There comes a point…

via Blogger http://blogger.toddlohenry.com/2013/11/there-comes-point.html

Top 5 Favorite Turkey Facts

via Blogger http://blogger.toddlohenry.com/2013/11/top-5-favorite-turkey-facts.html

My goal is…

via Blogger http://blogger.toddlohenry.com/2013/11/my-goal-is.html

Walking is the best possible exercise…

via Blogger http://blogger.toddlohenry.com/2013/11/walking-is-best-possible-exercise.html

What this world needs…

Mindful Musings: The Dalai Lama: What This World Needs.

“Today’s world requires us to accept the oneness of humanity. Many of the world’s problems, conflicts and fears arise because we have lost sight of the common experience that binds us all together as a human family.” ~ HH, the Dalai Lama

via Blogger http://blogger.toddlohenry.com/2013/11/what-this-world-needs.html

What is the best external blog editor? Would you believe Microsoft Word for Windows?

There are a lot of great external blog editors in the world, but you may not be aware of the one that I consider the best; Microsoft Word for Windows. Microsoft Word for Windows you say? How is Microsoft Word considered an external blog editor? What most people don’t realize is that anything that you can write in Microsoft Word can be sent to your blog in less than three clicks. That means you can use all the features of Microsoft Word to create stunningly beautiful blog posts that are spelling and grammar checked. It also means that if you already know how to use Microsoft Word you already know how to blog!

Some of my favorite Microsoft Word blogging features…

Anything can do in Word can be easily uploaded to my blog. Let me show you how here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtxNy3BPo9c

PS Sorry my Mac using friends; Microsoft does not include this feature in Microsoft Word for Mac…

 

Rock your website with RebelMouse!

Want to capture all the content you share both as content and Search Engine Optimization [SEO]? You want to add RebelMouse to your site…

http://youtu.be/a2_GoYdNKPc

Continue reading “Rock your website with RebelMouse!”

I really loved my old website design...

…but while it was responsive it did not have custom posts, hence, back to the old look. Click the image for things to think about when choosing a theme…

Things to think about when picking a WordPress.com theme

You want one that is responsive and has customs posts at the very least. Here’s how to find them…

 

Things to think about when picking a WordPress.com theme

You want one that is responsive and has customs posts at the very least. Here’s how to find them…

http://youtu.be/Q47wCZX78Uo

Which blogging tool should I use; WordPress.com or tumblr?

The answer is yes! While I normally advise clients, students and readers to “never use two tools were one will do” here is a case here is a case where using both is not only acceptable but desirable. Here’s why:

  • WordPress.com is great at Search Engine Optimization [SEO] but it does not allow JavaScript or iframes amongst other things
  • Tumblr is not as good at Search Engine Optimization [SEO] but it does allow JavaScript and iframes amongst other things
  • For whatever reason — technical or political – tumblr is available as a sharing option where WordPress.com is not so you can pick the best tool for the job
  • ‘Curation’ via tumblr’s bookmarklet is a little easier than WordPress.com’s ‘Press This’…
  • They can be linked together from a technical perspective in a way that makes them appear to be one website to Google
  • They can both be scripted by ifttt.com
  • Both have great – but different – fans [which will give you more exposure]
  • You can have a unified WordPress/tumblr site for less that $20 per year

…and I’m sure there are some other reasons that I’ve overlooked!

Let me talk you through some of the issues here:

http://youtu.be/M-e-VW7MSOA

 

Can a Website Have Too Much SEO?

…and what the hell is ‘over-optimization’?

Personally, I think Matt Cutts and the Google Webspam team have waaaay too much power [which means you’ll probably never see this post!]. Watch any videos of him speaking about how the Google Webspam team treats specific technical issues and I think you’ll see what I mean. Struggling with the issue of how to adjust client sites for the latest release of updates to the Google search engine, I came across this:

Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Google is working on a search ranking penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” or “overly SEO’ed.”

Matt announced this during a panel Search Engine Land’s Editor-In-Chief, Danny Sullivan and Microsoft’s Senior Product Marketing Manager of Bing at SXSW named Dear Google & Bing: Help Me Rank Better!. The audio for the session has been published where I learned that Google has been working on a new penalty that targets site’s that overly optimize for search engines for the past few months.

Matt Cutts said the new over optimization penalty will be introduced into the search results in the upcoming month or next few weeks. The purpose is to “level the playing field,” Cutts said. To give sites that have great content a better shot at ranking above sites that have content that is not as great but do a better job with SEO.

Source: Too Much SEO? Google’s Working On An “Over-Optimization” Penalty For That

Here’s a video clip of Matt discussing the issue…

And, if you really want a scare do a search on the phrase “Google penalizes” and you’ll see that Matt and his team have mafia-like powers to ‘disappear’ people and websites!

Now, here’s my issue. Can anyone define for me exactly what constitutes ‘over-optimized’ – even Cutts skirts the issue because defining the term would be to reveal too much about the Google search algorithm would be my guess. The question I have is this, then: if most sites are ‘under-optimized’ then are sites that follow best practices ‘over-optimized’?

7-3-2013 3-09-17 PM
Click image to enlarge…

Take for example a website that uses a tool like RebelMouse or Twylah to capture their tweets and other social media shares as Search Engine Optimization [SEO] by adding those tools as a cname extension, or one that adds a blog to a static website using tumblr or WordPress using the same approach – are these sites ‘over-optimized’ because the webmaster is clever?

See what I mean? Search Engine Optimization [SEO] is a moving target and Google-style ‘leveling the field’ means content creators are shooting at a moving target in the dark. What do you think?

5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts

RebelMouse

Tammy Kahn Fennell has a nice post here:

Whether you’re actively posting or just browsing through your social streams, things move pretty fast.  A post is often there one minute and gone the next. With hundreds of millions of status updates and tweets sent every day, finding them later is next to impossible. Here are 5 tools to help you hang on to those updates through archiving social media posts you’d like to save.

Do check out her original post here: 5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts.

I’d like to suggest that the best of them all is a tool that did not make her list. It’s a tool with a name so silly I fear that many will not take it seriously, but it’s called RebelMouse… Continue reading “5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts”

Blog This!

Perhaps the best advice on blogging I’ve ever seen…

blog-this.png

Go to the source: Blog This! Sometimes Going Back to Basics Leads to the Best Posts : @ProBlogger

9 Steps to Be a Thought Leader

Susan HarrowSusan Harrow writes:

So many people call themselves thought leaders now – but they aren’t. To be a thought leader takes some doing. It’s not so much about being original as it is about putting things together in an original way. It comes down to packaging your knowledge, skills, abilities, experiences, and yes, your thoughts in a way that makes you media worthy and worth listening to by your audience—a huge audience. Follow these nine steps to get going on the path to be respected, heard and reverberated out into the world.

Full story at: 9 Steps to Be a Thought Leader — and Become a Media Darling ׀ Susan Harrow | PRSecrets Blog.

Susan has some great ideas on how to achieve thought leadership, however, I think she leaves out one important point in her article: you have to document your work in a way that people can find it! Maybe I’m being Captain Obvious here, but while you read her article, think about how you can leverage business blogging and social networking to provide social proof of your thought leadership…

If this is all geeks to you comment below and asked me how you can get started! I have developed an efficient, cost-effective workflow that you can use as a platform for transformational thought leadership…

Tools for Tuesday; Hootsuite

Why settle for being a rockstar on one social network when you can amp multiple platforms all at once? Please give me 5 minutes of your life…

Here’s what posts added via the autoschedule feature look like in the publishing queue. You can click the image to enlarge…

5-8-2013 4-14-00 PM

What is a blog?

What is a blog? It can be everything and it can be nothing. As the Bard said “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so”. During my blogging career, I estimate that I have created between 15 and 20,000 blog posts on every topic from A-to-Z — most of them, unfortunately, ineffective…

And this is only my business blog...
And this is only my business blog…

In this next phase of my business I’m attempting to become more mindful and intentional about what I’m doing online and why in this post is an attempt to unpack blogging from that perspective; more mindfulness and awareness of why we actually do social media and what we can expect from the effort.

What blogging isn’t…

A get rich quick scheme. If you are thinking that this was one of those articles I think you’ll be happier somewhere else on the Internet. But if you’re looking for deeper insight into what blogging is from perspective of mindfulness and intention and what it can do for you then please read on… Continue reading “What is a blog?”

If you’re looking for helpful tips on managing your WordPress.com blog, look no further than lorelleteaches.com; it’s a fantastic WordPress resource for WordPress.com bloggers…

Lorelle VanFossen's avatarLearning from Lorelle

code wordle - group of words that are synonyms and types of code.In 2005, WordPress became modular separating the design and architecture from the core programming code.

Today, a WordPress Theme contains files called template files that hold the architecture of the site and template tags, code that initiates actions within the site and data from the database. The design is applied through a stylesheet, holding the instructions for the colors, images, and look and feel of the entire site.

This tutorial covers the basics of the structure of a WordPress Theme and standard customization options.

The Structure of a WordPress Site

WordPress Example site featuring the layout basics of header, content, sidebar, and footer.Like all websites today, a WordPress site contains a background area, header, sidebar(s), content area, and footer.

The background area is considered the canvas that the site’s structural and design elements rest. It is usually a solid color, pattern, texture, or a design that does not overwhelm the rest of the content and design elements.

The header area…

View original post 3,510 more words

Do you like me?

http://youtu.be/W7TbV4xlOsQ

Being a WordPress consultant in the WordPress.com community is a terrible thing. I’m always coming across things that I’d like to change or add to my blog as I read your content on your sites. Changing the look and feel of my blog is something that I could do even more often than I do, but recently, I changed to the Splendio theme and I’m quite happy with the results. It’s a little bit edgy for me, but I think the generally upbeat ‘feel’ is consistent with my message of wholeheartedness and self-compassion…

What about you? What’s your take?

Did you know you could post directly from Microsoft Word to WordPress? Neither did I until I read this post; http://www.nfn4good.org/2010/07/how-to-post-to-wordpress-via-microsoft-word-2/

If you’re comfortable with Word and you like the idea of not having to learn how to use yet another tool to post to your blog, this may be just the ticket! Why not give it a try…

Start a Blog at WordPress.com.

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