Glenda Watson Hyatt: How WordPress Changes Her Life Daily

I was so thrilled when Glenda Watson Hyatt of the Do It Myself Blog volunteered her story of how WordPress changed her life for my WordCamp Portland keynote presentation. I’ll be sharing the videos and pictures of the program in the next few days, but I wanted to share with you Glenda’s personal story. As […]

Do You Remember Your First Blog Post? If You Do, You Could Win!

Liz Strauss is holding the “Bring Back That ‘Brand New’ Blogging Feeling Event” contest and giving you a chance to win a premium WordPress Theme from Blog Design Studio and a copy of her ebook. Whether you win or not, it’s a chance to really push your blogging creativity. The challenge is to take a […]

Lessons from LTPact 2008: Cloud Servers and Gambling

I spent the past few days in Las Vegas for the Layered Tech LTPact 2008 Conference, an event sponsored by Layered Tech, the second largest web hosting and reseller in the world, among WordPress luminaries and experts and a lot of server geeks and serious online business folks. I got a chance to spend time […]

Writing Better Blog Post Titles

I’ve written a lot about writing and creating powerful, effective, and attention-getting headlines and post titles on your blog, but more needs to be said on the subject, especially for blogging teachers and students. The following are not effective nor attention-getting post titles: March March 2006 March 17, 2006 Today’s News Homework Today’s Homework In […]

SOBCon 2008: FuelMyBlog Pre-Conference Meetup Friends

Tonight was the first event of the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference (SOBCon) in Chicago at the pre-conference meetup hosted by FuelMyBlog. It was a great opportunity to socialize with many of the return participants to SOBCon, but also to meet new people. It is clear that SOBCon is going to be the event of […]

The Challenges of Creating an Interactive Blog

By Rachelle Chase Last week, I used my Sex Lounge Finding Derek Contest – an online contest where hunky guys competed to be the hero of my book – to show the importance of interactive web sites. I focused on the why and how to make your site interactive. This time, I’d like to get […]

What Inspires Your Readers to Interact With Your Blog?

By Rachelle Chase Static content that talks to readers is not enough today, especially with the meteoric rise in popularity of online communities and social networking. Good content is still the key to attract and compel people to return to your site, however giving them more than static content and blog comments for interaction gives […]

Blogging Resources and Sources to Help You Blog

As a blogger and professional editorial and technical writer, I have collected a variety of online resources and references to help me write, blog, and work. The following are a list of Internet resources, sources, references, guides, and tools that help me with my basic blog writing research and publishing. I use these resources to […]

How to Speed Up the Blog Image Hunt

It was late and I needed to repeat the use of an image I uploaded a year ago to the Blog Herald. I know WordPress is working on a new image uploader and multimedia management interface, but it can’t come soon enough for me. Clicking through only a few groups of the hundreds of images […]

Content Theft and WordPress

I and many WordPress “representatives”, along with the developers and staff of WordPress and Automattic, are getting more and more complaints and requests for help dealing with content theft issues. We all need to clear this up and spread the word about how this works in relationship to WordPress. In order to go after a […]

Blog Challenge: Write a Travel Post

I travel pretty much full-time, living on the road, sleeping in motor homes, trailers, tents, hotels, and other odd places. I started traveling extensively when I was a teenager, turning it into a full-time life in 1996. I have lots of travel stories I share on Taking Your Camera on the Road, and this week, […]

Adding Avatars and Gravatars to Your WordPress and WordPress.com Blog

Avatars, or the well known Gravatars, are tiny images, often called your online identity, picture, badge, logo, or graphic image which represent you and/or your blog. Some use photographs of their face or body, or a body part like an eye, nose, or hand. Others use pictures of animals, flowers, scenics, or graphic images. Many […]

Blog Struggles: Why Should Your Blog Have a Focus

Why should your blog be a focused, narrow niched blog? Because: It establishes you as an expert. It creates a consistent flow of information and content. The blog and you become a source for information, not just a link. Increased incoming referrer links and increased likelihood of being blogged about, not just linked to. Like […]

Customizing Your WordPress Theme Footer

UPDATE: WordPress now has custom menus. At the bottom of the article, I explain how to customize your WordPress Theme’s footer using Custom Menus. Yesterday, I covered the basic code found in the footer of the WordPress Default Theme, and gave you some ideas on how to add some impact and navigation to your WordPress […]

Blogging and Social Networking as a Teenager

By Douglas Bell Today is the end of Lorelle’s first month of celebrating two years of WordPress.com and Lorelle on WordPress, and I really want to say congratulations to her. However, while this past month has had many articles on blog writing, SEO, web design, blogging personally and for profit, and of course, a number […]