Around the Virtual Office-The Blog

5 Ways To Improve Your Blog Today

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Rebecca L Thompson

The voice behind a blog always wants to be heard. Without an audience, it can be discouraging for a blogger to continue writing. With a new blog launching every second, it’s important to pay attention to your own blog. The following are 5 easy ways to improve your blog today. Follow these key elements and you will see a growth in your readership.

1. Get a domain name!

Changing your blog address to a domain name with a popular extension is very important. Having a domain name gives you a professional edge over your competition. It’s much easier for blog fans to remember a .com extension versus trying to find your blog on Google. Branding your blog with the right domain name will create the buzz your blog needs. Blogger and WordPress offer their bloggers an opportunity to purchase a domain name for an inexpensive annual fee.

2. Make it easy for readers to subscribe.

There are too many blogs that are not using the subscriber feature. If you are one of them, turn it on! You want to make sure your blog readers have the opportunity to subscribe to your blog before they leave. You need to offer them a subscription by email or by a RRS feeder. Give readers a choice of how they want to keep up with your blog. Always place your subscriber feature where it is visible for readers. You should place this feature at the top of one of your sidebars and underneath each blog post.

3. Sign up for Blog Catalog today.

This is a fantastic online network of bloggers around the world. You will need to sign up as a new user and give details about your blog. It only takes a short waiting period to find out if your blog has been approved. Once approved, there will be a screenshot of your blog under the blog category you chose. Fill out your profile and start connecting! It’s an interactive website where you can see who visited your blog, made profile comments and so much more.

4. Clean up your blog template.

Many bloggers install new templates they find on the internet which can sometimes turn into a mess. Some of these templates are not coded properly and once installed can change the alignment of your blog. There are many bloggers who find themselves with the third column of their templates underneath their blog posts! You always want your blog template to work with the type of blog you run. Choose a blog template that is easy for your readers to navigate. If there are too many things going on, you will lose readers if they can’t make sense of what your blog is about.

5. Check out your stats!

Every blog or website should have an invisible statistic counter. You can do a search on Google for a free statistic counter. With a good statistic counter, you can see exactly where your readers are coming from. You will find out if your readers are using keywords on Google to find you or if they are finding you from another website. All of this is important information for you as a blogger. Once you know how many unique daily visitors you are getting and where they are coming from, you can place your efforts on a precise marketing campaign for your blog.

Posted in Blogging, How-tos, Social Media Marketing | Tagged Blogging, CLR Virtual Connection, enhance your blog, Google, subscribe to blogs | 2 Comments

Tutorial-Hootsuite and Social Networks

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Rebecca L Thompson

I thought today I would do a video to show you how to connect your Blogger Feed into your Hootsuite. Enjoy! If you have questions, I would love to help you with them!

Posted in How-tos, Tutorial, Video tutorial | Tagged Blogger, Facebook, feeds, Hootsuite, LinkedIn, Rss/Atom, social media, Social Networking, Twitter, WordPress | Comments Off

Adding the “Like” button

Posted on April 24, 2010 by Rebecca L Thompson

As with new features added to the social networking world, comes new add-ins to make it easier to add them. Over the last couple of weeks, Facebook has been hinting and rolling out new “additions” to not only their site but to make the world of web 2.0 more “social”. They changed the “Become a Fan” to “People who Like this Page” and they are changing the privacy controls and partnering with other Brands (Microsoft and others) to enhance the Facebook Brand.

If you wanted to add the “Like” button to your site you had to add in some coding which is not difficult and takes about a second to do whether you know how to code or not. It was a matter of opening up your WP and clicking on “Editor” in your Appearance section and then going to “Single Post” and finding the spot you want it. When you find the spot (normally at the top or under your content) you just add in this line of code:

<?php echo ‘<iframe src=”http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=‘,urlencode(get_permalink()),’&layout=standard&show_faces=true&width=450&action=like&colorscheme=light” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:300px; height:25px”></iframe>’; ?>

Now the plug-ins have come out for the adding the “Like” button to your site. You can add in the plug-ins but remember with plug-ins come more work, slower download speed of your site (the more plug-ins you have the slower your site loads) and the more issues you are likely to have with your site. It is best to keep plug-ins to a minimum number.

Here is how you add the button in the coding, Nathan does a really good job at showing you how in his video.

If you want some plug-ins:

http://blog.gunnjerkens.com/2010/04/facebook-like-plugin-for-wordpress/

http://buzzknow.com/2010/04/24/facebook-like-button-simple-wordpress-plugin/

and you can search inside wordpress in your plug-in area for more.

Posted in Facebook, How-tos, Uncategorized, WordPress | Tagged Facebook, Like button, Plug-Ins, social media, Social Networking | Comments Off

Facebook “Likes” changes….

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Rebecca L Thompson

The change is here and now you will “like” a page instead of “fanning” it.
Here is some information from FB about the changes:

Why did “Become a Fan” change to “Like”?

To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we’ve changed the language for Pages from “Fan” to “Like.” We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.

What does it mean to “Like” a Page?

When you click “Like” on a Page, you are making a connection to that Page. The Page will be displayed in your profile, and in turn, you will be displayed on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.

Can I still “Like” a News Feed story about my friends Liking Pages?

No. When you see a Feed story about a friend Liking a Page, there will be no feedback links below that story. However, if you hover over the Page name, you will see a small preview of the Page and the number of other people who have also Liked that Page. You can then Like that Page to add it to your profile, or you can click through to the Page itself.

Is there a difference between “Liking” an item a friend posts and “Liking” a Page?

Yes. Liking a Page means you are connecting to that Page. When you connect to a Page, it will appear in your profile and you will appear on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.
On the other hand, when you click “Like” on a piece of content that a friend posts, you are simply letting your friend know that you like it without leaving a comment.

What is your opinion of the change?