Recently I read an article from @mistygirlph about leaving your comfort zone. Truth to be told, I have always stayed “safe” when it comes to blogging as I don’t really want to offend anyone or to get my facts wrong. Despite doing so, I felt that I couldn’t satisfy everyone. We’ll always have someone that disagrees with us and will argue with what we say…or even up to the extent of unfollowing us because they didn’t agree with something that we said.

I don’t really mind, but that being said, the fear of failure and making mistakes had once stopped me from blogging. Living in an Asian culture, a lot of us were brought up by our parents to “make no mistakes”. Mistakes were seen as a failure, and failing to live up to expectations is an insult to the family.

I remember when I was 6, I was really bad at spelling (language is not my best skill until today) and every time we had a spelling quiz of 10 words, my brother and I would get a 2/10. What is even worse, every mistake would result in a caning from my dad. It was a painful experience and mom would always come to the rescue. That helped me and my brother to work really hard to avoid getting caned and we eventually improved our spelling. From making 8 mistakes per quiz, we improved to only making 1 or 2 mistakes. Although that story seemed like it had a happy ending, I believe that it had somehow affected my personality because now whenever I wanted to do something, or blogged about it, I would decide to play it safe. When it comes to blogging, I am always worried about the quality of the article.

I ask:

• What if people don’t like what I write?
• What if my English is not up to par?
• What if people find it too…amateurish?

Having all that in mind, I once stopped blogging here and at AskAaronLee for 40 days. I basically just left without a word. Danny had been kind enough to email me asking if I was alright.

This affected how I work in a team too. I usually prefer to work alone because if I were to make a mistake, I could take it alone without affecting the others.  I found that I was more relaxed working alone because I carried my own burden and my own fate.

We all have fears when it comes to blogging, says Judy when she wrote about the secret of fears that bloggers have. I felt really connected with that and I think I could tick most of them if it had a tick box. This questioned me. How personal should we be on our blog? Danny Brown wrote about being as personal as you can which is usually something I avoided at askaaronlee. Should I really be so upfront? I thought a lot whether I wanted to share my story in blogs because it can be a little too long winded sometimes it is better to just cut to the chase.

I used to ask myself every day about how to overcome my fears. Luckily for me, and for my readers today, I remembered reading a blog post by Mark about overcoming blogging fears. One of the tips he suggested was to seek active support, and that his friends kept him going when he first started blogging.

So I decided to follow his advice and sought help from my friend Henry, a buddy whom I met in university, to help me edit my articles. He agreed too, and even refuses any payments from me.  Editing my articles helped me overcome my fear of blogging and most of my current articles were even edited by him. He gives me helpful feedbacks about it too. Because of that, I am now able to write whatever is on my mind, and it motivates me to keep churning out posts-after-posts without having to worry about my writing eliminating one of my fears. (Henry: It’s true! I take credit for any mistakes here . Aaron writes much more these days and he’s even getting better at it!)

I also sought help from a few friends on Twitter, and everyone has been so helpful to me. @CtKscribe always knows the right words to cheer me up and to get me back on track. She was always there when I was down and so were a lot of my twitter friends.

Long story short, I am gaining more confidence each day because of the support I have from the people around me, and from those who find that my articles are worth a minute or two of their time. Being on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook has helped me to slowly overcome my fears and it has been amazing to see how people are willing to jump in and help. I will never forget the support that I was able to get from the social media industry.

Fear of failure, leaving your comfort zone and finding help originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

Sounds like it’s time to get a little more strategic about curating that audience of yours. Launching a successful blog, after all, means having a knack not just for writing but also for promoting yourself as in the most authentic and down to earth way possible. But how to do it?

<h2>Determine Who Your Blog Audience Should Be
First things first. In order to reach an audience, you have to define just who’s sitting in those chairs. If you take a look at some of the most successful blogs and businesses out there, you’ll notice a commonality: narrowed demographics, evident in just about every way that blog or business’ marketing is constructed.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the super successful business, <a href=”http://www.modcloth.com/” target=”_blank”>ModCloth</a>, which first gained traction by being an early adopter of Facebook ads. While the business’ mode of operation and products are clear indicators of their demographics, the product descriptions are even more so, casually dropping in mentions of great books, quirky cocktails and Bohemian hangouts. The descriptions are so specific, they’re likely to turn away a large number of people…But when they <i>do</i>find their intended audience (and they certainly have), the message really hits home, turning the casual consumer into a brand loyalist. That’s what happens when consumers feel that a brand really <i>gets</i> them — and you can’t do that when you don’t have a focus.

To determine just <a href=”http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/06/defining-your-target-market.html” target=”_blank”>who your blog audience should be</a>:

• <b>Seek common traits among your current visitors</b>. A good look at <a href=”http://www.google.com/analytics” target=”_blank”>Google Analytics</a> will tell you where the bulk of your visitors are coming from, how they’re reaching you, and what kind of platforms they’re using to get there. Use these metrics to get a sense of who likes you already and use that knowledge to your advantage.
• <b>Analyze your competition</b>. Is there a fellow blogger you’d like to emulate? Browse through their comment sections to see just who engages with what content, keeping your eyes peeled for content requests your competitor isn’t already providing.
• <b>Do a <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics” target=”_blank”>demographics</a> and <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychographics” target=”_blank”>psychographics</a> analysis</b> to determine both how your customers live and how they think. For bloggers, <a href=”http://pewinternet.org/index.aspx” target=”_blank”>Pew Internet</a> is a great place to start, as it breaks down internet usage by demographic.
• <b>Look for what’s missing</b>. Let’s say you want to start a cooking blog. Even better, you know you want to narrow that to Asian cooking. Use the <a href=”http://www.adwords.google.com/” target=”_blank”>Google Adwords</a> tool to focus even further, looking for related terms with high search values and low competition. This way, your niche might go from “Asian cooking” to “healthy Chinese cooking” to “healthy Chinese cooking for Americans,” all based on data about what specific consumers within your broader audience desire.

Okay, now you’ve got your target audience. How can you reach them?

<h2>1. Market on Social Media</h2>
When you’re selling a blog, you’re selling both content and personality. And one of the best ways to promote that unique mix is on social media, where you can connect directly with potential followers and build real, authentic relationships.

To truly stand above the fray, however, you may need to get a little creative with your social media techniques, and that can only be accomplished with an intimate knowledge of the ways in which each site works and what tools they provide. You might, for instance, use Twitter to perform keyword tracking and find out just how people are searching for you, while you use Facebook for developing a deeper secondary community to support your blog and Pinterest to promote your blog’s tantalizing visuals. To get started, we recommend taking a browse through this <a href=”http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/microsites/guide-to-social-media-success” target=”_blank”>social media guide</a>, which provides effective ways for setting clear targets and goals, developing a consistent stream of compelling social media content, monitoring analytics, ensuring you’re leveraging each platform to maximum effect and standardizing your social media process.

<h2>2. Partner With Other Bloggers</h2>
One of the most interesting (and cheering) things about blogging is that, with a worldwide audience open to you, competitors don’t have to be enemies. In fact, working directly with competitors — particularly those who are already influential in your niche — can be a very fast way to build an audience. Working with other bloggers can mean everything from guest posting on each other’s blogs to forming a joint blogging community. There are plenty of ways to get creative! Not only does this give you access to a large audience, but you’ll also gain instant credibility.

<h2>3. Be Visible Outside Your Niche, Too</h2>
That said, just because you have a niche, doesn’t mean you have to spend all of your time there (get out and see the sun once in a while!). Chances are, no matter what niche you’ve chosen, there are plenty of related niches that could be of help. Let’s say, for instance, that you run a fashion for children blog — a market that’s already packed with contributors. Try looking outside the fashion niche to education blogs. Do you support organic and ethical trade clothing? See if you can guest post on a green blog, or even a hyper-niche blog like one that caters to urban dwellers with a passion for rooftop gardening. Or, get super creative and invent craft projects that use old children’s clothes as a base before targeting DIY blogs. The applications are endless; don’t limit yourself arbitrarily.

<h2>4. Network</h2>
Networking today is a unique combination of in-person and online efforts. You might start your marketing efforts by commenting frequently on popular blogs or message boards within your niche, whether on a social site like Facebook or on a professional site like LinkedIn. Once a certain amount of rapport is established, reach out directly to your favorites via email or a social media to let them know how much you enjoy their work. These efforts will be all the more effective when you can follow them up with an in-person meeting, whether it’s one on one in a coffee shop or in a crowd at an industry conference. Even Skype is an option for out of town contacts. Once back in the anonymity of your office, follow-up in-person meetings with thank you emails and specific proposals to work together. Together, online and in-person efforts are a solid and comprehensive way to establish and strengthen connections.

<h2>5. Use Incentives</h2>
Of course, the <a href=”http://theentreprenettegazette.com/2010/08/12/how-to-reach-your-target-market/” target=”_blank”>good old giveaway</a> can’t be beat, traditional as it may sound. Once you’ve got sponsors, brainstorm a creative contest for them and promote it all around social media. Or become a sponsor of your own on a sister site and offer a unique prize. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a lot of cash floating around, don’t worry. You’d be surprised at the level of competition that will arise when the prize is a niche-specific book, an hour of your time, or even one of those goofy comics you draw for fun.

<h2>Take-Away</h2>
By definition, a successful blog is one that reaches — and pleases — its target audience. Define yours carefully, embrace all the many tools on offer to develop credibility and fandom, get creative with your techniques, and your blog is sure to be a success.

5 Ways to Reach Your Target Audience originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

If you don’t know a lot about SEO and keyword research, it’s going to be hard for you to understand how to create content for your blog that’s to be easy for the search engines to find.

For example, when I first started out blogging I had no idea about Google Keyword Tool, or that I should use my main keyword in the first sentence of my blog post. Did you?

In trying to understand SEO better, I browsed through plugins for WordPress and I found one called WordPress Seo Plugin. I have been using this plugin for quite some time now and it’s really helped me get my blog posts on the top searches of Yahoo, Bing, and Google.

I had no idea about SEO when I started out, or how to format my blog posts. But using this plugin helped me understand and develop a plan of how to create great SEO-friendly content for my blog, and also for other blogs that I guest on as well.

I haven’t seen some of the features this plugin has on any other SEO plugin for WordPress. Here are two of the main features of this plugin, to give you more insight on why you should be using WordPress Seo Plugin.

Post Title and Meta Descriptions:

• Focusing on a keyword for your blog post is important but sometimes you might not know what kind of keyword that you should use. Well, with this plugin it helps you choose a specific keyword depending upon the blog post that you have written. Also, one of my favorite features is the Seo title and how you can customize your title to fit the search engines. So, if you would like you can have ( blog post title-keyword) and that would then show up for the title of that specific page or blog post. Then with the your meta description bar you now have the opportunity of customizing it so that your keyword and other information that you would like to insert in that box shows up for the search engines to read and understand what your post or page is about.

Blog Post Break Down:

• The plugin breaks your blog post down in a way that makes you understand how your writing skills are performing and what you need to change. With giving you suggestions on how you should format your post. On what level of writing that you are catering to as well. If you ever wondered about how your posts are being setup and if they are being written properly then this is the specific plugin that you should use. The one issue that a lot of bloggers have is that when their writing out their blog post they either write them not knowing that this won’t be ranked within the search engines or they write them doing to much work and throwing in to much keywords and phrases where the post is going to look more spam.

WordPress Seo Plugin has really developed into one of the top tier plugins to use for seo purposes for WordPress. If you don’t understand Xml sitemap, permalinks, breadcrumbs, and robots.txt then this is a plugin that will help you learn what those things are as they all are important with catering your WordPress site to the various search engines.

How To Tailor Your Blog Post For Search Engines originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

Pay attention. What I say next may very well save your blogging career.

If you don’t have a trusted, scheduled back up of your blog or website going right now, stop whatever you’re doing and set one up. 

This is a practice I suggest to everyone, but very few people take the tips (even me, actually). I recently had a blog corrupted by a mysterious, devilish force and unfortunately for me, I didn’t have back-ups in place. The long story, short of this situation was that I lost about 2 years worth of content and writings.

Gone.

Just, gone.

If I had regular blog back-ups in place, I might have only lost a week or two or nothing at all. But I did, and now I’m spending hours working through corrupted file code to salvage anything that be saved.

I would prefer that you not go through the same thing.

How To Set Up A Back-Up

This is not going to be a long post because I want you to spend the time you would normally spend reading and analyzing my every word setting up a back-up system for the blog you work on and care about.

There are plenty of ways to set up a back-up plan for your blog but here are a few of mine.

1) WP Time Machine - This is a great plug-in that not only backs up your WP files and content, but it will then turn around and store them on Dropbox, Amazon’s S3 system or your FTP host. It’s a pretty simple set-up process and will save you much heartache down the road.

2) Backuper - This is another plug-in, but this one has handy features that let you customize not only how the back-up saves, but how often. Choose between Weekly, Daily, Hourly and more to feel as safe as you need.

3) Host cPanel - Most of the time your hosting service will have back-up options in the cPanel. Spend some times familiarizing yourself with the cPanel and set up and sort of minimal back-up that is allowed.

4) Manual Save - If all those options seem too complicated, you can always set up a calendar alert once a month, week, day, etc to remind you to go into your FTP host, download all the files, compress them in a zip folder and save them in a designated space on your harddrive.

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Okay, stop reading, start saving your blogs and the hard work you’ve put in.

Go.

Back That Thang Up! originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

When was the last time you saw a video or read a blog post that made you sit back and take a breath because it was so moving or powerful? Can you remember the last time you were truly surprised or shocked by a piece of content you came across?

For most of us, reading blogs and articles online has become so routine that we blow through them with the speed of a hyena on fire, but to truly move from being a blogger to a good blogger and finally to a great blogger, you need to practice the skills and get into the habit of writing posts that will stop people in their tracks and shock them.

Make them say, “Wow.”

Static + Friction = Shock

When I was younger I had an amazing red pair of footie pajamas. They were the most comfortable piece of clothing I think I’ve ever owned. Nothing else even comes close.

One of the reasons I loved them (and the main reason everyone else in my family hated them) was that I figured out how to shock people by walking across our entertainment room shuffling my feet. You can probably tell how popular a child I was among my parents’ friends.

What I didn’t realize then, and only learned in college (then forgot and re-learned while researching this post) was that by shuffling my feet on the carpet with a material that attracts electrons, I was creating a neutral static charge on my person that would then leap to whomever I chose to touch or whichever doorknob I bumped into first, causing a shock.

I know this isn’t a science blog, but bear with me. I used the friction between my feet and the floor to create a static charge that when transfered to another person, caused a shock.

Remember that formula, because we’re about to break out of this analogy.

When you write, you need to keep in mind the elements that create a good shock and write in a way that delivers that charge to those around you.

1) Static Charge - The first thing you need to keep in mind is to find something with a charge. That doesn’t mean something that will get people all riled up (although that doesn’t hurt), but this means find something that has life. Find a topic that buzzes in your mind and can take on a life of it’s own if given a chance. No matter what industry you are writing for, there are topics that enliven people and there are topics that ALWAYS fall flat. Try to stick with topics that have a charge initially instead of trying to resuscitate a dead topic and fighting that uphill battle.

2) Friction - Here’s where you can get people riled up. Creating friction doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make a lot of people mad, but it DOES mean finding a way to write about a charged topic in a way that grates against the norm. Take a new stand on a common belief in your industry or come out against a popular author who you believe missed the mark. Cause a little bit of a stir and amp up that friction by staying true to your character and your brand voice, but stay true to those things in a way that may rub people enough to get their attention.

3) Shock - Finally, you’ve just got to transfer that charge from your content to the people reading it. If you’ve found a topic with a lively charge and caused a bit of friction in your approach, this should happen as naturally as touching a doorknob on a cold day. Share your post on social media and social bookmarking sites and get that charge out into the community. See who you can shock and if they transfer that shock to others.

–

So, in conclusion, use the power of science and my old footie pajamas to give your readers a good shock every now and again. Just like when I was a kid, it will throw some people off and some might even be mad at you for a little bit, but you won’t get hurt and people will forgive you quickly, but remember the shock they got around you.

Thoughts?

Make Your Writing Shocking originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

The Importance Of Backups!

I cannot stress the importance of properly backing up your blog enough. Like I said, a lot of us tend to only think about WP security after our blog has been hacked. But by then, it’s too late. If your blog ever happens to get hacked, you’re going to need a backup of all your files. There are 3 main ways that bloggers use to backup their site:

• Web Host: Your web host should produce regular backups of your blog for you automatically. You should be able to just contact them to get a backup. I use Hostgator (affiliate link), and they make it extremely easy to access backups through cPanel.
• Plugins: There are plenty of great plugins for backing up WordPress. Plugins allow you to automatically create backups of your blog on a regular schedule so that you don’t have to remember to do it yourself. The WordPress Backup to Dropbox plugin is a good one because it sends your backups to Dropbox so that they’re not hosted on your servers.
• Manual: Lastly, you can always create manual backups of your site via FTP. Just transfer over all of your files through whatever FTP client you like. I use FireFTP, but there are plenty of other ones to choose from. The problem with manual backups is that you have to remember to do it, which makes it prone to human error.

WordPress Plugins for Security

To wrap up this guide, I want to mention some plugins that are great for WP security. Aside from actual WP Security plugins, I’m also going to mention some that are just beneficial for security purposes such as a couple more backup plugins. You don’t have to get all of these. I’m an avid believer in not downloading too many plugins as made evident in my 5 WordPress Plugins Your Blog Can Do Without post.

Security Ninja ($10)

This is by far the most popular WordPress security plugin there is. It allows you to perform a ton of security tests on your site to make sure you’re safe. It will check to see if your plugins and themes are up to date, check your database, login attempts and more. Not only that, but it will also give you tips on what to do if any of the results come back as “Bad”.

Login Ninja ($15)

I’ve mentioned accessibility a few times already in this post, and this plugin is designed to help prevent accessibility issues. You can ban IP’s, restrict login attempts, get a log of login activity, and more. A lot of sites use it to fight spam, but it’s great for security too.

Better WP Security (Free)

This is a great free WordPress security plugin that helps protect your blog from common vulnerabilities. It does this by hiding certain files such as the path to your WP-Content folder and login error messages. It will also run scans of your site and fix any issues it finds. Like Login Ninja, it will also prevent brute force logins. The list of features for this plugin goes on and on. Quite frankly, I’m surprised it’s free.

BulletProof Security (Free)

The BulletProof Security plugin protects your site from a ton of different hacks. The plugin description notes:

• XSS
• RFI
• CRLF
• CSRF
• Base64
• Code Injection

The plugin prevents malicious scripts from accessing your .php files by using .htaccess security files. All technical jargon aside, this plugin essentially protects the important files on your site that hackers want to access.

ManageWP (Varies)

This isn’t a plugin, but it’s very useful for bloggers who have multiple sites that use WordPress. It allows you to manage all of your blogs from one dashboard. The main feature I like about ManageWP for security is the ability to update all of your plugins, themes, and WordPress from one place. So instead of logging into all of your blogs individually, you can update them all from one place. As I mentioned, out of date plugins and themes are one of the most common ways blogs get hacked, so ManageWP is great to help prevent that. You can also use it to create backups of all your blogs as well.

BackUpWordPress (Free)

I mentioned WP Backup to Dropbox earlier, but here is another plugin for creating WordPress backups. It pretty much does everything you need, and it’s simple to use. You can schedule your backups, pick what specific files/folders you want to backup, and have the backups emailed to you.  

Don’t make the mistake of waiting until after your blog gets hacked to think about security. Use some of the tips and info here and start securing your WP blogs. Do you have any plugins, tips, or tricks that you use to help your blog be more secure?

WordPress Wednesday- The Complete Guide To WordPress Security Pt. 2 originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

If you want to guest post start with your friends.

Your friends are the most giving and forgiving people you will be connected to. They’ll heap you with your grammar, your images and how to write for the reader.

If your friends blog then the chances are you’ve discussed all your blogging fears with them. They know all about your mean comments, they understand what it feels like when you say you have no idea what a terrabang is and where you would put it. Your friends that blog know all this and have their own fears surrounding many blogging myths. This means that you can talk to them about guest blogging and pitch them a post that isn’t likely to get rejected. And that’s what we are fearing here: rejection.

Your guest post for a friend will be your best guest post ever.

If you replay in your mind every conversation about blogging you’ve ever had with her, you’ll know all about her audience and what she’s trying to achieve with her blog. That means your very first guest post will speak directly to that audience. It means you know the readers, where they come from and you know what their problems, their pain points, are. You have the tactical advantage and you should use it.

Your first guest post isn’t about traffic or building awesome links; it’s about confidence. It’s about someone believing in you enough to get you guest posting. It’s about leveraging your connections and deepening the relationship.

So stop the pity-party and focus on your contacts and how to guest post for  them.

Once you’ve got some guest blogging confidence then by all means go and pitch some other bloggers in your niche. You’ll have a published guest post  to show them and then you can start building a relationship and finding out more about their blog in order to target your next post that speaks directly to their audience.

This method may not be the fastest method to guest blogging success, but let me reassure you – slow and steady will win out for you.

photo credit: DBarefoot

Blogging fears: I can’t guest post anywhere originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

In order to help you avoid going crazy trying to figure out why your blog is redirecting to a site selling diet pills, I’ve written up this guide about WordPress Security. This WordPress Wednesday will be broken up into two parts. Part 1 will go over how WordPress blogs get hacked, different types of hacks, and how to prevent them.

How Do WordPress Blogs Get Hacked?

First and foremost, I have to address some of the different ways that blogs running on WordPress even get hacked in the first place. I don’t want to scare you or make you worry unnecessarily, but because of WordPress’ popularity, it’s a huge target for hackers. This section will help shed some light on how blogs running WordPress get hacked as well as what you can do to prevent it.

Plugins

Outdated and poorly coded plugins are probably the most frequent problems that lead to hacked blogs. Does that little update notification in your WP dashboard show 10 updates pending? That could very well be your blog’s downfall. Since hackers are always finding new exploits and ways to get into your blog’s files, plugin developers constantly have to update their products to be protected.

When plugins aren’t getting updated, they’re vulnerable to new hacks and loopholes used by hackers. And of course if the plugin wasn’t coded very well to begin with, it’s going to be susceptible to exploits right out the gate.

The fix: In order to prevent your blog from getting hacked because of plugins, make sure you’re constantly updating them. You should be logging into your WP Admin Dashboard regularly, even if you don’t make new posts frequently. Also, avoid downloading plugins that haven’t been updated since 2001. Well, it doesn’t have to necessarily be that long ago, but you get the point.

Themes

Do you get all of your premium WP themes from torrents or “Free Premium Themes” sites? If so, then you’re exposing your blog to every hack there is. Often times the people that upload these pirated themes insert code into the theme’s files without you ever knowing. This could lead to:

• Backlinks from your blog to their sites
• Redirect scripts
• Trading out your Adsense code for their own

And just like with plugins, you want to make sure your themes aren’t outdated so that they’re well defended against any new hacks or exploits.

The Fix: Don’t use pirated themes or plugins! Saving $30 or so isn’t worth the potential damage you’re doing to your blog. Having thousands of links going from your site to an X-Rated or pharmaceutical site could absolutely ruin your rankings. And as you’ll see later when I talk about different types of hacks, it could decrease your traffic tremendously.

Accessibility

How easy is it for people to gain access to your site’s files? Do multiple people have your FTP information? Does your blog have multiple users with admin access? Some WP blogs get hacked simply because it’s so easy for hackers to get access to places that only you should be able to get to.

Hackers don’t even need a lot of information in order to get access to important files in your blog.

The Fix: Basically, don’t make it easy for hackers. As the blog owner, you’re the only person who should have the Admin user role. Any other users should be contributors, editors, or another role. Also, make sure you’re setting strong passwords for your WP login and FTP access. If your site is wordpressrules.com, don’t make your password wordpressrules. You might laugh, but at least one person reading this is about to change their password!

Web Hosts

Something that some bloggers don’t think about is the security of their web host. Most major web hosts like Hostgator, Dream Host, HostMonster, and Blue Host, typically put security at the forefront. But there is always a chance that their servers could get hacked, which would put your blog in danger.

A lot of first time bloggers go with shared hosting when starting out. It’s the cheapest hosting option available and is more than sufficient enough for most bloggers starting out. However, being on a shared server means that you not only have to worry about your own site’s security, but the security of the other sites hosted on the same server.

The Fix: Make sure you’re using a highly rated web host like the ones mentioned above. If you ever have any security breaches on your site, contact your host as soon as possible because the cause could be something on their end that will affect other users as well. As your site gets more traffic and your needs change, you might want to consider switching to a VPS where your site has its own server. This will mean you don’t have to worry about other webmasters who might not be a conscious about security as they should be.

Your Computer

Your computer itself could be the cause of your WP blog getting hacked. If you get infected with a keylogger and a hacker figures out your login info, you’re going to have a big headache on your hands. Hopefully you’ll detect any virus or spyware on your computer before the damage is done.

If your computer ever gets hacked, chances are you probably never even considered the fact that your blog could have been compromised. But hey, that’s the point of this post, to help you become aware of the threats to WP security.

The Fix: Use virus software and make sure you’re running security checks regularly on your computer. If your computer does get infected, make sure you don’t log in to WP with the same device until it’s been it’s been cleaned.

WordPress Hacks

Now that I’ve touched on some of the common ways that WordPress blogs get hacked, I want to talk a little bit about the more technical aspects of it. Specifically, I’m talking about the actual hacks or exploits used on WordPress sites.

Here are some of the most frequent types of hacks that WP blogs experience:

Redirects: These infections cause your site to redirect visitors to another website upon visiting your URL. Remember when I said not to download pirated themes? This is a very common effect of using pirated themes that have redirect scripts hidden within the theme’s code.

Pharma Hacks: This infection is actually a form of SPAM. Pharma hacks involve inserting code into your site that is visible to search engines or conditional based on criteria made by the hacker. The links generally go to pharmacy sites that sell Viagra, Cialis, and other drugs; hints the name “Pharma”. Pharma hacks are extremely harmful to your blog’s SEO because the anchor text has nothing to do with your blog (assuming your blog isn’t about prescription drugs). You can run a check of your site using Sucuri SiteCheck, but since Pharma Hacks aren’t classified as malicious, it may not detect it.

Backdoors: Backdoors are something that every webmaster should be aware of. They allow hackers to access your site’s files using your Admin dashboard, FTP, and other methods they shouldn’t have access to. This is where the accessibility issues I mentioned earlier come into play. For shared servers, a backdoor can be extremely damaging. Backdoor attacks are usually a result of plugins and themes that don’t get updated. You may remember the Timthumb issue that occurred a while ago that made it possible for hackers to get backdoor access to tons of blogs. I’ll leave it to your imagination to think of all of the damage a hacker can do to your site if they have access to your WP-Admin and FTP.

Be sure to check back next week for part 2 of this guide on WordPress Security! Drop a comment with any tips you have about securing WP.

WordPress Wednesday- The Complete Guide To WordPress Security Pt. 1 originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

As blogging fears go, this one isn’t as common as the others but it’s one of the hardest to overcome.

When you blog for business you have to get into the mind of your prospective customer, you have to understand their fears and then position the solution to those fears in the post. As you write the post you have to demonstrate that you understand the fear and how it makes your reader feel and then you need to talk about potential solutions and why you think your product works the best…

Simple, right?

Well for some bloggers they find it difficult to share the solutions to readers problems for free, they think they are giving away their business. In some respects they are, but in truth all they are doing is preventing their ideal customers from knowing they are the experts in what they do.

You’ll see on FBBB many tips, tricks and techniques that you can implement yourself. Now be honest here… how many have you implemented?

And this is the thing… the chances are you haven’t implemented many at all.

But you come back and you know all about SEO and how to optimise your blog posts, you know how to maximise social shares, use a call to action,  you know how to use Fiverr and Facebook for things but you still don’t do them.

Maybe it’s the lack of time, maybe it’s the lack of skill or maybe you are just not sure if you should do something. Those are all valid blogging fears, but you are not alone in this. Your customers feel the same way and if you demonstrate you can do something, and they can’t…  your call to action can be that you can do it for them for a modest fee.

And there you have it, a call to action that converts readers into customers – if it’s placed in the right kind of content. Giving away advice and showing a reader how to do something isn’t giving away everything.

Over time you’ll find this kind of content will generate you lots of leads.

Now, I don’t want you to leave me a comment. I don’t want you to share this post. I don’t want any kind of indication that you’ve read this. I want you to go and write a post with some advice in it for your readers. If you want to come back and leave a link to your article, then that would be fabulous, and I’ll share it with my social connections too.

Sharing advice isn’t giving away your business, it’s helping to grow it. It will help with your SEO as other bloggers will link to it, it bring you new readers as people will share it and it will boost your bottom line.

What more could you ask for?

Blogging Fears: If I give away advice, how will I make money? originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.

The problem with herding cats is that they’re just so damned  independent. While you’re off wrangling one that has decided to start unrolling all the toilet paper rolls in the house, another one is in the kitchen eating your table lining and puking it back up on the counter. Just as soon as you get that one’s puke all situation, another one has decided to attack the side of your new couch with the fury of someone getting the opportunity to go back in time and fight Hitler.

The other problem with herding cats is that they’re smart. You put one or two of them away in a pen, by the time you’ve situated the others, the first two have put their heads together and MacGyver-ed their way out and are upsetting the dog.

If you’ve ever managed multiple bloggers or had a team of freelancers working with you on a project, the metaphor is apparent. If you haven’t, honestly, this post might not do you a whole lot of good until you’re in a position to lead a team (at which point, please come back and read this).

The Importance of Governance

Why is it so important to have governance systems in place? To most people, that sounds like a dumb question, but originally to companies like Kenneth Cole, KitchenAid, and HMV, it didn’t seem that important…until something truly drastic happened. Click those links if you want the full stories, but let’s just say someone who wasn’t being watched said something online under the presence of their brand and a lot of shit hit a lot of fans.

Now, I know that those examples have to do with social media and we’re talking about blogging here. Obviously if you have a blogging network, you have an editor and a process to make sure that every word being represented by your brand under and channel is being scrutinized by multiple people before seeing the light of day. Wait? You’re not? Well, join the club.

But, if you want rapid growth through multiple, quality postings without having to write everything yourself, it’s important to understand how to govern a group of bloggers.

Step 1: Create a Documented Style Guide

Everyone has a different style of writing and that’s fantastic. You need differing voices to truly get a good community to grow around your blog and topic. The written style guide isn’t meant to make every blogger sound exactly the same and stifle creativity. The style guide is your way to address common concerns such as language, grammar, tone, voice, capitalization, spelling and length. Does your blog always capitalize the word “Like” in reference to a Facebook Like? What about the use of the letter “u” in words like “honour” or “colour”. How much cursing is too much? Is it okay to ever type “fuck”?

The types of things can be addressed up front to answer those questions to make sure everyone involved understands tone, voice and the general writing rules.

The style guide should also include SEO elements like how to properly use meta tags and descriptions, what’s the proper form for anchor text and internal links, how alt image tags are to be written and when to use H1, H2, and H3 title tags and in what volume. This can cut down a lot of editing time later when everyone is on the same page with the fundamental styles.

Step 2: Stick to a Schedule

You may have noticed that I pretty much always contribute to For Bloggers, By Bloggers on Thursdays. In that same vein, Sarah Arrow usually contributes on Wednesdays and so on and so forth with our regular contributors. That’s not by accident. When we began, we sat down and decided on topics and a detailed editorial calendar that we all adhere to. This is to make our lives easier and give you, faithful reader, a sense of continuity and consistency.

Those types of things are important because it allows us to keep each other accountable and allows you the ability to understand what’s coming and how often. Do your bloggers post once a week? Maybe they’re only needed 3 times per month. Whatever your schedule is, make sure it is written down and understood somewhere so that everyone (writers, editors, guest bloggers, and readers) are on the same page.

Step 3: Get the Right Tools

A lot of times, fancy-schmancy tools might not be required, but when you have a large amount of contributing writers (I’ve know people who work with 30 or more at a time), it can be really helpful to have some sort of system in place for contributions and queues.

There are many different tools you could use to do this and it’s up to you to decide on the best system. Some people simply use Google Docs and require submissions sent to a specific folder and edit them there and then move them to WordPress themselves. Others prefer plug-ins like the WordPress Editorial Calendar plug-in or CollabPress. If you need bigger tools, platforms like Kapost and EditFlow. Do some research and find the tool the best meets the needs of your team, set it up, do some training and then hit the races.

Conclusion

When it comes down to it, you’ll be doing a lot of work as the editor or wrangler of multiple bloggers, but you can take steps to make it a million times easier on yourself, your bloggers and your brand. In the long run, it’s much better to have systems set up before you need them than trying to scramble and fix something after someone posts something racist, untrue or simply terrible under the guise of your million dollar company.

What other tools have you found to be helpful for things like this? Other tips for people who might be starting out with a multiple author blog? Share your thoughts and advice in the comments!

Thoughts?

Blog Governance for Multiple Writers originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.