Title: Print a Template Before Buying

I’ve done it, others have done it, if you haven’t, you might do it! I’m talking about buying a template that you just seem to think is perfect and set it all up, only to find out that there are too many things that don’t go the way you planned.

One trick I’ve developed over the years is to print the different types of pages (homepage, blog page, post page, etc) and edit them on paper so I can see if things work the way I want before buying them. This is not only a great tip to avoid buying themes that you can’t or won’t use, but also to plan your blog out.

Check out the hundreds of Premium WordPress Themes over at ThemeForest.

Title: Content Submit Plug-In

Guest blogging is all the rage right now, as people are looking for writers to write for them, and looking for places to write, guest blogging or posting is a great way to get noticed or get content.

One thing that is sometimes a barrier in getting people to post or for blog managers to host guest bloggers, is setting up user names and permissions for each blogger. Thankfully now with the Content Submit Plug-In there’s a simple way to set the whole thing up without any need to register.

Learn more and download the content submit plug-in for free.

Title: WordPress StackExchange

Ever had some questions about WordPress that you needed answered?

Sure you could go to the WordPress support forums, and most basic answers will be there, but if you have something more complex or custom to your situation, where can you go?

You can go to the WordPress StackExchange a.k.a. WordPress Answers, where you can ask questions and get answers from experts.

Get your WordPress Answers now!

Title: Editorial Calendar

We have covered how important managing your time is for a website owner before, but now we take it a step further. It’s important to manage the time of your posts and when they will appear.

Thanks to this great plug-in you can have a full editorial calendar in your WordPress admin section and can even drag and drop posts from one day to another to get things prepared and know how your month is lining up.

Title: Use Facebook Like for Tags

Facebook Like is probably one of the best buttons to have on your website or blog, if not the best one. Sharing on Facebook is a lot more intimate than twitter for most people so it has a higher conversion rate. Imagine being able to feed someone’s Facebook stream with similar posts to the one they like automatically once they like the first one?

Thanks to the “Facebook Like for Tags” WordPress Plug-in, you can do that.

Here’s the description of the plug-in from the author:

Power Facebook Like with Search, Tags and Feed Syndication!

Expand the basic Facebook Like function to dynamically generated content. Instead of a one-time sharing event, a permanent connection for ongoing updates and sharing based on post tags or categories. Write your WordPress blog posts as you normally would. Define your posting with appropriate tags or categories. Once posted, it will have a Facebook Like button linked to it via the tags/categories you defined. Any reader who clicks the Facebook Like button will share the article but also receive additional updates anytime you write a post specifying the same tags. (Requires PHP version 5 or higher.)

Use Case Example

A WordPress blogger covers consumer electronics. She writes about the new Apple iPad. She defines this post by tagging it with “Apple”, “iPad” and other tags. Readers who like the post and want to share via Facebook, click on the Facebook Like button. A few days later, the blogger writes another post about the next release of the Apple iPhone with the same tags. Shortly after posting the article, those readers who liked the earlier article will automatically receive an update in their Facebook news feed.

Benefits

• Continuous sharing – This plugin implements a Facebook Like button and adds the IngBoo filtering, change-detect and notification logic to expand the button into a permanent connection for ongoing sharing and updates.
• Increased reach and revisits – Case studies show that this function can increase your page view by 25%-40%.
• Consumer intent – Your readers define what they are interested in by pressing the Like button. You define the context via the tags. When the tags provide a well-defined context you and your readers win. They get timely updates of relevant content into their new feeds and you get more revisits.
• Crowd draws bigger crowd – Anytime you post with prior tags, readers will likely see that others had Liked those tags. This attracts even more clicks on the Like button.

Click here to learn more or download it now!

Title: WordPress SEO Tips Video

Three letters I don’t enjoy, SEO, also known as search engine optimization, as a blogger, I really don’t like spending time on it, thankfully WordPress has great SEO built in.

However there is always room for improvements, and I do my fair share on my blogs, and trying to do more I came accross this amazing video from WordCamp 2009 San Francisco where Matt Cutts does a great talk about WordPress SEO.

Here’s the video:

Title: RSS is Important!

If you don’t know what RSS is, you need to! Really Simple Syndication is integrated to all WordPress installations and it’s basically a feed of all your blog posts that people can subscribe to so they can get your latest updates instead of visiting your websites.

So since they aren’t visiting your site as much or at all anymore you need to make sure your RSS feed is showing your posts the way you want and also if you are interested in making money with your website then you need to make sure Ads are getting on to them.

I recently took the time to fix an RSS issue on one of my websites and it nearly tripled my income as for that specific type of website I have more ad views in my RSS than on my website itself because most of my readers are subcribed.

First and foremost you should subscribe to your feed so you can see what things are looking like and second you should have a place on your website where users, even unfamiliar ones, can sign up easily, just like us on the top of the right sidebar.

Your RSS feed is also what feeds other sites, for example if you push your posts automatically to other websites like Facebook that is what’s usually being used.

For some cool RSS tricks check out our last post about 10 RSS hacks.

Title: Tweet to be Tweeted

Right now one of the top things bloggers want is for their posts to be tweeted and retweeted over and over again. The thing is that you can do everything right, have a great post, have an easy on click button to retweet yet you never get those valuable tweets.

Well one way you can increase your chances of getting tweeted is getting more involved on Twitter and retweeting other people’s post, but make sure you don’t just tweet anyones posts, try and find some that relate to your post, you can then ask the person you retweeted if they would be interested in retweeting yours as it will most likely apply to their followers.

Another way to exchange tweets is through a website like SocialFavors.com where users can exchange favors like tweets for free, or you can post a paid task on a website like MicroWorkers.

Title: Find a Friend

When you’re blogging, like in business, there are bound to be times where you just aren’t motivated anymore or things have just gotten boring.

Well finding a friend will help more than you can think, of course we mean a friend who is also a blogger (nothing worse than explaining to a friend who has no interest in blogging or computers what you are doing), you will not only be able to have friendly competitions but you will also be able to offer advice, suggestions, help and even links to each others posts.

The more the merrier, you can even form a blogging group, I’m thinking about starting one in my area, although you don’t need to meet or even live in the same city or country, it can help and become even more enjoyable to be within proximety to meet up every once in a while to discuss each others blogs, and future plans.

Title: 10 Must Have Plug-Ins Video

There are thousands of plug-ins for WordPress, some that almost everyone uses, some that nobody uses, but how do you know about which ones to use from the middle of the pack?

Unless you’re looking to fill a specific need, it’s not easy to know what’s out there that could be good for you. Well we found this video to help you figure out what could be good: