WordPress Semiologic Pro Theme Tip #1

I’ve been using the WordPress Semiologic Pro theme for well over a year now and have built dozens of WordPress blogs using the software.  

What I want to do in this series of blog posts, is highlight some of the features of the WYSIWYG editor plugin that was created by Denis de Bernardy for his Semiologic Pro WordPress theme.  Hopefully, these tips will help you create a good impression with your blog.  I call it housekeeping … 

When I’ve built a blog, I take pride in it and honestly hate when I go back to a site and every post has a different font, different font size and no consistent structure.  To me, it feels like walking into a messy, bric-a-brac shop.  If this term isn’t familiar to my overseas friends, in the UK it means your odds and ends shop - usually selling furniture, antiques and china.  They can sell everything and anything that just doesn’t quite fit together.

Remember that your blog is your website and your website is your shop front so, I don’t want to shout at you, but KEEP IT TIDY!  And, in terms of personality types, I’m the socializer and we’re not supposed to be the organized ones, but when it comes to a website and blog, I like order and I can assure you, most of your visitors do too.  

So, let’s take a look at the one thing that many users of the Semiologic Pro tend to miss … the power of the WYSIWYG editor. 

 

 

The Semiologic Pro theme comes with a powerful and advanced wysiwyg editor that looks very similar to Microsoft Word, and enables you to change the font size, font color, font style as well as highlight fonts.  It makes adding audio and video a breeze and allows you to easily drop Google Adsense right into any post or page.

The most common mistake I see people making when using the editor is copying and pasting direct from Microsoft Word and ignoring the font size or font style.  So, in one post the font size could be 10, in another 12 and in some 14 and, sometimes all bold.

I actually don’t recommend copying and pasting from Microsoft Word because even though the editor allows it, I’ve experienced issues where you go back to edit a post or a page and the edits just won’t stick.  So my suggestion is just to clean up the code by copying from Microsoft Word into Notepad and then stylelizing the font within the blog editor itself.

One other thing, when you create a post, the best way to ensure a consistent font size, is to highlight the entire text within the post or page (preferably before you add any styling) and then choosing the size you want to use from the editor.  I tend to use x-small for the general body text (a size 10) and small or medium for my headings.

See you next time with another tip on using the WordPress Semiologic Pro theme.

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Can A Blog Sell Your Professional Services?

If you’re a professional service provider such as a consultant, life coach, professional speaker or publisher, it might be difficult to see how blogs can help you sell your services particularly when those in the online world tend to refer to selling products - either digital or physical.

But the truth of the matter is that if you provide a professional service then YOU are your product.  Therefore, your services can be sold using your blog in much the same way selling a product online can be sold.

One of the great things I love about blogs and blogging is the credibility that you can build up over a relatively short period of time. 

You may feel that marketing online must be like planting a needle in a haystack and expecting your perfect prospect to find it.  But I want to give you two personal examples of my sites being found on the expansive world wide web over the past couple of months and the benefits for me.  The first isn’t related to selling my professional services, but has much to do with the credibility factor …

My Christian Womens website has been going since February 2006 and it’s hard, though not impossible to maintain it as a keyword focused blog because of the limited keywords, so I just "spoke from my heart!" :-)  And the sad truth is, my blog posts were not as consistent as I would have liked and, apart from writing the occasional blog post, I did little else to marketing the website.  And then one morning in late April, I walked into my office to find an email that said "Trish, we want to publish your story."

Well, I thought it was another one of those general emails sent to a list of 60,000 people until I read further and realized that the email was written specifically to me.  A company called GMA Publishing had come across my website and were looking for contributing authors for their upcoming Refined By Fire book series. 

Naturally I was intrigued to know why they didn’t want me to complete an application or anything and they told me that they visited my website and my vision resonated with what they were trying to accomplish.  in essence, before they asked me to become a contributing author, they felt as though they already knew me, through my website and blog.  Hard to do this on a website that tells the reader how wonderful you are and how long you’ve been established.

My story was submitted to GMA Publising in May and the book, Refined by Fire Women has been published and was released on July 1st 2007.  As a result of my website, I’m now a published author.

On the second occasion, I had a phone call from a man in the US (I live in the UK) who wanted his blog built for him.  This was a person whom I would regard as quite technical but he had a go at putting up his own WordPress blog and after struggling, decided he would get someone else to build his blog for him. 

Did he pick up the yellow pages to find someone who could build his blog?  No, he went online and found a blog that told him about blog building and blogging and then he telephoned me on the other side of the world to ask me - not interview me - to ask me if I would build his blog and how much would it cost.  Deal done, blog built and we’re both happy. 

So, I want to urge you, if you’re selling a professional service, whether online or offline, don’t wait another day to start blogging about your professional services.  It could bring in more business and, make you a published author and, who knows whatever other opportunities are awaiting you if only your prospects, joint venture partners and people willing to promote you knew your services exist.

If it’s the technology that scares you, let me help clear fhe fog around blog building for you.  Click here to find out more. 

To your online success,

 

 

Childs Play Blogging - Yep, This Kids Doing It!

I know that kids tend to be more versatile than adults when it comes to technology, but I wanted to introduce you to my youngest blogger, Bilaal Rajan.

Bilaal Rajan is now 10 years old, but he started raising funds to help children less privileged than him when he was just 4 years old.

He’s UNICF’s youngest Ambassador worldwide and in 2004, he personally raised $50,000 for UNICEF’s as part of his Canada Kids Earthquake Challenge to encourage Canadian Children to raise money to help children affected by the Tsunami disaster.

Bilaal speaks worldwide, not just about his mission trips, but he encourages children to maximize their true potential and his blog at www.bilaalrajan.com will cover his charity work, Hands For Help as well as the success workshops he’ll be running for children.

So, you think you can’t do it?  Blog that is?  Well, you can make it as easy or as hard as you would like but I haven’t even had a chance to coach Bilaal on how to use the blog software yet, and he’s off with a running start!  Want to know the reason why…?

No, it’s not just because he’s a kid who is not afraid of technology… it’s because he’s passionate about what he’s doing and takes the view that the world needs to know what he’s doing so they can help.

So let me ask you…

How passionate are you about your mission in life? 

And how much do you want to make a difference in the world?  

Because believe it or not, with a simple blog you can make a difference.  In fact, I’ll go as far as saying that a blog is more effective than a traditional website for building credibility and getting your message to those who need to hear what you have to say, because blogs tend to be updated more frequently and, they enable you to broadcast your message using a variety of media that would cost you much, much more to add to a traditional website.

Some of these include, video, audio, and photos and to prove it to you, I’m going to time myself as I add a video clip of Bilaal to this blog post …

 

Enjoyed the video?

Okay, it took me 70 seconds to add that video!  And that was because I forgot the code and had to fetch it from another site.  I mean 70 seconds!  Bet you couldn’t do this with a static website or without a webmaster (for most of my readers anyway).

If you’ve always wanted to have a blog, but are afraid of the technology or have no idea where to start, click here to find out how you could have your very own blog in less than 72 hours.

I hope you think your message is that important.

To your success,

Which Web Hosting Service Should I Use?

A web hosting service can range from free to hundreds of dollars per month if you use a dedicated server.

But, for the business WordPress blog user who has one or two blogs or websites, you can certainly save yourself a lot of heartache by choosing the right web hosting service before you set up your blog or website.  Here are some definite considerations:

• Avoid free web hosts!  You never know when they might go bust and, they usually have limited customer support. 
• Stick with Linux or Unix since Windows based servers can conflicts with aspects of the WordPress software
• Use a host that uses a control panel.  You may not think it necessary now, but if you use sites like GoDaddy to host your site, you may decide to add scripts that need the cron job updating, only find there is none!
• Do your homework.  Find out what the company’s customer service is like, do they have live support and try to establish their customer service response rate.
• What is the speed and reliability of the servers and hardware.  You want to ensure they have a high-speed connection  (preferably T3 or higher) to the Internet.
• How effective is their bandwidth?  Will they shut your site down the minute you exceed your bandwidth.  Opt for unlimited bandwidth for your site if you know you’re going to be getting a lot of traffic.
• Backup Systems – good hosts will have back up systems in place to guard against power failures,
  which will cause you to lose data and customers.
• Big storage space - I would suggest a minimum of 1 gig if you’re a regular blogger.  If you’re going to be adding audio and video to your blog then consider hosting these elsewhere like Libsyn.com, or just another host that gives you large disk space, such as Lunapages.  It will be cheaper for you and will prevent your website becoming too sluggish as it tries to find these hefty files.

There are other considerations such as Pop 3 email accounts, free Perl and CGI scripts, but the truth is, if the host as the above, it’s more likely to include the other ancillary items.

So, which hosts do I recommend for your WordPress blogging needs?  I personally recommend either using Hostgator (my first choice because of ease of use and excellent customer service) or Lunarpages, who give you huge storage space and unlimited bandwidth for some of their accounts.

Hope this helps you reduce your frustrations when trying to find a decent web hosting service provider.