10 Tips to Grow on Twitter if you HATE Twitter

I am pretty sure there is no other social media platform (other than Google+) that bloggers hate more than Twitter.  The majority of bloggers I hear always make comments like “I’m only on it since brands seem to like it” or “I never go on Twitter, I just don’t *get* it."

Luckily, I am NOT one of those people.

Post Planner for Bloggers: Improve Facebook Reach And Engagement

I discovered the power of Post Planner a few months ago when Gail, from MyRepurposedLife (who has a HUGE Facebook page) told me she was using it and really liking it.  She had seen her engagement skyrocket (which is really difficult for pages with more than 100K followers) and she told me she was saving a ton of time.

How to Divide Your Email List and Target Your Subscribers Automatically

On my “real” blog I actually write about a LARGE variety of projects.  I am not one of those bloggers who has a very specific niche, but I cover a wide range of topics from remodeling and woodworking, to kid crafts, recipes and holidays.  Because of this, I always had a hard time retaining email subscribers and/or getting them to open my emails.

Since I wanted to make the process of sending out emails as painless as possible, I had been using RSS driven campaigns (meaning anytime I posted a new post on the blog, it would automatically detect the RSS feed and send out an email.)  The problem was that not everyone wanted to hear about every project.  (I totally get it, we are busy and you only want to read about what you are interested in.)

Then I discovered the beauty of the “LABEL DRIVEN RSS FEED”!!   Game.changer!  

Label driven feeds are the same RSS feeds that you are familar with, but instead of going out for EVERY post, it only goes out for posts with a certain label or tag. This means that I could flag posts with different labels and set up different automatic RSS emails for different target audiences.

How To Set Up Custom Blog Domain Emails To Ensure Newsletter Delivery

Since Google recently announced it will be moving its Gmail platform to strict DMARC regulation this coming June, following the lead of both Yahoo and AOL a few years ago, there has been a little panic about email newsletters getting caught in spam filters or listed as “undeliverable.”

Many bloggers are using Gmail addresses for all their incoming and outgoing blog email and with these new restrictions, the chances of those emails being reliability delivered is shrinking. Additionally many bloggers are now sending out their newsletter via services like Mailchimp, MadMimi or Convert Kit.  All of these platforms use your personal specified email as the ‘from’ address.  With the new DMARC regulation, those emails we most likely be rejected or blocked.

Luckily there is a pretty simple work around, and for many bloggers it won’t cost anything! If you are currently using a custom domain (meaning your blog URL doesn’t contain .blogspot.com) the chances are pretty good that you already have a custom domain email address available.

How to Generate and Submit a Site Map for a Blogspot Blog

A question I get from a lot from bloggers is “How do I know that Google sees my site?” And the short answer is: as long as you have the privacy settings set correctly (In your Blogger Dashboard under Settings >> Basic) Google can find you.
The long answer, however, is a little more complicated.

Get Rid of The Blogspot: How to Setup a Custom Blogger Domain on GoDaddy

One of the biggest perks with using the Blogger platform for your blog is that is is 100% FREE.  You don’t have to pay to be ‘self-hosted’ like other blogging platforms.  (While I’m on it, the term ’self-hosted' is a misnomer actually.. unless you have a server in your garage, you aren’t self-hosted, you are paying for a hosting service.. you aren’t actually hosting your own content. It should be called “privately-hosted” or “third party-hosted” or something.)

In the case of Blogger blogs, our host is Google.. which is a pretty sweet deal!  Like any other hosting company (Bluehost, HostGator, FatCow, DreamHost..) Google DOES NOT own your content, the same way any other hosting company doesn’t own their client’s content.  (That is another big misconception about Blogger.) Hosts (even Google) are just ‘holding’ it for you and displaying it on your little corner of the internet, it is still YOURS and cannot be taken away from you. The biggest difference between Google-hosting an other privately-hosted blogs, is that Google holds our content for free, and without any bandwidth limitations or a big monthly bill!

How to Turn Your Blogger Posts into Rich Pins on Pinterest

In case you didn't realize it, I do 100% of my own blog formatting and HTML programming.   That is the big reason I am still using Blogger (instead of Wordpress) and why my blog layout/template never changes.  If it ain't broke.. (since I'm the one who will have to fix it!)

The truth is that I have ZERO computer programming experience, I just spend a lot of my time pounding my head into my keyboard and using google to try to figure out how to make my blog do what I want.  I am sure there are some really weird things going on in my code but, eh,  it just has to look okay to the average reader. 

What Does It Really Cost To Run A Blog?

I am constantly asked about what types of resources I use when I blog.  My blog is a little unusual because I am self-hosted on Google and thus my blogging expenses are vastly different from many other mid-sized bloggers who are self-hosted on Wordpress. So for fun I thought I would create a quick guide to all my favorite blogging tools and how much I spend on them every month.

This post will include my ENTIRE OVERHEAD (other than supplies I use in the posts themselves) for my blog. Hopefully this will give non-bloggers (and even fellow bloggers) and idea of what it costs to run a successful blog.   And in case you are wondering, right now my blog gets between 250,000 and 300,000 page views a month.   That is about 300% more than it was a year ago, when I was averaging only 100,000.

I know for sure that investing in the resources I will talk about below is one of the reasons I have seen that growth.   It wasn’t until I started really INVESTING in my blog and treating it as a business did I earn a full time income, since now my monthly revenue is significantly more than these expenses.

What Does It Take To Write A Blog Post?

I recently wrote about my experiences with sponsored posts and why I think it is so important to make sure that the content within them is always worth reading.  I was actually surprised by how much traffic (and feedback) that post received.  Based on the majority of the responses to that piece (both on the post itself and on social media) I am clearly not the only one who feels that way.

It isn’t that I believe most bloggers set out with the goal of “write crappy sponsored posts and annoy my readers,” but sometimes that just happens.  Creating high quality sponsored posts usually means a lot more work than just regurgitating the sales pitch you are told to give.  Even with the best intentions, not every post will be a winner. Sometimes posts just don’t turn out like you envisioned. I admit that I have had that happen to me.

Good posts (sponsored or otherwise) are hard work..  and LOTS OF IT.  Most bloggers are already keenly aware of this, but a non-blogger may not realize what it actually takes get a post written and published. So today (and since I am tapped out of new projects to share.. #KeepingItReal) I am going to show you what it takes for me to create a post.