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27 Things Before Starting A WordPress Blog

@maheshoneFebruary 11, 2018
Starting A WordPress Blog

Image Credit: Flickr

So you want to be a blogger? That's great! Blogging is simple and fun but not easy. Definitely not easy. Even though you can set up a WordPress blog in less than 10 minutes, it takes countless hours of focus and patience to make things look the way you want. When I wrote the blog post You Can't START A Blog In 10 Minutes. Period., I not only wanted to highlight that it's not easy to start a blog but also wished to create a series of posts to list everything you need to take care of while starting a new WordPress blog. First things first. What's your story? Why do you want to start a blog? Over the years, I have noticed that almost all full-time bloggers have published a "How To Start A Blog In 10 Minutes" kind of tutorial and they make the entire process sound so simple. Since starting a blog seems easy, almost everyone today wants to have a blog without really thinking about its purpose. In reality, it doesn't work that way. So before you do anything else, think about why you want to start a blog. (Do I see you putting on your thinking cap? :))

Don't Miss: How To Start A WordPress Blog (Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners)

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Over 25 Handpicked Genesis Child Theme (Premium + Third-party) Marketplaces

@maheshoneFebruary 11, 2018
WordPress + Genesis When I want to start a new WordPress site, the first thing that I do is scan StudioPress to find 'that' perfect Genesis child theme. But chances are, I won't find the perfect one. Then I would scan several other WordPress theme marketplaces, and get disappointed. At the end of the day, again back to StudioPress itself and pick a Genesis child theme that best matches my criteria. Late realization, I avoid all third-party Genesis child themes and always stick with the ones I found on StudioPress.com. Over the past few months, I have started paying attention to third-party Genesis child themes and developers (though I still haven't purchased anything outside StudioPress.com, yet) and have collected a bunch of marketplaces for the Genesis Framework in my Evernote. By the way, I have already published a list of Premium WordPress Theme Marketplaces in the past that lists over thirty online destinations from where you can buy WordPress themes. But the problem is, it's not always a good idea to buy a WordPress theme from an independent developer or a less-known WordPress theme marketplace. In fact, it's not even a good idea to buy a WordPress theme from Themeforest (unless you really know what you're buying and doing). The official StudioPress store has got over fifty WordPress child themes for the Genesis Framework (including third-party child themes). However, it's very much possible that you still won't find it enough. I mean, it's nothing when compared to hundreds of thousands of free and premium WordPress themes available elsewhere on the web, right? Anyway, first things first.

Why Genesis Framework?

Picking a theme/template is probably the toughest part of setting up a WordPress site. Seriously. You know there are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes out there so selecting one from so many themes can be extremely difficult. The problem with free WordPress themes is that its developers may not update their themes regularly. And when the codes of your themes are not up-to-date, it becomes vulnerable to attacks in the future. The same applies when you buy a paid WordPress theme from an independent theme developer (or freelancer). You may get the theme you really like at first, but eventually, the theme will become outdated. I personally recommend buying WordPress themes from a premium WordPress theme marketplace because they make sure that their WordPress themes are up-to-date. And that’s why they release new updates regularly and even add additional features when WordPress updates its core software. Out of the premium WordPress theme marketplaces, my personal favorite is StudioPress.com (oh yeah, I am also using one of their themes). StudioPress themes are powered by Genesis Framework and it’s an industry standard WordPress framework trusted by hundreds of professional bloggers. So here are the reasons I love StudioPress + Genesis Framework +  Genesis Child Themes:
  • Genesis themes are fast, mobile-friendly, and search friendly.
  • Genesis Framework follows best coding practices and it basically means that you don't have to worry about its code quality.
  • There are no renewal costs for Genesis Framework (or for its child themes).
  • When you buy a Genesis child theme from StudioPress, you can use it on unlimited websites, and you get lifetime updates and support. Most premium WordPress theme marketplaces charge you on an annual basis and they even charge you an additional fee for the developer version.
  • There’s no developer version and you can install the theme on any number of websites.
  • The Genesis Framework is updated regularly and you can upgrade your WordPress site with just one-click (from the WordPress Dashboard).
  • Genesis offers hooks and filters so you can add your own codes without touching the PHP files of the original theme.
  • StudioPress offers a Pro Plus All-Theme Package and it gives you unlimited access to all of their (current as well as future) WordPress themes, plus support and updates.
  • Genesis Framework is compatible with most WordPress plugins.
  • Genesis developers are everywhere.
  • Genesis Framework is so popular that its tutorials are also easily available.
The only problem with StudioPress is the support. I’m not impressed with their support as I had to post my queries on their Community Forums to get Genesis specific PHP/CSS help. On the flipside, when you buy a WordPress theme from Themeforest or from an individual owned theme marketplace, you get better support (and it actually includes theme customization as well).

Don't Miss: 30 Things I Absolutely LOVE & HATE About Your Blog

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Over 30 Handpicked Social Media (And Web 2.0) Sites To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

@maheshoneFebruary 11, 2018

Top 30 Social Media (And Web 2.0) Sites To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

Social Media websites can drive insanely great traffic to your blog if you have a good social media marketing strategy. But it can drive fair amount of traffic if you just submit blog posts regularly to your social media profiles.

Social media traffic is as important as organic traffic from search engines as we can’t rely on Google alone. They continue to push algorithmic updates like Panda, Penguin and who knows the next could be Giraffe.

It means that we must diversify the way we get traffic. I’m going to list the top social media and other websites that you shouldn’t ignore or must use as part of your social media marketing strategy.

I’m NOT going to list all the stupid social media or the so called web 2.0 sites out there as I’m going to focus only on sites that can drive traffic to our websites in one way or the other and not for building backlinks.

Though the traffic quality of social media can’t be matched with that of organic traffic, it is still important. It helps us to keep the bounce rate low which is assumed to be one of the many ranking signals used by Google.

Don't Miss: The Social Media Handbook — 101+ Resources, Tips, Guides & Tools

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Over 101 Handpicked Web 2.0 Sites To Get Instant Backlinks To Your Blog

@maheshoneFebruary 11, 2018

Web 2.0

I previously wrote a blog post where I featured the top 30 social networks to drive traffic to your blog. It focused on traffic generation using social media and web 2.0 sites. So today I’m going to focus on link building using web 2.0 sites.

As you probably know, if content is King then links are Queen. Link building post penguin is all about quality so the traditional link building methods like article submission, directory submission, press releases, RSS submission, etc. rarely works today.

Don't Miss: 37 Content Discovery Tools To Find Great Social Media Content

So I’m featuring over 100 quality websites where you can list your blog/website. These websites may not drive huge traffic to your blog but they increase the backlinks to your blog in several ways.

Most of these websites allow you to enter your URL as a bio link and it means you get a backlink in less than 5 minutes (Tip: Use your Facebook/Twitter/Google+ account to sign up). And you can multiply the number of backlinks from these websites by becoming an active user.

For example, when you create your YouTube profile you can add a link to your website from your profile page and also from your uploaded videos.

Likewise, you can join community-driven websites like Digital Point, Microsoft Community, Yahoo Answers, etc. and can link to your website from profile pages and also from discussions by adding your link in a relevant topic.

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The Best Dictation (Voice To Text) Software Is Here (And It’s Free!)

@maheshoneFebruary 10, 2018
“Voice typing…” on Google Docs I'm a desktop kind of person who almost always prefer a computer over a phone --- unless I'm away from my desk. I have already mentioned on several blog posts that I take a lot of time to create a blog post --- from researching to writing to editing to formatting. And that's why I'm always trying to find a way to streamline my content creation process --- to make it more consistent, stress-free, and efficient. Obviously, the biggest task involved in publishing a blog post is actually the writing process itself. Once the first draft gets done, the rest happens like magic!

Don't Miss: The Fantastic Ten Tools (Free) To Skyrocket Your Productivity

Over the past several months/years, I tried several dictation or voice to text software --- including the super-popular Dragon Speech Recognition Software (but I tried it several years back) --- and nothing really worked for me. Not anymore!

Meet "Voice typing..." On Google Docs

I was an active Google Docs user until few months back and then almost stopped using it. A couple of weeks back I noticed that Google introduced "Voice typing..." to Google Docs. However, it's not supported in its iOS (on iPhone and iPad) apps, yet.

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The 100 Best Tech & Marketing Blogs You Should Be Following

money.February 1, 2018
The 100 Best Blogs I have always wanted to create a list of blogs that I love to read, share and link to because I think it'd be nice to see them in a listicle rather than just adding them to Feedly (my favorite RSS reader). Moreover, I didn't want to add tons of blogs to my RSS reader as I hate to see hundreds of unread items. And hey, you should also have a list of your favorite blogs. You know why? Because if you are a blogger, or marketer, or whatever you are supposed to stay updated about what's happening in your industry. The idea is to stay focused all the time. By the way, you DO NOT have to follow hundreds of blogs in your niche. Just a dozen of them is pretty enough. Because you will see yourself landing on more and more related blogs and blog posts as you go. For instance, it's been a month since I checked my Feedly feeds and now it's got over 600 unread items (and counting). The problem is I was reading less and less all these days and weeks as I already had enough research stuff in my Evernote and saved for later articles in my Pocket. And yet, I was landing on a lot of interesting blogs and blog posts and whatnot. In fact, that's what inspired me to write this very blog post.

Don't Miss: The Fantastic Ten Productivity Tools (Free) To Get Things Done

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Over 71 Ways To Repurpose Your Content Over And Over Again

@maheshoneFebruary 1, 2018
Repurpose Content

First Published: November 17, 2016; Last Updated: Thursday, February 1, 2018.

You know, you should really repurpose your content. But the disclosure is that I haven't started it yet. I first came to know about repurposing content when Darren published How to Repurpose Your Content [and Why You Should Do It!]. However, I wasn't that interested as I didn't have plenty of blog posts on my blog then. Even today, I have less than 300 published blog posts but I realize that it's time to diversify the traffic sources. First things first. What is content repurposing? Content repurposing is all about extending the life of your original content (blog posts in most cases) by leveraging more mediums. Submitting a blog post to a dozen of social networks or updating/republishing one of your archived blog post is not exactly repurposing. It’s just sharing and resharing. Repurposing is done by taking an existing blog post (or content) and using it to create something else on another medium (in an easy to consume way) thereby reaching an audience who wouldn’t have found your content otherwise. That is, it involves reusing your own content to serve a different audience or the same audience in a different way. The good thing about content repurposing is that you are actually getting more traffic by creating less content — as these mediums are already known to have millions of active users.

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About Mahesh (@maheshone)
Hey there, I’m Mahesh Mohan (@maheshone) — Your friendly neighborhood blogger and an organic marketing evangelist. I write about tech, marketing, and everything in between that excites me.

Outside of that, I love to work with small businesses to help them get the most out of the web. And I’m equally passionate about the financial markets. Oh yeah, I also spend A LOT of time doing random things (check out 181 random facts about me).
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