Barb Drozdowich's Blog, page 40
July 26, 2015
How to Format Text in a Blogger Post
Today’s video is going to cover what some view as a straight forward topic. I know that I get quite a few questions on formatting text. Blogger has an interesting collection of formatting options. If you blog on Blogger, take a few moments to watch and see if you are using all the capabilities the Blogger offers you.
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I’d like to thank you for dropping by today! I hope I helped simplify another tech issue. If you have a friend that would benefit from this post, please use the share buttons below to pass it on. I have created almost 20 of these videos now to address sticky problems that I get questions about. If you are interested in getting these videos delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for my Tech hints newsletter off to the right ⇒
I’ve now re-worked and republished the first two of my books. They were written in hopes of helping. If they sound interesting, click on the covers and you will be taken to Amazon.
The post How to Format Text in a Blogger Post appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
July 24, 2015
The Author’s Platform: A Beginner’s Guide
My second book, The Author’s Platform: A Beginner’s Guide, has been re-written and now republished by BookTrope! Many of you know that I’m gradually updating and re-publishing my books through BookTrope. Book #2 has finally made it to Amazon. I took the comments from the reviews and added some needed chapters and tried to make this 2nd edition even more user friendly than it was in it’s first edition.
The whole point of this book was to create something that wouldn’t be intimidating to beginner authors, yet give them enough information to get started building their platform and get ready to move to the next level of understanding about promoting their book. If you have an author like that in your circle, please pass this book on to them as it truly is written at the primer level!
Here’s the information about it along with an excerpt
Creating buzz for your book and your career as an author just got easier.
‘The Author’s Platform’ will help you create, understand and use a powerful author platform to sell books!
Social Media and WordPress Consultant Barb Drozdowich will steer you through the technology behind book marketing without all the techno-speak. She has helped many authors just like you build an author platform that engages readers and builds sales.
This book will help you decode the mystery behind building a powerful author brand and navigating the social media platforms essential to publishing success
‘The Author’s Platform’ teaches you why you need the various facets of the author platform to build visibility. Barb uses a simple analogy, Operation Book, to help you understand the steps to successful book marketing in the media age. She covers:
The Difference between a Website and a Blog
The Important Items Your Blog Should Contain
The Nine Essential Social Media Platforms
Newsletters
Amazon’s Author Central and many more
˃˃˃ With simple-to-follow steps, Barb will help you create, understand and use an Author Platform to support your career.
Excerpt:
Website or Blog
Let’s start with the hub of your author platform—your website or blog. These words are often used interchangeably but can actually denote separate things. Let’s define.
Usually the word “website” refers to a static site on the Internet containing information that isn’t changed frequently. A programmer or web designer versed in HTML coding usually makes the changes on a per-change or hourly basis. Many authors view websites as expensive, and they certainly can be.
I’m rather frugal and prefer not to spend money. As a result, I’m not fond of static websites. Yes, they serve a purpose. However, I don’t think the average author must make the investment.
Static websites pose another problem. Because new and exciting information doesn’t appear in a timely fashion, these sites don’t attract the attention of Google and therefore often don’t rank very well in a Google search.
Think of Google as a toddler with a new toy. Those of you who have had exposure to toddlers know the toy doesn’t stay new long and, before you know it, the toddler is on to other toys—always looking for something new and different. If the content on a website is rarely updated, Google won’t pay much attention either.
Why should you care about this? As an author in need of visibility, you must rank as high as possible during a Google search. If you have an uncommon name such as mine, ranking on Google is a slam-dunk. Search my name and you’ll discover I own the first page of Google in a name-based search.
If you have a common surname like Smith or Jones, or share a name with a celebrity, you’ll probably never own the first page of Google. A client of mine shares his name with a moderately successful country singer. That’s a tough row to hoe. Ranking higher on Google than a famous person is difficult, but it is possible—as long as your name isn’t Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
Why do you want to rank high on a Google search? It’s true that the majority of your readers will come from word of mouth. But not all. If a potential reader wants to find you quickly, or they’re looking for books in a specific genre, they frequently perform a Google search. They’ll glean the first entries found, but rarely look beyond the first few pages delivered by Google. Make it easy for readers to find you by ensuring you rank high on a search.
Tech Hint: I have lots of people tell me they “Google” themselves or search for themselves on Google all the time and they rank really well. Google is a responsive search engine. In other words, it learns. The more you perform a certain search, the better Google gets at finding what you want. If you Google yourself all the time, Google will get really good at finding you. Go to the local library and do the same search without signing on to your Google account. You will likely see a very different result. You likely don’t rank as high as you think!
Let’s return to our discussion of websites versus blogs. If websites feature static content, blogs offer a constant stream of new information. To my mind, blogs offer a second benefit: an author can maintain a blog with minimal paid help. Most important, a blog’s fresh content ensures it will rank higher in a Google search. (Remember the toddler example.)
Blogs
During the 1990s, a blog was known as a weblog, indicating that it was something found on the Internet as a serial recording of information—a diary, if you will. Today, blogs are quite different, personalized and modified to display information in a variety of ways. But ultimately, a blog is still a serial collection of information.
In my experience, most blogs are designed by highly technical people with little understanding of the needs of authors. Even if your first blog seems a technical wonder, it is likely to change once you decide how you will use your blog. Please use the information below to make informed choices about your initial direction, or to modify the blog you’ve already developed. Whether you are a new or seasoned blogger, I hope that by the end of this section you will have a better sense of the components required for a successful blogging experience.
This brings me to an important point: regardless of your web designer’s opinion, ultimately your blog must be easy to use and tailored to your needs. If you have a blog that is too complicated for your skill level, ask for help. Make sure that help is qualified and is used to working with authors. We are a niche group with unique needs.
There are many different platforms for blogs including Blogger, free WordPress (also known as WordPress.com) and self-hosted WordPress (also known as WordPress.org). Each platform has positive and negative aspects.
As of this writing, a self-hosted WordPress blog costs no more than $100.00 a year. There are some additional startup costs. For example, how much you spend depends on the graphics selected for your blog.
For a nominal charge, you may also register a domain for your free WordPress or Blogger account. Doing so allows use of your author name unless the domain has been registered by another writer with the same name. For example, I own the domain barbdrozdowich.com and it is attached to my author site.
Do you care if you register your own domain? Only you can answer that question. In my opinion, you should.
The post The Author’s Platform: A Beginner’s Guide appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
July 19, 2015
How to Embed a YouTube Video in a WordPress Post
Today’s topic is a particularly sticky one for many bloggers:
Embedding a YouTube Video in a WordPress Post or Page.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked someone through putting a YouTube video on their blog. People seem to assume that it requires fancy plugins or special knowledge of HTML. That’s not true – as you’ll see from the video, it’s a very easy job.
Obviously, I needed to do it to embed the video below so that you could see it on my blog, but what are other examples of needing to do this? What could you use this skill for?
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I’d like to thank you for dropping by today! I hope I helped simplify another tech issue. If you have a friend that would benefit from this post, please use the share buttons below to pass it on. I have created almost 20 of these videos now to address sticky problems that I get questions about. If you are interested in getting these videos delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for my Tech hints newsletter off to the right ⇒
I’ve now re-worked and republished the first two of my books. They were written in hopes of helping. If they sound interesting, click on the covers and you will be taken to Amazon.
The post How to Embed a YouTube Video in a WordPress Post appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
July 7, 2015
What Questions do you have about Facebook?
Today we are going to talk about Facebook.
As many of you know, I’ve published 6 books so far to help authors and bloggers with various aspects of their platform. Last September I was signed to BookTrope publishing and am in the process of re-publishing all my books with them. As I’m doing that, they are all getting a going over. In some cases not much is changing, but in the case of a few of the books, they are getting an overhaul.
The ones that are getting a overhaul are the ones that are a bit out of date and the ones that have a lot of screenshots in them. Although lots and lots of screenshots to lead you through the various technical aspects of the platform seemed like a good idea when I wrote these books, trying to see the screenshots on an iPhone screen or even on a tablet is pretty challenging. So…I’m trying to combine books with videos to cover the technical aspects and many of you have been seeing these videos as they have been posted over the last few months.
Back to Facebook. Facebook is the platform that has been changing the fastest. Many of the things that were cutting edge when I first published my book on Facebook, are now old news, or in a few cases, have been removed from the platform all together.
As I head to the drawing board to overhaul my Facebook for Authors book, I’m interested in what you think should be included.
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List your questions or topics below in the comments, or find me on Twitter or Facebook and I’ll gather a list as I head to the drawing board.
Thanks!
The post What Questions do you have about Facebook? appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
July 1, 2015
The 2015 Essential Social Media Ad Size Cheat Sheet (Infographic)
This week I’ve found a handy dandy cheat sheet for Social Media Ad Sizes. I’m not sure how many of you do ads on the various Social Media – but I find infographics like this invaluable – all the information in one location!
I found this infographic on Bannersnack
The post The 2015 Essential Social Media Ad Size Cheat Sheet (Infographic) appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
June 29, 2015
How to add HTML code or iframe code to the Sidebar of a WordPress Site (Video)
Today’s subject is a sticky one. Many people shy away from trying to put code on the sidebar of their WordPress blog.
You are probably saying to yourself….why would I do that?? What the heck would I need to learn this for?
The answer is easy – Goodreads author/blogger widgets! Goodreads offers a great selection of widgets that can be put on the sidebar of your blog to advertise a book you are giving away on Goodreads, to show the reviews of one of your books, or as a reader – the books you have on a shelf – let’s say your To Be Read shelf.
Mailchimp also offers code to put a newsletter signup form on your sidebar. Bloggers often post a countdown clock to count the days until a release of an anticipated book.
Regardless of the reason to put various types of code on your sidebar – it shouldn’t be something that is avoided as it is a fairly easy task once explained. I hope you enjoy my explanation using a Goodreads widget as an example.
Feel free to ask questions and please forward to someone you know is struggling with this task.
The post How to add HTML code or iframe code to the Sidebar of a WordPress Site (Video) appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
June 24, 2015
Evolution of Social Media 2004 – 2014 (Infographic)
As I’m sure you know, I love Infographics! I love the condensed nature of the information – the one-stop-shopping nature of this form of information. I stumbled on today’s infographic on Hubspot’s blog – a blog that I frequently read.
This infographic summarizes the changes or as the title says, the Evolution of Social media from 2004 – 2014. I feel that some of the social media that are part of my life have been around forever, but that’s not actually true!
Enjoy, and if you want to read the original post, click HERE.
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June 17, 2015
The 9 Most Powerful Blog Promotion Tactics (Infographic)
Today I’m going to share an infographic that I recently stumbled on called The 9 Most Powerful Blog Promotion Tactics. Let’s face it – we could all use a primer on how to promote our blog posts – not only after they are published, but reminders about the content of anything that we post.
I hope you enjoy this colorful infographic and if you want to view the original post that it came from, click HERE.
The post The 9 Most Powerful Blog Promotion Tactics (Infographic) appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
June 14, 2015
How to Format Text in WordPress Posts or Pages (Video)
Today we are going to talk about formatting the text in a WordPress post or page.
I’m sure that most of you are fairly comfortable making text bold, italic or centering your text. The video that I’ve created for this week’s post is a short review of the non-standard formatting that is available for WordPress posts and pages – you know, the stuff that we rarely use, but really should!
Many studies have shown that readers of electronic sources have the attention span of a gnat. We need to cater to that if we want our readers to actually read all of what we want to share with them.
In order to do that we change up the text:
Highlight some text
Use sub-heads
♥♥♥Use fancy characters ♥♥♥
Have a look at the latest video and see if you can get some ideas to spruce up your posts or pages!
I hope you learned something from this week’s video. Feel free to share this post with a friend and don’t forget to sign up for my Tech Hints newsletter to get some helpful hints sent to your inbox!
The post How to Format Text in WordPress Posts or Pages (Video) appeared first on Bakerview Consulting.
June 3, 2015
Top 8 Proven Benefits of Business Blogging (Infographic)
Welcome back to Bakerview Consulting!
I’ve heard it…..I’m sure you’ve all heard it….
I don’t have time to blog!
I certainly have said this on many occasions! I know the benefits of blogging, but I still resist at times. The experts know the benefits of blogging, not just on strictly business blogs, but also for other professionals.
Your blog is one of the only places that you can communicate that you own. You control the message. You have the ability to engage in various ways.
I hope that the infographic below reminds you why you blog, and encourages you to keep with it!
If you want to read the originating article for this infographic, please click here.
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