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4 Reasons to Ditch Microsoft Word and Exclusively Work in WordPress
Wednesday, May 5, 2012by The BW?D Team in WordPress
In today’s modern world, Microsoft Word doesn’t hold the same prestige it once did. Ever since the .docx format was adopted, Word files have become inefficient and more difficult to properly output in other formats. Luckily, WordPress (WP) has a great post editing interface with a myriad of different features. In this post, we’ll explain why bloggers should use WP exclusively and opt out of using Microsoft Word altogether.
4 Reasons to Work Directly in WP
- Auto-save feature – Type directly into WP without having to worry about losing your work. With WP’s auto-save feature, the post you are currently working on will automatically be saved every few seconds, similar to a draft in your Gmail account. No deletions ever. No worries ever.
- Web-ready formatting – To ensure your blog runs smoothly, WP formats each post with clean functional HTML. Clean markup is important to the success of any blog or website, especially SEO.
- Built in headings – Built into its easy-to-use dashboard, WP offers headings of different sizes and thus importance via a dropdown box. Choose from 6 different styles and sizes to match the look and intent of your post.
- Pictures and videos – Uploading photos is simple with WP and only takes a few steps. You can also embed videos from YouTube or Hulu with just a few clicks. This can be difficult to transfer from Word to WordPress, so you’re better off working in the latter exclusively at the start.
With the convenient and efficient features of WordPress, there’s no need to output your work from Microsoft Word. Save yourself the time and the hassle by working directly in in the online application. Or, contact us now to get your WordPress blog started.
Casual Tips in Design: Font Selection
Thursday, May 5, 2012by The BW?D Team in Digital Experience
While the content of your blog post is extremely important, the visual appearance can project just as much of an impact on your overall message as well.To many, font selection may seem trivial, but the style in which a font is crafted and presented can make or break the total visual experience of a design.
Certain fonts are bold and eye-catching; these are generally used for headings and other important pieces of text. Other fonts are subtle and engaging to the eye; these are great for body text.
While working with a designer or completing your own design, it’s important to not mix too many varieties or styles no matter how cute you think things look as this can be very distracting for readers.
One important point in starting your journey through font selection is the distinction between serif and sans-serif fonts. From Wikipedia:
In typography, serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface (or serifed typeface). A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without”.
4 Fonts and Their Visual Styles Explained
- Times New Roman: A serif proper font that gives off a conservative vibe; great for body text that is more academic or professional in nature. There are many fonts that are similar to Times New Roman that do this same trick as well.
- Arial: Another classic and very standard font that is great for body text and is sans-serif. It is much more contemporary than Times New Roman and has many sister fonts as well.
- Comic Sans MS: A casual font, which screams a much more child-like and non-serious tone in sans-serif form. The use of Comic Sans is generally discouraged by professional designers, but you’ll see it everywhere from legal documents to restaurant menus. Don’t make the same mistake and leave Comic Sans for comic books.
- Impact: A bold, blocky, sans-serif font that instantly grabs the readers’ attention. This font is very popular, and thus very prolific.
At Blog What? Design we use a great service called TypeKit to help our clients websites serve up unique and hard-to-find-fonts very easily. Sick of the same old font selections? Just let us know and we’ll get you started on a makeover.
Examples of Bad Font Combination in Posts
Stay clear of altering your existing website’s font selection in your WordPress editor and making mistakes that look like this.
Are you curious about the origins and history of font creation, also known as “Typography?” Then check out the history from Wikipedia here.
Choosing the Right E-mail Marketing Service: Tribulant vs. MailChimp
Wednesday, May 5, 2012by The BW?D Team in Content Creation
Once you have made the decision to add e-mail marketing to your digital business plan, you’ll soon be asking yourself, “how do I choose the right e-mail marketing service?” As a blogger or small business owner, it’s crucial that you choose a service that offers easy WordPress integration. Here at Blog What? Design, we like to promote two great services that offer just that: Tribulant and MailChimp. Let’s compare and contrast these two plugins to help you decide which is the best fit for your project.
7 Reasons to use Tribulant’s WP Newsletter Plugin
- The plugin is directly integrated into the WP platform from the start and you’ll never leave WP as well.
- It’s very easy to create templates, manage subscribers, and send newsletters to large amounts of recipients.
- Tribulant’s program allows you to gather unlimited e-mail subscribers and organize them into multiple mailing lists without any limits.
- It’s simple to add media and personal style to your newsletter. Creativity is encouraged!
- Tribulant’s tracking statistics are very efficient, showing how many e-mails you’ve sent and how many your subscribers have actually read.
- Notifications of new subscribers can be sent automatically to you, the administrator, in addition to unsubscribes, and more if you’d like.
- Very affordable pricing! For a single domain the plugin costs a single flat rate of $54.99. For an unlimited number of domains at a developer rate, the price is $274.95, one time only.
While Tribulant is a great, affordable solution for many, it should be noted that Tribulant’s plugin doesn’t collect subscribers’ names. This may be important if you want to personalize your newsletter for each subscriber whenever you wish. Furthermore, it’s important that you’re working with a flexible, reputable hosting company as this plugin may need some extra resources and configuration for proper use. Just contact us for further details.
7 Reason’s to use MailChimp’s WP Newsletter Plugin
- MailChimp allows users to quickly and easily add a signup form for your chosen list anywhere on your website.
- The entire installation process takes only 5 minutes and works externally from your website, so no need to ever worry about overloading one service and affecting the other.
- There is no need to ever edit code and the newsletter design process is a bit prettier than Tribulant’s.
- MailChimp actually collects subscriber’s names, so that you can address your e-mails more personally, and potentially better avoid SPAM filters.
- Unlike Tribulant, MailChimp offers users the option to collect list members’ names when they subscribe to your newsletter.
- Pricing is on a monthly basis, and based upon the total number of subscribers you’ll need. For example: if you have 0-500 subscribers the rate is $10/month, 501-1,000 subscribes costs $15/month, 1,001-2,500 subscribers costs $30/month and so on. Unfortunately, this means that scaling upwards in terms of number of subscribers can get expensive, very quickly.
- However, if you find yourself sending out actual newsletters pretty infrequently, MailChimp offers a convenient Pay As You Go plan that might be right for you. This plan requires you to purchase credits, which work a lot like stamps for snail-mail except on a per e-mail basis. For example: 300 pre-paid credits cost $9, equaling about $0.03 per e-mail.
As you can see, Tribulant and MailChimp have the same number of pros and cons. Luckily, both programs have few flaws, and one compensates where the other fails. It’s up to you to decide which E-mail Marketing Service better fits your marketing plan!
Small Businesses Can Benefit from Blogging
Tuesday, May 5, 2012by The BW?D Team in Clients, Community Building
BWD’s last blog post provided readers with four ways to optimize their expertise by blogging. Having a blog of any kind is always advantageous, but creating and maintaining a blog as an industry professional can be more beneficial to your business than you may already know.
Take Dr. Petrusia G. Kotlar, DC, who has been practicing chiropractic since 1984. Dr. Kotlar recently launched a great new blog The Healthy Hive, which focuses on natural living and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. She also writes about the services she offers and includes information about the location of her practice. As a professional within the health industry, there are numerous reasons why keeping an informative blog will benefit her in the long run. Read about three of these reasons below.
Share Your Actual Location
As a small business owner, your company’s success relies mostly on your real clients and customers, or the people actually handing you cash. By including your physical locations on your website, your present and future clients will be able to locate your business more easily and are more likely to book appointments or visits. Even if sharing your location doesn’t help to generate any immediate new leads, your name and locale will be a strong indicator as to your professional authority and expertise. Check out one of BW?’D’s earlier posts about the benefits of claiming your business location on Yelp as well.
A Blog: Great Low-Cost Marketing, Stay Ahead of Competitors
Every business needs to market its brand, but not every single one thinks they can afford to do so. A blog is a wonderful, low-cost marketing option for those who can afford to invest in an initial design and web presence, but lack the funds for a continual budget. Instead, update your blog yourself with relevant information to prove to your clients that your business is professional and skilled. Your blog will also help you to differentiate your brand from others. Help yourself stay ahead of the competition by highlighting your exceptional services or products. For help from our experts in consulting, design, technical details, and more, contact BW?D.
Connect With Other Like-Minded Professionals
Continual blogging can have a truly awesome network effect. Use your blog or digital publication to connect and meet others in your field, guest blog with others, and comment and share your thoughts and opinions. Not only will your blog benefit from this extra exposure, but you’ll notice how much easier it is to network online as well.
Ready to take the next step? Contact us now to get started.
4 Ways to Optimize Your Expertise through Blogging
Thursday, April 4, 2012by The BW?D Team in Content Creation
Traditionally speaking, getting “published” in a journal or publication within your industry meant that you had made it to the top, to the point of expert authority in your industry. Thanks to the world of blogging, however, the barriers to entry in this previously expensive type of endeavor have dropped significantly while the same sort of gravitas can still be built. Here are some tips in your path towards becoming an expert in your industry via your blog, Tumblr, or other type of digital publication.
4 Ways to Optimize Your Expertise Through Blogging
- Approach the most talked-about subject in your field: This is crucial! Learn what’s important in your industry by staying on top of current issues and trends. In order to become an expert in your field, you must continually stay at the edge of development. A good way to stay up to date is by reading industry magazines and articles, or subscribing to newsletters that are e-mailed to you daily, weekly, or monthly. Then, take these topics head on using your own background skills and knowledge.
- Be truthful, and leave opinion out: By retaining a candid, expert tone, readers are more likely to take you seriously. Keep opinions out of your work, and be sure to thoroughly cite your writing unless you’re using your own primary research.
- Incorporate SEO: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help drive traffic to your blog, so put some effort into researching the basics and be sure your expert writing is actually read! Check out BWD’s previous posts, SEO for Blogs Series, or contact us for further help and a consultation.
- Do some casual marketing (at the very least): Beyond SEO both within your website and externally, it’s important that you do some ground work to promote your blog yourself as well. Include a link to your blog in your e-mail signature, LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile, Twitter bio, your resume, and any other social media access points. Refer your colleagues to new posts and ask for their feedback to garner interest.
Let these guidelines help you demonstrate your value and expertise in your industry to the entire world, thanks to blogging and digital publishing!
Facebook Page Features Not to Miss
Wednesday, April 4, 2012by The BW?D Team in Facebook
BWD’s previous blog post provided you with six easy steps to set up your Facebook Page. As a blogger or business owner, here are some lesser-known, additional Facebook Page features that you should be sure not to miss.
Facebook Page Features Not to Miss
- Your About Section: Your ‘About’ section, gives you the opportunity to accurately describe your business to other Facebook users in your own words. Keep this section brief and include link to your business’ website, or about page.
- Your Friend Activity: This new feature allows visitors to see how their personal Facebook friends have interacted with your organization’s Facebook Pages. For instance, if a visitor checks in to your business’ location via Facebook, their friends will be able to see this check-in on your Page’s timeline. This is a great marketing strategy, helping to entice friends of visitors to also interact with your Facebook page as well.
- Your Activity Log: This is a convenient organizational tool, which offers Facebook Page owners the ability to manage all posts in just one section. These tools include options such as hiding, deleting, or starring stories, filtering stories by different categories (date or type), and toggle options to display comments, photos, and spam. To access your activity log go to Admin Panel, then Manage, and Use Activity Log.
- Your Company Milestones: This is a completely new addition to Facebook, which allows you to highlight any “Milestones” your company may have reached. Milestones can include new product releases, innovative marketing campaigns, awards, accomplishments, and much more. Include an image with your Milestone update for maximum viewability at 843 pixels wide by 403 pixels tall.
Use your Facebook Page to its full advantage through these great tips.
How to Write an About Page
Wednesday, April 4, 2012by The BW?D Team in Content Creation
One of the most important features of any blog is the ubiquitous “About” page. Akin to a personal biography, this kind of page gives a blogger a chance to connect with readers on a more personal level. It offers the chances to share credentials and therefore expertise, in addition to any personal or professional reasons you have chosen to write about this subject matter. This task really shouldn’t be difficult at all. To help, here are four things to consider including in your “About” page.
Four Elements to Include in Your About Page
- Who are you? First and foremost, introduce yourself to your readers. First-time readers will most likely click on this page to learn more about you, so give them a great, short narrative. Use a friendly tone, and make your readers feel comfortable, wanting to come back for more.
- What’s your background? In this section, you’ll want to highlight your relevant experience. For instance: if you are writing a fashion blog, highlight your past, present, or future professional experience in the fashion industry. If you have never worked in the industry, that’s okay – explain to your readers why fashion is important to you. Degrees, awards, significant publications and more can only ever help as well. The key is to establish credibility through experience; use this space as a bragging page.
- Where else are you published? As a blogger, self-promotion is critical. In your “About” page, you may want to include links to other websites at which you’ve been published. For example: if you’re an artist, include a link to an external, online portfolio. If you’re a writer, include links to published articles, especially guest blog posts on other blogs.
- Contact Information: Always include contact information in your “About” page if you do not have a dedicated “Contact” page. Not only will interested readers want to contact you with questions or comments at times, but clearly posting your contact information can also help business opportunities to spark more easily.
When it comes to your “About” page, remember to keep a friendly tone, assure your readers why you are an authority on your given subject matter, and provide a quick and easy way for your readers to get in touch.
Visit Kristen’s Raw Blog and Pathways for Health, two healthy living blogs from BW? D’s clients, for some great “About” page examples. Or, contact us for some copywriting help in writing your own!
Engage Your Social Media Followers With 3 Tips
Thursday, April 4, 2012by The BW?D Team in Social Media
As a blogger or small business owner in today’s technologically competitive world, it’s important to maintain a strong social media presence in order to stay ahead of the game. Ask yourself how and what you are doing to make sure your current and prospective social media followers constantly stay engaged with you and your brand. Here are three ways to engage your followers.
3 Ways to Engage Your Social Media Followers
- Always Respond and Use Different Tools –Acknowledge each and every comment or piece of feedback, even if that response is negative. It’s human nature to vent about things we’re dissatisfied with, such as poor customer service or a faulty product. Many customers choose to vent using social media tools such as Facebook or Twitter. Show your customers that you hear them and care about their feedback by taking the time to respond to each complaint. Read “4 Ways to Deal with Negative Comments on Your Blog,” for advice on how to deal with those kinds of comments.
- Start Conversations and Ask Your Followers to Promote Your Brand – If your followers already enjoy and appreciate your brand, you might be surprised as to how eager they are to share their experiences and in turn promote your brand. Encourage them through questions or open-ended type surveys via Twitter or Facebook to spark conversations. Ask followers to post photos with their favorite product. Hold giveaways on your blog for some extra excitement.
- Be Creative – Unleash your creativity! The latest social media tools allow you to take your brand’s marketing strategy to a whole new level. Surprise your current followers and gain additional followers by thinking outside of the box. Create a new marketing campaign, or work on your artistic presentation through beautiful Facebook cover photos.
Constant communication with your followers, even if it’s simply through social media venues, is both a great way to gain feedback while demonstrating that you care about your followers as well.
Spring Cleaning for Your Blog
Wednesday, March 3, 2012by The BW?D Team in Content Creation
Spring is here! And depending where you’re joining us from, the air is getting warmer, the flowers are blooming, and there’s certainly a sense of renewal and freshness among our team here.
So what could be a better time to share some of this energy to your blog? Here’s a checklist that will help you make sure all of your content (even from way, way back!) stays fresh and bright for the coming seasons.
Our “Spring Cleaning for your Blog” Checklist
- Torch your old spam comments – This is a basic task, but needs reminding every once in a while. Let’s face it, over the course of a year a blog’s spam folder easily fills up, and is to neglect. As part of your spring cleaning, take the time to mark each spam comment you receive as “spam,” and then empty your spam folder. While your system should be picking up most of these, give them a glance every once in a while and torch the rest.
- Re-read old posts for relevance – Something that was written last year may simply be out-of-date this year. However, this is an excellent time to add updates and bump the content back to your front page, or write a new followup post altogether. If you’re going the latter route, be sure to link the new post to the old post and vice-versa so that your readers can enjoy a wide array of your content, and not just the most recent stuff.
- Go Back and cross-link – To positively impact your SEO go through your posts and cross-link those that are similar. There might be tons of new links that could be made given new content, or shifting topics. This will not only guide readers to older, valuable content, but will enhance the navigability and reach of your writing as well.
- Delete unused plugins – Remove any unused plugins that you may have temporarily installed on your blog but are currently not using. This will help keep your system healthy and secure.
- Cleanup your widgets – The same goes for your widgets. Take a look at your sidebar and re-evaluate your widgets and various sections. Are any of them unnecessary? If your answer is yes, then delete those that you’re not currently using.
After a good spring-cleaning, your blog will feel brand new, and ready to attract new readers.
3 Ways to Make Your New Facebook Page “Pop”
Wednesday, March 3, 2012by The BW?D Team in Facebook, Uncategorized
Courtesy Facebook.com, The TODAY Show.
Now that you know how to set up your Facebook Pages, here are some further tips to really make sure your Facebook page looks bold and engaging.
3 Tips to Make Your New Facebook Page “Pop”
- Publish Visual Content: A lot of us prefer absorbing content visually, especially when it is posted for us online and easy to access. Facebook Pages gives you the opportunity to post more images and videos. Use this to your company’s advantage! Visual content will generate more engagement between you and your visitors.
- Publish Your Most Important Posts on Timeline: Draw your visitor’s attention to the most important posts by placing them on your Timeline. There are two steps involved in this process. First, give your visitors access to your content on your Timeline. Go to Manage Permissions and be sure that your default setting is set to Allowed on Timeline. After this is completed, choose which posts you’d like to feature. To do this, go to your Activity Log and choose Highlight on Timeline.
- Pin Your Best Content Every 7 Days: With Facebook Pages, you now have the option of pinning content to the top of your pages every seven days. Pinned stories appear in a handy spot, right below your status updates. This tool can be used to benefit your business, by pinning business events or marketing campaigns and promotions. To pin an update, hover over a post, click on the pencil icon in the top right hand corner, and choose Pin to Top. Make sure to rotate pins every seven days.
Remember, Facebook Pages was created to help businesses and organizations benefit more from big, bold, and visual updates. Use it to your advantage!
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