The Sensible Mom

Food, DIY, Chicago Mom Blogger

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Bloggy Conference: Wrap-Up (Part 2)

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Bloggy Conference Wrap Up

I know I’m late in writing this post.

But I’m still going to finish up sharing what I learned at the Bloggy Conference that took place in Cincinnati, Ohio from September 27-29.

You can read part one of this mini-series of postsΒ here.

Next up I listened to Allison Kulage’s talk. Allison is from Bare Knuckle Marketing, and she’s an SEO ninja. She gave us some great SEO tips and tricks to make our sites work better for us.

Here are some of the main points I learned:

    • Use and pay attention to keywords. These are the words people are typing into search engines, and if you have them in your posts and post titles, there’s a better chance that the search engines (like Google) will rank your site higher if you use the right keywords. For example, if you want people to find your recipe for homemade pumpkin spice bread, make sure to use those words in your post title as well as in your post. Use keywords for the images that are in your posts, too. Basically, using the right keywords will attract the right traffic to your blog.
    • Link to other blogs. If you do this, they are more likely to link to your blog. Link love = Google Juice.
    • Use short keyword phrases that are specific (not single words) in your posts.
    • The right keywords can bring in a lot of traffic to your blog – think 50% or more.
    • Get to know Google Analytics to find out what keywords are bringing in traffic to your blog. You may be getting traffic from words that you wouldn’t expect.
    • Don’t over think the whole SEO thing.Β Write for your readers, but be mindful of SEO.

Allison made the subject of SEO less daunting, and I appreciate that. I don’t stress out or spend a lot of time thinking about SEO, but I am mindful of it. I know which keywords people are using to find my blog, and I always rename my images to make them more SEO-friendly. I also think that being on WordPress and using a great theme framework helps, too.

My next post will include the good stuff I gleaned from Nathan Engels of We Use Coupons. He shared some fabulous tips! And his tips are not just for deal-bloggers, they would be great to implement and execute on just about any blog.


Bloggy Conference: Wrap-Up (Part 1)

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Bloggy Conference

Fun.

Exceeded my expectations.

Filled with networking opportunities.

Packed with bloggy goodness about how to monetize and grow your blog.

These are words I’d use to describe the Bloggy Conference I attended last week.

I had the opportunity to attend the conference with my sister, Sarah, who I hadn’t seen (other than Skype) in nearly 6 months, so you can imagine that we did quite a bit of talking and catching up. πŸ™‚ I was so glad to be able to go to my very first blog conference with her, because, like so many bloggers…I’m a bit of an introvert. It was nice to have a fellow introvert with me to take in the conference, learn, and enjoy it together.

The Sensible Mom at the Bloggy Conference

The conference ran from Sept. 27th to Sept. 29th, and in order to keep these posts from getting too long, I’m going to break them up into at least 3 parts over the next 3 days.

I’m going to jump right into the good stuff now!

Β Day 1 – Keynote

Phil Hollows of Feedblitz shared his story about how he ended up where he is today and how Feedblitz evolved. Feedblitz sounds like a great service, if I ever decide to move my subscribers from Feedburner. I’m signed up for a few newsletters from other bloggers that use Feedblitz, and I admit that I love how pretty their links look.

I didn’t take any notes during this session, because I was at the back of the room nursing Elisabeth and keeping her entertained. She did great, and I was able to hear Phil’s entire talk.

Next Session

Andrea Deckard of Savings Lifestyle spoke and gave some great tips for monetizing your blog.

Some of the main points I wrote down:

Sign up for IZEA, if you are interested in doing sponsored posts on your blog.

Sign up with the affiliate CJ (Commission Junction).

Get an EIN number for tax purposes

Savings Lifestyle accepts guest posts

Find out your top sources of blog traffic, and focus on those.

Run giveaways on your blog

Create unique promotions for your blog

Take advantage of the resources that Google offers, such as gmail and google docs.

Optimize your top 10 posts (going to be adding a link to my book to my top posts)

Recommended Plugins:

– Editorial Calendar Plugin

– Post Templates Plugin

– Gravity Forms Plugin

– SignNow Plugin

*I haven’t personally used any of these plugins yet, but I’m looking forward to trying them out.

Thanks for the suggestions, Andrea!

I’m always on the lookout for great plugin recommendations. I had the chance to chat briefly with Andrea before she left, and I’m looking forward to seeing her again at the Savvy Blogging Summit this week! Andrea had a lot more to say than just the points I mentioned, but those are the main ones that stuck out to me and that I was able to jot down in the midst of entertaining my baby girl. πŸ™‚

As a side note, it was really neat to sit in on Andrea’s talk, because I’ve been following her blog for a very longtime – back when Andrea’s blog was named, Mommy Snacks. It was neat to hear her story about how she got to where she is today.

More to come! I wish I could write more now, but I have a messy kitchen to clean…

This post contains my affiliate link.


5 Facebook Tips for Bloggers

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facebook tips for bloggers

Being a part of facebook is pretty much a must, if you’re a blogger. Readers naturally want to connect with bloggers on facebook, and even though facebook is constantly changing and may not be as ‘friendly’ to bloggers as it once was, let’s face it, we still want to connect with readers there….even if it’s just the small fraction of readers that do see our updates in their news feed.

So here are my top five facebook tips for bloggers:

 
1. Post pictures. Facebook is all about images, and an image is way more likely to be clicked on and read than a status update without a picture. Something you might want to try is uploading an image from your blog post to facebook, and then giving it a good caption that includes a link back to your original blog post. This way you’ll actually encourage readers to leave facebook and visit your blog.

2. Post interesting links at night or in the evening. The kids are in bed and readers are jumping back on their computers and getting on facebook. I’ve definitely noticed an increase in my blog readership after about 7:00pm.

3. If you write your blog posts late at night, wait until morning to post the link on facebook. You’ll have a better chance at reaching more people with the link to your blog post in the morning than at midnight.

4. Create milestones on facebook. This way readers can find out when you started your blog and other important events that have happened in the life of your blog.

5. Most importantly, sound like a friend on facebook. Facebook is all about relationships, and you want to sound like a friend to your readers to show your readers that you care about them and value their input. Be sure to ‘like’ their comments, so that they know you’ve read them and comment back.

What you some of your facebook tips? What has worked for you?

P.S. I’m still working at being better at all of the above on facebook on a regular basis. It’s a work in progress, but I’m working on it. πŸ™‚


4 WordPress Plugins to Give Your Blog a Boost

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4 Useful WordPress Plugins

I know I haven’t been around much the last few days. I’ve been working on designing and creating, which are extremely time consuming endeavors, but in doing so, I’ve come across some great plugins. When a client asks me if I can do something on their website or blog that I’ve never done in the past, I’ve learned that before I try to spend lots of time figuring it out by myself (this usually involves coding which is a well-known time hog), it’s best to search for a plugin.

And guess what?

There is almost always a plugin for whatever functionality you need to add to your WordPress blog. The plugins may not always be free, but most are.

Here are some good, FREE plugins, I’ve come across lately:

YouTube Channel: Bloggers are increasingly creating YouTube Channels to share tips, tricks, information, and ideas with their readers. If you need an easy way to add your YouTube Channel to your blog, check out this plugin. It’s the best I’ve found so far to add a YouTube Channel onto a blog or website. And from what I’ve learned, YouTube has made it increasingly difficult to add your YouTube Channel to your website (code, anyone?). All the more reason to use this plugin.

Twitter Goodies: Need to add your Twitter steam to your blog? This is a great plugin to use, and it’s easy to style to match your website or blog’s design. If you’d like to see this plugin in action, check out the Allume Social blog.Β It’s in their sidebar. I’m also planning on installing and styling this plugin for The Sensible Mom.

WP Post Columns: Do you want to add columns to your posts or pages (say for lists of recipes?), but don’t know how to code to create columns? Or, if you are like me, don’t want to code, but want to make it simple for clients to create columns to make their content neat and pretty. This plugin makes it easy. You can add as many columns as you want, and it’s easily customizable, too.

LinkWithin: This is a plugin I’ve installed in the last couple of months that I’m really liking. Do you want to shows ‘related posts’ with thumbnail images at the bottom of all your posts? You can see an example of this on my posts. Just scroll down to the bottom of each post. The LinkWithin plugin makes it super easy! You won’t find this free plugin in your WordPress dashboard, though. You need to go to the LinkWithin website to get it.

Side note: If you don’t know how to install WordPress plugins, just head over to your WordPress Dashboard and go to β€œPlugins” then click on β€œAdd New” and search for your desired plugin. Once you find the plugin you want, click on β€œInstall Now”, then click β€œActivate.” After you’ve activated the plugin, see if there are any settings you need to change in order to get the plugin enabled and working on your blog. Doing this will work with all of the plugins I mentioned, except for the LinkWithin plugin. You’ll have to head over to the LinkWithin website and put in some info. there to get the widget for that plugin.Β 

If you need any help configuring these plugins or getting them onto your blog, feel free to hire me, and I’ll do it for you. πŸ™‚

Have you found any good plugins lately? What are the best plugins you’d recommend?