blogging

Purpose, Plan, Performance, Persistence and Payoff.

5 Days of Homeschool Blogging Basics.

Day 3 Performance.

Homeschool blogging basics Day 1 gave you focus or purpose. Days 2 and 2 1/2, I broke down a 3 part plan and today, on Day 3. performance, I will be sharing some sweet things for what is commonly called the back end that nobody sees, but which keeps the front end looking smokin’ hot.

Stacking Up Stats

Though I whine a bit about it, I promise I’m starting to like the techie things. They gel well with my personality that likes to read the details.

I warn you though, some things to understanding the back side can be years trying to figure out and shorter explanations will just do.

Though I love the free jet pack plugin for a lot of other things, it is not the standard for analytics.

You will want to install Google Analytics right away on your site so that you can start tracking page views, visitors and traffic that is being referred to you.

This can be done by a free plugin. Look at Google Analytics by Yoast.

I didn’t install my google analytics code until about 2 months after I started and if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have known that I was getting right at 75K page views within the first few months.

I will tell you why I give you my starting stats on Day 5. Payoff. For now, be sure to install the superior standard of measuring analytics, which is Google.

If you really want to get adventuresome, my friend Kathy over at Cornerstone Confessions did a beautiful job on a post laying out google terms for when you are digging around your analytics and want to understand it in more detail. It’s worth the time to read if you want to be spurred ahead in your expertise.

One thing I want to mention here because I feel like it goes more with performance is to be sure your website is mobile responsive.  That means that nowadays with more people using smaller devices, you want your website to be able to be viewed optimally across a number of devices. Mobile responsiveness is the term to describe that your blog design can be changed to fit the device. This is important to know because Google ranks your site by being mobile responsive.

Now on to plugins. The best way to show you what plugins you may want is for me to share the ones I use.

Keep in mind, everybody has a different purpose when they download plugins and be careful about overloading your back end with too many plugins because they can slow your website down and that is a huge turnoff for potential followers.

Powerful Packing Plugins

Look at my list of plugins and their function in alphabetical order.

Askimet – One of the most basic and best plugins because it checks comments for spam.
Comment Reply Notification – It took me a year to find this one, but it’s important to me to engage with my audience. So when they take the time to comment, I always take the time to reply BUT they won’t know unless they get notified by this nifty plugin.
Comment Luv – Reward your readers by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment.
Genesis – Featured Widget, Slider, Simple Hooks. These are all plugins that my theme Genesis needs to show the slider on the front page and allows me to place ads on my site. I will explain a bit  about Genesis on Day 4. Persistence.
Scroll Trigger Boxes. I use to have Icegram, which I list below and still love it but have not had time to investigate if Icegram works well with mobile phones and tablets. So I am using scroll trigger boxes to capture new followers. It is free too.
Icegram. There are many free plugins that allow pop ups. I chose this one because I liked it and because I could set the time to pop up for about 20 seconds, which is just the right amount of time for your follower to engage with your content. Don’t set your popup for the second a potential follower lands on your page. They can’t make a decision if they want to follow until they have a chance to look around at your amazing content. Look for popups that can be dealyed so followers have a chance to peek at your goodies.
Jetpack. This is an amazing plugin with all kinds of features that can be “activated” or left dormant and it is a new blogger’s best friend. When I first started up, I used their social sharing buttons because they were easy to configure until I figured out what social sharing bar I wanted.  Too, it’s easier with Jetpack to see how popular posts and pages are doing and I use their contact form to add to my pages. Two other features are worthy of mention. You can use the email feature, which allows you to post on your blog if you are away or not near it or don’t have time to get to the computer. One other free feature is that it allows followers to subscribe to your blog and you don’t have to make a decision right away on a meatier service to have blog followers sign up. All in all it has about 27 features that are very friendly to the new blogger. I also use their publicize function so that when posts are published, it automatically shares to some of my social media.
Pinterest Pin It Button for Images – This allows a pin it button to hoover over your images. Now it does allows you some advance coding and I made my pink button that hoovers on my images to match my site and coded in language, but you don’t have to do that and that is beyond the basics. Update: And as quick as that, something can change. Pinterest Pin It button messed up my images after a while. My technical guy advised I use Frizzly plugin for pinterest buttons.
Related Posts by Zumanga – Again there are numerous free plugins that keep followers on your site by linking content within your site. I loved the look of this one and chose it because I could arrange it like I wanted to. Guess what? Jetpack does this too and it’s called related posts.
UberMenu3 – This plugin is not free and you will see that sometimes you just want something specifically and it’s worth paying for it. Of course, it is better to have a budget to pay for this. I love organization and I kept getting emails about my followers not being able to find certain unit studies or lapbook, so I chose this plugin with a fly out menu. Bam, you see all my unit studies in order and at one time. I love this plugin because organization is important to me
Ultimate Social Deaux – Too,this plugin is not free because the money I have made, I have put back into updating my site and keeping it fresh looking. I was wanting a social sharing plugin that was more flexibility and chose this one. Again, though using the free social sharing with Jetpack works great for beginners and you don’t have to spend a dime on them.
VaultPress – This is a VERY important plugin because I pay to backup my content. I don’t want to have any nightmare stories now or in the future and am doing my best in avoiding getting up one day and all my content being gone. Back it up. It’s important.
WooCommerce – This is a plugin for a store if you are thinking about having one now or in the future.
WP-Optimize – This is one of those babies that keeps your back end clean and cleans up trash posts and otherwise optimizes your content so it keeps running streamlined.
Yoast -This is the easiest SEO plugin I have used and it has kept me on my toes checking my posts to maximize them for SEO.

TIP: SEO Equals Organic (or natural searches, not paid) Results

Moving on to search engine optimization, look at this snippet from my back end as I explain in simple terms what is SEO and how I use the plugin.

Before I understood how to make my posts show up in searches, I had done quite a bit of blogging.

The green is for posts that I have optimized or used an excellent keyword to show up in searches and I figured out using Yoast, which makes it all easy.

As you can see, when I started to learn, I  have  some posts that have yellow on them that I am updating too with what I know now about matching keywords in my title and in my blog post and putting them in the description.

Too, you will notice that I have 86 more posts still to go to find the correct word to put in.

Look at how this plugin works, which is why you don’t have to know so much about SEO, just fill in the information in the box at the bottom of each post and make sure you get the green light before you publish.

Look at this box that comes from my back end on this series.

At the top of the box, you will see what is shown up in google searches or the snippet preview. So it’s important to put key words there that are associated with your topic so people will find you when researching for those terms.

Then I had a focus keyword, which is homeschool blogging.

The SEO title is what shows up in the searches and the meta description is what is explained under the SEO title and helps others who are searching to read a “preview” for your post.

Notice how all the parts were “answered” in green showing my posts is set for optimum seo. This plugin  is just the tip of the iceberg so to speak in understanding SEO.

Though this plugin helps to be sure that your posts are primed for searching, the key to understanding SEO is to understand key words people are searching on google. It’s good to have your posts “green” or the green light on your posts, you want to start understanding what key words people are searching for.

This is enough for a basics course, but I wanted to give you something to chew when you get ready to dive into deeper topics.

Too, I had mentioned in Day 1. Purpose about shortened links. There has been much back/forth about having shorter URLS, but my research has shown that key in perma (permanent) link is to be sure your link to your blog or post has key words.

Looking back, I wished I had left off the date on my posts and I still can if I use a redirect, but that part hasn’t really affected the growth of my blog.

It’s just something I wished I would have done differently in the beginning. Look here at the picture of my back end for setting the permalink when you set up your blog.

Go to SETTINGS > PERMALINKS

You have a choice now of keeping your permalink short by choosing the option for POST NAME and not the one I have done with the date.

Too, another advantage over not choosing the date is that nobody really can tell when you blog and your posts don’t become dated and it goes hand in hand with evergreen content on your blog.

Phew, did you get all of that?

Now on to day 4. Persistence because that is when you need to re-evaluate, sharpen your vision again and persist in doing what you started off doing! I will be sharing more nuggets of experience.

Hugs and love ya,

I love my blog planner that I created uniquely like my 7 Step Homeschool Planner where you build it step by step. I have been sharing different pictures on each of these days and you can read more about my Forever Blog Planner here.

Also, check out iBlog Pro, Proud to be a Co-Author

Purpose, Plan, Performance, Persistence and Payoff.

5 Days of Homeschool Blogging Basics.

Day 2 1/2 Plan.

Read Day 1. Purpose Here.

Continuing on from Day 2. Plan, I shared about planning your (1) setup, (2) plan it pretty and today on Day 2 1/2 I will be sharing some more dos and don’ts and also share the last point in my plan, which is (3) premier content.

(continuing) Step 2. Plan – Pretty Blog

Look at a few more of the dos.

• I have a call to action, which is follow my blog several places on my page and on pop ups.

I am going to list pop ups and free things on Day 3. Performance, but right now I want to stay on point with these dos and don’ts.

• A valuable and hardworking sidebar.

Don’t just slap up items aimlessly on your sidebar. That is valuable advertising space.

Preferring a left hand sidebar because of the research I have done, use the sidebar as a way to engage potential followers.

I call it the 5 Ps. Put your top posts, top pins, partners, promotions, and products, if you have products.

Of course products can be for down the road, but I wanted to give you a glimpse now into what you want to put there. Also, not all of these have to go on there.

For example, starting out, I put my posts and pins on my sidebars. As I got sponsors for paid space, they took the space and I have arranged my blog.

• Do put a search box that is easy to find. Nothing worse that will make visitors leave right away than not being able to search what they came to your site to find.
• Do put an easy way to contact you that does not require rocket science to figure out. Again, I will be putting plugins and suggestions on Day 3. Performance.
• Do add buttons so that followers can easily share your content. Don’t make them guess how to share.

Look at these don’ts.

• Music.

I am the first one to love music, but it can be aggravating to followers and besides followers have a variety of taste.

• Too small of font. Guess what? If you can barely read it, then your followers can’t either. Make it a bit bigger.
• Colors hard to read or fonts hard to read.

As a font snob, I am the first one to love all kinds of font, but not all kinds of fonts are easily readable.

It is really hard to read cursive that may look fine on printed documents, but on the screen the many loops and curls may cause blog sickness. (okay,okay) Test it out by looking at the font on your phone. If it looks sick, your followers will run.

The same goes with color, use colors easy on the eyes to read. A dark background with white text is hard on the eyes to read. If you like a dark background then add a light inside frame and use black text.

• And for goodness sake, as wild as Pinterest is now, don’t use teeny, tiny and dark pictures on your blog.

Pinterest is not only visually driven, but it is my number one referrer to my site because photos and graphics matter. Even if your topic matter does not lend itself to a lot of pictures, it is a must to create at least one pinworthy graphic at the top of your post so your content can be shared.

Those are a few of the dos and don’ts to make your blog pretty.

Last, but certainly not least is premier content. This is actually more important than set up and planning your blog pretty.

Premier and Pin Worthy Content.

By far the most important thing I did when I started up was to showcase my best content first right out of the gate.

I planned a 31 Free Boot Camp for New Homeschoolers. Again, I wanted to give my best first.

Does this mean you have to plan for a 31 day series? Maybe not, but focusing on my content first was key to reaching close to 75k views in my first few months of blogging.

Scooting quickly within a few months after my blog went live, I knew that I wanted evergreen content. Evergreen content is content that is good year after year on your blog. As you can see this kind of content is the hard working back bone of any elite blog.

I knew new homeschoolers would flock to homeschool each year and it is a passion of mine. So I honed in on my passion.

Planning 5 and 10 day series my first year also allowed me to talk to my heart’s delight about what I am fond of and build evergreen content that could be visited over and over again.

But that wasn’t my only premier content.

My passion for planners and my unique way of not having one huge boring download for a homeschool planner, but allowing my followers to create their own took off as well.

Looking back, I see too that gearing up my blog in the late spring allowed for a good start to the summer when my blog is hopping with planner traffic.

Key to displaying your best is understanding the homeschool season.

For example, I knew that new homeschoolers will be visiting my site right before school starts and after the winter when they have had enough of public school.

Guess what? My free curriculum planner follows the same kind of flow.

Planning Blog Posts – When and How?

As you can see, my topics to plan came from my purpose.

Topics can have endless slants on them and the more specific the better.

For example, I shared my topic about homeschooling.

But look at some of these topics that make my heart go pitter patter that would be sub-topics under homeschooling.

• new homeschooler tips
• seasoned homeschooler tip
• printed planner
• curriculum
• organization
• unit studies
• lapbooks
• middle school
• high school
• history luv
• geography luv

Take out your planner and plan your subtopics now.

When the creative juices are not flowing, I can look at my subcategories to branch off any of those topics that I can’t write enough about.

Finding time to blog is like anything else in my life and that is it has to have an assigned time. I happen to be a morning person and get up many days early so that my thoughts flow.

If you’re a night owl and do better while the kids are in sleep, then grab that time. I find that my planning consists both of brainstorming topics and writing on the same day.

There are some days when thoughts overflow and I may do or three blog posts at one time.

The point is that you don’t get extra hours in your day when you decide to blog, you have to assign blogging a time period, like everything else that is balanced.

Now that you have pulled your purpose close up to examine and you have spent time mulling over a plan how you want your blog to look, the next thing you need is some go-go juice.

The next blog post on Day 3. Performance will focus on some hard working and fun plugins. Plugins that will you track numbers and stats and generally keep your blog going behind the scenes.

Hugs and love ya,

I love my Forever Blog Planner and couldn’t blog without it!

Also, check out iBlog Pro, Proud to be a Co-Author

{Warning: There are 2 1/2 days on planning because I am excited to share, plus I like step by step pictures.}

Purpose, Plan, Performance, Persistence and Payoff.

5 Days of Homeschool Blogging Basics.

Day 2 Plan.

After defining the purpose of your blog from day 1 of homeschooling blogging basics and assuming you want to build it into something beyond a homeschool diary read by close friends and family, next you need to devise a plan.

Looking back now, I see 3 steps that have contributed to my blog having a great start.

Step 1. Plan – Professional Blog. Set Up!

One focus of the plan is to give your blog credibility.

I know there are other platforms like blogger, but the one I chose was self-hosted WordPress because it is the one chosen by serious bloggers. Remember, I wanted credibility and a professional blog and that is not necessarily free.

The one I went with is WordPress.Org or self-hosting and not the free version WordPress.Com.

Look at this infograph, which compares them side by side and is a great help for beginner bloggers.

I like baby steps in understanding new things and since this is a beginner’s course, I will keep it easy for you. But it’s worth taking time to understand the difference.

Self-hosting means just that. You are in full control baby.

You will need to find a host and get a domain name and a few other things. I will explain start up tips at the bottom of this post.

It’s not as scary as you think, but I chose self-hosting because I wanted freedom in everything.

You are not limited in design, plugins (my layman’s definition: something extra like a piece of software besides what comes with your theme and it allows you to customize things with almost no coding knowledge, and there are oodles and oodles of free and wonderful plugins) and ads when you are self-hosted.

You decide design, if and where you want ads, and what plugins you want.

Plan for future success by starting with the right platform. Some hosting companies like Bluehost  (which I use) have an eazy peazy way to install WordPress.

I installed WordPress and then I chose a free design. That was it and my site was up in just a few minutes.

Easy as 1, 2, 3 Set Up

Look at these easy steps to start up.

1. Choose a host like Bluehost.

This is a company that will “house” your blog and service you. It was important to me with all the reviews that I read, that I had a “live body” that I could talk to.

I wanted somebody that would explain technical terms in baby terms and that I could call basically 24/7 if something was wrong on my blog because I am the (not) techincal person taking care of it.

So I chose Bluehost and went with the $3.95 plan.

The other reason was because they have a one click install of WordPress. Oh yes, and I could call them while I was installing WordPress.

Think of WordPress as the engine that purrs the car and the theme you choose for your blog as the rest of the car to make it pretty and functional. I will tell you about the Genesis framework too, but will tell you about that on Day 4. Persistence.

2. Choose a Domain Name.

I knew that it was important to choose a blog name that reflected what I was going to blog about, but I didn’t realize that choosing such a long name would have some downsides.

SEO likes shortened links (more on that in Day 3. Performance). So though I love my blog name, I could have gone a lot shorter.

I do feel that my blog name identifies my main blogging theme, which is “homeschool” and the change through the years, which is the “dynamic” part and of course the “plus” because I knew I had other passions like planners in general and organization and I didn’t want to limit myself to just homeschool.

Think about your blog name and grab at least three or four variations of it in case one name is taken when you register your domain name.

3. Grab your credit card, phone, cup of coffee and create your blog in minutes by using Bluehost.

Look at the pictures of the rest of the steps. Eazy, Peazy!!

Login in to Bluehost. Remember your password.

Look at the C-panel or Control Panel and decide if you need help or go it alone. Believe me, try it on your own because I am not techie and it prompts you right along.

See WordPress under Website Builders, click that baby.

Click brand new install and watch it go.

Be sure you select your new blog name from the drop down menu so it knows where to install the WordPress framework.

Wait for it!

Install it Now.

Ta tah. Done.

It’s completed and you can browse hundreds and hundreds of themes or use the free themes that come with WordPress until you decide the look you want.

That is what I did too. There are several free themes with WordPress and I added a theme just to get me up and going and to see what the back end looked like. Too, I wanted to focus on awesome content for now.

I am going to talk about some other must-haves in your blog on Day 3. Performance, but I want to keep this easy so you can visualize a 1, 2, 3 step process to starting up your blog.

Step 2. Plan – Pretty Blog

The plan it pretty part of the blog probably came easier to me than the techie part because of my love for planners, but it certainly is a part of your blog that is just as important.

I have gone through many free themes and a few paid ones and it seems like themes can be an ongoing changing process.

Check out these three basic things to making your blog beautiful besides choosing the theme.

•  Color. Though I have tended to make my own color matching schemes, you certainly do not have to. There are many ways to find colors that compliment each other and look good on your blog. Look at the website Kuler Adobe and click EXPLORE and you will thousands of color combinations.
•  Font. Pairing fonts is easier now than ever thanks to Pinterest. Search for fonts or pairing fonts and you will get thousands of combinations.
•  Layout. Though I list it last, it certainly is not the least important. There are many themes with different layouts and a few things that you want to pay attention to is if the layout feels more like a website or blog. The trend lately has been to go to a layout that looks like a website. This is great for those that don’t want to blog as often and it showcases their best content on the front. Then there are layouts where the emphasis in your blog right away, which is how my theme is right now. This goes back to my purpose too because I have not blogged as long as many others and I want day to day content to be the focus. I had/have websites before and for now, my purpose is growing my blog.

There are some mistakes new bloggers make and I tried to avoid many of them in the beginning.

Look at this list of dos and don’ts for beginners.

Do put these on your blog.

•  Put your sweet pretty face right up there.

Read about taking photos and some basic tips are that lighting or the lack of it is everything.

I am not a professional photographer, but I read a few tips about how to take pictures and when to take them and after shooting a gazillion pictures, I finally found a profile picture I loved.

Followers need to know that you are a real live breathing talking human being.

Unless you’re some obscure huge conglomerate of businesses, forgo the cute avatar and make your blog personal.

Tell a new follower “howdy ho, I’m a homeschooling mom like you” when they see your pretty picture. Okay, okay.

• A call to action to follow your blog and that is NOT leaving your blog the minute someone lands it.

There are many schools of thought on this, but I am a believer, since my blog has grown to almost 7k followers in two years, that your call to action first should be to follow your blog before following on social media.

Your blog subscribers or list is your most valuable resource for growing your blog and you want to build that first.

Sure, social media goes hand in hand with your following, but your blog followers are your first and loyal resource.

So make sure a follower knows what a privilege it would be for you to have them follow.

I have my social media buttons on my page, but it is not the first thing a new follower will see.

A new follower has to stay on my page and “visit” for a while and then they get ask by me to follow with a popup after 20 seconds.

Okay, see if you can set up your blog with Bluehost and process this information first.

I have some more dos don’ts to share with you about planning your premier worthy content on the next post Day 2 1/2. Also, I will be sharing plugins on Day 3. Performance and more tips on Day 4. Persistence.

Hugs and love ya,

Did you see my Forever Blog Planner? Of course, I think it’s one of the best out there! tee hee hee

If you missed day 1 of Homeschool Blogging Basics, you can grab it at the link.

Also, check out iBlog Pro, Proud to be a Co-Author