordPress.com users have been “experimenting” with the what is known as the “new” WordPress.com interface. A drag-and-drop-meets-wysiwymg interface (What You See is What You MIGHT Get), it is designed to make interaction with WordPress easier. I’m still waiting. What it continues to do is make my students and […]

WordPress School: Copyright Policy

We’ve started our mini-series on adding policies to your WordPress site with some basic information and details on how to organize and structure policies on your site. It’s time to evaluate the five different policies featured on almost all websites regardless of topic or goals in Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course. Remember, we add […]

Blog Exercises: Life Happens While Making Other Plans

“Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans.” In this ongoing series of Blog Exercises, I’ve covered much about the philosophy of blogging, and the challenges that come with blogging over time. One of the most common excuses to pause or stop blogging is “life happens.” Examples include: Blog Exercises: Self-Control […]

The Most Common Tiny Mistakes Made When Setting Up a WordPress Site

I’ve just finished five years of teaching non-stop college and community education workshops and programs on WordPress for beginners, novices, experts, web designers, web developers, web programmers, and those who think they know everything but still realize they have a lot to learn. I love that last group as they are willing to learn and […]

WordPress School: HTML and CSS References and Resources

In “9 Truths That Computer Programmers Know That Most People Don’t” by Macleod Sawyer, he quotes Ben Cherry and adds the following after: “Under the hood, most critical software you use every day (like Mac OS X, or Facebook) contains a terrifying number of hacks and shortcuts that happen to barely fit together into a […]

WordPress School: Bookmarks

This week on Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course we’ve been covering the web browser, your gateway to the web and WordPress. So far in this Web Browser Guide series we’ve covered some web browser history, keyboard and mouse shortcuts, browser tabs, and search operators and shortcuts to help you find WordPress help as well […]

WordPress School: Call-to-Action Graphic Images

In this mini-series of lessons on creating images for your WordPress site, we’ve covered the basics, experimented with two ways of creating header art from scratch and with text overlaying a photograph, and learned how to put text on images for quotes and other purposes. Today’s image lesson in this series is about creating a […]

WordPress School: Category Names

In Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course you are to create a test site on WordPress.com or wherever you choose to experiment. It is your WordPress personal sandbox. This doesn’t mean you can do anything you want in the sandbox. The goal of the test site it to emulate a real site, influencing the decisions […]