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This post was originally published on NakedPR.com (my now-retired blog featuring commentary on PR and social media issues). While I’m considering reviving my Naked PR brand this year, I’m considering taking it in a slightly different direction — back to its roots. In the meantime, I’m moving most of the original content to other sites I own, saving only a few key posts from the
It’s no secret that I usually have a lot going on as a writer. I run quite a few blogs of my own. I take on freelance writing projects for clients. I write nonfiction e-books. And I’m working on much more fiction this year as well. As a result, one of the biggest questions I get from colleagues in my network is “how do you
If you’ve been blogging with WordPress for a while, you probably know that WordPress saves several revisions of your posts as you create or edit them. These revision backups are saved when you save drafts or update live posts. WordPress revisions can come in handy if you made changes you aren’t happy with or if you accidentally delete something from a post draft. But they
The New Year will be here before you know it, and there’s no time like the present to prepare for it. Recently I shared three things to do this December to close out the current year. For this week’s quick tips, let’s expand upon that with some easy things you can do now that will have you ready to hit the ground running after the
For this week’s resource for writers, I’ve updated and re-released an oldie but goodie — my HTML cheat sheet for freelance writers and bloggers. The cheat sheet used to come with my now-retired e-book, The Web Writer’s Guide, which was released back in 2008. The new version will be available for free permanently in the All Freelance Writing Resources Collection. This download includes some of the most basic
Readers and colleagues often come to me with questions about problems they’re having with their websites or blogs. In some cases, such as sudden search engine ranking issues or site indexing problems, one of the first things I tend to ask them is to check Google Webmaster Tools. That’s when I sometimes get the mind-blowing responses of “What’s that?” or “I don’t use that.” Not good. So
A great feature of WordPress is its ability to save different versions of your posts as you go — such as when you hit the “save draft” or “preview” buttons. These saved versions are called “revisions,” and they give you restore points if anything goes wrong. Awesome, right? Well, it can be. But WordPress revisions have to be saved to your database just like your
Do you wish you could spend more time using social media to connect with colleagues, clients, or readers? Do you ever feel like trying is almost a waste of time because of all the noise? If so, here’s a simple solution for you on Twitter. Use the “Mute” feature. Why Mute Twitter Accounts? Twitter gives you a few different options for eliminating noise from users
Are you tired of competing with countless other bloggers for every advertised gig you find? Do you wish you could reliably earn $100, $200, $500, or even more per article as a freelance blogger? If you’re looking to build a more stable and higher-paying freelance blogging career, you can. Opportunities are practically endless, if you know how to look and how to make yourself stand out. Consider giving
No matter what kind of website you run, frequent backups are a necessity. With WordPress sites and blogs that’s especially true because of the frequent core, theme, and plugin updates you have to perform. Having a fresh backup means you can revert all, or a part, of your site if something goes wrong during the update process (or if you’re ever hacked). Whenever I would
Whether you’re a professional blogger or you simply have a blog attached to your freelance writer or author website, chances are good you have social media sharing buttons attached to each post. And if not, you should. They’re simple tools that allow your readers to easily spread the word about your posts. Yet I see bloggers make a common mistake when using these sharing plugins.
If you’re a WordPress blogger, chances are that you’re aware of the massive brute force attempts targeting WordPress sites lately. If you’re not sure what these are, basically it’s when someone attempts to hack your site by guessing your username and password. But they usually do this with bots that let them automate the process, and your site can be hit hundreds (if not thousands)
This post was originally published on June 20, 2009. But I wanted to share it again today (and update it a bit) as the issue of blogging pay rates is hotter than ever as more and more freelance bloggers come onto the scene. As some background, this was originally written in response to Kevin Muldoon’s post, Bloggers Need to be Realistic About Blogging Rates. It
Recently I wrote about my decision to move to Scrivener for blogging. I also released a free scrivener template for bloggers that allows you to easily manage a single blog as its own project. But personally, I use Scrivener to manage multiple blogs, and I manage them all from a single project file so I can see all of my blogs’ content in one place.
Recently I shared some of the reasons I now use Scrivener for blogging. In the comments on that post I promised to look into creating a simple template you can use. Today I’d like to share that Scrivener blogging template with you. About the Scrivener Blogging Template This simple template was designed to be used in managing your content strategy for a single blog. The
All of my blogs are run in WordPress, and that’s been my blogging platform of choice since switching to it in 2006. WordPress offers fairly extensive writing and editing tools right within your site’s admin area. Over the years, I’ve written many of my blog posts directly in WordPress using these tools. That was probably a mistake. In my last post I mentioned that I
A while back I mentioned that I was giving Scrivener a try. My hope was to use that writing software during last year’s NaNoWriMo instead of a standard word processor. That didn’t happen. I was still uncomfortable with the software at the time, and I worried it would slow me down. I’m still a Scrivener beginner by a long shot, but I’m finally putting it
Have you ever seen custom quotes in a blog post with a “tweet this” link? It’s cool, right? Instead of focusing your Twitter links on your blog post title, you can have several tweets with unique content for each of your posts. And by highlighting your best quotes, you increase your chance that readers will share your posts. Here’s an example of a completely customized
I wish I knew why, but over the last month and a half or so I’ve noticed far more WordPress plugin updates than usual being pushed through. Perhaps developers are getting ready for the WordPress 3.9 core update. Whatever the reason, more plugin updates equals more risk for your website or blog. Plenty can go wrong when you update a plugin. Sometimes the updates will
Your blog’s content strategy is about more than the type of content you plan to write. It also includes your blog post schedule — when you post, and how often you post. Should you post daily? Just on weekdays? Once per week? Monthly? There’s no right answer to cover all blogs. You have to find the right post frequency and schedule for your blog. Picking Your Blog Post
There are many reasons to start a blog. One popular reason is to make money. When you do that, you treat your blog as a business model in its own right. Many people try to earn money from their blogs. Some succeed. Others fail. And much of that comes down to your strategy, your niche specialty, and the plan you come up with to monetize
In my post “4 Elements of Effective Freelance Writing Websites,” I suggested creating a custom 404 error page to help misdirected prospects find what they’re looking for. A 404 error is a “page not found” error message someone sees if they try to visit an address on your site that doesn’t exist. No one likes seeing an error message. So it’s a good idea to
When you graduated high school, you jumped for joy not because you were glad you made it, but because you thought you’d never have to learn another mathematical equation again. The Pythagorean Theorem? Forget about it! But there’s one formula you can’t pass up as a blogger: C(D+E+F)A+B Confused? Let’s break it down and look at each variable. A: A Valuable Idea It’s common sense
Today Kathryn Aragon was kind enough to host a guest post from me about content theft. In it, I explain: Why freelance writers and bloggers shouldn’t ignore it (and why you’re crazy if you think those “free backlinks” are a good thing); How you can track down information about even the most anonymous content thieves; What you can do to have your stolen content removed
When I first went into business for myself (full-time PR firm, part-time business writing and blogging), I had a pretty standard formal business plan. Later, and I expanded my Web publishing efforts, I started using a much simpler model — one page versions that help me map out my plans and ideas on a project by project basis. I’ve even released the templates I use
If you’re a blogger, you probably get more than your fair share of blog comment spam. This can include anything from robots to bad SEO professionals spamming you for backlinks to trackback spam. You have a few options to deal with them: You can let them go live on your site. (Ick!) You can moderate all comments manually. (But why?) You can implement intrusive captcha-style
I’m sitting here writing a post for Wednesday on a Tuesday night because we’re anticipating power outages tomorrow (“today” I suppose if you’re reading this). I can’t control ice storms or the fact that they rolled in at least eight hours earlier than forecasters expected. I can’t control the woods around our house and whether or not the ice will bring down branches on the
I read a lot of blogs. But my time is limited like most people, and that means I can’t always comment as much as I’d like. When I do take the time to write a comment for one of your posts, it’s because I thought you had something interesting to say and I wanted to engage in the conversation. But sometimes in the process of trying to
Whether you maintain a blog as a way to market your freelance writing services, as a way to maintain an author presence, or as its own business model, tying your blog to your larger social media presence is vital. That includes giving blog readers the opportunity to share your posts on their favorite social networks. And it involves telling readers how they can connect with
Have you thought about getting into freelance blogging? Are you already a freelance blogger, but you’re struggling to find new clients? Blogging is one of my favorite projects to take on as a freelance writer. Finding clients was easy for me early on because the client base I was working with on PR writing projects also happened to have a strong need for blogging services.