Blogging for Business Using WordPress.com

WordCamp SF State of the Word

Anet — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:16:25 +0000

Here is Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word address at WordCamp SF on August 16, 2011. Did you know that 22 out of every 100 new domain names go to a WordPress site?

Anet — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:19:27 +0000

This is an Aside, created under Posts > Add New, and clicking the radio button for Aside in the Format box in the right column under the big honkin’ blue Publish button. Here is the link for the WordPress.COM support page on Post Formats

What Is The New Aside Post Format?

Anet — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:06:47 +0000

Post Formats Available Now

Had a GREAT time at WordCamp SF Aug 13-14 and I’m excited about many of the great new features that are coming outlike the new POST FORMATS that are available on WordPress.com sites, the ones we created in class. You will find this table in the right column when you Add New Post. This Format box is right below the big honkin’ blue Publish button.

So, what is an Aside? Typically, it is a short note with a link or an update to an existing post. Some people use the Aside format for Facebook-type short postings because it does not require a title the way a Standard format blog post does.

Matt Mullenweg, one of the founders of WordPress, uses Asides extensively in his personal blog. The wrote a full, formal blog post on Aug. 8 about the Tim Thumb vulnerability in self-hosted websites, and you see that it has a standard blog post title. You will also see several short, untitled posts. These are Asides. The numbers in the “thought balloons” show the number of comments on the post.

Do you think Asides are something you will use in your blog? Have you tried the new Gallery format?

5 Tricks for a Great Blog Headline

Anet — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:20:00 +0000

If you add up all those hours spent standing in supermarket lines scanning the magazines and tabloids it could be a month of your life. But your learned something in that time. Think about the headlines that made you reach for the articles — the quiz that would tell you if you were “the one”…

Writing a great headline is a sensational way to get started writing a blog post. Write the headline and the rest will fall into place.

Don’t be subtle. Use strong keywords and deliver the content you promise.
Use numbers. Tell people what they will get when they read your blog post.
Be emotional. Best, worst, disaster, taboo, triumph, sensational, failure…
Use reverse psychology. How to lose a guy in 10 days.
Ask a “Cosmo Question” like “What do guys really want?”

How do you get started with a blog post? Do you start with the title or a sentence that captures the idea? Let us know!

Webify Your Business!

Anet — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:09:07 +0000

Now that you have a multi-page WordPress website with a blog on the home page, what are you going to do with it? You can Webify Your Business at the FREE MeetUp in Cotati on Thursdays at lunchtime. Karen Clark runs the Webify MeetUp which has over 150 small business owners, commission salespeople and self-employed service professionals learning how to grow their businesses by leveraging the Internet.

You will learn how to create effective content for your new website and how to use social networking like Facebook to drive traffic to your blog. Click this link to learn more about Karen Clark’s My Business Presence initiative.

More Adults 35+ Are Blogging

Anet — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:11:12 +0000

According to Pew Research Center, adults age 35 and up who use the Internet are blogging more. The New York Times reported in a Feb., 21, 2011 article:

Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent.

The New York Times analysis pointed to a shift away from blogging for younger Internet Users. Long posts did not attract the audience young people want. Short posts on Facebook or Twitter were more suited to keep in contact with their circle of friends. The article featured a young man who makes short videos that he wanted to share with his friends. Posting his videos to Facebook attracted more viewing by his friends than posting to a blog and trying to get his friends to click away from Facebook to his blog.

Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic, the company that commercializes the WordPress blogging software, explains that WordPress is mostly for serious bloggers, not the younger novices who are defecting to social networking.

In any case, he said bloggers often use Facebook and Twitter to promote their blog posts to a wider audience. Rather than being competitors, he said, they are complementary.

“There is a lot of fragmentation,” Mr. Schneider said. “But at this point, anyone who is taking blogging seriously — they’re using several mediums to get a large amount of their traffic.”

People like Russ Steele prefer longer, more thoughtful articles. Mr. Steele said he remained committed to blogging. “I’d rather spend my time writing up a blog analysis than a whole bunch of short paragraphs and then send them to people,” he said. “I don’t need to tell people I’m going to the grocery store.”

For an interesting look at who uses Twitter, check this research
http://www.businessesgrow.com/2010/12/17/research-casts-new-light-on-twitter-demographics/

Online Tutorial Now Available

Anet — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:50:01 +0000

Did you know that WordPress.com has its own blog? And they have just announced a tutorial on blogging that is available in printed form as well as online.
Learn WordPress.com is a step-by-step tutorial that includes lessons on how to start a blog, customize your site, and connect with other bloggers in the WordPress.com community. It’s a great resource to help you remember what you learned in class. Check it out!

Student Feedback: Check This Out!

Anet — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:55:07 +0000

Daphne Shapiro was a student in the most recent class:

Hi! I just wanted to share with you the two websites I have built on wordpress since I took the JC class with you in March and the class I took with Roohi.

www.EllenSandbeck.com
www.ThePlazaNorth.com

both of them are works in progress. As I learn, I add to them. I have written to Roohi and I wanted to write to you also and tell you how grateful I am that I was able to take your course. Between the two of you, I learned so much about wordpress and it truly empowered me in ways I never thought were possible.

Keep me posted on other classes you are teaching. Daphne Shaprio

What Mad Men Teaches Us About Blogging

Anet — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:31:34 +0000

http://www.darrenhoyt.com/2010/08/30/moving-target/

This is a link to a blogpost by Darren Hoyt. He is an extraordinary designer (I use his design on the sidebar of aNetGain.com).

His article resonated for me because I got started in New York ad agencies back in the days of Mad Men. I spent the ’90′s in L.A. writing scripts. I read William Goldman’s book and attended a seminar he gave for professional women writers.

Darren says that “Setting them up with a WordPress theme, giving them the keys and waving goodbye just isn’t enough.” It is important to blog about things that will benefit our readers, not just articles that sell our expertise.

Google says that pages with original content are rewarded with higher page rank.
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?hl=en&topic=23689&guide=23686&page=guide.cs

http://bit.ly/9ogBMA shortlink to Google’s policy on relevant and original content

Check out Darren’s blogpost and let us know what you do to keep your blog lively and readable — leave a comment!

Cutline Becomes Coraline

Anet — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:26:54 +0000

Cutline was the theme I used to build this site, but WordPress converted the Cutline sites to the new Coraline theme. Unfortunately, my sidebar customizations were wiped out. I got an Email for WordPress apologizing for the glitch, and a few days later all my customizations reappeared. Coraline, developed specifically for the new WordPress 3.0 framework has many nice features detailed here

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/new-theme-coraline/