wordcamp 2011 - tom's top ten tips for blogging with wordpress

Tom’s Top Ten Tips for Blogging with WordPress

@tomcataliniwww.TomCatalini.com

#wcbos

Talk Overview

• Ten tips, a few minutes on each• Interactive discussion, ideas from the crowd• Q&A, blog talk

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

1. Titles & SEO

2. Images grab attention

3. Write “bloggy”

4. Make posts shareable

5. Auto Tweet Posts too!

7. Organize

8. Invite subscribers

9. Show off the good stuff!

10. Post ideas & scheduling

6. Track your stats

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #1 – Permalinks for SEO

• Configure this before you start blogging

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #1 – Example

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #2 – Finding and using images

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Flickr & Creative Commons

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Flickr URL

Attribution

Link to photo

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Adjust size

Give it some space

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip # 3 – Writing Style

• Don’t bury the lead• Use a conversational tone• Be brief• Break things up visually• Vary sentence length• Loosen up the grammar grip

http://www.tomcatalini.com/website-101-how-to-write-in-that-bloggy-style/

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #4 – Make posts shareable

Google +1TweetMeme Retweet ButtonSociableWP Facebook Like

• Bottom of every post• Turn off for pages• Normal to large size• Include in RSS feed

Some good plugins:

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #5 – Auto-tweet your posts

• WP to Twitter plugin• Tons of configuration options– I keep it simple, post title and url

– Need to authorize for Twitter, bit.ly

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #6 – Track Your StatsGoogle Analytics: www.google.com/analytics

WordPress plugin: Google Analytics for WordPress

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

WordPress Stats: www.wordpress.comWordPress plugin: WordPress.com Stats

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #7 – Organize! (at least a little)

• When readers get to your site, what are they supposed to do?

• Make it easy and obvious for them to browse around

• Use categories when you post• Build menus from categories

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Category-based menus, an example

Categories

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Menus• Create a menu• Add categories• Drag & Drop to

arrange• Can be Hierarchical

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #8 – Invite subscribers

• Make your blog posts available via RSS and email

• Google’s Feedburner– Serves up your blog’s feed, but gives you more

control / stats• What Would Seth Godin Do? – Plugin invites new visitors to subscribe

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Feedburner Services & Stats

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Setup in Feedburner

Then configure WP to redirect via theme or plugin

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Inserted by plugin: What Would Seth Godin Do?

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #9 – Show off the good stuff

Social Proof

More navigation options

PostRank Widget

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Tip #10 – Post Ideas & Scheduling

• Ideas can come from anywhere and at any time – carry a notepad!

• Build a habit of writing - the more you write, the easier it gets

• Get used to editing your own work – from notepad to typed, use the Preview function, review after a post goes live

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Drafts & Scheduling

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

Drafts & Scheduling

Tom's Top Ten Blogging Tips for WordPress

That’s 10!

Q&A / blog talk