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The Best 6 Indispensible Blogging Tools

August 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

Once you start learning how to blog, you’ll find that everyone and their grandmother wants to sell you something to help your blog take off. Trust me, you don’t need all of it.

I’ll assume you have some of the basics. Beyond that, these are the tools for my blogging I can’t live without. Some of the blogging tools are even free.

A premium WordPress theme

You need a good blog template. The one I would recommend is the Genesis Framework by StudioPress. I don’t like spending money, and I was nervous about this purchase. What got me there were the designs I could purchase and the built-in SEO. I’ll let them tell you why you should buy it, but I can’t recommend it highly enough. I have five blogs that use Genesis. You can either buy a premium skin or build your own, or you can even find some free skins (like the one I use here).
http://www.joshstauffer.com/free-genesis-child-themes/
http://www.studiopress.com/themes/free

I have purchased Social Eyes (used on FindingMyFitness.com) and Outreach (used on icfg.org, still in development).

A mailing list

Any pro blogger will tell you to build your list early. If you plan on making money from your site, you need a mailing list. These are the people who will buy from you because you know exactly what they’re interested in: you. You don’t even need to know what you’re going to sell.

MailChimp is the best one I’ve found for the new blogger. If you’re still small, you won’t pay anything for emails. You get something like 12,000 emails to send per month for free. They have premium accounts, but the free one is good enough for me.

An image library

You can use photodropper for free, but there aren’t a ton of images. I *generally* go there first, but if I don’t like what I see, I head to my paid service:

Fotolio: Images for the web can be as low as 1 credit, and you can buy credits a few at a time for $1.20 each. Sign up for Fotolio here.

A Social media presence and plan

I’m lumping these all together because they really fall into the same category, but I can tell you my blogs wouldn’t have the traffic I have without these few strategies.

Find a forum or two on your topic and become one of the most active members. This was the number one traffic driver to my site before Google took over for me. It’s still #2 or #3 depending on whether or not I posted something new that day (we’ll get to that). Spending time on a forum builds your authority. Don’t forget to link to your site in your signature.

Twitter is your friend. Use twitter for several different things. Find people who will want to follow you but don’t know it. Interact with them, answering questions and asking some. Tweet interesting links to sites *other* than yours but pertaining to your topic. Use #hastags.

Use Triberr, Tweriod, and BufferApp to tweet stuff. Find a tribe in your niche (I can help you find one if you’d like) and join it. Your tribemates will tweet your posts. Tweriod will tell you when your twitter followers are most active so you can set Buffer’s times to be during your peaks.

Set up your Facebook page and send your blog feed to it. Find a couple Facebook groups that are about your topic, join them, and become the most active member. Remember to post as your page.

A solid blogging course

I learned a lot from reading Copyblogger and Problogger. But I learned *a ton* by taking a blogging course. It’s just more focused than simply reading a blogging blog.

There are two I recommend: Cloud Blogging by ViperChill and Build a Better Blog in 31 Days by Darren Rowse. You will not be sorry for buying one of these courses. You might think you know a lot, but I bet you’ll find several things in these courses you didn’t think about.

Each time I went through a lesson I found something else to tweak on my blog, and it’s better for it.

A few good blogging buddies

That kind of sounds a little “kumbaya”, bit if the wording bugs you I’ve heard this referred to as a “Mastermind Group” too.

You need a few buddies who blog, preferably a few who are at your level and a few who are ahead of you, to bounce ideas off of. Some of my best ideas have happened because of talking to my group. You’ll help each other out a lot, and you’ll feel better knowing there are a couple other people out there who can help you when you get stuck.

With even just a few of these tools, you’ll be well on your way to probloggerhood. Yes, I just made up that word.

What’s your favorite must-have blogging tool?

a great problogging courseAre you becoming a problogger?

Definitely check out this online course by Cloud Blogging. It’s the first course I took when I started blogging to make money.
It totally changed the way I blog.

(Some of the links above are affiliate links. Thank you for supporting the site.)

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When You Can’t Find What You Need, Make It Yourself

August 18, 2011 By 2 Comments

If you’re interested in making candles, good luck trying to find some valuable information on how to do that. Sure, it’s easy enough to go to your local craft store, buy a few pounds of wax, scents, and colors. But what if you want to do something exceptional?

There are blogs and how-tos and forums out there for everything. Everything except, it seems, making candles.

Kathy and I really want to start making some candles already. We just don’t know how. And I’m having one time trying to find that info.

I realized that I had just found a niche that needs some filling.

I’m going to create that website that I’m trying to find. Kathy is on board with it. It’s not going to be updated as often as FindingMyFitness, but I’m sure it’ll get frequent updates.

This could also become a pretty good income-booster for us. Even before we have any kind of product to sell, we’ll be able to get some small money via a very few ads and some affiliate sales. I’m sure I’ll also eventually be able to put out some inexpensive material.

There’s not much at all there yet, but let’s give me my first backlinks, eh?. Eventually, you’ll be able to go to the blog to learn how to make candles and see first-hand how we make ours.

Check it out at ourcandlemaking.com. :)

-j

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My Greatest Blogging Achievement To Date

August 16, 2011 By 2 Comments

probloggerWhen I told my family, I said that if you could put blogs up on the fridge, this would be it.

I now feel like I hit a milestone in my blogging career. One of a few that I’ll have to hit before I can get paid to write full time.

I wrote an article on using Twitter to copy edit, and I submitted it to one of the – if not the single – largest professional blogging blogs in the world. They liked it, and they published it.

That probably means nothing to any of you, other than you know me and are happy for me because I’m happy about it. I’m OK with that. To what I’m trying to accomplish with my various blogs, this is like coming home from 5th grade after taking your first really big math test with an A+ on top. And having that A+ count for about 80% of your grade.

-j

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What’s The Difference Between Grooveshark and Spotify?

July 29, 2011 By 4 Comments

I love music. I love all kinds of music. I love free music.

When some coworkers of mine introduced me to Grooveshark, I couldn’t believe it was real. All that music at my fingertips, and for free!

I literally boasted to my friends and family. “Come on, give me any song. ANY song, and I’ll play it for you right now.” And I did. I was proud.

Now there’s all this chitter about Spotify. To be honest, I didn’t really know what it was the first time I heard about it. But, because I love music and I enjoy internet, I wanted to give it a try.

My first question was how Spotify differs from Grooveshark. They essentially seemed like the same thing when I heard about it.

First impressions

Out of the box, the main difference is that while Grooveshark is a website, Spotify is an app you download.

My first search was the word “guarani” because I wanted to see if they’d have the really random Paraguayan music I want to listen to and can’t buy here. They DO!

To be fair, I searched “guarani” in Grooveshark as well. A lot of the same songs came up, but Spotify has about twice the music Grooveshark does.

Another fantastic feature is that Spotify also picked up all my iTunes music as well. So now I have one place where I can listen to the music I have on my computer and any song I could possibly want to listen to – without having to buy it.

Music management is different

The first real stand-out feature for me is that Spotify can become my music management tool. It picks up the music you have on your hard drive and shows it to you much like iTunes does. However, where it really stands out, is that you can even use it to synch your iPod.

Additionally – and this astounds me – Spotify can synch your iPhone or Android phone as long as your computer and phone are running the app and you’re connected to the same network. I haven’t tried this yet, but I will when I get home. This alone might be the deal-maker for me.

Different levels for different needs

Spotify is free if you want it to be, or you can pay and get some other things. I’m just fine and dandy ignoring ads and the 15 seconds (not TOO frequent) ads and not paying per month. I can see them becoming annoying after a while, so it will be a matter of Spotify as a whole being worth the monthly fee.

For example, in order to use it on your phone, you’ll have to get the premium subscription, which will run you $10 a month. Also with premium, you can use what they call “offline mode” and have your favorite playlists – made up of music you don’t own, remember – available when you’re offline. It’s almost like borrowing the music indefinitely without buying the mp3s.

Update: It’s not all free forever, though. According to this post outlining some changes to Spotify from their blog, after 6 months of use we’ll be limited to 10 hours a month. If I understand correctly, we will also only be allowed to play the same song 5 times. Buying the $5/month subscription will eliminate those limitations, however.

Making it social

In this age, people love sharing stuff. When I find sweet music, I love sharing it.

In my first hour of playing with Spotify, I’ll tell you it’s easier to find users in Grooveshark. There’s allegedly a “social” button in my profile, but I can’t find it.

If you have Spotify and would like to add me (or anyone), put this in your Spotify search bar: spotify:user:hisc1ay

Overall, I’m really impressed

I will probably use Spotify as my “get any song from anywhere for free” from here on out (at least for the next 6 months). I used to use Grooveshark, but they charge for their mobile app now too. Yes, Spotify’s app is more expensive, but the differences are more valuable, potentially.

I won’t go buying a premium subscription yet, but I won’t say I will never buy one. Offline mode and mobile availability are what would eventually swing me that way.

Bottom line: For the price of one CD a month, you can have access to all CDs in their library, which includes labels like Universal, EMI, and Sony.

What’s your favorite thing about Spotify?

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Build Your Twitter Following Every Friday

July 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

follow_friday_tweetHave you seen the hashtag #FF in your Twitter feed? Ever notice it happens on Fridays?

I saw it for a good two or three weeks before I decided to figure out what it means. It means “Follow Friday”, and while it sounds kinda corny, it can really enhance your exposure.

Reaching out to the unknown masses

If you’re not using Twitter to reach out to a potentially huge market of blog readers, you’re really missing out. If you are using Twitter but only casually, you’re still missing out on connections that are just begging to be made. People want to find your blog, but they can’t if they don’t know who you are.

At first, I thought #FF was a cute idea, but I got over it pretty quick. It wasn’t until just recently that I realized it’s power.

People are happy to let others know that people like them. A lot of times when you FF someone, they’ll RT your FF. It’s like saying “See?! People really do like me!” Bloggers eat that crap up! Now all of their followers know that you’re someone who might have some interesting things for them to read. A lot of them will follow you because of it.

Things I FF:

I’m pretty active in my blogging niche, which is fitness as provided by The 4-Hour Body. There are a few different types of FFs I do these days:

  • my new 4HB related followers
  • active 4HB tweeters
  • my Triberr tribe

For most of the people that follow me, these types of Twitter accounts will be useful to follow. People generally follow me for fitness or 4HB discussions, so by pointing them to people who discuss them also, I’m providing value. When those people RT my FF, I get several new followers to send value to.

So the next time you get annoyed at all the #FF tweets, like I did, remember that you can use them too to increase the base of people who read your blog.

-j

PS: You can follow my tweets at FMFBlogger.

a great problogging courseAre you becoming a problogger?

Definitely check out this online course by Cloud Blogging. It’s the first course I took when I started blogging to make money.
It totally changed the way I blog.

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Book Review: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

June 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.
- Dave Ramsey

Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey review

When you listen to Dave Ramsey’s radio show, you will often hear that quote. When you read the book, it’s printed repetitively at the bottom of each page. I think Dave’s trying to tell us something.

Extreme Finance Makeover: Ramsey Edition

Once you start reading this book, you’ll realize two things very quickly:

  1. Dave Ramsey ain’t messing around
  2. This plan could really work!

Americans are broke, generally speaking. Oh, we have nice things and all, but that is precisely why we’re broke. The nice things are all on loan from a bank, and we’re all “slaves to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7)

For a practical example, when I went to Paraguay I only had student loan debt left. Especially once I found Kathy, really the only thing that forced me to head back to the US that year was the debt I had to pay off. When I went back to get her this past January, I was really upset that our future is determined by my debt.
The Total Money Makeover is a handbook to your financial freedom. It’s not easy, and it’s not quick. Dave will tell you straight out: it’s gonna hurt. He says on his show all the time that the key is living off of beans and rice and rice and beans. He means it.

If you’re not ready to radically change your way of life, this book is not for you. It’s not a collection of hard-to-maintain tips on getting debt free. No, this book takes an extremely common sense approach to debt: don’t buy what you don’t have cash for, don’t buy stuff you don’t need, and use all the rest of your money to pay off your debt as quickly as possible.

Do it in baby steps

His whole philosophy is baby steps. At the start, you’re financially obese. You can’t do much, but you do what you can. First you get yourself an emergency cushion. Then you attack debt. Then you “fully fund” your emergency stash. Then you save for retirement. Then you pay off your house. Then you live like no one else.

But it starts with living like no one else.

You might have to say “no” to some things and some people. You may have to sell a car or boat. But he guarantees that if you follow the plan, you will become wealthy.

Don’t let it end with cash hoarding

Dave Ramsey gives a ton of money away. He says the most fun he has with his money is giving it to people who need it more than he does. He even had a contest around Christmas to see who could give away $5000 – of *his* money – the best.

I didn’t read this book to find out how to get rich. I read this book to see what this Total Money Makeover is all about. I have to say, I wasn’t even done with the debt-paying-off chapter before I wanted to jump to the computer and adjust the budget as tightly as I could.

We’ve already begun implementing some techniques in our budget. For example, food purchases have been more expensive than necessary in the past. So now food is a cash-only system. When the cash is done, we eat what we have left in the house. That’s the only way my debt will be gone soon.

Definitely recommended

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has any kind of debt. You don’t need the debt. You can get rid of it. You just have to be systematic about it, and this book will help. Break the old habits and start new ones. If you live like no one else now, you can live like no one else later!

Buy
The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
by Dave Ramsey
on Amazon!


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Old Friends, Good Herb, and Pilgrimages

June 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

rey and jason

Jason's the white kid. They're in the middle of a road after a rain.

Nothing like spending time with old friends.

I got a call tonight as I was leaving work from a number I didn’t recognize. It was my friend Jason! He taught in Paraguay before I got there, and we lived together for a few weeks before he moved back to the US, but I stayed in the apartment he turned into a home.

There’s something about an experience in a foreign country that seems to bond you with a person you share it with in a way you wouldn’t be bound if you just hung out in your own.

Whenever I think of Jason, I think of Paraguay. And often when I think of Paraguay, I think of Jason.

So when he called me tonight and said, “Jason, I’m about an hour and a half away from Richmond on my way to North Carolina, and I was hoping to visit,” I was thrilled. I quickly called Kathy and told her we had a visitor coming.

We sat outside in about 90 degree weather drinking tereré and talking about old times and what’s happened since we last chatted. It was nice for Kathy to talk about her home country and be able to converse in Spanish fluently with someone other than me. And tereré always tastes better when shared.

Jason and I have spent a total of about 3 hours together in the two and a half years since he left Paraguay, but I feel as close to him as if we have been friends our whole life.

That’s what Jesus does between friends. That’s what life-changing experiences do between people. I can’t think of Jason without thinking of Paraguay. It was probably the most influential trip of both of our lives, even though we did it at different times. We are who we are as individuals and possibly even as Christians largely due to our experiences in Pargauay.

I’m sure you’ve had visits like this as well in your own life. A friend drops by out of the blue and you converse like not a day has passed. I love how the Lord keeps us together this way. It’s a bond I wouldn’t trade for the world.

See you when you get back from Spain, Jason!

-j

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How to Create Facebook Landing Pages With HTML

May 27, 2011 By 3 Comments

a great problogging courseAre you becoming a problogger?

Definitely check out this online course by Cloud Blogging. It’s the first course I took when I started blogging to make money.
It totally changed the way I blog.

One of the fun things about building out Finding My Fitness is finding ways to do really cool stuff to get connected to my fans. One of the best ways is via Facebook.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about why you should get into Facebook because the two articles I’m about to link you to are going to do that for you. Let’s just say that it’s

  1. the most popular site on the internet and
  2. almost everyone you know has a Facebook account.

Two of the blogs I follow to learn how to become a professional blogger are ViperChill and SmartPassiveIncome. They both have really awesome content if you’re starting a blog for business, and one of the things I had bookmarked them both to do was create my Facebook landing page.

I had originally started at ViperChill using Glen’s “The Highest Converting Facebook Page I’ve Ever Seen” post. I was all set to go and super excited about the templates he was offering for FREE to get the landing page off the ground. I downloaded them and ran into some snags (like I couldn’t find the app he was talking about), so I went to Pat’s SPI blog to see what he had to say about using Facebook.

When I started watching the video on Pat’s post, How to Create a Facebook Landing Page (HTML / iFrame Edition), I saw a pop-up that said that in March 2011 the old way (using FBML) wasn’t going to work anymore. In his video, Pat teaches you to create a Facebook Page from scratch. Then he teaches you how to create two different landing pages: one for “fans” and one for non-fans.

So then I knew I had it! I could use Glen’s templates, which use FBML, and adapt them to use HTML and the app that Pat told me about. Then I decided to write this page.

I’m not going to teach you anything here because these guys have done it all for me. I’m just walking on the backs of these giants. What I do have extra for you, though, are Glen’s templates that I modified to use HTML instead of FBML. The biggest difference is that you can’t use the user’s login name in HTML, but I’m also trying to figure out how to get around that.

Download my HTML version of ViperChill’s Facebook landing page templates.

Alternatively, you can keep Glen’s templates the way they are and mark the “enable FBML” checkbox in the Static HTML app. When I did that, though, I still didn’t get the username to show up.

You can enable FBML too.

You can enable FBML too.




Let me know in the comments if you find any tricks!

-j

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The #1 Best Place to Buy A Wedding Ring Online

May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Find out the best place to buy wedding rings online!

When my wife and I got married, we didn’t have much money. Between getting visa paperwork done and paying for plane tickets and wedding expenses, I didn’t have money left for our wedding bands (“alliance rings” in Pargauay).

An unexpected surprise

Some friends of ours gave us a wonderful gift when they surprised us at our rehearsal with two silver wedding bands. We were deeply moved, and we really appreciated the gift they gave.

The rings served well in the ceremony, but by the end of the night mine was already black.

Over the course of the year, my finger also started to get smaller as I lost weight. My ring even fell off once. The black never went away, though oddly enough my wife’s band stayed silver. Almost enough that I thought it was actually white gold, but a jeweler told me it was indeed silver.

Doing it “right”

So for our first anniversary I decided I wanted to get my wife and I new wedding bands, but this time I wanted white gold.

I still didn’t have much money, but I was determined to do it right. After stealing her ring a couple times to have it sized and determine a good width, I got a few quotes. They were all well over $400 for both rings. There was no way I could pay that.

I’d heard decent rings could be had for under $100, so I set out looking for them. My sister gave me the best tip I’d heard:

Amazon

Hitting the jackpot

I hadn’t ever considered using Amazon to buy jewelry. I’ve used it for many other things, but never jewelry. Part of the reason is my wife doesn’t wear any. But still, I’d never have thought of it.

Within 15 minutes I had found what I was looking for. I found 10K white gold rings, two of them, for under $100 each. I even got free 2-day shipping because I was a member of Amazon Prime!

The only problem I had was the men’s rings that were under $100 seemed a bit too small to be very masculine. So I took the hit and added $20 for a slightly wider ring.

She cried

To surprise her, I got the rings ready the night before our anniversary (we were at the beach). In the morning, while she was still asleep, I put the box on the nightstand where I knew she’d see it. It took her a solid 10 minutes of being awake to notice it, but when she did it was worth it.

The best part about this all is I got them both for less than one of the jewelers quoted me for one!

What’s your best Amazon find so far?

photo credit: Jeff Belmonte

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Book Review: Eats, Shoots and Leaves

May 9, 2011 By 2 Comments

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

‘Why?’ asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

‘Well, I’m a panda,’ he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’

If you giggled, you need to read this book. Here are a few other characteristics of people who will enjoy the read:

  • When you see a sign in a grocery store that says “We have apple’s and orange’s”, does it make you die just a little inside?
  • Are you the only one of your friends who knows the difference between “it’s” and “its”?
  • Do you have a semicolon and know how to use it?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’ll have fun with this book.

Ms. Mercer would be so proud

My 12th grade English teacher changed my life.

You’d think my math teacher or even my computer programming teacher would be the one I say had the most influence on my future. The reality is the one teacher I think about most often is Ms. Mercer. We were a small class of AP students, so we often sat in a circle to discuss the latest reading assignment or share our writing assignments. I had never done critical reading until her class, and I realized that I loved it. She started me on a path of great books and literary analysis. To this day I wonder why I didn’t become an English teacher.

As a result of loving the language, I enjoy using it well. I feel clever when I can string words and phrases together in a melody of prose (I’m not that great a poet), and being able to use a semicolon correctly is just icing on the cake.

This book was a recommendation to all of the web developers in our group by the one person in the area who had any type of English training. I picked it up, and I’ve had a hard time putting it down.

It’s very persnickety

Truss comes right out and says it at the beginning of the book. Referring to a sign she saw that said “Come inside for CD’s, VIDEO’S, DVD’s, and BOOK’s” she advises:

“If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of pulse, you should probably put down this book at once.”

The book is full of uses and misuses of almost every kind of punctuation we use in English, even down to emoticons at the end (she’s not a fan). It’s quite clever in presentation and delivery (the British, I think, pride themselves on being clever), and you can’t help but learn some things along the way.

She starts with a history of the apostrophe, comma, and “full stop” and moves through other pieces of punctuation such as colons, semicolons, dashes, and exclamation points. Did you know that punctuation was originally used to show the reader where to breath? In essence, it was used to annotate the rhythm of speech. I didn’t know that old-school Greek didn’t even use spaces! Look how far we’ve come!

But it’s also very fun to read

Truss teaches us about grammar with a whole ton of wit tossed in with a bunch of sass mixed together with some word-nerdy jokes. I laugh at least once per page, whether it’s at a poor example she’d found somewhere or just the example she uses to show how to use a certain form of punctuation.

“Dangling expectations caused by incorrect pluralisation:
Pansy’s ready (is she?)
Cyclist’s only (his only what?)
Please replace the trolley’s (replace the trolley’s what?)”

I told you: persnickety and Britishly humorous! If you sometimes feel snarky when you see poor grammar or punctuation, read this book. It won’t judge you as you recall moments you just knew you spotted poor English but didn’t want to be “that guy” and correct it.

Buy
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss
on Amazon!


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