Tips Tuesday and What Makes an Insanely Great Blog Design

Hello Happy Site Owners! Bunches of great tips this week on site design, WordPress plugins, blogging, SEO, social media, and more, literally. There’s a section near the end titled More Tips.

Did you see the new video overview yesterday on the Advanced Text Editor for WordPress? And, you can catch the full-length version in the WordPress Video Tutorial Courses.

Featured

Read What Makes an Insanely Great Blog Design and re-read it and then go look at your site and see if it fits the criteria in this super post from Derek Halpern. As a site owner, if you haven’t spent at least twice as much time and money in learning about marketing and content as you did on the look of your theme, don’t be surprised if your site doesn’t help you make money.

WordPress Plugins

Recently Updated
WPTouch allows you to easily convert your blog into a mobile-friendly version.

Fast Secure Contact Form plugin was updated yet again. It has had its issues since the release of WordPress 3.3, but the developer is staying right on top of it.

Plugins to Check Out
Social Login for WordPress allows folks to use their social media account to login and place comments on your blog. It may be a great way to encourage folks to leave more comments because they don’t have to fill out a form to login. It recognizes IDs from Facebbok, Twitter, and G+ as well as 15 more. And you get social analytics of your users. What do you think? Would you use it?

I’m more than a little leary of whether this will work or not. Weblog Tools has announced the coming of A Plugin to Make All Themes Responsive Designs. Responsive design checks for the device on which the site is being viewed and adapts accordingly. This is definitely a coming trend, but a lot of thought has to go into the design, which is why I’m leary about a plugin that can make choices that still look good. We’ll see.

WordPress Tips

I redesign my site about every year and a half. This post from Bob Dunn on Best Blogging Tips Online asks Should You Redesign Your Blog?: 5 Signs It May Be the Right Time. Although, #4 is not true on BlogAid. It’s the least visited page on my site. If you do the rest of your marketing well, folks already know you’re right for the job.

Here’s a little rant by Tom Ewer on WPMU.org that I couldn’t agree with more titled Why You Hate the WordPress Text Editor and What You Can Do About It. The default text editor is the bane of WordPress. I use and recommend the TinyMCE Advanced editor. You can see an overview of how to set it up and what it offers here, or get the full-length version of how to use all of its features for longer page views and lower bounce rate in the Advanced section of the WordPress Video Tutorials Course.

Blog Tips

It’s something I say to every one of my clients – your website is not about you (the site owner). Simalrly, in this post, Marya explains You vs I: How to Write with a You Attitude and she’s talking about you as the reader.

Here’s a great blogging Cinderella story for you from Social Media Examiner about How an Alaskan Mom Brings Millions to Her Carpentry Blog. You’ll want to pay attention to the role Pinterest played.

I so enjoyed Joe Palizzi’s post of 2 Example of How Non-Profit Content Marketing Should Work. He’s not kidding when he suggests you grab a tissue.

An author’s website is the hub of their online promotional efforts. In this guest post on The Savvy Book Marketer, Judy Cullins tells you 4 Book Marketing Check and Correct Actions for Increased Traffic.

SEO

The more backlinks you have to your site, the more important Google thinks your site is and the higher it gets ranked. On Vertical Measures, Michael Schwartz tells you that There are Only 2 Ways to Build Backlinks and he’s right.

Social Media Tips

LinkedIn has turned into the very best ROI for leads among all of the social media sites where I have a presence. That is due to following many of the same tips as outlined by Shelley Kramer on V3 for the 12 Most Effective Ways to Generate Leads on LinkedIn.

More Tips

Got a book on Amazon? The Savvy Book Marketer, Dana Lynn Smith has a quick tutorial on the 4 simple Steps to Creating a Vanity URL for Your Amazon Author Central Page.