Blog Exercises: How Does Your Blog Make You Money?

In an interview with Daniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips, he asked me how long a blogger should wait to monetize their blog. Ha! Forever! I do not think bloggers should monetize their blogs. I think that people who want to get into the business of blogging must make a business plan on how they will use […]

Blog Exercises: Become Your Own Fan Blogger

Fan blogging is one of the most challenging types of blogging. Fan blogging is blogging about a celebrity, television show, movie, sports team, sports player, criminals, or other groupie subject. Today’s blog exercise examines the art of fan blogging and how to learn from fan blogging to create your own fan club around your blog. […]

Blog Exercises: June Monthly Random Edit Day

Today it is 6 posts to edit on our monthly Random Editing Day. It’s June. It’s summer in most of the world, some switching from winter to summer while others are switching from summer to winter. It’s a time of change. This month’s random editing day let’s focus on the word “change.” Run a search […]

Blog Exercises: May Random Editing Day

May. It’s starting to warm up outside in the north, and growing a bit chilly down under, but it’s that time again. It’s the May Random Editing Day. In this Blog Exercise you will need to edit five random posts from among your thousands – okay, maybe dozens of published articles. What should you look […]

WordPress Anniversary: Comment Spam Lessons

It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned much from comment spammers over the years. I’ve learned that they are among the most hated folks in the world, yet you have to respect them as well. As I look back on ten years of blogging with WordPress on this 10th Anniversary year, I realized that comment […]

Blog Exercises: Writing Poetry and Recipes in Your Blog

Do you publish poetry on your site? Feature many quotes? Share recipes? Addresses? If so, you may need to learn how to publish content with single lines instead of double. In WordPress and other publishing platforms with a WYSIWYMG interface, hit the Enter (Return) key and a wide or double space will appear. Each line […]

Blog Exercises: The IKEA Effect for Bloggers

The Ikea Effect was coined by researchers who found out what we all know but rarely admit, we put too much ownership into our own brainchild ideas and concepts. In other words, we tend to fall in love with our own ideas and creations. If you have ever been around kids, you’ve probably had that […]

Blog Exercises: The Search for Like Minds

I tat. My 95 year old grandmother-in-law taught me almost 20 years ago. Tatting is 17th century lace making based upon island and coastal women looking for something to do besides fixing fishing nets for the men of the village. They got creative with their netting shuttles to make fine lace doilies, scarfs, edging, table […]

Blog Exercises: April Random Editing Day

It’s the April Random Editing Day in our ongoing series of Blog Exercises. With Spring in the air, flowers and trees blooming, it’s time to flex your editing muscles on four blog posts this month. If you are having trouble finding random posts, think of a keyword that best describes your site or a topic […]

The Secret Recipe of Comment Spam Comments

Mr. Louis Vuitton just sent me a message in my blog comments I’d like to share with you. I share this touching message because it is highly educational when it comes to the art of spam comments, and serves to remind us of why we love having Akismet, the best comment spam fighter, on our […]

Blog Exercises: March Random Editing Day

It’s time for another Random Editing Day in the ongoing series of Blog Exercises to flex your blogging muscles. Consider this exercise in March as a little spring cleaning exercise. Get out your broom and start sweeping your old posts. As outlined in the original exercise, your task today is to find three random previously […]

Introduction to WordPress Class at Clark College Continuing Education

I will be teaching another Introduction to WordPress course at Clark College Corporate and Continuing Education in Vancouver, Washington, starting Saturdays, April 27 through July 13, 2013. The class will be at the Columbia Tech Center in eastern Vancouver, just across the Columbia River off Interstate 205, just a few minutes from downtown Portland, Oregon. […]

The Future of Blogging – With a Glimpse Backwards

In “What’s next for blogging: I try to predict the future” by Yesterday’s news, the author, a Creative and Professional Writing Major at Bemidji State University in Minnestoa, used fantastic visuals to take us on a journey through the development of blogging and the blogging industry for a class on blogs and wikis. She makes […]

Blog Exercises: How to Publish Code

I blog about the technical side of blogging, about WordPress, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, HTML, CSS, web design – code. I often blog about code. And people ask me code questions. I’ve become an expert in writing code so it looks like code on web pages. The time may come, or you may have already […]

Blog Exercises: Random Edit Day February

It’s time for another Random Editing Day in the ongoing series of Blog Exercises to flex your blogging muscles. As outlined in the original exercise, your task today is to find two random previously published posts and edit them. Use the list in the original exercise as a review on what to look for when […]