Been a while since I created a Thesis tutorial. Here you go! I will show you how to create a “killer” Services and Portfolio Page using Thesis Theme. In the portfolio section, you can even add the snapshots of the sites you created, testimonials and more. Read on how to do it!
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I have many blog posts in my archives, that are good to read but unfortunately failed without any visits. I am sure you too have a few of them, that were deprived of attention they deserve. So are they really dead? What can you do with such posts?
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Affiliate Marketing is one of main sources of income for Professional bloggers. If Affiliate Marketing is a jargon to you, I would recommend the following sources of knowledge to learn more about it – What is Affiliate Marketing? (by Problogger) and Make Money Online eBook by John Chow. But unfortunately, many Bloggers fail with Affiliate Marketing. Why? What can you do to start making money from Affiliate Marketing?
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Thesis theme provides an option to display only post excerpts in the home page – but the problem I found was it shows very little content that might not entice the reader. Also the post header images were gone from the home page.
Then I found a very neat option available with Thesis to control the home page post excerpt content. You can choose to display whatever you want in the Home Page and let the rest go in to the Post Page. I know many of you may be already using it, but it is just to the benefit for newbies like me.
Thesis provides you an option to display only excerpts in the Home Page. You can navigate to Admin –> Appearance –> Thesis Options and expand the Posts under the Display Options section.
Since this option doesn’t allow you to control the content displayed and also sometimes the hides the Post Header Image, we disable it for our purpose.
You can also customize the clickthrough text. This decides the Text that will be displayed on the Home Page, for the user to click and get on to the post page.
To keep it simple, I have made it “Read More…”, but you can customize it based on the needs.
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Business is all about happy clients. A happy client creates a repeat business and brings in much more happy clients. As a freelancer, the biggest challenge is to establish long term relationship with clients. So how do you make sure to win clients? Once won, how do you keep them happy and bring in repeat business?
Negotiating and winning clients is an art. Success doesn’t endorse you always, when it comes to winning clients. So what are the basic criteria to increase the probability?
Always be reasonable with your clients. Especially, your initial clients. There are many factors where you have to be reasonable – cost, effort and duration. Never quote sky-high costs or absurd time lines. Make sure to understand the project and quote reasonably. Remember – whatever compromise you make here is an investment into your future relationship with the client.
Whether it comes to your understanding of the project or putting forward your suggestions – be very clear and informative. Never confuse the client with jargons – as 80% of the time they are unclear about the technology. Also, when you assume or suggest something, make sure to be informative. Don’t do these without backing them up with real facts or analysis data.
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I know what you are thinking. This topic has been debated around the blogosphere, for a while now. Why another post? Because, still I find many Twitter users don’t make the full use of a powerful platform. This post is a collection of “straight to the point” tips on making your Twitter life better.
If you are into Consulting Business, how would it sound if your Twitter name is @playboyhere? Ridiculous, right! But, I still find many of my followers have unrelated and tongue-twisting names.
If you are into a Business and using Twitter as a Marketing tool – better use your Business Name. Otherwise, a Brand Name or a Personal Name (for personal accounts) should do in most cases. Avoid using awkward and irrelevant names which might drive followers to unsubscribe!
Default backgrounds that Twitter provide is good in most cases. But if you are trying to Market or build a Brand, I would suggest going for a professional Background.
Check out this excellent “Mashup” post from Mashable on different Twitter Background creation options. I personally prefer the Free Twitter Designer online tool to design attractive images.
Always, I can help you with Background design at costs as low as $5! Contact me here
I think the title conveys the message. Use a pleasing photo of either yourself or your Business logo. This goes a long way in building a brand around you or the Business. When readers visit the Blog or Website with the same picture, they can correlate things better.
For that matter of fact, I would recommend using the same picture or “gravatar” across all social tools to better Brand building.
Twitter lets you use 160 characters for the Bio. Make the best use of it. Write something relevant about you or the Business. It should be crisp but convey the relevant message.
We help you to manage the finances effectively with the help of best-in-class managers and accountants
We manage your Finances like a Pro with a best-in-class Team
A higher number of Followers and the people you follow, doesn’t really matter if you or your Business brand don’t go up. If the number of Followers really fascinate you – use Twitter Search and tools like Hootsuite, TweetDeck etc. to group the followers. This helps in grasping the important messages and don’t lose them in the ocean.
Retweeting is a simple mechanism to promote messages sent by others. It could be a product or idea they are trying to promote, a help needed or an important message to be spread around. In any case, if you find it real and not-spammy, retweet it to your followers. This can have positive impacts on your brand too!
This covers most of the essential basics with Twitter Usage. What do you think are the best practices with Twitter? Shoot your thoughts as comments. I can also help you with Twitter Strategies. Feel free to get in touch.
Photo Credit: respres
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Professional Blogs are meant to be professional. Look at the posts on ProBlogger or Copyblogger. They all have a commonality. They all have an advice to broadcast or a problem to solve. There are many blogs which does nothing but exist. What are the things that piss you off in a professional blog? Read on for my list.
Following is my brief list of “Things I hate” in a Professional Blog, that I follow:
So, now it’s your turn. What do you hate to see in a Blog? What kind of characteristics or content urge you to unfollow a blog/website? Discuss in the comments!
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SEO Statistics and facts are good to know, especially if your Blog is in existence for more than 6 months. These statistics help you identify areas where the blog excels and where it fails. In this post, I will show you 5 Essential SEO Health Checks that can reveal hidden problems of your Blog.
Website Grader is a free SEO tool that analyzes your website and provides you with a report on the site’s marketing effectiveness. Though the term SEO appears nowhere here, the report is very detailed and provides you with lot of information on the SEO effectiveness.
Some of the key points in the generated report include:
You can check a sample report here – http://www.grader.com/site.php?URL=www.hubspot.com
PageBoss is a similar tool to Website Grader, but with emphasis on numbers.
It gives you Numbers and Statistics from a lot of sites and here are a few ones:
You can use this report together with Website Grader to look for the grey areas.
Lots of essential content and keywords of a webpage may not be visible to the Search Engines, because of components like Javascript, Flash content, Images etc.
Search Engine Spider Simulator is a tool that simulates a Search Engine and displays the contents of the web page exactly how a Search Engine would see it. This helps you understand if the Search Engines are reading meaningful content or just meaningless Javascript.
A Sample report on how a Search Spider sees a website
Here is an example of the Spider Simulator output when run on my blog. If you see a lot of Javascript or Flash Script Tags, make sure to detect the plug-ins or theme components that are responsible for this!
Another important check is the relevance of your Meta Tags and Keywords to the content of your Blog. Search Engines generally ignore sites which claim a few keywords but the content doesn’t go well with them.
Meta Tag Analyzer is a tool to explore the Meta Tags and Description of your blog, to give you the “relevance” metrics. This provides a clear picture with the facts and areas of improvement. Other useful information out of the report include – URL Analysis, Keyword Analysis and the Keyword Density.
Page Keyword Analyzer is a very similar tool that takes in – specific keywords and URL – and gives you a report on whether the site has relevant content.
W3C Markup Validation Service helps you determine whether the HTML tags and the markup used in the page are valid. This is especially a problem, if you are using some badly designed Themes or Skins.
In addition to SEO problems, bad HTML also causes display and rendering issues with a few browsers. So make sure to identify markup problems using this tool and fix them.
These are some of the basic SEO checks, anyone can run on their blog without spending a penny. If you are very keen about the traffic and Google ranks, you should hire a SEO Consultant.
Here are some useful posts around, on checking and improving your Blog SEO:
SEO For Wordpress – Daily SEO Blog, by Mani Karthik
Thesis SEO – For Everyone, by THE MULES
Site Clinic: An SEO Checklist for your website, by Digital Inspiration
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Blogging is all about patience. You never become a blog celebrity overnight. It takes a lot of time before you build a group of audience, who will wait for your next blog post! This post will show you 5 Success strategies, that help you build your Blog Empire to last forever.
To find a collection of Web 2.0 icons, I go to Smashing Magazine. To get a tip on blogging, I go to ProBlogger. To know something about copywriting, I go to CopyBlogger. What’s common among these blogs? Simple. They all are dedicated to their niche areas. They have built an authority around their niche areas.
Align the niche area of your blog with what you love doing. If you are an avid photographer, start a blog around it. This keeps your passion alive for a really long time. Also, if you choose a common niche area like Technology Tips, then be prepared to wait for a relatively long time (sometimes as high as 2+ years) as there are many who have built their authority around them.
Readers love those, who consistently deliver them good stuff. By good stuff I mean something useful to them – a solution, a tip, a word of inspiration, a collection of stuff etc.
Another aspect of a successful blog – is being regular. Build a blogging schedule for yourself and try to stick to it. If you have a full time job during the week, consider composing 2-3 posts during the weekend and posting them at regular intervals.
Tip: Don’t write irrelevant and non-useful posts just to meet your schedule. This can have adverse effect on your blog
Take my word. People love freebies! Develop something like – a Wordpress Template, a Thesis Skin, a WP Plugin or an intuitive e-Book – and give it your readers for free. You can have some minor clauses here, to have them sign-up for your newsletter. But otherwise the free stuff should have “no strings” attached.
Just because you give them free, doesn’t mean you can compromise on the quality. Once they experience the quality, people may come back to you for more and even ready to pay for it!
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an essential component of any successful blog. Search Engines are one of the primary channels that bring in new readers and the blog must maintain a friendly relationship with them.
If you are using a great theme like Thesis for Wordpress, much of the Optimization is taken care behind the scenes. If not, there is good amount of home work to do.
Tip: You can check out these excellent blogs to get essential SEO tips and ideas - DailySEOBlog and Search Engine Journal
Won’t you love if your blog grows up as a secondary income channel? Definitely, I would.
There are numerous Affiliate Marketing and Advertising programs around. But make sure that these are not the primary components of your blog. These should blend with the content, but not the other way round.
John Chow is an expert when it comes to monetizing your blog. Check out his free e-book on “Making Money Online”, that covers everything you need to know about Affiliate Marketing.
Tip: Monetization is a secondary aspect of your blog. Keep “Quality Content” as the primary aspect
Summary:
Analyze and find out a Niche area of your blog
Consistently post useful stuff for your readers
Offer Freebies. But make sure they help people; not trouble them
SEO is essential for any blogs. Make sure you don’t lose out
Making money from your blog is not a sin. After all it makes you – popular and rich
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Are you wondering how to setup a contact form for your Blog? Are you sick of installing one more plug-in or add-on? I will show a very simple way to setup an attractive contact form with validation, using Wufoo. Read on!
Wufoo is an excellent service that helps you build variety of forms online. The range of forms include Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Forms, Online Petition, Employment Application etc.
Signing up for Wufoo is free, but the free plan comes with the usual limitations. Paid plan gives you more freedom when it comes to the number of forms and number of entries. You can see all the pricing options here.
To start with – FREE plan should do good if you don’t anticipate more than 100 entries per month. Also FREE plan limits you to just 3 forms, with less than or equals to 10 fields each.
Once you have signed up for an account and logged in, click on the New Form button at the top of the page.
You will get an empty form like the following, with no fields in it.
An Empty Form!
Now you have 2 options:
I personally prefer the second option. You don’t have to be a Web designer to design the forms with Wufoo. Just add the fields one after another, from the toolbox on the left.
I recommend the following fields for a simple Contact form. Be sure to make all the Fields as Required.
Following is an example form, as how it would look.
A Simple Contact Form with typical input fields
You can also click on the Form Header to – Change the form name, Enter instructional text and confirmation message and so on. Also select particular fields on the form, to setup field validations and instructional text.
Click on the Save Form button and make sure that the changes are saved. Go back to the Form Manager page.
Then you need to setup notifications when someone fills up the form. In the Form Manager screen, click on the Notification button at the bottom row of your Contact Form.
Following methods of notification are currently supported with Wufoo – Email, Text messages to Mobile or RSS Feed (you need to subscribe)
Once you have setup your favorite method of notification, go back to the Form Manager page.
In the Form Manager screen, click on the Code button at the bottom row of your Contact Form. Following options are displayed to integrate with the contact form. To keep things simple, let us choose the Embed Form Code option for our blog. This requires minimum code and setup work.
Javascript Version of the Form code, to be embedded in your blog
Copy the Javascript Version to your clipboard.
Now go to the Pages section of the Wordpress Administration Panel (or depending on your Blog engine). Get into the Contacts page and paste the code in the HTML view. Create a Contacts page in case you don’t have it.
If the Form you just build has a header in it, you can even get rid of the Page Header as it may be redundant.
From the Code Manager, you can even choose the Full Page Form Code option to gain more control over the HTML form and the CSS. But the Javascript Version is simple to setup and easily blends with the look of your blog.
Following is how the contact form appears in my blog.
A Super Simple Contact Form at Thoughts Unlimited!
Note that the validation for missing fields is already embedded in the form. You don’t need to worry a single bit!
That’s it! Now when someone fills out the form, you get a notification based on your preferences.
Make sure to upgrade from the FREE plan when your blog gets popular and the contact form starts getting more than 100 entries per month.
From the Wufoo home page, you can also view Form statistics like Number of Views, Number of Entries etc. Make sure to use them!
If this tip was helpful, please leave a comment on this blog about your experience. Thanks for reading!
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