Get Users To Interact With Your Blog!
Well, these gaps between my posts are getting larger aren’t they? It’s time to start posting more! So – in this post I’ll be looking at the different methods to get visitors more involved with your blog, this will range from plugins to things you can do yourself.
Meebo Bar: Ah, yes the Meebo bar deserves alot of attention! There are alot of social bars out there for your blog, from bars like Wibiya to ones you make yourself, but none seem to compliment your blog/site/whatever like Meebo does. So what’s all the fuss about? Well, like any other bar it floats at the bottom of the screen. BUT: hover over an image in your post, and down flies a ‘dock’ of social networking icons, enabling visitors to share this image with others. Also, from the Admin dashboard – you can also insert items such as your recent Facebook Page Activity, and ‘Like’ this post capabilities. The meebo bar is available from: http://bar.meebo.com/
Reward Your Visitors: Let’s face it – you and I are in this for the freebies, yep? Nothing beats going to a webpage to find that you can enter some sort of competition for free, and win a prize – no matter how big or small, nothing beats it! So, isn’t it a good idea to focus around this on your blog? A few months back, I held a comment competition, here I selected one random commenter from any of my posts to win a prize (vouchers), the uptake was amazing, try for yourself and see!
Be Personal: (In the clean sense!) Talk to your visitors, engage your visitors in the conversation – and let them express themselves via the comment section! As you will see at the bottom of this post I will ask all visitors to share their ideas in the comment form on how to engage visitors in your site. By directly asking visitors a question, increases the likelihood of your visitors dropping a comment on the post. Kerching!
So, have you got your own method that you use? I invite you to share it below… Everyone would be so grateful!
WordPress 3.0 Finally Released! :D
Well finally, WordPress 3.0 has been released – it is a really good admin interface too! WordPress have posted this video to their blog:
3 Essential Plugins To Mobilize Your Blog
In this post I will show you 3 of the best plugins and themes for use with your WordPress blog, to enable your visitors to view your blog in a stylish and mobile-friendly theme.
WPTouch
Download: Here
One of the things I love about WPTouch is the fact that it runs and looks just like a native iPhone app, just take a look at the styles and the AJAX coding in the plugin – you can’t fail to notice that it looks like a wep-app – on the plus side – it’s an awesome experience and admin interface!
WordPress Mobile Edition
Download: Here
WordPress Mobile Edition was a plugin that I previously used on this blog before WPTouch. The main reason I changed was because, well – it just wasn’t right for me – as much as the author’s try to make it look like an iPhone app, it does (sort of) but on the whole it just doesn’t – and as a result it looks terribly dull and a bit of an eyesore.
WordPress Mobile Pack
Download: Here
And my final choice of plugins to mobilize your blog is a plugin known as ‘WordPress Mobile Pack’ – it’s a nifty plugin, mainly because it comes with a fine selection of pre-installed themes, and a really comprehensive admin panel!
An Example WordPress 3.0 Blog
Hello everyone, whilst on my daily internet searching I came across a site that is using WordPress 3.0 as the blog version! So, why is it such a big deal? Right? Well, for those of you who don’t know – WordPress 3.0 is the next milestone of the huely popular WordPress blogging system!
And where can this site be found?
It can be found at: http://www.anexamplewordpressthreeblog.totalh.com/ (P.S the author of the blog is uknown, and it looks like it’s a test blog.) You can also see that the theme that is currently in use is the new default Twenty Ten theme!
Splendid stuff!
5 Unique And Different Plugins To Allow Post Sharing
Well, I’m excited about the new iPhone OS 4.0! (that’s besides the point of this post!) This will be my last post for a while (come on, I need a bit of time off too!) - So, I thought I would cover blog post sharing. There are now more bookmarking plugins than ever available from the WordPress plugin ‘store’, but only a few are extroadinary. Today, I will show you my top picks.
Drag To Share eXtended:
You wouldn’t know drag to share extended existed on your page, until you hover over an image! Highly inspired by Mashable social bookmarking – DTSX allows a visitor to drag an image, and then be presented with a number of social icons, on which the visitor can share the article. Very clever idea!
SexyBookmarks:
No, the name isn’t a dirty gag! It’s easy to see why the plugin is called ‘sexy’, instead of showing the visitor a long list of social networks available for sharing, you can customise which icons are displayed, and if they should all appear at once, or when hovered over (ideal for space-saving bloggers!)
Social Bookmarking RELOADED:
The Social Bookmarking RELOADED plugin for WordPress adds a list of XHTML compliant graphic links at the end of your posts and/or pages that allow your visitors to easily submit them in a number of social bookmarking sites. Furthermore, the plugin adds a page in the WordPress admin section that lets you customize it. Best of all – now supports Buzz!
Add To Any: Share / Bookmark / Email Button:
Help readers share, save, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, and over 100 more social bookmarking and sharing sites. The button comes with AddToAny’s customizable Smart Menu, which places the services visitors use at the top of the menu, based on each visitor’s browsing and usage history.
Top Social Bookmarking Buttons:
The plugins contais the top social bookmarking buttons on the net. Post your articles to the social bookmarking sites and get traffic. The plugin supports SociBook.com, Digg.com, Google.com, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz and FaceBook.
Enjoy messing with your new plugins, while I enjoy a short break!