Hello Happy Site Owners! Got bunches of great blogging, plugin, and SEO tips this week for you. And, want to let you know about a few changes at BlogAid. The free WordPress Video Tutorials are now available via subscription to the BlogAid Member Training Site. Why in the world would I make free videos on YouTube available on a member site? Glad you asked. Because there I can give you bonus videos that are not on YouTube and are exclusive just to subscribers. Plus, you’ll be notified via email whenever new videos are posted. Visit the BlogAid Video Course site to sign up.

Featured

How to Build a Blog Editorial Calendar Even if You Don’t Know Where to Start is a good post from Stanford on Pushing Social that will help you create this essential blogging tool. I run a rather flexible editorial calendar for BlogAid because I have to be responsive to changes in online technology and platforms. Still, having a calendar helps me develop arcs to build knowledge and promote specials. Plus it helps give me a big picture view of my site and the topics where I need to focus more attention. Do you use an editorial calendar?

WordPress Plugins

Recently Updated
Akismet has updated every few days since its outage a couple of weeks ago. Don’t be annoyed with the frequent udpates. Be grateful it’s still working. You’d really hate to have to go back to moderating your comments again.

There is a long-standing debate on whether you should use tables or CSS for layout on your site. I’m an old coder and create both from scratch. And I prefer tables for most things. Do you use tables on your site or have you tried the WP Table Reloaded plugin? I tried it, and it does do exactly what it advertises, but what I really needed was a comparison chart type table layout. I just purchased WP Tables and you’ll be seeing the results of it soon.

I’d like to hear from you if you’ve used it or similar table plugins.

Plugins to Check Out
Last week in Tips Tuesday I told you about the P3 plugin to check your site for plugins that may be dragging down load time. This week I found a post on the GD Press Tools plugin for Measuring the Impact of Plugins on WordPress Loading.

WPLift has a nice post with several plugins to add Google Maps to your site. A plugin is great if you need to add different maps often, say to your events in various locations. But a plugin is overkill if you need to just add one map. In that case, simply follow the last set of instructions in the post to easily embed a map.

Blog Tips

Excellent reminder from Claire Wagner on her blog Wagner Writes to Start with the Goal not the Tactics.

A top priority of every successful website owner is to generate subscriptions to their email list. On Smart Passive Income, Pat Flynn has a wonderful post on A Detailed Look at His (Non Aggressive) Email List Strategy.

Have you considered creating PowerPoint slides to present your content in more places on the Internet? Don Campbell has a nice series going on his Expand2Web site on this topic. This is post 6 in the series and is about How to Film PowerPoint Slides Using Jing vs Camtasia.

SEO

Want to know how to use Google Analytics? Learn from the creator. See Google Analytics IQ Lessons.

Everybody wants to know how to get their content noticed by Google? Arnie Kuann has an excellent post on Vertical Measures with 6 Ways to Thicken Your Content. If what he’s saying is true, all of that advice about writing short posts may go out the window. Plus, check your spelling and grammar; it counts. The focus of this post is about featuring products, but it’s good advice for any type of content marketing.

Learn All About Anchor Text on this SEOMoz Whiteboard Friday post.

Social Media Tips

I was happy to see this guest post by Srinivas Rao on How to Create a Custom Focus Group on Google+  because I participate in that group and it’s been very helpful to everyone. I’ve also found listening to Srini’s Blogcast.FM  podcast for the last year a great business resource.

Do you have a favorite podcast? Let us know in the comments below.

MaAnna is a geek who can still speak in plain English and mashes up her background in both the techie and artsy worlds to teach non-geeks, small businesses, solopreneurs, authors, artists, and other creative folks the ways of WordPress.

 

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